I did a very quick one off comic.

Things we learnt from this:

1. Not inking the backgrounds is not at all "time-saving", and looks considerably worse.
2. Things may not be as obvious on paper as they are in your head.
3. Pay attention when colouring.
4. Probably more things.

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?

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever---or else swoon in death.

Again, I apologise for being rubbish at keeping to a schedule. That said it's been a busy week that ended in some pretty good news, so it's not wholly my fault.

Just a quick few things to share with you, that relate to the heartiest of days. Here's a commission of Tom and Beth that I did:

And here's a photograph of it printed onto a canvas, that I was just emailed: 

It came out quite nicely, I thought. 

Finally here is a quick Valentine's Day card I made, for my own entertainment more than anything. You don't seem to get proper cherubs and so on on cards anymore, it seems a shame. 

As I was drawing this I was watching Run Lola Run (for the first time!), and it was fantastic. That said, watching a subtitled film whilst drawing isn't exactly ideal. This only took me half of the duration the film to draw (forty five minutes-ish?) but I probably should have done it in a fraction of the time!

"They must have veered off the road!"

I apologise for the lack of an update last week. I've had a bad hand/wrist, and so I've not drawn much. Next time I'll do something as a filler, be it words or someone else's pictures. Or both.

Anyway, as a result of minimal drawing time these are all very quick daily sketches:

This one is of Carys from La Ville Inconnue

All of these, and others, are already up on my Tumblr as well. 

"It definitely looks like they got in over this wall"

I don't really want to show anything from The Lost Emperor yet (not that there's much to show) so instead this update will be a few of my daily sketches. These usually appear on my tumblr as well.

I also thought it might be interesting to see the stages I go through when drawing, in this case, a fairly simple picture of a face. I'm still working out how to draw on a computer myself, so a lot of the time I'm making it up as I go along. The pictures should speak for themselves:

Not long after this Tracy J. Butler's guide to expressions did the rounds on twitter, and from there I found my way to the How-to-Draw and How-to-Paint sections of her website. I then had a lie down and have a bit of a cry. (In all seriousness though, how brilliant is that website? I don't even particularly like cats!)

I bought Marc Ellerby's latest Chloe Noonan book the other day, and enjoyed it a lot (you can buy it here), and so drew a picture of the titular character: 

The following pictures are just me trying out various things for the most part: