What I always Wanted

This is my piece for the exhibition Bob mentioned in his last post, all pieces on sale for a fantastic cause.
I've been meaning to tackle a transformer piece for a while now, but of course the looming shadow of the Roche made the prospect that much more daunting. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, my favourite part by far being the little pic of me playing with my toys as a kid.
Gotta say, these robots are a bitch to draw, so I give Nick that much more credit for tackling hundreds of them in every issue of his books. That and his oh-so-edgy haircut.

AIRMAN

Wotcher! Here be a sketch of Conor Broekhart, lead character in Eoin Colfer's wonderful novel, Airman. It's the Count of Monte Cristo mixed with Batman, with a slight steampunk flavouring, set in a parallel universe version of Wexford in the 19th Century. It really is a blinding read, and I made the pitiful and toadying offering of the original artwork to the author himself at the closing ceremony of last week's Wexworlds Festival back home. I all but drew a speech bubble begging 'Let's work together!' on the original. But yeah, Airman's perfect Christmas reading material for younger relatives, or people like us.

Done in Faber Castell brushy pens. Can't wait to start our Christmas offerings!

Hellboy Headshot

Photoshop greyscale sketch. Added some background noise and just sorta drew on top of it. And..er.. that's it...

Comic Cast Exhibition piece

This is my piece for the charity exhibition 'Just What I Always Wanted'
The exhibition will be on display in Twisted Pepper from Dec 1st-Dec12th

All pieces will auctioned off on Ebay, with ALL proceeds going towards Crumlin & Temple St Children's hospital.

www.thecomiccast.com

The Unfinished X-Men

Here's a real sketchy one, an old X-Men group shot that I never got around to fully pencilling, apart from a little bit of Colossus.

Willys Ark

Well heres a pic that pretty much sums up my week. A hand, a pint, and a flood.
Without mentioning the first point (Its still too heartbreaking!!) I spent the majority of my birthday wading through Cork city streets in a pair of togs as we tried to copy venice for a few days. It was pretty much insane. Looking out my bedroom window, where there was a once a road was a full blown river.

KILLER CROC (again)

Here's another Killer Croc sketch i did at the same time as this one, but i've been keeping it im my back pocket in case i was stuck for time one week. This is that week. Really busy. Note; see how it's an unseen sketch and NOT a panel from a page or that i'm 'too nervous to draw'...? Just sayin'...

Dec.

Frank Einstein/A4 Art

Madman this week, he's nutso. One of the first American comics I was exposed to back in the day was some of the really early Madman stuff written and drawn by a then newbie Mike Allred. I've always loved the simplicity and immediacy of his costume and the wacky adventures he inevitably finds himself in. Thanks to Fran Johnston(the man, the legend, the aroma) for yet again being the dood what showed me the book.

This drawing was done with the lovely new pens I picked up at 'A4 Art' on Thomas st. in Dublin. Can't say enough good things about this as an art supply store, incredibly knowledgeable proprietors who know the game and are full of genuinely helpful suggestions, a great, eclectic(!) mix of traditional and hard-to-find media, and a fantastic location a couple of doors up from the National College of Art and Design on Thomas st. next to the Clock pub. Myself and Dec spent a lovely half-hour there on friday last just perusing their lovely pen selection.
Sterling shop, very highly recommended. Go check it out and tell 'em the Micks sent ye.

I Have The High Ground

Holla, Mick-Lickers. having a wonderful time in my home burg of Wexford at the Wexworlds Sci-Fi festival. They're looking after us a treat down here and even conceeded to giving me my own exhibition in the local Arts Centre. Tis a proud moment indeed. Shame P.J. Holden is ruining it for everyone... (I finally met him! I now have a full set of Micks!)

Anyway, a collaborative effort today; An Obi-Wan sketch I tossed off a while back, coloured up quite prettily, you have to agree, by my former and future lover and Sam to my Frodo, Pat Sinnott. Not bad for a chef, huh? (I believe Lovern Kindsierski can only do cheese on toast.)

Up yours!

Skrull

Hey, I'll be in Wexford today, whooping it up with various peeps. Hope to see you there. In the meantime here's a photoshop painted sketch of a skrull, which I stupidly named krull as I'm an idiot.

