Tumbleweeds Begone

So, "Get's Sketchy" takes it's first belated breath of 2011. It's not been a case of outright negligence on my part, honestly - I've actually been pretty busy with jobs and projects, many of which I'll babble excitedly about soon-ish, but for now (and having remembered that this blog is supposed to have, you know, sketches and stuff on it) here are some random scribbles from the archive...

The Ogre Reflects (A Bit More Colourfully This Time Around...)

(The original b&w version...)

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.

Monstrous Santa

This year's Evergeen Xmas card. Inspired by Scared Of Santa, a site that never fails to get me in a festive mood.

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.