TTFN

Well chums, this will be my last post - I've been blogging here with my fellow micks for 1 year (give or take the odd forgetful moment) and I figured it's time to give the slot over to someone else.

One part of me will forever be an eclectic mick - but that part will no longer be blogging here!

Thanks to all the guys, firstly for inviting me in and secondly for letting me stay - hopefully, they guys won't mind too much if I tag along to cons or wotnot under the micks banner, but, in the meantime, have a great weekend!

(Image is from an unsuccessful proposal project - which is sad, I wanted to draw Yetis fighting ontop of a giant siberian express...)

Mega man

Another quicky from Bobby Digital

Spider-Man

Just realised I've never done a Spider-man for the Mick site so here he is. Not a character I ever particularly liked but his costume is a classic. Such a weird, iconic design. Hats off to Ditko.

Spot the Difference

I liked these drawings before so I wanted to go back and redo them. Working out the anatomy a bit better and even adjusting the poses slightly. The new versions are on the left

TIM SKINNER

Plugging something of my own again this week. Tim Skinner: Total Scumbag, the one-shot story by the Eagle Award winning team of Andy Winter and myself is now available to download for free.

Tim Skinner is a book i drew and coloured myself a year or so ago, from an absolutely hilarious script from Andy Winter. A limited-print run was well received but it was soon forgotten once Diamond decided not to distribute it. Now, through the miracle of the internet, it can now be read by all. So please do so here. It also includes the original short story he was created in, drawn by Natalie Sandells.

Testimonials for Tim Skinner;

"Fucking hilarious!" - Jonathan Hickman, writer, Fantastic Four

“Tim Skinner [is] a very self-referential, up-its-own-arse comic that I was destined to love. Even The Boys gets a good shoeing over with hilarious consequences.” - Rich Johnston, bleedingcool.com

Please give it a read. Ignore the shoddy drawing.

Dec.

Happy Birthday Micks!/Wolverine v Deadpool

Happy first birthday to the Eclectic Micks blog! Today marks one year since our first official post, and dispite overwhelming odds(our combined laziness and indifference), the blog lumbers on like a mildly-narcoleptic behemoth. Huzzah!

This bad-boy is a tad unfinished as i just couldn't free up the time to work on it any more, but I'll stick the completed pencils up on the Moonblog whenever I get 'em done. Number 2 in my 'Marvel types kill Deadpool' series, this one features everybody's favourite 5-foot-furball, Wolverine.

In Brightest Day...TOO Bright...

Hola. I seem to be suffering a hangover today. Which is impossible for all the reasons you can think of. So an as-promised sketch of Green Lantern for my siblet Egg remains incomplete. (Sorry Paulie: hope the RATM tickets make up for it.) So here instead is all I could manage with a bastard behind the eyes: My first ever pic of ol' GL, sketched straight on the page with a Pitt pen and no pencils. Then Photoshopped to make it look like I was capable in someway today.

Away I go, craving the Blackest, Blackest Night. Ouch.

Happy Valley THE END!

Ah, issue three is out at last - that's the final issue of Happy Valley, hope you enjoyed it! And, to celebrate, here's some prelims that haven't been seen before...

As well as some layouts and a sample page I did (unscripted, I just made that shit up...) and a height chart of all the characters (this was the first pass - Masher is too small in relation to the rest - he's a big bloke...)

Normally I don't do this level of detail in pencils and layouts but I offered it to Garth who was happy to see it, and thank god, as I'd picked up what was happening in pages 2-3 completely wrong and Garth caught it at the layout stage...

Oh, and don't forget, if you missed the individual issues, you can pick up the collection at amazon...

Battlefields Volume 4: Happy Valley

Northlander

Yes I know real vikings didn't have horns on their helmets but I like how it looks. This was originally a pencil drawing I did years ago with the intention of painting it, but I never got around to it. I recently got my hands on the first volume of Northlanders by Davide Gienfelice and Brian Wood which inspired me to whip out the drawing and ink it up using real dip pens and brushes.

