bugs are badass

Here's a little morsel from an upcoming project to make your mouth water...

Shark tail

Here's a question for ya, if a shark were big enough to swallow the sun… how long would it's tail be?

Usana update

Hey gang, if you haven't checked on Usana in a while, here are some snapshots of what's been happening.

Things are gonna start moving faster now, so "buckle up, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye." Enjoy the ride!

space chess

The Cosmic Game, I originally posted the working doodle for this illustration on the "reverse" themed  IF but it works just as well here for "space" :)

+ now it's finished and in colour!  :))

Usana

A few years back, myself and a friend collaborated on a 48 page graphic novel. The road's been long and steep but we've learned a lot... at some point we made the executive decision to publish it online as a webcomic.

I invite you now to come check it out, at least 14 pages are up already so you can get right in there with great gusto!

Usana and the Swallowing Monster

a South African story...

There are so many great stories that unfold quietly and cross the paths of our daily lives, stories not written but lived and living still… people’s stories.

At the beginning of the year, I was invited to join a collective of African comic artists (l’Afrique Dessinée) and participate in putting a book together: "Thembi et Jetje, des tisseuses de l’arc en ciel”.
Each artist was assigned to illustrate a chapter of the story which spans two decades (10 chapters all in all), the book will be published in France by l’Harmattan later this month!

This is Thembi, a Ndebele woman...

And Jetje, an Afrikaans girl.

I loved working with the other guys and gals, some of which were friends that I hadn’t seen since Angouleme 2006!

And as a special treat, you can also take a peek at the cover by Adjim :)

Zitt’s story

And now for something completely different…

 

This is Zitt, an odd little crustacean character that I came up with months ago for the Velocity anthology, he was to feature in his very own 4page mini-comic of Moebius-inspired mayhem.

Regretably, this was right around the time I got ridiculously entrenched in other (paying) work, and so I had to pull out :(

I hope I’ll get to finish his story someday, I had a great steed worked out and it was gonna be infused with all sorts of funny South Africanisms like ‘bru’, ‘howzit’, ‘Obz’ and many more… 

For now though, it’ll be committed to the depths of this blog’s archives… but for now: Enjoy!

POW! POW!

I'm finally riding the crest of the production wave, it's been rough getting there and there have been a few of those "Crap. I'm drowning!" moments along the way… but it's good.
Being busy is good.
Anyhoo, nothing I can divulge about my current jobs but here's a little something I've been putting together for a while now…

No, no, not just this panel. Rather, my webcomic, and this is what you can expect! Except not in colour, that's just crazy… All those guys out there doing their stuff in colour: kudos, good job! Me? Not so much…

So, stay tuned :)

tribute - Mike Wieringo

Today, a little something different…

This handsome guy is Koj, of Tellos fame, created by the late Mike Wieringo.

reverse

I most probably had the idea for these guys after reading Alan Moore's: Top 10 series, if you've read it you know what I'm talking about…

These will feature in a 4 page comic short which I'll unveil soon :)

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...

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!

...wanna bet?

One of my first jobs, when I started my freelance career, was to design and illustrate a comic for NRGP. It was aimed at school kids all over South Africa to create awareness of the dangers of gambling.

Myself and my partner, writer Ian Malone, were given incredible leeway to get the best possible product. So we ran with it.... and ran.... and ran. Far.

This is where I discovered how much potential ink washed backgrounds have against 'regular' outlined elements - especially characters.

Bushman strip

Here's an old one...Ages ago I decided I would try to draw a comic without having a set story in mind (I believe Moebius did some of his stories like this), as a 'drawer' I find words abstract and confusing. So off I went drawing one page after another in a stream-of-thought kinda way.

I got to page 12... Moebius I'm not :(

but on the plus side, I found out I have an affinity for drawing Bushmen :)
(and wrinkly people in general)

introducing: Jerry!

Thought I'd follow this up...
This is Jerry, a character I've been working on for a while now. Originally designed as an excuse for me to experiment with comics, it seems that I now might get the chance to get him published! :)
It started with this sketch, waaay back in 2003, he's evolved a bit since then and like the ship, his jet-pack and gun were rendered in 3D and added to the final comp.

space: the funny frontier

No, this isn't about Spock an' co but it's a treat none the less!

You may remember that I recently changed the banner of this blog to the current awsome space theme :)

Well, here's how it all started...

These doodles were the inception of a story that's been gestating in my head for many years. The ship was influenced by retro-sci-fi and those old WW1 bi-planes, that and I loved Porco Rosso!

And here's this is were it ultimately led, I had fun rendering the ship in 3D (which made sense since it'll be a regular feature)

Curious yet?

campfire stories

Well, not so much a campfire as one of those you light in a barrel on those cold winter nights, when you've been outside too long...

This is another page from the abyss, did this one last year just before a well-deserved holiday to Malaysia :)

It was this illustration that got me hooked on this technique for doing fire!

I was asked to do a few character designs and a pinup page to sell a comic book idea, the project's still pending, as far as I know...

remember the Morse Code?

The third book I illustrated for CUP's Rainbow Reading series was about Samuel Morse and his invention, the Telegraph Machine.

This one was a particular challenge for me, they wanted a comic-book format (which I was only too happy to do) that in itself was great but researching everything proved tricky as it juuust pre-dates the first Daguerrotypes (photos), in fact it turns out that old man Morse was the first one to also obtain the licence to produce daguerrotypes in America! He was also an accomplished artist, busy fellow, AND led troupes in the Civil War...

Anyway, I digress, I used every trick in my book on this story, rendering inkwash bacdrops and adding cartoony characters which I thought 'popped out' very nicely. In comp, I treated the illustrations to give them a Victorian feel and added what photographic textures I could.

If anything, I got to draw many ships... as you can see :)

Covers

I like sharks, all the bad publicity they've been getting since 'Jaws' is a real shame.

Still, they are pretty scary and I was happy to draw them when Tom asked me to do the cover for the first issue Semiotic Cohesion a while back...

(This isn't the final cover, I changed the shuttle to a more recognisable angle)

My delight doubled when, last year, he asked me to draw issue 5's cover! Rarely does a drawing exude this much fun from end to end, what a pleasure!