Nick Fury (again!)

Nick Fury, in progress elaborate sketch (which turned into a cover idea that I'll never be able to use, so sod it, I'm unlikely to finish it. Besides it's 1:30am, haven't you all got beds to go to?)

I'm tired.

(Drawn using the cintiq and Manga Studio 3EX because MS4 and the cintiq seem to be having a falling out...)

Lost in Amperville

Just a small spot illo from me this week. C'mon I have at least another 2 weeks credit of lame posts after doing the micks poster.

Mister Amperduke is now available to order from your local comic shop through Previews so get to it and the word; don't forget to spread it like nutellla.

Wolfrankula!

So seems how Halloween is coming up this week I thought I'd draw my favourite movie monster, Wolfrankula! Stitched together from the corpses of several dead wearwolves by a mad scientist, re-animated and then bitten by a vampire. Classic stuff.

Weapon X and....

Heres a drawing of Weapon X that I spent a bit of time on tuesday morning. You can check out the process to it over at sliney.blogspot.com

But I figured Id do a second piece for today, as one of our own, Mr Mooney, aka Captain Cheekbones has fallen to the wrath of his evil alternate personality, Mr. Shingles!

ANGEL

Hmmm. I seem to be on a bit of a Whedon buzz, with Buffy last week and Angel this week. Anyhoo, a friend asked for a drawing for her birthday recently so i saw an opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone. I'm not killing my friend; i just remember she fancied David Boreanez (who doesn't?) so thought i could make her present my Micks piece.

Pretty happy with the results. It's a decent likeness but not slaved to a photo-realistic level, or anything. Plus, i got to make it moody. Man, i loved that show.

Dec.

The Horned God

Tried to put a decent bit of work in this week after my last half-assed effort.
Here be Slåine, The Horned God. I remember when this series was running in 2000AD back in the day, and myself and Thompson were utterly blown away by Simon Bisley's incredible artwork. Is there a better one-two-three punch in the history of comics art than Bisley's work on ABC Warriors, Slåine and Judgement on Gotham?
At the end of the Slåine storyline 2000AD brought out a lovely hardback collection, which Thompson bought. He agreed to sell me his issues where the story appeared originally since he now had the collection, but when he brought them over to me he'd torn all the Bisley covers off them as he reckoned that that wasn't part of the deal.
Bastard.
Still, not as bad as that time he sold me 4 sheets of bristol board for ten pounds...
Bargain.

Dead Happy

Resorting to another oldie, unfortunately. I've really been enjoying counter-balancing my working life with Mickness these last few weeks, but all work leads to no play for me, which - in turn - makes Nick a dull boy. Here's an Shaun of The/Evil Dead mash-up (Ash-up?) from a while back. Enjoy. Failing that - tolerate!

Nick

Happy Valley

I've relented, I'm buying a cintiq. Why? The image is from Happy Valley and was drawn entirely on a Cintiq. There's no discernible difference between that and my brush inking (or there might be, but it's very subtle). Borrowed my mate's cintiq and within 10 minutes was comfortable enough with it to be convinced that I could draw digitally (and within an hour had inked half the page). Anyhue, BUY Happy Valley - coming in December from Dynamite Entertainment (by Garth Ennis and me!)

(You can also see a colour preview at CBR's website )

Update: Just to clarify - Happy Valley was drawn with a brush, bar TWO panels - and the image above is from one of those panels. I drew those two on a cintiq and realised that it would be pointless drawing them again in brush, since they're pretty much as I'd draw them. Once the issues come out you can have some fun trying to spot the panels!

Tourist Trade Promo

This is a promo piece for the new Amperduke book. I agnonised over the cover of the first Graphic Novel for months but this one took an hour from inception to completion.

There will be more info and previews about the new book on the new site next month. That is all.

UP

I went to see UP last week and it has to be one of my favourite films I've seen all year. I loved how they mixed some really 'real world' emotional stuff with some really cartoony, off the wall ideas. I was never a huge fan of the early Pixar stuff, they were solid stories but their design sense was just pretty ugly. But ever since the Incredibles the wonderful influence of Brad Bird seems to have dragged them off their path to the uncanny valley.

Your Late Doctor Freeman.

