In Living COLOUR

A smattering of some recent colour sketches I did using some old watercolour pencils I found in my studio space. These were a ton of fun to do, and a nice departure from my ink stuff (my "real" job). I used the watercolour pencils for the colour bits, then added some black ink and gouache white to help with the values. Nice.

NEWS PUNCH

As you may or may not know I have two pretty big books out soon. Up first from Boom! Studios is BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. I'm working with one of my favourite writers on this - Fred Van Lente - and he's genuinely providing me some of the sharpest, funniest scripts I've ever read. He's done ol Jack Burton proud! Here's a taster from issue 18 

Then in December, JUDGE DREDD issue one from IDW hits the stands. Written by Ulises Farinas and Erick Freitas, pencils and inks by me. Wait till you see this thing - it's going to be incredible. Here's a taste 

And that's all the news that's fit to print - come back soon for more STUFF 

LOVE YOU!!!

- D

ONE PUNCH

A Batman/Lord Death Man piece I just drew. Can you tell I had fun drawing this? I TOTALLY DID.

HAND LETTERING

ALL THE WAY BABY

SECRET PROJECT X

A couple of sneaky looks at something I'm working on right now. Creator owned, self published, hopefully out this summer. A sci-fi miasma: watch for it!

HERE COMES THE JUDGE

Judge Dredd piece for A Secret Thing

IN THE DETAIL

I didn't enjoy the Daredevil TV show that much. Indeed I couldn't get past the first episode, which seemed to feature a woman getting abused or threatened with violence every five minutes or so. Want to catalyse your plot? Boom! Here's some sex slaves. But how to get our hero invested? Boom! Here's a crying woman getting half strangled in a police cell. This is schlocky, exploitative shit, and I'm not convinced it's good enough. Maybe it reflects the way the world actually is? God, I hope not.

I'm not saying all depictions of women in media need to be positive - of course I'm not - but geez can we not hit the VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN button quite so damn much in these superhero stories? I'd like to watch one of these stupid things with my missus without having to continually shout "I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS" inside my mind.

Anyway, I still love you Daredevil, and here's a recent DD commission.

GRODD LIVES

Have I made it clear how much I love the Flash TV show? What's that? I've said it approx 20 million times? Well, alright then. JUST SO WE'RE CLEAR.

Here's Gorilla Grodd!

D

LIGHTNING STRIKES!

This is probably my new con banner - watch for it!

SCREW TUMBLR

BLOGGER 4 LIFE

CITY OF THE APES

Today's Best Panel, loves. Hope yez like it.

BANE WEEK DAY TWO

This is *breathes heavily through ridiculous mask* "Nolan Bane". 

BANE WEEK DAY ONE

*Breathes heavily through mask* WELCOME MY FRIENDS. I AM COCKNEY ROMANY POSH BOY BOXER BANE. YOU CANNOT SEE ME, BUT I AM CLUTCHING MY LAPELS AS I TYPE THIS. I AM TYPING THIS WITH MY FACE. SOON I WILL TAKE GOTHAM AND BREAK THE BAT

*clears throat*

This is the Knightfall/early 90s model of Bane, drawn from memory. I think I’ve always been fascinated by Bane, though he’s patently an absurd character: an all in luchadore style wrestler with a Very Special Episode/Just Say No message tacked on for some reason. He’s not just bad for Batman, kids, he’s bad for YOU. Just say no. To Venom. If there was a drug called Venom, no one would touch it, let’s be honest. And head for the streets of any provincial British town you’ll be see a horde of would-be Banes, all henched up on creatine and determined to “smash” a “bat”. That’s the key, call it Venom in the labs if you want, but when it’s out on the streets call it something positive like “Make Be Strong” (MBS for short)

Where was I?

It’s Bane Week on the blog! I’ll draw a Bane a day, a different version a day. I think there’s at least five or six extant Banes running around, and if I’ve got time I’ll draw them all. We’ll start with this guy – Prime Bane – and go from there.

BANE WEEK

WATCHING

Pope's eyes from issue four of Apes. Pencils and inks

UH OH

From Apes issue four - something worrying has just happened off panel

ACTION PACKED

A panel from Apes four - girl punches man. HARD.

THE FIRE RISES

Pope and his apes from issue four of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. This is from a page that I didn't have time to rough beforehand, so I just went straight to the page with pencil then ink. It was quite a fun, instinctive way to work, not entirely recommended as it was also very stressful, but it came out nice for the lack of over-thinking.

You can see some of the changes I made during the ink stage, removing some figures, adding others and a few extra details. This is going to be an interesting panel to colour, I think.

WILD-CAT

Absolutely love drawing this guy. I don't think he "exists" at the moment, which is a shame. 

SNAPSHOT

A little look at what's on my drawing board today. Spoiler: it's Apes

STRETCHING CREDIBILITY

To my astonishment, that new Fantastic Four trailer looks incredible. A genuinely unexpected take on the classic Marvel family. It's portentous, ponderous and bloviated, but undeniably rich and intriguing, with surprising horror overtones. Similar in style to X-Men Days of Future Past. So similar, in fact,  I'm expecting a post credits teaser featuring Magneto.

This is all just preamble for me to post this, of course:

FFF

Cora, from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes issue four

APE RAGE

From today's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - ruthlessly inked while listening to Generation Terrorists on a loop

Sunday Apes

Really pleased with my inks in this one.

Constant(ine) craving

Quick John "Hellblazer" Constantine sketch from a while back. Not altogether sure if the colour approach works here, but I like it well enough.

Flash and substance

I drew it, then Ferocious Nathan Fairbairn coloured it. Fairbairn's subtle, sympathetic approach takes my breath away - love it.

Hot Ape Chat

A panel from today's Planet of the Apes work. Into the ink phase of the issue now - my actual favourite.

Head to Head

One of my favourite scenes from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes issue four. A quiet, sad moment between Malcom and his missus. Much as I love drawing bombast, action and asplosions, I like the quieter stuff too.

PS.

Can't wait till they do Gorilla Grodd

Flash! AAAAAAAHHHHH

How much am I enjoying the Flash on Sky One? The answer is: SO MUCH. There are minor flaws - the girl who plays Iris West is insanely annoying and it's often a bit too neat/cute. But it's also well acted, exciting and occasionally even kind of scary (their version of the Reverse Flash is a real terror)

So, I like it a lot. And I drew the lead guy from it. Whatshisname. The Streak.