ABSOLUTE

Hello there. Above is a character sketch for a project i've been working on for the last few months. Myself and uber-talented writer extraordinaire Simon Spurrier (of 2000AD, Marvel and Gutsville fame) have been developing a series for a while now. We’ve had some interest from publishers of late and we’re doing all we can to get it off the ground. The project does involve superheroes so i've been doing a lot of work on the side trying to design them. Some characters have fallen by the wayside, (as hinted on my own blog) however some characters have needed a complete reboot, hence this new sketch of Absolute (the main super-guy in the story) this week. Can't say this is the final version, but i reckon it's nearly there.

I'd also like to congratulate my fellow Micks as today, being the last day of the month, means we managed to post an image EVERY SINGLE DAY of March. Fair play lads. Lets keep it up. It's lookin' great so far.

Dec.

'Samson, you dog.' 'Molotov, you bitch.'

My kingdom for an orange marker...
This one is brush pen, technical pen and copic marker. What made it interesting is I didn't allow myself use any curves or rules for things like the belts and gun, which I normally would. Just drew em freehand and they don't look any bloody different. Shaved another good few mins off my stupidly-laborious inking techniques.
This is a good thing.
Also, what a bloody show.

Nick's Chicks Continued

Yeah?

My day job involves rendering the nuts off big honkin' robots, or occasionally splashing out on a chap in tight lycra. So while I can maintain momentum, I'm gonna use my Sunday Roche to have a crack on a girl or two. This week, is yummy-mummy Sue Storm, though she's a smidge adolescent-looking here. I dithered over the Ultimate version and the current Marvel. So costume by 616, but Ultimate body. Someone fan-fic this shit.

We're done, right? I can go now?

Nick

Bats

Greywash Batman. I mean, Greywash Dinna dinna dinna dinna Batman.

Miggedy Miggedy!

Of all the Marvel characters I love Mole Man the most. Peter Parker isn't a nerd. This lad is. A proper social misfit. What's his real name? Malcom Molarium or something? I have an idea for a MM mini-series. He really is a good character.

And as sort of a request here is a Mole Man Brian Cowen. I know Declan is so precious about this blog so I'm refraining from the posting the full pic, lest Stan Lee and Batman visit and it ruins our chances of getting work

Full picture here

The Punisher

So it's the best part of the week again, Thompson Thursday. And here's everybody's favourite sexagenarian killing machine, Frank Castle. If you get a chance check out Goran Parlov's amazing art on the last few arcs of Garth Ennis's Punisher series, he's probably my favourite comic book artist at the moment. Plus kudos to whoever at Marvel thought to put such a cartoony artist on a gritty book like The Punisher, can't have been an easy sell but it works like a charm. 

Doh, Ray, Egon

Heres my contribution to the Micks jam which hopefully (Over the next two to three years) will be completed. Am a huge fan of ghostbusters, as are a few other of the Micks here so I can wait to see how it turns out.

DAREDEVIL

Greetings. A happy Tuesdec to you all.

It's no secret i love street-level characters, ie, Punisher, Batman, Oscar the Grouch, etc, and among that list is Daredevil. Truth be told i do find him hard to draw in an interesting way though. Batman's cape for example, lends itself well to pared-down, graphic design. It's much harder to do that with a full figure like ol' Matt Murdock here.

Still, it's possible to get some cool stylized images using the horns, eyes, and 'DD' logo.

Went a bit mad with splatter effects here, but i like how it turned out.
Hope ye like.

Dec.

Back to the Americana

Heads up!
Mooney here again for another Moondog Monday. Decided to go with an American icon this time after all the Paddywhackery of last week. The interesting thing about this one for me is that its inked with a brush pen that fellow Mickhead Dec gave me(ta Dec!). I like the look you get with the nice broad lines, and the fact that it took me like literally ten minutes to ink is a big plus... but I do miss the anal control levels I have over the technical pens, so I dunno. Definitely a worthwhile experiment.

When Oirish Thighs Are Siryn's...

Wow. You go away for two weeks, and you return, sodden, amid a pissing contest with all the kids who were picked last for sports!

Anyway, I’m Nick, the guy who, from the look of my earlier sketches, didn’t bother his arse. I’m not saying all that’s gonna change mind you, but it’s an accurate introduction nevertheless.