The Death of the Age of Heroes

Those of you following my blog here will know that a couple of years ago I wrote and drew my own comic. It mainly served as a bit of fun. I got a lot of practice in colouring and writing which I never really had done before and I learnt a fair whack about storytelling too. Looking at it now (The whole first issue is almost fully up now) is quite cringeworthy and I've been itching to go back to it in my spare time and tip away at redoing it.
The first thing I obviously had to do was to rename it now that Marvel are bringing out a new comic called the Age of Heroes, but that name doesnt suit anymore as I have drastically changed the story. As of now I have the first couple of issues rewritten and in my spare time I've been mucking about on some character designs. I did these ones about a month ago.
In other news I've been working hard away on Farscape. The storys are getting really really good and there are a few things coming up that I cant wait to draw

CHOKER

Pimping more friend's stuff today, this time Johnny Jackson, the main character in CHOKER from Image Comics. It's written by a mate of mine and Wills for many years Ben McCool and illustrated by superstar artist Ben Templesmith. I've read the first issue and it's a corker. A real messed up noir-ish, sci-fi-ish mix-up. I had to use a lot of hyphens to describe it, so you *know* it's gotta be good.

It's out next week; pick it up! You can see lots more at Chokercomic.com

[PS. Inked version of this piece is on my own blog]

Dec.

Cordelia Chase, Shower Fresh.

The pretty, curvy brunette I wish I were really married to.
Kidding. In fact, Jackie shares many of Cordy's... attributes.

Major West is a Major Prick

Salut. My offerage to the 28 Days Later theme week: Major West as played by Kristoff Eccles-cake. People, treat yourself and those you love in your life and pick up (paying is optional) the 28 Days Later Hardcover wot Dechnotronic did draw. It's a pretty, pretty thing.

(After that, buy Last Stand of The Wreckers #2, out this week!)

(Sorry.)

28 Seconds later

I've been very remise in paying attention to the boys' emails that fire back and forth, so last week I fired off a full colour sketch too early and this week I didn't have much time to draw much...

So, anyhues... I've always loved films/tv shows revolving about 'last people on earth', bbc's tv 'Survivors' (now much better in its second series) is one example, as is 28 Days Later. And the opening of 28DL is clearly influenced by that great 80s British sci-fi series "Day of the Triffids". So, instead of lots of raging zombie-types, here's our hero from the opening scene, wondering around an empty london. Chilling.

The black lad with all the sheets

28 Days Later is one of my favourite films but I haven't got it so I couldn't take a peak for reference, he had a name too I believe. Another classic rush job from Bobby, gotta love them corny time saving textures!

The bone chilling conclusion to my webcomic up now too

Frank

I wanted to add some halftone and a bit of colour to this but time has run out. This is Brendan Gleeson's character Frank, kitted out in his riot gear and tackling some infected. Not a direct scene from the movie but I assume he did a lot of this before the main cast ran into him. Now go buy the 28 Days hardcover.

JIM

So being from Cork I of course got to draw Cillian Murphy. This actually turned out waaaaay different than i planned it to be, hence the very dodgy composition. Still though I had fun just mucking around with photoshop.
ps. Dec, its 5 years this month since ultimates 2 came out. Awwwwww

FIRST INFECTED + HANNAH

As Mooney said yesterday, all this week we're posting drawings based on 28 Days Later, to celebrate the release of the hardback collection of my first story arc on the series. Since this is all about my comic, i thought i should do not one but TWO images for this week. The other lads bagged the coolest characters so i thought i'd draw one of my favourite scenes from the 28 Days Later movie, the first Infected we get a proper look at, in that church scene. One of my favourite pages from the comic so far is the very first page as i got to draw various scenes from the original movie as flashbacks. I hope i get to do more as the series goes on.






















Also, i thought i'd draw another scene that showed one of the main characters; Hannah. Just another image from the movie i liked. If you've been reading the comic, you know that there's a big question regarding what has happened to both Jim and Hannah between the end of the movie and the start of the comic. I actually don't know myself, but i would really like to!

Dec

[PS. Thanks to all the Micks for doing this]

28 Days Later: Selena

All this week us Mickards will be posting pieces dedicated to the launch of the first collected volume of 28 Days Later, as drawn by our own Dec Shalvey(I was gonna high-lariously miss-spell his name but that's really just so 2009). I was given Selena to draw and that suits me down to the ground as i love me some chicas.

