Leftovers

I'm nowhere near any newer material to post as I'm currently in lockdown at the Roche ancestral home. So here's something that's older than sin for you to scrutinise.

Happy New Pictures in 2012 I hope!

X

Alien

Here's a bit of character design for a personal project. I like how his horrible little feet came out.

SONGBIRD

Another sketch from the Lille convention back in November. Happy New Year everyone.

Happy Christmas/Miscellaneous!

Hey everybody, hope all are enjoying a nice break from the normal hoo-ha. As I type this I'm munching on a delicious christmas cookie my sterling wife made. Well met, wife.

Here's the pencils to a Cloak and/or Dagger piece I've been working on recently.

Toy Story

Christmas snatches time from me once again, so you mjst live with the newly unveiled cover to Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #1, which launches in January. MTMTE is my last TFs for the foreseeable, bar covers, and will hopefully keep the buzz generated by Death of Optimus Prime alive. Still love those robots though. Hope Slanty Jaws brings me one this year.

Have a homage-tastic Nickmas, Micklickers! X

Spotlights

Ah, drawing a cartoony guy with nice flat colours is like having a little holiday. I wish I could draw like this all the time.

Superman Batman 2011

Heres a christmas tale

I remember the day we did our first one really clearly. I was in 3rd year college, we both talked about wanting to be in Wizard magazine someday.
The end

I love seing the progression in these drawings. Love it. Its pretty unlikely that we'll still be friends in about 2 years, but if we somehow make it s far as when we reach our 60's, then I think this would be the coolest coffee-table book ever.

Heres to another great year. This year I finished up a 29 issue run on Farscape, which was a blast and is responsible for birthing my comic book career. I ended up truely with a second home in New York. Most importantly, as the year draws to an end, I've signed up for 3 pretty big and exciting books. One should be obvious enough, the second, will be a high profile Image book, which is about to be announced, and thirdly, my own book Cú Chulainn will be out at the end of the year, launching definately across Europe (The contract is signed with a big European publisher)

BATMAN

Every December, Will and I have done a Superman/Batman piece. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to do one last year... feel bad about that. Anyway, here's my Batman for 2011. Expect Will's Superman to join him soon.

Dec.

Venom

Forgot to post yesterday so here's a little watercolour doodle inspired by looking at too many Hayao Miyazaki storyboards.

THIS CHRISTMAS, OPTIMUS PRIME DIES!

Spoiler alert.

Apparently, IDW's 'The Death of Optimus Prime' is slithering out a week earlier than scheduled. So this milestone issue will be out on December 21st Stateside, and the 22nd everywhere else hopefully.

To tide thee over until then, check out this panel from the book. Mmm, doomy.

Whoops. Im late

MAN-THING

GAH! Didn't realise it was a Tuesday 'til just now. Here's a Man-Thing sketch I did at Lille a month back. Don't think I've posted this already.

Dec.

Snake-Eyes

Just scratching an itch with this one, really.

To Be Frank

As threatened, an inked-up Punisher.

(Still not for you, Egg.)

Mini Me

Cartoony-manga version of me and my lady friend. Her hair is much longer now. And our heads are much smaller.

Pigs #04

Out next week kiddies. And by kiddies, I most definately do not mean kids, as its not exactly suitable for them.

GATEWAY

Hey look! A brand new sketch that I coloured and everything!

Doing Northlanders and Thunderbolts at the same time was rough, so I wasn't putting in the work in my sketches. Now that I'm back on one book, I wanted to try a bit harder, even trying my hand at colour. Dunno if this turned out well; I think I might depend on Jordie to make my stuff look good these days. Anyway, was worth a try.

Dec.

Half Past Danger Frontspiece

Here's something I just finished inking ten minutes ago, a little frontspiece I'll be using for part of a design element on the first issue of my book. Sorry if people are sick of simply seeing image after image from this project on here, but I'm literally spending every waking moment working on it so I have nothing else to offer!

Welcome Back Frank

In the middle of pencilling up a little piece of gift art (no, it's not for you, Egg.) featuring ol' Festive Frank Castle. Tune in next week where I cheekily use the inks for this piece of my entry.

Half Past Danger

Captain John Noble himself.

Please please let some one roar out just as he's about to kill some one:

"What time is it?"

"Is half past fuckin danger, thats what time it is." BOOOOM

All kidding aside, this looks great. I've just seen the coloured cover and it looks like the love child of Drew Strewzan and Adam Hughes. Gorgeous stuff

GHOST

I get a lot of sketch requests for Ghost these days. Him, Man-Thing and Songbird are probably the most popular sketch requests I get actually. Anyway, here's a scan of a recent Ghost sketch I did at the Lille Comics Festival. Really like how this one came out. Thanks to Emilien for sending it on!

Dec.

Angel

Here's me mid-sketch drawing Angel for a fan at a recent convention. Action shot!
....of me, not of Angel.

Cintiq Chick

Using the ol' Voodoo Slab a lot more often these days, but still haven't quite nailed the control I'd like with it. I know it's possible - many Micks, past and present prove this - but I just need to stick with it.

In the meantime, here's a panel I noodled up with it this week.

