SOME ART WHAT I DONE

First Post, With Cool Stuff

‘Allo ‘allo!

I’ve decided, while I’m working on my website, to build up a bit more of a portfolio and start an art blog to hoard all my work. Like a big ugly art dragon. I’m mainly a character designer/illustrator, but I will pop any life drawing and observational sketching I do on here as well (I just bought a new moleskin, so I’m buzzing with the energy that always  comes with buying a new sketchbook :D). I’m also working on a graphic novel with a university friend, so you may, god willing, see snippets of that.

BUT UNTIL THEN.

I went to a signing today! At Newcastle’s adorable and tiny comic book store Travelling Man, to meet the unsurpassable geniuses writer and artist behind Marvel’s Journey Into Mystery: Fear Itself: Kieron Gillen and Doug Braithwaite. They were awesome. Antony Johnston (writer behind Wasteland and many, many other fabulous things) was there too, and they were all fantastically friendly and chatted about everything from the publication and printing process to their previous misadventures in Newcastle, which mostly involved alcohol (but if you know anything about this place, you’ll know most stories do).

Doug was also being extremely obliging and doing sketches for anyone who’d had the foresight to come with spare paper, and watching him whip out five minute, full-detail sketches of Loki in full armour or Batman under a Gotham skyline was amazing to watch. (You can actually see him finishing up a colour sketch in this photo.)

Seeing as I personally hadn’t had the sense to take my sketchbook with me, I somehow got the extra privilege of Kieron, the writer, asking if I wanted him to have a go at sketching something instead (he must have seen me looking forlornly at other people’s sketches, because I was apparently the only person he’d yet to ask, which was really quite touching and also a bit embarrassing, because nearly everybody else had brought paper). He quite rightly assumed my favourite character was Loki (Kieron said Loki was possibly the most fun and interesting character he’d ever had the pleasure of writing, for ‘obvious reasons’) and drew me this adorable sketch of ‘Old Dead Loki’ and ‘Young Happy Loki’:

How awesome is that.

There was an awkward little interval between passing Antony Johnston and getting my book signed in which there was an obvious gap between Wasteland fans and JiM fans, where Antony was just kind of twiddling his thumbs for a bit. The organiser of the signing made a little joke about asking everyone in the queue to pretty please just give him something to sign so he didn’t look so lonely, and I caved like nobody’s business. ‘Oh look, here’s a copy of Wasteland! Just sitting right here in front of me! I’ll buy it if you sign it!’ And he just looked at me like oh god thank you and I have never received such sincere thanks from anybody in my entire life. I didn’t even really know what it was about, but after getting home and reading it I can tell you that it is, actually, fantastic and highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t yet picked it up.

All in all I had a really great time, and I hope everyone else who turned up - including the guys who were signing, obviously - had a great time too.

Next post will be ART.

I swear!