I Heart Cute Colouring Book!

A couple of months back, I had the pleasure of working on a cool little colouring book for Buster Books! It's out in October and can be pre-ordered here! :D

Book excitement!

I've been really bad at blogging lately so I'm giving myself a kick up the backside to get back into it! (please check out my Tumblr page for more frequent art dumps). August is going to be a very exciting month as my picture book I Know Sasquatch is being released! It can be pre-ordered over at Amazon and I'm very excited about it! My wonderful publishers have been Tweeting little snippets and I'm also hoping to make some cool little freebies for the release in the next few weeks! :D

The Cute and the Weird Volume 3!

 

My new book turned up today! I was hoping I might have finished The Cute and the Weird Volume 3 before the Bristol Comics Expo but got it to the printers a little bit too late . I will have it for the MCM Expo though, so please do swing by my table if you would like a copy!

Comics Land!

HUZZAH! I can finally blab about the awesome kid's books I've been working on! For the last year, I've been drawing a set of graphic novels for 5-7 year olds with the absolutely awesome Stone Arch Books, who I met at the New York Comic Con way back in 2010. I was over-the-moon when nearly 2 years later, I got an email asking if I'd like to work on a series for them. YES! It has turned out to be the best job I've ever had! :P

 

The series is called Comics Land and the books feature dinosaurs, robots, aliens and a whole lot of how-comics-work info for kids. The first two books, Dinosaurs For Breakfast and Snorkeling With Sea-Bots will be out at the beginning of March. I'm currently working on a second series of books which I also can't wait to share as the stories are so much fun and feature monkeys, goats and a whole lot of beans! I love that they've been designed as introductory comics for children and I really hope kids (and grown-ups!) will enjoy them. Here are some bits and pieces from the first series! All of the pages are minus the text and dialogue for the minute, but I'll be posting photos of the innards of the books when I get my copies.

 

 

Quite possibly my favourite book of the four is Dinosaurs for Breakfast! The main characters are a boy and his pet dinosaur, who keeps growing as the story progresses. Drawing dinosaurs is never a chore, especially when I get to make them look cute!

 



 

 

Josh and Rexy, before he starts to grow!

 

 

Josh looking after his egg - what will it hatch into?

 

Snorkeling With Sea-Bots -  Kolten goes snorkeling and discovers that the movements of the sea are controlled by a city of robots! Too much fun to draw an underwater robot city - pics coming soon! :P

 



 

 

Kolten and Rip the Sea-Bot.

 

I wish I could find a robot when I go snorkeling...

 

 

The New Kid From Planet Glorf - Sean goes into school after forgetting his book and finds an alien kid playing with objects from the classroom! I realised after designing Nurk, the alien boy, that he kind of looks like a space Axolotl!

 

 

 

Nurk of Glorf and Sean of Earth!

Nurk thinks a book is meant for cooling down.

 

 

Blastoff To The Secret Side Of The Moon! - Aaron finds a spaceship behind his house and after accidentally taking off, a secret amusement park on the dark side of the moon! I got to draw tons of aliens for this book! :P

 

 

 Aaron and an alien friend!

 

Aaron at the ship's controls (I loved drawing this!)

 

I'm currently drawing the second series of Comics Land which is somehow even more fun than the first. I've had such a great time drawing these books and I'm really proud to have been asked to draw 8 of them; I really hope people get a kick out of them because the writers have come up with some stories that are very funny, very cool and full of amazing characters. I'll keep you posted on series 2! :P

New book: On The Farm!

Yay! The farm activity book I worked on earlier this year is now listed on Amazon. It comes out in Feb next year and I'm very excited! I've worked on another 4 books in this series, but this is the first whee I did the colour artwork as well as the single colour work. I had a great time with this book and am really looking forward to seeing it when it comes out. I'm also currently working on another book in the series, this one about princesses, so I'm having to channel my girly side! :P

Sneak Peek: Farm Book!

Here are a couple of sneak peeks from the farm activity book I recently finished. I can't wait to see this one as I drew the whole thing rather than just the single-colour line art. I used a mix of drawn and photo elements in this book as the series has mixed media throughout. Hopefully it works! I really enjoyed drawing this book and will hopefully be starting another one quite soon...

Self Publishing is Addictive!

I didn't realise how many Small Press books I've self published over the last year; I think it's safe to say I've got the bug! Although I started to self publish my own comic when I worked in a comic shop back in 2004-2007, it's only really been in the last year or so that I've gotten back into it and started to realise the potential in printing books myself. One thing I love about self publishing is having complete control over what I write and draw; if I have an idea for an activity book or a comic, I can do whatever I want because I know I'm the one paying for printing costs and I have to push myself to sell it. There's also a huge amount of satisfaction (and mild terror) when you receive a box of books from the printers and see them in the flesh for the first time! Somebody recently commented on how much they liked the overall look of my books and how I have my own creative brand going on. Although I feel a lot of my book covers look a bit samey (I'm not the world's best designer) I do like how they all tie together. This is also what I like about a lot of my friends that self publish too; they all have a very distinct and unique look to all of their books (I'll be doing a blog post about some of my favourite small pressers soon!). I've been a part of the UK Small Press scene for a while now and have made some awesome friends through it, all of them very talented.

With the exception of Brains Etc, all of my books have been printed through Inky Little Fingers. I cannot recommend these guys enough; they're fast, easy to print through and the quality, especially colour stuff, is outstanding. They are also extremely reasonable price-wise. Although I only have an electronic proof to check before my books go to print (you can get hard copies but they cost extra) I've come to trust that unless I mess something up on my end, they always do a good job.

