The other day, I wanted to try something a little different. I wanted to incorporate a little of Medusa Dollmaker's style into mine and also wanted to try colouring from greyscale first with layers of colour over the top, a method I've read about but never tried. And since this occurred to me on the day before the Presidential Inauguration, I thought I'd draw President Donald Trump.
I've got to be honest, I regretted this last decision as it meant I then spent an inordinate amount of time looking at him, but to paraphrase Magnus Magnusson, "I'd started so I'd finish..."

Nearing the end of the pencils stage, I decided to add laurels but realised I'd not left enough room on the left of the page for a laurel, so added it after I'd scanned the drawing to Photoshop and bumped up the darkness of the drawing.
Then I inked it, concentrating mainly on the outlines. 

When it came to adding colour, I first attempted to simply add washes of colour over the pencils and fiddled with the blending modes. There is a method of colouring where this is the primary means of colouring, but when I tried it, it looked awful so I think I need to have another go at that and see if I can work it out. If anyone has any tips for this method, please do leave me a comment.

So then I used my more usual method of colouring and shading, freehanding directly onto those washes with my Wacom tablet to build up light and shade, using the pencil sketch as a guide.

Then I added in a texture on the metal ring, brought up the darkness on the wall's pencils to allow the texture of the paper to add to the wall, added the stars, a vignette, and a parchment texture over the whole illustration, and a couple of final tweaks such as blending the text in more.

So there he is: Your new President of the United States, Donald Trump.

​What a guy...

I've started a webcomic!

It's occurred to me that we often see superheroes doing great heroics like battling invading aliens and gods, saving cities, and rescuing stricken planes... but we rarely see them in their downtime.

They're people too (most of them), so they must go the shops sometimes, catch a movie, do the housework (those secret hideouts don't look after themselves, you know, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a butler!).

So that is what this cartoon is: Superheroes, doing everyday stuff.

There's only one at the moment, but more will follow...

At the request of Jess, my girlfriend, I drew a print to illustrate a quote by one of her favourite authors, Sylvia Plath.

I'll be honest, I've not read the work the quote is from, but I'm happy with the print.

It was difficult to add a face to the moon without it looking terrifying!

How well do you think I've succeeded?

It's been a while since I did any comic book style illustration, but this sort of superhero illustration was what I very first loved drawing when I was about 4 years old and started reading Superman comics that my parents would by me from the local newsagent so this was a real throwback for me!

Leave me a comment to let me know what you think of her and who you think I should draw next, thanks! -xXx-

The latest additions to my shop are these cute animal Christmas cards.

I wanted to draw a cute Christmas cards that was a little simpler than my Coggingtons Christmas cards so I was thinking of cute animals. It was my wonderful girlfriend's idea to do a series of four cards that all fit together to make a cute whole image.

I did this illustration the other day, just because I liked the feminist leaning quote, and then I shared it on my Instagram and Facebook where it seemed to go down pretty well, so it's now available as a print in my shop!

It's just £6 + p&p.

What do you think of her?
Do you agree with the quote?

Drop me a comment and let me know.