Dark Hunter - The Stone Witch

Written by Benjamin Hulme-Cross; published by A&C Black.

Eerie Graveyards, Demonic Playing Cards and Crazy Cats

A few more highlights from the 'Jason Strange' series for Stone Arch Books...

'The Graveyard Plot'





'The Demon Card'





'Strays'

23 Crow's Perch

Here's what constitutes a hefty chunk of my Big Fat Year Of Greyscaley Goodness: interior illustration duties for the 'Jason Strange' series, for my old friends at Stone Arch Books (see John Henry and Tom Thumb previously). Four books, ten illustrations in each. A great opportunity to try out some new working methods, and refine and develop others along the way.

Pipkins Comic - Glimpse No 1

Ah, Hartley Hare. So wrong and yet so right. Pipkins was a kids TV show that ran through the 1970s, and the little me lapped up pretty much every episode - my tiny child brain had Hartley down as an icon before I even knew what an icon was. Looking back on the show as an adult, I could see just how bleak and odd it had been: grey, threadbare, sometimes slightly sinister. How could those eerie looking puppets have been considered in any way appealing..? I don't know, but I spent many happy hours with them. Hartley in particular rocked. He was like a plummy, petulant, middle-aged luvvie trapped in the body of a re-animated animal cadaver - how's that for a role model? Like much of what I watched back then, Pipkins almost certainly re-wired my brain for the better, opening it up to a notion I still hold dear, that there's much to love in the subtly/openly/certifiably unhinged.

Anyway, Paul O'Connell and I have just cooked up this three page tribute, re-imagining the puppets of Pipkins as a failed therapeutic community, for upcoming small press release "Look Out" (other children of the 70s may well get that particular reference). Loads of top comic folk will be celebrating/perverting the TV of their childhood in its pages, so it should be something special. More news soon.

Jabberwocky

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!


I'm having huge fun with Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. This take on the titular beast may well be a cover version of John Tenniel's frankly quite fearsome original, but I've tried throwing in a bit of extra whiffle and burble to highlight the absurd comedy lurking alongside the weird terror.

Satan's Hens

The colour palette for this piece is going to have more than a hint of fire and brimstone to it, but for now it's depicting a fairly straightforward evening of sozzled pre-nuptial tomfoolery.

Jenny Everywhere

For an imminent caption competition over on the Shifter Archive.

"I Was Built With A Smile On My Face" - Process 3

After a lengthy hiatus, I'm back on the case with this jolly robo-fest. Since starting it late last year we've traded in our trusty, tiny old laptop for a shiny new iMac. The difference in screen size, not to mention processing clout, is just incredible; every last inch of an illustration can now be seen on the display, at it's actual size, simultaneously. It's been like moving into a bright, airy penthouse studio after working for years in a cupboard under the stairs.

So this one's been expanded from an A3 portrait into an A2 landscape, and had a couple of banished 'bots reinstated and repositioned while I rethink the colour scheme.

The Cosmics

The Cosmics in disguise...

... and as Old Mother Cosmos intended them. Apart from the wigs, that is.

More Zombies Vs Spooks

Here's a modest expansion on what's happening with these zombified kids from a page or so back.





The style's lurched sideways a tad, for sure. The first few were incredibly black, which was fine, but this time around I thought I'd try and suggest the nocturnal nature of things with texture and shading rather than huge impenetrable slabs of digital ink.

The characters don't even have names yet, but I'm rather enjoying working/finding out where they're heading...

Zombies Vs Spooks

Portfolio pieces illustrating scenes from a story that doesn't yet exist. Coming up with vague notions is so much easier than actually writing stuff.

The Feather Giants/Red Etin

From the top:
The Feather Giants (looming, lanky offworlders who live in my head)
Red Etin (obscure tri-headed ne'er-do-well from Scottish folklore)

Digital inking (on the left) from loose analogue sketches (on the right). I spent ages trying out different techniques on these two and, feeling quite confident and robust for having done so, am launching straight into some new 'uns...