All our most brilliant friends are doubting themselves.

Hello all! How the devil are you this fair Tuesday? I am decidedly comfy. Here are some pictures for you.

This is the first time I've used paint in well over a year, I think. Exciting! 

This is a sketch of the extraordinary burlesque dancer, Vicky Butterfly. Eventually I'll clean it up a tad and colour it. 

Finally, here's some hard-boiled type. I suspect that he has Woes. 

Allow me to sweep the dust off the place.

I've been terrifically busy lately, which I would like to think excuses the lack of drawings, and the updating of the blog.

Except that it doesn't. I'm always terrifically busy, it's just a different sort of busy at the moment.

What actually happened was that I got really really sick of the internet, and by extension my computer. I deleted my Facebook (which I actually highly recommend. To my surprise I do not miss it at all.), turned off Skype, everything. Except twitter. I stopped drawing too, though this just may be because "drawing" has become synonymous with "Wacom tablet" for me these days. I've started messing with a sketch book again though, and I'll be back doing colourful things soon enough I am sure.

In any case, here are some pictures that'll get me into the swing of things. I've taken a good look at my work lately, and I know exactly what I want to improve, and why. The how is proving a tad more difficult but hey ho.

Carey Mulligan, yo. 

This last image I'll replace with a decent scan when I get an opportunity. They're Tintin characters, lest you're unfamiliar, doodled during a lunch break. 

See? I'm trying to start using a sketchbook again. 

With a smile on your face and a tear right in your eye.

Sorry I didn't post last week. This week will be very brief as I'm in a bit of a rush.

I did a drawing of Chrestomanci as a bit of a tribute to Diana Wynne Jones, who sadly passed away recently.

Just a quick job. I like her though.

A small section of the Mother's Day card I made for, well, my mother. 

This is a picture of The Doctor, from Doctor Who. It's <i>by far</i> the most popular thing I've ever posted on Tumblr. The power of fandom eh?

This is Jack, Linton, and Sonny, from John Allison's excellent Bad Machinery. It's an excellent read and I highly recommend it!

I drew a picture on paper! I didn't have a clue what to draw so I just did some hair, and then took it from there. 

So it's to the gallows with the long lost Kingdom of Light.

I'm late updating because I didn't think I had any pictures to upload here. Clearly I am massively forgetful, because I do. Here are three of the better ones.

This is a quick cartoon of Rebecca, personal style blogger who has a website here. I've drawn her once before when I was first trying to work out how to draw again. My style has changed a fair bit since then, it's fair to say, and sped up considerably. (I mean, these two styles aren't really comparable when it comes to time, but in general...)

I drew this because apparently I draw too many skinny women. 

I then recoloured it, and it ended up like this. Which I prefer. 

Because he doesn't know how to love.

I've mostly been experimenting with different ways of drawing/colouring this week, with varying degrees of success.

Not sure what I think of this one, even now. You'll note I wasn't really paying attention to the pencil settings, thus the big ol' chunky lines, but the results aren't that bad. 

I suspect this lady isn't very nice. 

This is possibly the least successful picture here, but in an odd way it's the one I'm most pleased with. It's not great in and of itself, but it's a good stepping stone.

This was an extremely quick draw and colour job that I did whilst watching Boardwalk Empire. It came out pretty nicely though I thought.

I saw an elderly guy in the street dressed like this yesterday and thought it was brilliant. I hope this is the 2011 look for the older person. (I actually saw him again today, in much the same get-up but with different trousers and trainers...he's actually much older than I first realised/drew).

Oh yeah, it's Barça versus Arsenal tonight at the Camp Nou. If I have my way it will be a repeat of last year's Messi Show, but we'll just have to wait and see. Either way it'll be a good watch. 

"The slow dance of the infinite stars"

I know, I know, two posts within a week. Alarming.

Anyway let's roll on with this. To begin, a commission I did for someone to give to their brother for his 16th birthday (16, right? Am I right Mike?). It's going to be printed A3 size, so that will be pretty great to see. 

