Sketch Thursday

Wheat-me the Great (Flourbag). An undeniable warrior, flour made flesh. Wheat-me was made concious by the desire of his wheat brothers to escape the oppression of the mill-wheel. Unfortunately his anger was co-opted by the Black Forest Gateau of Doom, convincing him his comrades would best be served helping the Black Doom. He now uses his inherent knowledge of the group mind to marshall the Gateau's forces.

Brown Paper Bag Drawing No.4

Sketch Thursday

The Dire Wolf, Canis dirus, was thought to be an extinct carnivorous mammal of the genus Canis , from the Irvingtonian stage to the Rancholabrean stage of the Pleistocene epoch living 1.80 Ma – 10,000 years ago. Although it was closely related to the Gray Wolf and other sister species, Canis dirus was not the direct ancestor of any species known today. Unlike the Gray Wolf, which is of Eurasian origin, the Dire Wolf evolved on the North American continent. The Dire Wolf was one of the abundant Pleistocene megafauna—a wide variety of very large mammals that lived during the Pleistocene. Approximately 10,000 years ago the Dire Wolf nearly became extinct along with most other North American megafauna. Incredibly rare, they have never been seen by modern humans.

Sketch Thursday

Sketches of Toyboy of Formation 7. He is modelled on John Taylor of Duran Duran fame (I wonder where the name comes from, must discover). Fun character to draw not least because of his collection of toy soldiers that act as personal bodyguards, not shown here, but I will post the page from the comic displaying his full collection.

Freakshow Cover

Last but not least of the six covers for the fold-out was the Freakshow family. A group of detectives tending towards things supernatural, odd and, well, freakish. Robert wanted a scooby doo thing going on hence the choice of costume and I had the idea of a wall of framed press clippings detailing their many adventures. Again set in the 1950's, Freakshow are Robert Curley's longest running and most successful book and their adventures appear in collected editions available on the Atomic Diner website. Characters copyright Atomic Diner.

Glimmerman Cover

This is the Glimmerman portion of the cover. The most successful I believe. The shading came off well and I feel I made the best colour choices for the piece. Also the dramatic lighting really added depth, I love employing intense or unusual lighting but am wary of overusing it. Looking back on the other pieces I can see now where I could have pushed the lighting in all of them but at the time it felt like I would be resorting to a gimmick. Ah, the benefit of h-ray specs. Characters copyright Atomic Diner.

Brown Paper Bag Drawing No.3

KKURRRACKABOOOM!! Electrifying.

Atomic Rocket Group 66 cover

Next up is Atomic Rocket Group 66, a disparate group of mystery men from the atomic age of the 1950's. They had already appeared in an excellent comic by Will Sliney who draws the Farscape comic for Boom. So I had the luxury of following well designed characters and I had fun with this one. I can't remember all their names and I can't go check the comic because I'm writing this on a bus on the way to work, terrible memory for names. But I recommend a purchase of their comic published by Atomic Diner, written by Robert Curley, and to start a lobby for the follow up. Characters copyright Atomic Diner.

Wyndham Twins Cover

The Wyndham Twins were very interesting to work on. They are completely new characters created by Robert Curley so I had no previous artists' work to draw on, much like Formation 7. Set in the 1960's, the Wyndhams are a pair of albino twins inspired by the novel Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham and the british tv series The Avengers. They are characters I wish I had had more time on, I was middling happy with the end result but had to get it finished, the end coloured version is not lit properly to my mind. The missed opportunity to spend time on inspiring characters would be one of my main motivations in getting to full-time artist status. Characters copyright Atomic Diner.