Lady Winwoods What?

Very excited about my latest commission piece - local band Lady Winwood's Maggot have asked me to create them as a cartoon piece, along with Geoffrey the Rabbit!

Not sure what Geoffrey should look like, but a tattooed bunny is gonna look the business!!!

Christmas cartoon completed

Well, that's the last of the details in place for this year's Tansha Christmas card, and must say, I'm pleased with the result.

I think my favourite part of this piece is Mrs Santa, as female forms don't tend to show up in my cartoons quite as often as burly, fighting types!

The elf rabble also came out very well and I think the colours all complement each other very well too!

Marauding Elf Pack

To accompany Mrs Santa on her bike, we have a pack if elves, scrapping to be first in line for their Christmas kiss!

All created as vectors, which makes it nice and easy to fine-tune the colours and layout once complete.

Next step - finish the bike!

Fighting elves and other goings on!

A very productive afternoon has culminated in the creation of a pack of elves, fighting for the affections of Mrs Santa, whilst Rudolph looks on.

Next stage is to vectorise this pencil mob!

Mrs Santa

Ok, finally have some rough pencils down in place for Mrs Santa on her vintage bike - although not too sure how 'technically accurate' my sketch is all you bike fans!

I also think that maybe the bike is a little bit big, but the beauty if creating her as a vector means I can fine tune all that later!

Christmas Cartoon 2011

Well, it's that time of year again to begin work on the next Christmas cartoon for Tansha, club magazine of the VJMC.

This year, I thought we might introduce the motorcycle world to 'Mrs Santa' - watch this space for more updates soon!

Cartoon Pirates

Hoist up the mainbrace and fasten the sails! The pirate cartoons are now live and can be viewed in the portfolio section of the website.

Pirate Colour Completion!

At last, after juggling all of my other jobs, I found a little time to get the base colours completed on the pirates! I've also been able to fine-tune my outlines a little, as they always seem to look different once you've added the colour!

The next step is to complete the shading - although Bo'sun Barry isn't far off completion, as I managed to get his shading done a little earlier. All that remains now is the final shading and they'll be ready to sail the high seas - Hargh Jim-lad!

Pirate Colours!

Our pirates are now really starting to take shape. Bo-sun Barry now has all of his colours in place and is awaiting some shading and el capatano isn't too far behind!

Lines have now been drawn!

The vector lines have now been completed and our pirates are looking pretty fierce and ready to rule the high seas! The beauty of the vector lines being that we've some very crisp outlines and also allows me to make any last minute edits!

Pirate Pencils!

Pencils for the first three pirates are now complete and I'm now moving onto vectoring the outlines. We have Peg-leg Pete, bosun Barry and the Captain!

Quite pleased with these initial outlines and due to the beauty of vectors, I can fine-tune any squiffy bits at this stage. Once complete, I can begin adding in the colours.

Pirates... HARGH!

For my next series of cartoons, I am working on some pirates! Why pirates? Well, they're pretty cool, plenty of scope for character and lots of room for silliness!

I'm thinking initially we need a pirate captain, a first mate and possibly a member of the crew up to no good. Peg-legs and eye-patches a plenty, watch this space for more updates!

Mad Scientist

Not entirely festive, but currently working on the next of my 'creepy critters' - this time, it's the mad scientist and his faithful, if a bit ugly, lab assistant.

Pencils are complete and base colours down - just the details to go. More to see shortly!

Christmas Tansha cartoon complete

Well, that's it! Another Christmas Tansha cartoon completed - created entirely in vectors this year. Was a great challenge to have a 'busy' composition and not be using pen and ink and also found how much more an illustration of this kind can benefit from being created entirely from vectors. Will add to the website in the next few weeks - watch this space!

Mummy's Alive!

I've completed my Egyptian Mummy and he's now available to view in the portfolio section of the site. Very pleased with how this piece came together and also how nicely the detailing works on the bandages. Right, now to complete the others!

Tansha time!

Yes, it's been a year already and time to go about creating another crazy scene for the Christmas edition of Tansha. I'm thinking this year, Santa & co could be delivering all of the goodies - but not without the usual mayhem!!!

Lots of crazy ideas and initial sketches in the pipe. Watch this space for more updates!

Bandages and all!

With the initial sketch completed, the vector lines are underway on our Egyptian mummy! I'm using a combination of line thicknesses for the outline on this one, as I think if I use the same throughout for the bandages, it could look a little much and be a little heavy!

Halloweenies!

With Halloween on the horizon, I thought the next batch of sketches should have a slightly creepy theme! So we got out our sketchbook and got busy!

The end results will be showing up on the site shortly and will hopefully include an Egyptian mummy, a mad scientist (with creepy assistant in tow) a witch on her broomstick, plus a couple of others ( who will remain a secret until completed!)

Hello! I'm a wide mouth frog!

Finally had a few minutes spare to get this little froggie finished! Found that to get over the issue of the 'judders', I needed to keep the body as one and all of the facial expressions as separate layers. A little more work involved I hear you say, but it did pay off, as we now have a chirpy, not to mention chatty, little chap currently on the homepage - check him out!

Twittering frogs!

Ok, so now we have a series of froggies ready to be turned into animation frames. Tha main problem I have at the moment is although they've been overlayed EXACTLY on top of each other, when converted to pixels, they are ever-so slightly different (grrr). Meaning that I get a slight 'juddering' effect when the animation is played - back to the drawing board me thinks!