So, to cap off this Oirish theme week, I am here to counter PJ’s Banshee with a stock superhero shot of Sean Cassidy’s daughter, Siryn. Or ‘Soirin’, as Chris Claremont probably woulda put it. Why is she screaming? She tried to get into town for the parade and is incandescent with impotent fury over the sea of thirteen-year-olds fornicating, looting and vomiting that lies before her, some tykes doing all three at the same time. Seriously: Come to Dublin on Patrick’s Day and you too will feel the same.

So yeah. Me drawing a non-robotic, non-male. Get yer skates on, Beelzebub…

Nick

BANSHEEEEE!

Continuing our week long paddy day thematic posts. Here's Banshee. Apparently an Irish X-Man. You can tell because he's got ginger hair. And sideburns. (And to help you further, just imagine he's singing 'When Irish Eyes are Smiling' while drinking a tiny guinnes. In his giant hands. With his giant head.)

I apologise for the awfulness of this image. I can only hope you're all still drunk when you see it.

Also: you should be following me on twitter, if you aren't already ... www.twitter.com/pauljholden

A ball of malt please

I was convinced somebody else would draw this before me. A slumped over dead patron would have been a good touch.

Cassidy

So our Patrick's week celebrations continue with Mr Proinsias Cassidy, that wacky Irish vampire from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's brilliant Preacher series. When we originally thought of this Irish themed week for the blog the idea was that we'd all draw Irish COMIC characters, and so far we've had two tv characters and a mythical hero. If I don't at least see Banshee among the final three pictures I'll be sorely disappointed. 

So how the feck are you supposed to follow Fr. Jack anyways? Damn you Dec. Anyways continuing on in the Paddys day week (I drew this on Monday anticipating the mighty hangover that has hit today) we have Cuchulainn, an old mythical Irish figure. For those of you who dont know who he is the back story is that a giant hound crashed a dinner party in some old castle, a young kid named Setanta could have killed the beast with his hurley and sliothar, but he was on strike so the hound ate and killed everyone there..
I got pretty into the whole Irish myths there a few years back and decided to research it all only to find the stories we were taught as kids are a lot different when you read them now.
In other Micks news Im glad to announce that I will be your host for the first Eclectic Micks character jam where our weekly sketches will cross the streams to make one colaborative poster when finished, so expect to see different parts of that pop up over the coming weeks. Heres a little teaser for that anways so ye can speculate away as to what its gonna be

HAPPY ST. PADDY'S DAY FROM FATHER JACK HACKETT!

Okay, this isn't a comic BOOK character, but it is an Irish-centric comic character ....from a sitcom. Father Jack Hackett from the absolutely fantastic comedy series Father Ted.

This series wouldn't be well known to anyone outside Ireland or the UK but it is without a doubt the best thing to come out of Ireland, and i include myself in that. No point in ranting on about it, but i will link to a couple of clips, just cuz i think it's so feckin' great. Here's a short clip as a taste and a slightly longer scene (filmed in my home town!). I sure know how i'm celebrating today; watching some classic Ted episodes.... and maybe havin' a couple o' pints o' cider.

I expect to see some Ted quotes in the comments section.

Happy St. Patricks Day to all.

Dec.

'Liam and me, we're gonna f*ck you up'

Fáilte!
Paddy's week is upon us and esteemed mickheads PJ + Declan came up with the idea that we should all contribute something a wee bit Oirish. So of course I felt the need to draw a piece with my longtime man-love Angel, or 'Liam' as he's known to folks back in the oul country.
Prepare for more cheesy shite from the other Micks throughout the week!
Mine's a Jemmy and Coke.

DOCTOR ..........WHO?

Hello there. Dec Shalvey posting for Nick again this week, as i believe he has now worked his way up to the top and is now Prime Minister of Australia (Or Optimus Prime Minister .....geddit?) so is too busy to post this week. Next week probably. Still, here's the sketch he gave me to post on his behalf; Matt Smith, the new Doctor Who.

Saturday Strange

A warm up for a private commission - drawn in red crayola pencil and then with added bic biro inks. Drawn on blueline paper. (Scanned in two halves - hence the middle blue line)

(Fairly pleased with this first rough, so I'll probably base the commission on it.)

Last week's warm ups for the Shadow resulted in the full on shadow pic you can see on my blog.

The Jolly green giant

Give him some gash post haste.