I love the Orange Box. There I said it. Infact, I got half-life based on one review in Edge magazine when it came out and it blew me away. It was the same time as the Ocarina of Time so it ended up being quite a season for games that Christmas. My computer was crap so I played it at a terrible framerate but I still got completely sucked into the atmosphere of the game.
By the way, ive done a little process for this one over at my own blog here if you want to have a look at it

BUFFY

Something a little different today, this being a splatter-and-solid-black-free drawing of one Buffy Summers. I'm currently working my way through Season 5 of the show and am surprised how good it is. After Season 4 (which i really didn't like) in my head the show went downhill. Re-watching Season 5 is just reminding me how bloody good the show was.

Anyhoo, since i lacked a better idea i just drew what i've been watching. Turned out okay.

Dec.

Double D's

Another black and red piece from one-trick-pony Mooney. Can't help myself.
If there's a better colour scheme then black-red-grey-white out there, I'd like to meet it by golly.
Buy it a drink.

SHODDY UPDATE
Upon further inspection(ie hoping nobody would notice only to have it pointed out by Dec and Thompson) it becomes apparent that the proportions ore a tad wacky on 'ol DD. I hastily redrew parts of him in a lazy attempt to save face. Here's the newer version.

PS- I've just noticed that my post title 'Double D's' is now even more spectacularly apt given that there are now two of the bastards.
Even when I'm off I'm on.

We Used To Be Friends

I felt the urge to unleash some 80s fantasy characters over the next few weeks, but instead I settled on a 21st Century fantasy of mine instead. Here be Veronica Mars, pictured staking out my house to see if Whittle is at home or not. Anyone not familiar with her series is probably to be mistrusted intensely; it's Crime Noir in a high school - Buffy without the Vampires, but in a good way. It finished before its time, which is probably what'd happen to me if VM actually did come a-calling.

And with that - poof! He was gone...

Spidey - now in colour!

I've a horrible feeling I've either drawn this pose before or, worse still, drawn it an posted it here. BUT! I've drawn it again and in colour - watercolours with the occasional white acrylic ink.

I really need to start putting some effort into these things...

forgetful friday fever!

Just heading out the door on my holidays and realised I'd miss Friday. Which is today I suppose. I'm doing a Sliney and posting some current comic work


2000AD


Ziggedy-zuda

Kick in the head

I'm really strapped for time right now so I'm stooping to posting something from the day job rather than a sketch. I've been reading a lot of manga lately, mainly Katsuhiro Otomo stuff like Akira and Domu as well as several of Naoki Urasawa's series like Monster, 20th Century Boys and Pluto. All this is starting to seep into my own stuff quite a bit, as you can see in this panel from Die Hard. Also using the Manga Studio software helps.

Dr. Orpheus

Well then, After finishing the first season of Venture bros I was highly skeptical of the show. The here I am, one week later drawing one of the characters from it. Season two struck like getting whacked in the face by a fresh mackeral off ballycotton pier. Its just brilliant, and probobly retrospectively makes season one better too. Great show, a lot of priceless lines in it.
This was done really quickly and losely actually, I wouldnt mind ending up somewhere halfways between my regular stuff and this.

TRACY LAWLESS

Here's one of my favourite characters from probably my favourite comic; Tracy Lawless from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' CRIMINAL. The series is back as of last week so i thought i'd mark the occasion with a sketch. Anyone who hasn't read this series need to do themselves a favour and start doing so, especially if you like dark, noirish stories. Ah hell, even if you don't; it's a bloody great read!

Dec.

Way of The Exploding Fist

Was up in the old studio with Dec over the weekend, where his many, many great drawings of Iron Fist inspired me to pop this badboy out. That and I couldn't think of anybody else to draw. I also produced a weirdly naked Daredevil, maybe he'll see the light of day at some point.

FIST!

Dance Magic Dance

What-ho, Mick-lovers. Ever go to check the blog for new art only to realise today's your turn? Mirthsome to the max...

Anyway, here's a picture of Jareth, The Goblin King from Labyrinth, which is - for me - the perfect film; directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, featuring music by David Bowie as well as the man himself, and written by a Python. Not forgetting the Jennifer Connelly factor. This film is responsible for a lotta people's sexual awakening, including Goblinophiles like (insert Random Mick here).

"Turn back, Sarah. Turn back before it's too late..."