(BTW: Sorry about last week, family commitments meant I couldn't get to post until ... I forgot... hoped you enjoyed Leigh Gallagher's personal fantasy...)

UPDATE! I've uploaded the image!

Forbidden Planet sketch

Awful photo of the sketch I drew for the Dublin store. Signing was good. Mainly because I managed to avoid talking to Will and Nick completely

"I think he can hear you Ray".

Watched Ghostbusters again recently, practically perfect film in my opinion. It's weird hearing about the first version of the script where it was set in the future and there were many teams of Ghostbusters. Or that Eddie Murphy was going to play Winston Zeddemore originally. Somewhere there's a parallel universe where Eddie Murphy's a Ghostbuster, Tom Selleck is Indiana Jones and Christopher Walken is Han Solo.

CMON IRELAND

Too Nervous today to draw!

SELENA

Ahoy Hoy.

As the others said, thanks a million to all the folk who made it to the FP signing for the sketchbook and the drinks afterwards. Here's a sketch i did for the good folk at FP before the signing, being Selena from 28 Days Later.

So tired.

Dec.

That Voodoo That Moo Do

Ah, the nineties. A time of glorious world cups and endless eyesore splash-pages. Kinda miss it.
My favourite book during the Image boom was Jim Lee's Wildc.a.ts(gotta have the full-stops), a book where style throttled the life out of substance and then danced a merry jig on its grave. Grifter was my favourite character but I've done him on the blog before. He was followed by the glorious bastion of blandness that was Spartan(he possibly had some superfluous punctuation in his name too but can't remember). A perfect, unfailing, boring machine that had the hottest, sluttiest girlfriend in town.
How I wished I were he.

PS- Oop, can't go without echoing Nickleback and thanking alla the folks who turned up at the Micks sketchbook signing on sat, we had a great time and love you guys way more than is healthy.

Sword Of The Cintiq

Hello!

Big, big thanks to our sturdy Mick Supporters who traipsed out to spur us on in the Forbidden Planet yesterday. I had a wondrous time, and enjoyed interacting with the folk on either side of the table. Big thanks to Kevin and co at FP and special mention to Den Mothers Shalvey and Sliney for getting it all together. Good times!

So yeah, after yesterday's tense will-he, won't-he build up with P.J.'s post, I choose today to leisurely take my Cintiq for the walk. I've only used it for layouts and loose pencils thus far, so this is my first foray into dicking around with brushes and such. So here he be, Jean-Paul Valley himself - my Batman - Azrael.

Just in time!

Nick

Finkle and Crumbert

Coming soon to the pages of Ri-Ra, the fantastic Irish language comic. Here is an unlettered page. Forbidden Planet Dublin tomorrow, come and watch me palm off sketch requests to Dec.

Check out Mr Amperduke on the cover of Judge Dredd Megazine this month. The cover. Italics

T.U.R.T.L.E. power

So here's something from the vaults that dates from the dying days of the 1990's. Possibly. My memory is very hazy about this. It's definitely one of the Ninja Turtles, probably Donatello. It's based on some hideous re-design where he has a gun for an arm, either from the old Image comic series or from a range of action figures. I think I did this for some competition, or maybe just to try and get some fan art published in the comic. I do remember it was the second picture I ever inked with a brush, the first being a shot of Qui Gon Jinn.

CAD BANE

Any of ye out there watching the Clone Wars. I thought (especially on seeing how it started) that the new 3d Clone wars wouldnt be a patch on the Original Cartoon Network series, but since the mediocre movie it started with, every single episode has improved. By the time it hits late season one the show its turning out some really great episodes and Season two starts even better. Infact I would go as far as saying it adds a lot more to the folklore than the Cartoon Network series did. Heres Cam Bane from the show, who replaces good ol Boba as the most badass bounty hunter in the galaxy. I hope the guy gets his own series.

By the way, just as a reminder, apparently Forbidden Planet in Dublin are hard at work rearranging the shop for our siging there. It should be a blast! I'll be sporting my Ireland Jersey for it!