I can't think of a pun for my label!

Deathlok

So it's Thompson Thursday again, which means another picture of a man with a disfigured face hiding behind a metal mask, first Dr. Doom now Deathlok.  Seems like I have a theme going here. I'm thinking Destro next or Vega from Street Fighter, did he have a messed up face? Suggestions welcome. 

Back in Ooireland

Just arrived into chez Dec Shalveys this morning from a over a month in New York and Japan. Its actually Mooneys old place and if you walk around to certain areas of the studio you can get faint smells of his hair gel and white russians in places while if you hunch over a certain part of the desk you can get the lurking leathery smell of Thompson in the back corner.
This ones for all the Farscape peeps out there. If you havent seen the show then I guess you wouldnt have a clue whats going on here.

THE ROCKETEER

Mornin' all.

Here's this weeks drawing; The Rocketeer. I reckon i'll use this blog as an excuse to draw characters i've never had an opportunity to draw before. Can't say i'm a huge fan of The Rocketeer (i barely remember the movie from when i was a kid and that's about it) but i love the look of the character.

I tried to get really messy with this one, and even used some greywash (ive been meaning to try using more greywash, but don't really have the opportunity to do so in my regular comics work.)

Since i'd literally never drawn the character before, i did some quick sketches to figure out how to draw his helmet. They're included above also.

Dec.

A Very Special Episode of Blossom

Hmm?
Oh, hello gentle readers! I didn't see you there.
Time again for another 'Moondog Monday', or as I like to hiss, 'I should be drawing real pictures for actual cash-money'.
I'd like to dedicate this very special Moondog Monday to a longtime acquaintance, nay, chum, of mine. A man named Stephen 'Tommy' Thompson. He turns 30 years old today, so I decided to whip up a batman drawing for him, since I'm at least 50% sure that Bats is his favourite character.
Happy birthday, you wily old rascal!
-chortle-

BONZO MOON

Hey all. Handsome Dec Shalvey here. The ever talented and slender Nick Roche is off Oz-ing it up in Australia at the moment, so he asked me to post this image in his absence. It's his sketch of 'Bonzo Moon', a werewolf character created by Nick himself. Put your hands near the computer screen and warm them with the glory of this sketch.

That is all.

Shadow Sketch Saturday

I feel I've been hoodwinked - I was invited to this blog little realising it required ACTUAL effort. Well, the hell with you guys... here's some shadow sketches...

Meeting Doodle

Great, I get to post on Fridays. The day after Thompson.

This is probably the most finished doodle I've done in a meeting. It dragged on for hours and by the end of it I couldn't hide it/ didn't care about anybody seeing it like usual. Obscenely large view of it here where you can see where I drew a tiny alphabet to impress the girl beside me. She said I had the smallest handwriting in the world to which I replied 'Well,my ex is huge'.

Lads put your names in as tags so people can find our posts easier

DOOM!

Well here's what is hopefully the first of many 'Thompson Thursday' sketches. Always loved this shiny gentleman, never gotten around to drawing him before. This was drawn straight to ink, mainly with a Pentel brushpen and some dip pen bits and bobs.

Warhammer Will Wednesday

Really really busy right now as Im hopping around Japan and Drawing the second Farscape Issue.

JONAH HEX

Howdy. See what i did there?

Picked up a trade paperback of Jonah Hex (DC Comics) recently to see some sweet Jordi Bernet artwork. Turns out it was a bloody good read. Would recommend it. Anyhoo, it's Tuesday (Or Tuesdec) so it's my turn to post a sketch. I thought i'd have a go at drawing Jonah Hex. Never tried it before. I like how it turned out.

Dec.

Here I am, Moonbitches!!

Yo-yo. Mooney here with his first pathetic contribution. Apparently I pulled the short straw and am supposed to officially kick things off sketch-wise. Thankfully young Williards has struck out on his own and jumped the gun, thus making my efforts not be the first thing you see here.
This is a sketch I did of my favourite character, Hal Jordan, for one Mr. Brian at the recent Dublin City Con. I didn't actually have time to do something new this week seeing as some of us actually have deadlines that they try to meet, unlike some a those other bums...
Anyhoo, here it is. Hopefully something a bit more extravagant next week after the other Micks no-doubt kick it up several notches. Or kick several people in the notches, I dunno...