Nick Fury Year One

Just finished listening to the BICS Marvel 70 year panel, wherein Andy Diggle suggested he'd love a crack at Nick Fury Year 1 - and I kinda figured that'd be fun sketch. So here it is. Nick Fury was actually a Ranger - rather than Commando - according the wikipedia him and his team were made honorary commandos by Winston Churchill.

So there you go. More than you ever needed to know about Nick Fury.

Digital vs Traditional! Choose your side

WHAMMO! This was inspired by Eclectic Nick Fererro Roche and his tentative move from the dopey world of pencil and paper to the sexy world of digital comic production. He mailed me, Thompson and Will to ask about the whole thing a few weeks ago and I can confirm he has joined Team Murgatroid so that's 4 vs 3. Larger version of this here

More silly cartoons at my webcomic right now

Yumi

Originally I had intended to have the whole Ulysses 31 gang in here, not just Yumi. But time ran out so we're left with the most annoying character from an otherwise excellent 80's cartoon. Somebody get Hugh Jackman to grow a beard and make this into a feature film, stat!

Spider-man

I too knackered from the weekend in Birmingham, but it was great, definately the best time I've ever had behind a table and the nights out were as crazy as they always are, starting off on the friday with headbutting women and ending on sunday with a whole lot of qu@*#ing.. (I'll leave that bit to your imagination)
Heres a piece i did for the con. next week I promise I'll be doing a piece specifically for the blog

DEATH

So.... very.... tired....

Yeah, so myself, Will, PJ and Mooney were at the British International Comics Show for the weekend selling the Eclectic Micks sketchbook along with doing sketches for all who were willing to shell out the hefty £5 rate, and it turned out there were many. So much in fact, that i ran out of time at the end of Sunday for a gentleman who had been waiting a while. He asked for a Death (from the Sandman series) so i promised him i'd do it when i got home and send it onto him. Did it last night. Thanks again to all who asked for a sketch and got a copy of the new sketchbook.

I'll be posting sketches from the weekend on my own blog this week (first set here) for those who are interested.

Dec.

Snake Eyes

Stephen no. 1 here standing in for Stephen no.2, as mister Mooney is still gracing the Birmingham con with his presence. Here's another fine entry in his black and red series, Snake Eyes. Who in that G.I. Joe movie is played by the same guy who played Darth Maul. Who was also black and red. Coincidence....?

Shit-A-Brick

Word up! Very much enjoyed getting my Bob on this week. It gave me a chance to go back to the book itself, which is impressive on every human level, and being Bob, some sub-human levels too. Purchase the fuck out of the reprint, kiddles, he may be the best of us.

Dead now, of course.

Here's my first unrecycled sketch in about two months!That Nechadron can fuck off.

Nick

Two Tone Dredd - Live and Direct from BICS!

So, right now, as you read this, the Micks are at BICS! I'm posting this from my house though - in the past! Yeah, baby, TIME TRAVEL! (not really, I'm just post dating it)

Need to draw something quickly without thinking about it? Pick up a pen and draw Dredd - my old standby. I have notebooks full of this guy. Drawn directly into Photoshop - I actually quite like this sketch, I like the heavy handed, almost woodcut effect.

Anyhue, hope you like it!

And if you're at BICS why not try and find our table (I've no idea where it'll be) and come and say hello!

Scampi

I can barely type with the emotion after seeing Thompson's last post. And what better way to follow it with more Amperduke. This piece looked like a poster for The Omen until I added the secondary part.

I was so tempted to do another Panzer Miester action piece but I went for something more foreboding. This little bollicks is Amperduke's Grandson and he sneaks down into the basement and throws the Nechradon into the city.

Next week I will have the full colour Eclectic Micks poster ready to post.

Spazzmoid yet again

Building Panzer Miester

There's gonna be more to this piece. It's based on a specific panel from the book and I want to put Mr. Amperduke in the background welding a seam in Panzer's arm. I re-read the book in order to find a scene I wanted to depict, and it struck me again how weirdly imaginative it is. The whole structure and life cycle of the characters, the dried bodies grown in little vats and then outfitted with lego exo-skeletons, is so brilliant. Something I've been wondering though, is Mr. Amperduke the first Irish graphic novel? Or just the first good one?