Dinosaurs

My last drawing if the year. 2 Dinosaurs.
Happy New Year one and all.

Dante Clause

Fork

Tiny City Sketch

A Mid-Autumn Night's Dream

My new short comic "A Mid-Autumn Night's Dream" is up at Act-i-Vate Comix: the online comics collective where you can check out many independent comics. I'm very excited to be part of this website, and will be uploading new comics the 15th of every month starting today! Here's a sneak peek at one of the pages. This is a 5 page self contained story about a lost man in the enchanted forest.

You can read the web comic format at http://activatecomix.com. It's currently the first one on the front page. You can also view the full page version of this comics at my deviantart site.

Sword

I've been away. Now I'm back.

Sailor Pen again

Warm up with Sailor Pen...

Costume test

A costume test idea for the new Lilly story. I'm getting to it, but there are so many other things happening that I've found it hard to get into the regular rhythm required to sneak an extra page out a week. Bear with me.

Woman with a canonical hat

In an effort to assuage Tim's depraved conical hat fetish. Here's a woman with a conical hat.

Remember when we used to post conical hat women?

Water colorings

Blacks and white warm ups...

Black Panther & Storm

So I'm doing another drawing for the Women of Wonder Day Charity event . We at the studio have been doing this for some years now and some of them have been posted here , here , here , hereish & here ( there are a bunch more )
So I was asked if I would draw Storm & Black Panther this year ( Marvel Universe characters created by Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby respectively ). Apparently the 2 of them are married now, which makes sense as they are both African nobility and they presumably have a lot in common. These 2 are probably the most well known African characters ( as distinct from African-American ) in mainstream comics and as such I'm quite fond of them both. Africa tends to get a pretty raw deal in the popular media, which is something I'm sensitive about as I lived in East Africa for 7 years.
One of the most interesting , and under-appreciated things, about Africa is its sheer size and diversity. In terms of human biodiversity alone I have a closer genetic relation to Emperor Akihito than Djimon Hounsou has to Nelson Mandela. So in this instance I've decided to make the 2 characters quite racially distinct from each other as if they came from 2 very diverse corners of the continent ( and Storm is half American .) Storm's Mum is from one of the northern tribes of Kenya I'm assuming , so right up near the Somali border where the people are quite tall and fine boned lets say. T'Challa I've always assumed was a west African king which would make Wakanda somewhere near Benin or Togo possibly. People over there tend to be broader, with strong features, something you can see in the African American people you see on the streets of New York today. Their ancestors were probably kidnapped from West Africa during the slave trade so that makes sense.
Anyway I wanted to do a smaller more intimate moment between two characters who love each other rather than some thundering scene of impending violence. 'Cos that's how I roll .
This is a work in progress......

UPDATE: I swapped it out for a more finished version.

Back from Vacation

Trying to warm up:

Finding a character

I'm working on a lot of pitches at the moment. I'm trying to use actors to give me an 'in' with drawing a certain character. So in this case I opted for Ashley Judd. I'm not saying that the final character will look like Ms. Judd, just that she will be informed by her. Characters tend to be very mutable at the beginning and arrive at their ideal shape with a bit more drawing.

I'm constantly fighting myself to make hair bigger I find. Even if I add more, it's never quite enough.

Not warm ups....

...but I haven't posted here lately so...

Sergio Toppi R.I.P

In memory of the great Sergio Toppi who passed away this week. Thank you for all those beautiful lines Maestro.
Now would someone get all his books back into print ASAP. Thanks.

Warm up face

Furry Guard warm up

R.I.P.

Toppi. I can't draw like him.

H.P. Lovecraft's birthday was yesterday so here is some oddness!

Warm up with horse sketching...

Hairy Man warm up sketch

Tim Hamilton Warm Up 8/15/12

R.I.P. Joe Kubert

Sgt. Rock - R.I.P Joe Kubert

I never met Joe Kubert , I never went to his school , but he taught me a lot. He taught me about the power of linework, drama and composition. He was an astonishingly graceful and powerful artist. His facility was legendary and his contribution to the medium of comics is huge and long lasting. Quite simply there was and is nobody better. Thank you Mr Kubert.

Judge Anderson by Simon Fraser

Here's an illustration of Judge Anderson from 2000 A.D.'s Judge Dredd series.

Lono and Pira from Spera

Tim Hamilton Warm Up 8/10/12

Tim Hamilton Warm Up Sketch 8/9/12

These sketches were inspired by the works of the artist Hokusai

Warm Up Sketch 8/8/12

Here's another warm up sketch by Tim Hamilton.

Warm Up Sketch

Here's a warm up sketch done by Tim Hamilton.

Warming up

Egyptian type fooling about...

Stuff Around The Studio: Reilly Brown Edition

Among the many comic collections at Hypothetical Island Studios you’ll find Reilly Brown’s diverse collection. From Marvel Classics to Japanese Manga Reilly’s collection covers a wide spectrum. Many of the books serve as inspiration and reference for Reilly’s own comics.

Captain America illustration by George O'Connor and Simon Fraser.

Here is another collaboration with artists George O’Connor and Simon Fraser. George penciled the Captain and Simon finished it off in ink.

EDIT: Here's the pencil so you can see how much I screwed around with George's drawing. I am a bad person.

Judge Dredd by Fraser & O'Connor

Ok this is a pencil of Judge Dredd by Simon Fraser and then inked by Mr. George O'Connor. I like it!

Exquisite Corpse V.2

Ok the top is by James Smith
The middle by Simon Fraser
The bottom by Joan Reilly

Exquisite Corpse

You all know what that is right?
Simon drew the bit at the left without seeing what I drew in the
middle without seeing what Ellen drew on the right.

That's all clear right?
Right?

Mike Cavallaro's Aquaman

Mike drew an Aquaman and three of us inked it.
From top to bottom the inks are:
Tim Hamilton
Simon Fraser
Joe Infunari

Khill Kitty by Tim Hamilton and George O'Connor

Messing around the studio:
Tim Hamilton pencils and George O’Connor inks Tim’s character Khill Kitty. As you can see here Tim is trying his hand at children’s books.

Dante by Fraser and Hamilton

Yesterday Simon drew one more Dante, and today I inked it!
That's right! THE last Dante he'll ever draw! Making the original art
for this priceless!Do you hear?! PRICELESS!

GOD . OF . THUNDER !!!

So I really tried to draw the Marvel Kirby Thor, but as much as Jack Kirby is the absolute king of high impact dynamics, his Thor is kinda....weak. He's the GOD of THUNDER ferchrissakes! So I drew my own version. It's a big drawing 'cos I wanted to ink it with big sloppy markers.

Knotts inked

This is Tim Hamilton's character Knotts drawn by Tim then inked by me. I've inked Tim a few times, most notably on Nikolai Dante, it's always fun.
I've got a Thor drawing to follow that's inked a bit differently.

Team up sketches

Friday, at the studio, after I did real work, George O'Connor was drawing stuff for fun like the Thor in the previous post. So I drew a Thor for him to ink and he drew a Yellow Jacket for ME to ink.
Results below!

It's Thorsday!

Man, that title would've been funnier if I posted it on an actual Thursday. Well, thank gods it's Friday! how's that?

First post in an age and a half I know. I've gotten away from drawing for actual fun for, like, months now, so today I came in the studio and was like "I'ma gonn draw somethin' fun! And differen'! Like a Superhero!!!" So I drew Thor, whose also a god. And consequently, not all that different than what i normally draw. Baby steps, baby steps.