New pens

I finally went and bought some new pens and markers. Copic markers in Special Black, Warm Grey No.5 and soft Greenish Blue. Also a refillable copic multiliner in 0.05 and a Staedtler triplus fineliner (tends to bleed a bit in combo with the markers) Below is a 1930's style portrait experiment with using the markers to create shade areas which I usually add in using InDesign. It has a bit more of a watercolour feel to it that I can't achieve in InDesign (without tedious amounts of faffing about that is!) I drew this whilst watching the Royal Wedding where I got plenty of inspiration for pomp and glamour!

Illustration Friday - Bicycle

Long time between blog entries and I blame it on Easter Eggs. I decided to try out Illustration Friday for the first time http://www.illustrationfriday.com/ where a new topic is posted each Friday giving you a weeks deadline to come up with an illustration based around the topic and submit it to the website along with hundreds of other folks. This weeks topic was bicycle. A tough one for a first off as I always seem to struggle to draw bikes and miss finer details such as the chain! I decided to go for a 1960's look with a cowboy riding with his toy bunny perched on the handlebar and light. I hate drawing round shapes freehand and if I was seriously doing this drawing and had loads of time to faff about, I'd probably dig out the French curves (after dusting them off of course!) This was fun to do and a good challenge. I'd like to give it another try again soon and even allow myself more than a day... maybe.

Fish Police

Todays challenge for the comic meetup was 'Fish Police'. I started sketching this one whilst I was at the pub then inked it at home and added a spot of colour in Photoshop. I didn't know where I was going with this one! I had to google Fish Police when I got home to figure out the reference (comic nerd fail!). It's a comic from the mid 80's to early 90's based around law and crime in a fictional underwater metropolis. I'm not sure if mermaid beauty/cop really fits in but maybe she could have a bit part or possibly play an extra!