1950s Monsters

Rediscovered in a cobweb coated corner of my hard drive this morning. 'Always really liked this sketch. I had half a mind at the time to expand it into a riotous street scene full of rampaging teddy monsters and beastly beehives.

Book Cover for Penguin

I'm not going to mention the name of the book, or the bestselling author who wrote it, as this isn't the image that's going to be adorning it when it emerges. Unfortunately it wasn't something that Penguin's sales and marketing department felt they could work with.

Short term disappointment aside, it was a hugely fun job, and having made a few friends within such a prestigious publisher in the process, I'm not complaining!

As an aside, I got the job thanks to this old portfolio piece:



The art team liked the wham-bam dynamics and perspective, and asked for it to form the basis of the new image. So it's basically a remix. Always good fun to re-visit olden efforts and see what else you can do with them!

Horses

A behind the scenes peek at some development work I'm doing for Templar Publishing. The drawing and shading is all done on various hue/saturation layers, which informs how the colours, when they eventually arrive, will appear underneath.

A Tale Dark & Grimm - Process

Great experience, this. And a firm reminder of an illustration basic that can all too easily go astray in the heat of a job requiring a fast turnaround, ie: get the pencils at least 80% right before proceeding to the finals! You'll see what I mean...

The client wanted something quirky and Coraline-ish, nothing too realistic; exaggerated proportions with a dark, bloody atmosphere. But not too dark and bloody. So I just thought: Stylistic Big Head. Instant gentle cartoonishness. Trouble is, if you're not careful, this can make the characters look younger than they should be...

Hansel and Gretel do actually age a good few years throughout the book (which, in a neat sort of way, is reflected in how they evolve from the rough at the top there to the finished piece down at the bottom). But do you depict them as the unfortunate babes in peril they are at the start of the book, or the much more rounded, life-or-death-decision making young adults they've become by the end..? Or somewhere inbetween? Unconsciously, I think I went for somewhere inbetween. Best of both worlds, you know?

Ooh it's a minefield...

Anyway, the initial rough was approved with the proviso that the characters needed to look older and exude plenty of extra attitude...

This being a bit of a rush job, as well as my first proper book cover, my brain was totally focussed on the finish. It has to look great.  No room for ineptness anywhere...

So although H & G's faces have evolved somewhat from the rough...

...maybe I've been getting sidetracked by the rendering.

It's certainly not floating the client's boat just yet. Too young? Lacking in quirk and attitude? Let's try this...

No? Ah.

Gretel's not bad, but Hansel looks like Morten Harket's evil younger brother. I'm somehow just not getting it, which doesn't often happen. It's starting to feel like stage fright.

Swap them around. Give Hansel the sword and Gretel a dagger. Make him look more aspirational...

No..? Okay...

Let's abandon the computer for an hour, pick up a pencil, grab a piece of paper and draw...

Yes...? Excellent.

And there we have it. Looking back, I really like all the different takes; it feels like there's an appropriate version for each section of the story.

Anyway, 'hope this made for an interesting insight into the rollercoaster world of cover illustration! As mentioned previously, on this blog and in reviews all over the universe, this book is a blinding read, so if lashings of blacker-than-black humour and dark, breathless adventure are your thing...

A Tale Dark & Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz, published in the UK by Andersen Press.

Adam's site.

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'

"Is There Anybody There?"

Illustrations for A&C Black/Bloomsbury, a creepy 'seance gone weird' tale. We've all had one of those. Brrrrr.

Evil Vampirical Thing

Knowing me this'll get tampered with again in a week or so, but it's pretty much finished. It's called "Vampire". That's right. "Vampire". "Wow Nelson," says you, the reader, "You surely went on an epic mental journey to arrive at that one".

After years of mucking about in Photoshop, I'm finally getting cosy with a defined set of techniques which feel just right, and that means the production of this stuff seems to be speeding up and up. Not before bloody time!

Vampire Cover / New British Comics 3

My agency suggested it might be an idea to knock up some "pretend" book covers to go in my portfolio. They're absolutely right. I really should have been doing this sort of thing - young protagonist having a to-do with very bad thing, or things (with space for letters at the top) - for ages. Here's the beginnings of a vampire themed one, vampires being good subject matter because they quite simply refuse to go out of fashion.

Speaking of covers, how about this utter beauty by Lawrence Elwick?

Can't wait to see this. Check out the NBC blog for the "tracklisting".

Lunar Yetis Catching Frisky Facefluffs

Working on covers for Penguin US and Andersen Press at the moment, which is all very secret - so to keep this here blog rolling here's a sample page from a picture book idea my girlfriend and I are quietly knocking together. I roughed out a tentative first draft of the whole thing in pencil recently, and figured one or two pages worked well enough to make for decent portfolio pieces. Draft no 2 will be underway before too long, hopefully...

1001 Nights

I'm supposed to not be doing unpaid/exposure jobs anymore. It gets me in big trouble with my girlfriend. I'm a hopeless addict, seized by a furtive need to put pictures to other peoples' scripts. She's seen me do dozens of these things over the last ten years, and heard me wheeling out the same (increasingly hollow) justifications: "it'll be good experience...", "You never know, someone might see it and offer me some paid work..." etc etc. I'm aware that I have a problem. Truly I am. Although the fear of my beloved's withering gaze is enough to keep me on the straight and narrow most of the time, when I do crumble, and crumble I always do, it's mainly down to my absurd inability to remember just how long it takes me to actually do the damn things.