Check out Nick Roche on the RTE Player

http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=1123565

Skip forward to 15 minutes.
Wohooo Go Nick

And todays eclectic micks Mystery animal isssss.. A HEDGEHOG!

Eighty Awesome Eighties Action Heroes. Dillon

Its been quite a while since I've had time to draw up a new Eighty Eighties character, and I think it shows, my style has gotten afair bit grittier and darker which I am enjoying doing these days.
You can see all of the other entrys here
http://sliney.blogspot.com/search/label/Eighty%20Awesome%20Eighties%20Action%20Heroes

BLACK BOLT/MEDUSA

Here's a Black Bolt/Medusa piece to celebrate FANTASTIC FOUR #600, which is out tomorrow. It's a big giant-sized issue that has a story featuring the above characters. The story is written by Jonathan Hickman, illustrated by Ming Doyle and coloured by friend-of-the-blog Jordie Bellaire. I hope ye all check it out; I've seen the story and it's an absolute stunner. I can only assume the rest of the issue is the same.

Dec.

More Colours

I haven't much in the way of sketches to show at the moment unfortunately, as I'm really devoting all of my time into trying to make Half Past Danger look as good as I can. So for the moment here's another coloured panel from the second page of the book.

PS- Apologies to Dec for hijacking the start of his day on the blog, I forgot it wasn't monday!

Watch Nick. Meet Nick. Lick Nick.

Wharro, homies.

I shall be doing one of my rare appearances outside of my hovel this coming week, for next Friday marks the start of the Wexworlds Sci Fi festival in Wexford Town, which is where I'm from, innit? I have my now-annual mini-display of work at The Wexford Arts Centre (where the below shot, coloured by Josh Burcham, shall be available for all to marvel at) and am doing a couple of comic workshops, like what I used to do before I went legit. See www.wexworlds.net for details of what I'm up to and what other ace authors and experts you can harangue if you're in the neighbourhood.

To promote this though, I'm due to appear on live TV this coming Wednesday. Yep, I've finally made it to kids' TV, so I'll be wearing my tightest, reddest pair of trews. I'm on Elev-8 on RTE 2 sometime between 4 and 5pm, and rumour has it, drawing right there and then in front of your eyes and those of millions of dispossessed youngsters. So tune in, and, like, trend my name or something. #nicktightpants will do me.

(Psst: I know the line-art of this pic has been here before, but check out them hues, no?)

Doodles

Just playing around with a Japanese G nib and a small Rapidograph pen for funsies.

The Fastest Hunk of Junk in the Galaxy

This comes out tomorrow. Wooohoooooo You're all clear, kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!

Someone pointed out to me that our new President of Ireland is actually Yoda.

I've been getting Star Wars work quite regularly lately. Aside from this panel from the Han and Chewie story I've been working on another unnanounced Star Wars book. Can't wait to reveal what it is

JUGGERNAUT

Another sketch from the Lille Comics Festival. Really miss drawing that guy.

Dec.

Blue skies

Started colouring my book today. Fun. Here's a little panel. The first of the whole book, actually.

Madonna

So busy doing storyboards I have'nt made anything "finished" in weeks - but thought I better post something or risk losing my spot here :)
Also I've been striken with a nasty sniffly bug.
And the dog ate my homework. etc.

This is a piece I did for a group exhibition my sister organised last year promoting breastfeeding.

Whoosh!

Someone's late for his tea.

Background design

This is a bit of background design from a personal project. I was trying to get a messy, cosy feel for this character's basement hideaway. I'll probably end up rendering this as a basic 3d model with SketchUp for reference as there's a lot of complex action that takes place here.

SONGBIRD and GHOST

Just back from the Lille Comics Festival. Had a brilliant time. Did a LOT of sketches; the most requested being Man-Thing and Songbird actually. Anyway, here's one I did of Songbird and Ghost that I'm pretty happy with.

Dc.

Tyrannosaurus Yucks

Reboots

Ah, losing your laptop and harddrives to a virus 3 days before a deadline, leaving only the oldest, oddest images at your disposal for a blog. A fate befitting the winner of an ICN award.

On that note, thanks to everyone who gave me the nod and for your kind messages since.Delighted to see Bob and Dec get the love too.Ridiculous result, but a welcome one.More soon on it.

BYE!

APES!

BETRAYAL OF THE PLANET OF THE APES #1 is out tomorrow, by Corinna Sara Bechko(Heathentown) and Gabriel Hardman(Hulk). It's also coloured by one Jordie Bellaire, whoever she is. Never heard of her.

Anyway, I've done variants for 3 issues; before I did them I did some rough doodles from various press photos and film posters, just to get a feel for how to draw the Apes from the book.

Dec.

Half Past Pencils

Here are the pencils for the first page of my book. To see the completed inks, head over to the website.

the animation art auction

just hijacking my post this week to advertise this worthy cause - hope thats ok!

DELETE

...Too late now. Another sketch from my mini-Who sessions last week. Just playing around with proportions and Nickifying him a little. Y'know. For fun.

Old Man

When I draw with Manga Studio I tend to go straight to ink and skip the pencil stage to save time but I've been playing around the pencil tools a bit recently. Here's one of my experiments.

Thor