Morning Sketch: Noir Man

Shadowquake

A clip from "Shadowquake & Shnookie", a one-pager lined up to appear in forthcoming robots-themed comics anthology Fat Chunk.

Emergency!

No idea what these poor souls are fleeing from...

I've been waking myself up to the joys of "inking" with a Wacom tablet lately. The less I try to replicate what I'd do with ink on paper, the more fun it is. It's a lot like swapping between guitar and keyboard, actually; a riff you write on one will have a fresh, different feel when played on the other, and spark off a load of new ideas into the bargain.

The scope for recklessness when drawing straight onto the screen is totally liberating. Inking on paper can be pretty nerve wracking, especially if you're doing a "finished piece"; at worst you can seize up and mislay all traces of spontaneity. I've been forcing myself to try and chill the fuck out on this front for ages, and seeing how well some of these chunky, jagged, unrehearsed graphics tab lines are turning out is quite an eye opener.

Trumps

Pieces produced last year for Monster.co.uk's weekly mailouts.

I actually quite enjoy having to apropriate a different style every now and again, especially if it means forcing myself to get to grips with a strange, alien piece of software; in this case, Illustrator. Monster's erstwhile cartoon mascot, Trump, called for this approach, all clean vector lines and shapes - not my usual forte at all. After one very long, painful day spent hacking my befuddled way through the first one, the subsequent Trumps averaged out at two or three hours each. Very intuitive and pleasant it was, too.

There were initially going to be 52 of these themed thumbnails - a year's worth - but half way through the job it was decided to re-brand the company and unceremoniously ditch the poor beast. Ulp. I hear he's on the meths these days. Nothing to do with my rendition, I hope.