Please make a point of picking up/ordering Dec's book this week, as it is just beautiful to look at, and a phenomenal read. Dec's storytelling on this badboy is dynamite, it moves like an express train.
TO HELL. Or from hell. Depends.

Granny O' Grimm

Wotcha! This friendly old dear is Granny O' Grimm, star of Dublin's own Brown Bag Films OSCAR-NOMINATED short animated film, 'Granny O' Grimm's Sleeping Beauty'. What the heck am I doing drawing her? Well my little sister works at Brown Bag Films and is the first Roche of our generation to be be involved in an Academy Award-nominated animation studio. Plus, the film is a little nugget of geniuspudding and can be viewed repeatedly here. Best of luck to those Brown-bagging maniacs.

Oh, and Last Stand of The Wreckers sold out. Completely. So thanks to everyone who made that so. For thoe who missed it, it's going to a second printing (Yeah, I know!) with a new cover and that should hit shops this week on New Comics Day in your area. The series is getting HUGE buzz it seems, so jump in on the ground floor now, and only wait one week for #2 to show up. (And lap up the one and only time a comic I worked on will be released to a weekly schedule...

Dec Rage!

Yes, it's early! I know... consider it a bonus! Anyhue, Declan Shalvey... get your RAGE ON!

Pencils & inked with a brush, coloured in photoshop using a Matt Brooker custom palette of 125 colours (and a couple of minor cheats in that, with some alpha blended brushes). Turned the colours into little itty bitty dots Pixelatte->Color Halftone thingie in PS, and added a yellow background (which, if I could be arsed, I'd've scanned from some proper paper and added a tea stain too - it's how Dec would have wanted to go...)

Hope you like it, and have a good weekend!

-pj
ps Dec is, clearly, annoyed with some anonymous user of a cintiq pen - and, despite accidentally stabbing himself in the forehead with a dip pen, this hasn't stopped some rampant cannibalism.

Mr Scrumbles

Just a quickie this week as I spend some time on my 28 days later pic. This charming fellow is part of a new 2000AD story.

New page up on Spazzmoid today

Abe Sapien

I thought I'd take a crack at Abe Sapien this week, he of Hellboy and B.P.R.D. fame. It's one of the few comic book sandboxes that I'd love to play in, although frankly I think I'd rather just see Guy Davis draw it all.

Exciting update! There's a colour version here for those who may be interested.

SUPERMAN / BATMAN

Every year since I've known Dec, weve done a Superman/Batman piece together for fun where he draws Batman and I draw Superman. I love looking at these pieces because it serves as a great way of tracking how much we have (hopefully) improved over the years. Above you can see our latest effort. (A tad late for 09 but who cares) And just for fun. Below you can check out the drawings from the previous years. With 2005 starting on the left

BLACK TARANTULA/ WHITE TIGER

Looks like i'm on a Daredevil buzz again. To be honest, between this and The Hand piece that i did a few weeks ago, i'm really just working towards doing a good Daredevil piece in the near future. So, in the meantime, this is Black Tarantula and White Tiger, two supporting characters currently in the comic.

I wanted to colour up this bad boy so i thought i'd play around with coloured half-tone again. Also, i added a *tiny* bit of rendering. Decided to try see if black splatter turned white in colour would work too. I think it turned out pretty well in the end.

Dec.

The Rocketeer

Couple of reasons I chose this guy to draw this week, the main being that I've just gotten my hands on the phenomonal new 'Rocketeer: The Complete Collection' from the boys over at IDW. It's a stunning book collecting all of the beautifully illustrated strips by the late, great Dave Stevens. Amazing tales of pulpy goodness featuring dollops of  derring-do, gorgeous dames and nefarious Commie-Nazis. Here's a link to IDW Editor-in-Chief, Chris 'I'll sleep when I'm dead' Ryall's blog where he gives a great and thorough lowdown on the book: clicky.

Reason the second:

Dec's just joined a second art collective, the Comic Twarts(don't ask). These guys are horribly-talented feckers, and the stuff they post is of a uniformly high standard. This past week, the Twart guys all tackled a Rocketeer piece, check 'em out here.

I wanted to try my hand at a piece featuring this guy, since Dec basically said that these Twart boyos were all far better artists than us Micks(don't have to tell it like it is, Dec), and it riled my blood and got me feeling all competitive-like.