Hopefully in a few weeks time I'd have printed my Rather Odd Alphabet and I've made a start on another book, this one with a little bit more narrative that I'm hoping will be really fun!

Books in shops!

I was rather chuffed yesterday to see the books I worked on in WHSmith! Hopefully this time next year, the farm book I'm working on will be alongside them containing artwork that is just all me! :P

My First Creativity: Baby Animals!

I got a copy of one of the four kid's books I drew last year through the post today - yay! I drew all the single colour line art for a series of four activity books, while four different artists did the colour work on each book. I had a lot of fun doing these books and I'm currently working on another one in the series where I'll be doing all of the artwork. The books are aimed at 3 years + and are very cute. I found myself cringing at a lot of my own artwork (I'm never 100% happy with anything I do) but above are some of my favourite pages, mainly because they were a lot of fun to draw! You can get the book on Amazon and hopefully several book shops. I'll be excitedly scouring the kid's section of WHSmith next time I'm in there! XD More pics from the other three books as I get them!

Bristol Comic Expo!

This weekend will see me exhibiting at the Bristol Comic Expo along with a barrage of other talented creators. You'll be able to buy goodies from me as well as my arty fiends James Stayte and Mark Pearce - their table will be heaving with goods, much like a salmon heaves with eggs before laying time.

Come and pick up a couple of packs of my trading prints too; there are 10 rare cards to collect like the one above; see if you can get them all!

The Cute and the Weird!

Yay! My new small press books arrived today and they're looking rather nice! I've started a series called The Cute and the Weird which will be a set of 24 page colour books featuring various bits and bobs of my artwork. Volume 1 contains a set of cartoons I drew called Something Weired Is Going On and Volume 2 is more of a random art book. They're both full colour and will be available to buy at the Bristol Comic Con. I will also have some in my online store soon!

Cosmic Horror Activity book!

My new activity book arrived yesterday and it's looking kind of cool! The book is 28 pages, with greyscale throughout and a full-colour cover! It'll be available at the Bristol Comic Con and MCM Expo in May!

All Kinds Of Stuffs!

No-one can say that 2012 has been a dull year for me so far and it's only the end of March. I drew two kid's books over January and Feb and I've just finished the major story art for the first of four kid's books for an American publisher (20 pages with 48 separate full-colour panels in just over a week). That's pretty much a book a month; no wonder I'm so tired! XD I've also got some cons coming up so I need to get stuck in with making new prints, keyrings, stickers and hopefully, if I get time, a new small press book to go with my Lovecraft book. I have 2 weeks off of work now for Easter so let's hope I can cram in as much as possible! I've also got the next three books in the American series to do over the next few months as well as another activity book starting in mid-April. Come August, I'd have drawn 7 children's books which is a huge accomplishment for me; I'd always hoped I'd get this far and being the pessimistic, under confident person I am, never thought I'd be able to do so much work alongside a part-time job. It's a good job I don't have much of a social life to go with all this! :P

Cosmic Fun!

I've finally finished my Lovecraft small press comic! It will be available at the Bristol Comic Con in May as well as MCM and LFCC too. It's 28 pages with a colour cover and grayscale innards. I hope it appeals to all fans of Lovecraft and maybe even non-Lovecraft fans too!

All-New Brains Etc!

I received a box of the new version of Brains Etc. from the lovely folks at Zeta Comics yesterday, and I have to say, they look awesome! This version has a lovely full-colour card cover and recycled paper pages. This version also has new pages and activities!

Interview and more books!

January is turning out to be a busy month, just when I was expecting not much to happen. I was interviewed by the awesome site, Fuel Your Illustration which is great, full of cool artists and other illustration goodness. I've also landed another kid's book through a publishers I've been wanting to work with for a while and I cannot wait to get started on the project! Hopefully it will lead to other bits through them and I really hope so because I love their stuff. I'm also working on another book about trains so the next few weeks are looking to be a bit busy. I'd rather it were busy than slow! :P

Activity Books Out In May!

The four activity books I drew all the single-colour artwork for are listed on Amazon - yay! They're due for release in May (I want them NOW!) and available for pre-order. The Baby Animals book cover is the only indication so far that my artwork is in them (all of the books have a different colour artist) but it's pretty obvious which element in the picture is mine! XD

Brains Etc. now available for the Kindle!

I'm very happy to announce that Brains Etc. is now available for the Kindle through Amazon! The lovely folks at Zeta Comics are also working on a Brains Etc. colouring app too so I'll keep you all up to date. This is a rather exciting start to the New Year and I can't wait to get started on my new comics for them. I've got two more activity books lined up with them and I'm literally bursting with ideas and can't wait to get started. Brains Etc. will also be available in print later in January. If you've already bought a copy from me at a con this year, the edition through Zeta Comics has more pages drawn especially for this version so you wouldn't be wasting your money! :P

Check Out My Stack!

This is what the last three and a bit months of my life look like in paper:

I can't quite bring myself to throw it away so this stack of paper that equates to four kid's books will be going up in the loft!

Huzzah!

The four kid's books I've been working on since September are now over - hooray! I can't wait for them to come out; my work will be alongside a different colour artist for each book so it will be interesting to see how they all go together! Hopefully I will be doing another book in the series in the New Year too; just waiting on more info from the editor!

I can now spend some time playing on my DS, reading my Kindle and working on some new comics for next year's cons!