Anyway, so there's this 'fairytales in the future' comics anthology that's been in the works for a year or so, marshalled by Chris Stevens over on Digital Webbing. That's right: fairytales in the future. Straight away you sense that the abstinence/participation battle in Nelson's poor brain was only ever going to go one way. And then Chris (evil pusherman that he is) delivered the killer blow: an invitation to illustrate the update of 1001 Nights, pencilled in as the opening strip in the book.

My resistance went majorly kaput due to Tara Alexander's lovely script, which is an out and out love letter to the joys of comics (and by extension the timeless clout of good storytelling in general). Especially appealing was the sweet, subtle human love story running throughout; I knew I was going to relish trying to nail something of the weird, delirious awkwardness that ripples through your head, heart and gut when Crush at First Sight occurs.


If the script wasn't enough, Farel Dalrymple, one of my favourite (and no doubt everyone else's favourite) comic artists is doing the cover.

I even got to go a bit mental in the middle:


It sounds like it's going to be a pretty massive affair: 300+ pages, loaded with strips and pin-ups, all massively varied in style and tone. One to watch? Absolutely. Is this the very last unpaid/exposure comic I ever do, straight up, no messing, honest to god..?

Absolutely. I'm finally CLEAN!

Jabberwocky Again

Never being one to leave well enough alone, I revisited this image the other day with the intention of colouring it, but the pre-prep got out of control and accelerated into a hefty b&w remix instead. I've got a thing right now about developing and mastering a few techniques which will allow me to produce etchings (of sorts) within Photoshop. I've always loved the textures and detail possible within that area of printmaking, and have spent plenty of time struggling manfully to recreate them using other media - a pretty curious thing to do when there's an actual printing workshop just down the road (shame it costs money - ah, maybe one day...) But yes, with judicious use of texture brushes and line, I reckon it's all very attainable on the monitor.

Anyway, now I really do have to go and do a colour version.

March Update

Wow, here's me actually remembering to post something.

Been busy with character designs and a sample spread for a very exciting job, as well as the work-in-progress portfolio pieces you can see here. They're doubling up nicely as character design/concept illustrations for Roof Monsters, which is coming along pretty well. One of the trickiest bits has been getting it's child stars right, both as written personalities and visually (the Roof Monsters themselves are a doddle).

My other half/writing partner is not at all happy with the girl's current hairstyle, or indeed the shape of her head in general. I know better than to argue, so a makeover is surely imminent...


More about Roof Monsters some other time. I'll leave you with these process shots of The Idiot Trolls. I'm sure there's a picture book brewing in there...

I Was Built With A Smile On My Face

Finally put paid to this ancient work-in-progress. I like the scrappy bits best. It was pretty tempting to start over from scratch and turn it into a glorified gung-ho sketch...

Actually, I've had it with labouring endlessly over this shit! New Year's Resolution for 2010 = Loosen Up!

Troll vs Goat - Process 1

The Three Billy Goats Gruff has always been one of my favourite fairy tales, thanks in no small part to Robert Lumley's delicious illustrations for Ladybird's Well Loved Tales edition. Lumley's troll, scary yet weirdly cuddly, has lurked in some primal cranny of my skull ever since. Plus it's got goats in it, and goats are superb.

I'm working on a short sequence to illustrate the story's climax. 1: Troll confronts goat. 2: Goat charges at troll. 3: Troll rues the day.

"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.

Medusa - Process 4 (Final)

Slapped on a blue-ish overlay to offset some of that orange, tightened up a few outlines, and did some general tinkering. Done!

Flight Of The Cosmics - Process 5

I accidentally jettisoned most of of the "spaceyness" in the previous installment, they looked like they were in a volcano or something. Which was all very well. But spaceyness is better.
It's as good as finished, anyway. Hurrah! Hang on, maybe the fluffy dice need a touch more rendering...

Medusa - Process 3

Allllmost there...

Process shots here.

Flight Of The Cosmics - Process 4

After a long, long delay I finally got 'round to snatching a day's work on this one.

It's either getting thoroughly out of control or it's very nearly finished! Answers on a postcard please. No doubt my poor melting eyeballs will be less addled after a good night's kip and I'll be fit to attack it afresh.

(NB: it looked like this twelve hours ago, so it's definitely going somewhere:)

John Henry

This here's the cover of an upcoming edition of the Graphic Spin series of graphic novellas for young readers, published by US publisher Stone Arch Books. The series deals with the re-telling of popular folk and fairytales; previous highlights include Luke Feldman's (a.k.a. Skaffs) vectorious take on Beauty & The Beast.

The tale of John Henry was completely new to me (this is probably the case for most folk outside the United States), and it's a fascinating yarn, partly because the source period of the story is relatively recent: post civil war America. I'm hard pressed to think of many folk tales/myths which are derived from a time during which people were actually walking around with cameras. So naturally I've done a demented amount of research, just because the lovely, lovely internet made it all so easy: steamboats, 19th century railroad construction, the colour and atmosphere of the West Virginian countryside etc.

Anyway, all that googling is getting translated into the finished pages right now. Here's a few process shots of the cover from rough to completion...




(That leg on the left had a particularly thrilling journey, didn't it? Aaaand relax...)