Action Gecko - take 3

That's right, I recently completed the third activity book starring our little ambitious gecko :)

Angouleme '06

Here's another snowy pic, I really am longing for some snow and knowing that there's lots of it up north is making me dotty… and speaking of dots, this quaint setting is the town of Angouleme where they hold the annual international comic festival of the same name.

Feels like a million years ago that I was there, and yes, there most definitely was snow! There's a little story: Myself and ten other Africans from the 4 corners of the continent were invited to Angouleme to exhibit our work, for a few of the guys it was the first time they had seen snow never mind been in it!

It was great, snowmen were built, snowballs thrown and there was even a case of us being snowed in for a night. All in all a terrific week of adventure, amazement and new friendships!

This was a sketch I did the first day as we waited in Paris for the train bound for Angouleme, having been in the African summer some 24 hours before we were all bundled up quite severly, only the tips of noses could be seen :)

Mecha-Zoo: Galago

Silly me, I really thought that I'd posted this before… I would've waited a little longer before unveiling the new banner ;)

Galago is what we call a "bushbaby", it's a small primate closely related to Madagascar's lemurs. They only come out at night and are very common around South Africa but are rarely seen.

It's been one of the most popular MZ to date, must be those bedroom eyes...
O_o

gone walkies...

Do you ever forget about things you've done?

I started this drawing ages ago and finally got around to finishing it this year and promptly forgot all about it!

The backdrop is based on a part of Newlands Forest I myself take my dogs to, never felt like there were any creepy beasties spying on me though :)

The boy's name is 'Usana' and I'll be posting some more stuff about him soon...

sneaky sneaky shark-zilla

Couldn't resist using this one again…

I wish everything was this fun to draw :)

thinking of snow

Yikes!

Can't believe it's been a week already, I guess it's official then - we've hit that crazy time of year again…

So, in the spirit of snow (which I miss a lot) here's a drawing derived from a postcard my mom sent me from the little town of Orcival.

burning

Awright…

who left the stove on again?!

This week's Illustration Friday: burning

Mix media loosely inspired by Dave (the man) McKean

mecha-Zoo: roughs x2

Some more...

Mecha-Zoo: roughs

Have you been wondering what happened to the MZ posts? I've been a little distracted but to make up for the oversight I've collected all the finished MZ in their very tab (look at the top, just below the banner).

Then, for the next few days I'll be posting some old MZ concepts; for the first time ever, here the ones that didn't make the cut :p





More to come soon...

illustration friday

The subject this week is "afterward"…

Oh dear, can you guess what happened?

rabbit's moon

And on the subject of the moon… these are from a job I did for Nasou Via Afrika a while back, the story was about the myth of the rabbit and the moon.

It's interesting seems to be a common theme across several cultures, bunnies sure do get around ;)

cat magic

Just keeping things updated, I recently posted this on watercolour wednesdays last week...

This month promises many great things on WW so keep checkin it out :)

wednesday night drawing

This week, I was given the fantastic opportunity to sit in on a life drawing class, the same class I used to attend a while back.

These are a few of the evenings sketches, I really enjoy these occasions where I can draw for drawing and not deadlines or briefs :)

Thanks to the guys at D4D for the great gift!

fun in the sun

Wow, been super busy and had some issues trying to sell my car...

Gotta love that paperwork :p

Anyway, in the spirits of cooler ways of getting around than cars, and camping next to the sun to tell the best campfire stories...

...you tell the scariest stories around the sun, everyone knows that!

Spooky

This week on illustration friday the theme is 'spooky', so adapted an old image to look alittle more ominous and, dare I say it again: spookier!

Starting with an ink wash and watercolour sketch and adding various photographic details digitally...

Jerry pin-up

I couldn't not do it (it's 3 in the morning and I'll use a double negative if I want to), the theme this week on illustration friday is 'old-fashioned'...

So I blew the dust off an old sketch and slapped some colour to it and presto! Instant Jerry pin-up and I don't have to tell you how old-fashioned he is...

One day I'll get around to telling his story but right now... bed.

leopard styles

Not too long ago, I was asked to do some sample illustrations for a children's book...

It's been a while now and I haven't heard from the editor so I think it's safe to show you these, enjoy :)

As usual, it's a mix of watercolour and digital layering.

the chameleon and the fly...

This week's theme on illustration friday is "acrobat" and I'd been wanting to draw a chameleon again for some time.



So here's my take on that eternal struggle between chameleon and fly... but which is the more acrobatic?

I'll let you decide :)

First Time again!

Following the success of our little story (see last post), we attracted the attention of a local production house interested in producing and directing a short-film.

Ian wrote a fantastic screenplay which built on to our quirky 4 page comic, imagining some even quirkier new scenes.

Unfortunately, the plans have fallen through since then...

...but I still have these awesome little production boards to show for it :)

The First Time...

Today, a little something special:

In 2006, myself and Ian Malone collaborated on a short comic story for the Outline Project; a Cape Town exhibition that complimented the Comics Brew festival of that year.

The deal: a bunch of local artists and writers were invited to present a 4 page comic story of South African flavour entitled "The First Time".

Twelve finalists were then chosen to exhibit their stories as well as having them published an anthology...

Not only was our story selected but I was also asked to draw the poster/cover of The Outline Project!

Action Gecko - the sequel

I was asked to illustrate the follow up to the 'Summer Fun' activity book I did last year, let's call it: Winter Fun! (actually it was called: My Holiday, but I like mine better)

A night-time variant of the cover and below are some of the pages from the book...

Winter here falls over June - August, which meant over the World Cup, so we couldn't stay away from using some soccer themes....
As with the first, I had tons of fun drawing and making up some of the games; the pages were wonderfully designed by the good people at 8 Ink Media, I think it all oozes fun!

faux covers

In a moment of inspiration, I decided to produce a bunch of covers to shop around to get more cover work...

These are some of them:

Everything is made-up, from the authors' names to the publisher, so don't bother trying to find them ;)

Mecha-Zoo: Papio

Doh! I seem to have missed an MZ update... my bad...
I recently posted a baboon from a children's book, well, here's the Mecha-Zoo equivalent: Papio!
This piece is another 'Version 2.0' canvass that I exhibited in '06, mix media.

Troy

This is Troy. He's an awesome little frenchie that oozes personality.... ...and mischief!

New Tab

Hi all, I've added a new tab up top 'Children's illustrations', check it out, there's some new stuff :)

sweaty baboon

Here's another little peek at a project I mentioned a while back...

My good friend and writer Ian Malone wrote a children's book script that I've been illustrating when the time-gobblins are willing.

For the style I wanted to try something really new and fresh, I stuck to my watercolours but threw away the tight outlines I usually use. I then use a digital 'cut-out' method to create the shapes and add a little shading for depth.

I'll keep you posted as I progress :)