New Watercolour - The Exorcist

A favourite topic of conversation in the pubs around Gwelf is the legendary and elusive exorcist, Nanny Furlong.  Here we see here on Cabbage Street in the suburb of Inverary standing in front of the site of a recent cleansing.  The offending poltergeist captured and trapped within her traveling case.  Her recent notoriety has caused her to use evasion spells and even those that know where she lives get lost and confused.

Just a quick reminder -  I will be heading to Burbank California in a few days for the CTNX animation convention, so if you are in the area please stop by and say hello.  November 20 - 22.

More soon.

The Raven Witch - Graphic Novel Update

This is the villain of the story as many of you have probably already guessed.  The story is going to be about a violent witch attack in Gwelf.

The Raven witch is a dark and cruel predator.  She often travels with and is aided by bird goblins.  She carries a long wooden hook for grabbing victims and is well armed with edged weapons, throwing spells and sonic pacifiers.  She is absolutely the last thing you would ever want to see if you were unlucky enough to find yourself walking home alone on a lonely road in Gwelf, after dark, in the autumn or winter.  Pray for a quick end.

Raven Witch 2

Some alternative concept and design ideas for the Raven Witch graphic novel page I posted last week. I had a lot of ideas for that one page and found it difficult to narrow it down to the choices I made. Here are some of the other things I was considering. It looks now like one way or another this book is going to happen, so there are going to be many more choices that will have to be made.

I liked the idea of putting the Twig Pixies under the mushrooms but eventually decided that it might not be right for the gloomy, haunted forest mood I was after. This page got progressively spookier as I worked on it. It seemed to require an ever darkening mood, or at least I became happier with it as the shadows lengthened.

Thanks for stopping by everyone. More soon.

Graphic Novel Page - The Raven Witch

I have been negotiating back and forth for the last little while with Lombard Editions in Belgium. They do graphic novels such as Tin Tin and many others. One of the editors there thought it might be interesting if I did a graphic novel for them, but in order to properly pitch the idea to the committee, he wanted me to do a sample page. We had been talking about a story with witches so I worked up this page with my old favourite, the Raven Witch.

It is not easy to distill down everything you want to do with a story into one page. I had many ideas to sort through and had to make some choices for better or worse. Below are some of the many roughs I did looking for the best way to tell this little bit of atmospheric mood setting. Will anything come of this - who knows ? For now fingers are crossed.

I'm glad you stopped by. More soon.

Raven Witch and Thistle Down Pixies

Well, I just spent the last 10 days painting a book cover picturing a wicked looking troll coming up over a hill with a menacing look on her ugly, troll face and I would love nothing more than to be able to share her with you but, there is an equally wicked and menacing NDA attached to said project which prevents me from doing any such thing. However, while I was painting the aforementioned troll I was also drawing. Drawings whose purpose will become all too clear very shortly, if you're paying attention. For now I will leave you with this bit of sketchbook work and the promise that there will be more following very soon, and with any luck much, much more after that, but lets not get ahead of ourselves.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I always enjoy seeing you.

More soon.

Witch Market

I have finally decided after much prompting to get out of my comfy little chair and do a sketch/art book. The theme of this book will be "character design" because I love designing characters and much of the work I've been doing recently has been oriented in this direction. Last year I was lucky enough to have been involved in several animation projects where I was doing character design and I am definitely interested in more of the same. So with that in mind I have made a list of possible concepts for the book to use as design spring boards. The Witch Market is the first of these. What I am showing today is the rough work which will hopefully get me to a final drawing. These are still pretty rough and will require some streamlining and simplifying, or perhaps more to the point "designing". But that is what this process is all about - working your ideas and distilling them down to their most simple and clear incarnation. I still tend to get a little pencily. I could and should be more more graphic and direct. Lots to do !

Meanwhile I am still working on the stop-motion film concerning Arctic Mythology that I was working on before the holidays, but it is all top secret and I'm not allowed to share any of that work yet. I will be sharing the pencil work I'm doing for my new book however. This will be an on going project with many updates so stay tuned.

More soon.