And Now For Something [Reasonably] Different

As the Moondogger mentioned yesterday, OFFSET (a design/illustration conference)was on in Dublin over the weekend and it was absolutely brilliant. It gave me a real artistic kick up the arse. So, i thought i'd just lash-out a non-comic character; something from my head with an emphasis on drawing a little differently. I literally did this in like, 2 minutes, but like how it looks. I used to do stuff like this in art college all the time.

Dec.

Appleseed

Jesus, but Offset was brilliant this past weekend.
Loved many, many of the speakers, but my favourites had to be Chip Kidd and Oliver Jeffers. Truly inspiring stuff and no mistake. I was so moved by Jeffers' 'Lost and Found' it's almost disturbing. A friend of mine is convinced that the penguin is my spirit animal and i think she may be right.
Back to Offset, it really felt like we'd got a brand new, utterly worthwhile event to add to the annual art calendar, huge kudos to the organisers. Who knows, may see the micks there next year!
Anyhoo, Appleseed this week. In my delirium last week i watched an awful lot of Anime for some reason(I still don't understand the politics of Ghost in the Shell and don't get me started on the sequel...) One of the movies I enjoyed most was Appleseed, great straightforward action-adventure with gorgeous character/vehicle design by Shirow Masamune.

Mullet of Steel

What-ho, Wankstas. Didn't have it in me to do my threatened Bret Hart drawing this weekend, so instead I focused on another similarly-coiffed nineties superstar. Behold! "The Return of Superman" Superman!

Robocop

Pencil sketch inked on a Cintiq using Manga Studio 4. Which seems strangely apropos for Robocop.

I'm still finding my way with both the cintiq and manga studio, but I've become so comfortable with a brush and paper that I suspect the cintiq will get most use from touch ups. I had hoped to use it for layouts/pencils or inks, but, as I pencil at A4 and enlarge and then print, it means I'm pretty fast doing it all the old fashioned way. It is invaluable for correcting mistakes - certainly much better than the Wacom graphic tablet that I had before -and I had more time I'd probably get stuck into it properly. I've turned the pen tool way up to 5.10mm to get this brushy feel, big and bold inking is fun on the cintiq, much more fun than real life - but I lack the control that I need, at least so far.

My mate Rob Williams is writing Robocop for Dynamite and you can read an interview with Rob about it here. Sounds like great fun. (Dynamite also publish Battlefields - of which my three issues are now complete, and the first issue is set for December - so BUY THAT TOO!)

-pj

Schnuckies!!

Hey chums, here is a cheerful sample from the new Amperduke book. The new site is finished and you can read full stories, see the making of and a whole bunch more.

Mister Amperduke microsite clicky clicky

Conan returns

I think this is my first repeat character on the Micks blog, Conan. I thought I'd Christmas it up a notch and do a snowy scene, although in retrospect that's probably not the most suitable outfit for the weather.

Hulk Hogan

Well I spent the other night running around Cork City dressed as this fella so I figured I'd do a quick hulkster piece for the Blog. His face is so leathery

POSTER LAYOUT

Fought the urge to do a finished drawing this week and decided to put up an ACTUAL sketch for once. This was the layout i came up with for the Dublin City Comic Con that was supposed to be happening in a couple of weeks. I actually did finished inks for this too, but i really like the layout in itself, so here it is. I think it was too big originally (lots of text was gonna be added), so i shrunk it down a bit and badly photoshopped in some extra cloud at the top.

UPDATE: Actually; screw it; you can see the finished inks here if you want.

Dec.

There's Criming Afoot!

Have to stick up a con sketch this week as I'm still pretty out of it due to these gosh-durned shingles.
This particular batman sketch has passed into legend in the halls of Mick Towers, as 'the one where Mooney drew the batsign wrong'.
You see kids, if I can half-ass my way into the comicbook industry then you can too! I also tend to need somebody's help with the Superman emblem.

BOO!

In a belated nod to All Hallow's Eve, I felt like drawing this fruity-noggined ne'er-do-well, Samhain, from The Real Ghostbusters. Not the scariest spirit from that oft-times terrifying cartoon (That honour goes to The Sandman, or maybe the Boogeyman) he's got a classic Hallowe'en look to him that fits the season. Expect my Santy drawing sometime in February.