I was also asked to draw an astronaut for a primary school display, and a "rafonaut" for a book review/community website that my friend helps with. (You can find it here). Obviously I took advantage of this by adapting the same image. I am not even the slightest bit ashamed. 

Astronaut: 

"Rafonaut": 

This is going to be on a t-shirt, so, you know, that's pretty cool. 

Also, whilst doing the pencils for this I couldn't resist turning him into one of those shadow skull people things from the library episode of Doctor Who. Revel in my geekiest moment: 

Oh, and finally for today, here's a very quick, scribbly drawing of a lady. I do like scribbling, I have to say. 

Most, if not all, of these have already been on my tumblr in the last day or so. I really want to make this blog a bit different, but I'm not wholly sure how to go about it at the moment. I'll have a think about it I suppose. 

Also, no, the title has no relevance to the content of this post. Nevermind eh?

One of those weeks.

I've been ill all week, so everything has a decidedly scribbled, difficult-to-pay-attention tone to it.

I've been mostly writing stuff for the comic, so every so often I try to make sure I remember how to draw the characters. This sheet was more miss than hit.

The rest are nonsense: 

I do a lot of these scribbly things without ever considering sharing them normally, but I think it makes a nice change eh?

Distracted from distraction by distraction.

I've been busy with all manner of things lately, so haven't really drawn an awful lot, besides a Christmas card that you clearly can't see yet.

Anyway, to fill a gap, here's a quick scribble I did last night whilst watching Rear Window. It doesn't actually have anything to do with Rear Window, but I like to imagine that it's these little details that keep you captivated.

Plans and Previews.

Just a few little sketches and bits and bobs for a children's book I am writing. These are very much rough character ideas, and people will likely end up looking somewhat different. I also am leaning more and more toward not inking the final drawings. They'll be coloured too, but I've not decided on the final medium yet. (As ever you can click on the images to enlarge them).

As you can see, I often make little notes by drawings, when planning them. 90% of them aren't actually constructive at all. The smudged out writing is all plot stuff. 

Also, here's a quick preview of something I'm doing for Hallowe'en. I accidentally exported the image in black and white, rather than colour, and it ended up looking like this. I thought it was rather cool, and quite different from the "proper" image.: 

They say it's your birthday.

Sometimes I do little pictures for friends' birthdays. This, for example, is for Amanda whose birthday it is tomorrow:

She quite likes Optimus Prime.  Here's another I did for her a couple of years ago: 

This is a picture of The Beatles I did, in a vague attempt to roughly show their evolution, for good chum Mike. I forgot to scan it at the time:

A couple of years ago I made a kind of Comic Book cover for him, with a Magician-type hero character version of Mike on the front. I don't have it and I never photographed it/scanned it. However! It nearly looked like this:

Before I had a sudden rush of common sense. The final drawing was roughly based on this: 

On the subject of rough planning sketches, here's one I did for a picture for my brother's birthday. He'd quite like to play for Barcelona. The final had ticker tape and all sorts of excitement. 

I think this next one was for Penny's birthday. Was it for Penny's birthday? Not that fond of it in 

retrospect. Penny! Feel free to demand something new for a holiday-in-which-gifts-are-given.

Finally, here's a Christmas Card I did a few years ago. Can't precisely remember when, but it was whilst I was at university:

Edit: I have been told off because I forgot this, of Rebecca. I'm disappointed with it for much the same reason I am of Penny's. There are others I've likely forgotten too, I'll leave you to imagine them:

O Newton, release this apple from its earth shackles.

You will have seen from the previous post that amongst my rough ideas for the children's story was a dirigible/airship. This was originally intended to appear in the second part of the story, although I'm not so sure that it will necessary happen that way anymore. In any event, my mind flew off in a different direction once the balloon came into play, and I started planning a very different story. 

I'm not going to give anything away, but maybe you'll like some of the idea sketches. 

As a drawing, this isn't very good, but I liked the character straightaway. At the time she wasn't going to be used for anything, but was drafted in once the idea formed. 

I went with the bottom one in the end. 

Fleshing out hair/clothing ideas, and getting the personality completely wrong at the same time. 

Next time: the first three pages. Sort of.