Willow Cottage

This is a typical example of the kind of witch dwelling found in the Hill Country just north of Gwelf. This area is very remote and unforgiving. Much caution and care need to be taken if you should ever happen to find yourself traveling in this dangerous region. Although the dark and unholy occupant of this cottage has not yet been observed, the troll (below) has been reported in the area several times and is believed to be defending her property.

More soon - peace be with you.

BOOO

Happy Halloween everyone. Here we have one of the many witches recently observed in the Gwelf area, now waking up and preparing for a new witching season of fear and destruction.

Peace be with you, and be sure to check your candy for fly wings and spider tails.

Cheers !

Travel Update 3 - Booby Trap

Traveling on "the other side" can be a lot of fun and very exciting but it can also be tricky or even dangerous. Today I want to talk about a close call I once had and how falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book meant disaster for someone else.

It was a cold and wind swept Saturday afternoon in late November.  I was doing my best to keep up with a kid in front of me whom I had been following for the past several hours. He was leading the way south along the Kenilworth Station Road, heading for the now popular King's Head Tavern, a cozy little pub still a few miles ahead. I was hungry and cold and wanted nothing more than to get there as soon as possible, sit by the fire and have a hot meal.

We had reached a bend in the road when he suddenly stopped. As I closed the gap between us I could see that his attention was fixed on something sitting by the side of the road. I got closer and was able to make out a wicker basket containing a half dozen apples, apparently left there by the owner who was presently out of sight but likely close by. I had been warned about situations like this but had expected to encounter one so soon in my career. I was just about to say something clever like " I wouldn't do that if I were you" when he reached for one of the apples. He must have been as hungry as I was because he took a bite, but then immediately vanished. His now empty clothes, with nothing to support them, fell to the ground in a heap. His cap hit the ground last and rolled into the ditch.

Instantly my ears began to ring and there was a strong smell of sulphur in the air. The tell-tale signs of a dark magic spell having just been worked. I was rooted to the spot. A wave of vertigo was overtaking me. From the trees at the side of the road emerged a very unwholesome looking woman, her eyes looking straight at the pile of clothes nearby. Her skirt came right to the ground but could not hide the fact that her feet were large and bird like.
She moved right past me and out onto the road where she picked up the clothes and cap. She then went back into the trees to whatever evil purpose she had planned for the boy. Something very lethal had just crossed my path and only luck and a bit of good advice had saved me.

I was now alone on the road. The sun was going down, it was getting colder and I was immobilized.  The heavy cloud of sulphur was beginning to clear and I started moving, somehow making it safely to the King's Head Tavern. I booked a room upstairs and spent a sleepless night watching the road from my window. There was no sign of the woman or the unfortunate boy. I left the next morning, but only when the sun was well up and there were other travelers on the road.

The King's Head

It was very unlucky for the boy that he had not been made aware of this kind of trap - all too typical on the roads "over there". Fortunately for me I had been warned and I'm passing the information along to you - safety first.

More soon and happy traveling.

Peace be with you.

Goblins and Witches

Some work from a recent pencil session. It has been decided that along with the story illustrations I will be doing for the Irish Faerie Tale book I'm currently working on, I will also do a page of Faeries and critter designs from Irish mythology. Here we have a few pages of potential characters

These designs are all in the goblin-witch category. These are a lot of nasty and unclean things lurking around in the shadowy hills and murky forests of Irish Lore and we're just getting started.
More soon.

Peace be with you.

Recent Sketchbook

Yes, it's been a little quiet around here lately. I'm just coming out of a sort of creative limbo. After I completed all the illustration roughs for the Lavender Blue project it was my intention to jump right into a couple of personal pieces I want to have ready for an illustration conference coming up in November. The plan was a simple one and of course ran off the rails almost immediately. Nothing I tried seemed to work so I took a break and went back to the sketchbook to try and sort things out and get some ideas going that I was actually excited about and keen to paint. Luckily this approach paid off and I now have several ideas I really like. Posted above are a couple of the sketch pages that helped get me back on track. With any luck I will be showing the finals here shortly.

Irish Witches

A bit more of the recent pencil work for the story I'll be starting shortly rooted in but not specific to Irish Folklore - a few more witch ideas - just because  :)

Irish Witches

A new book project is on the horizon and looks like it is going to require a lot of drawing and designing. We will be dealing with Irish myths and folklore - especially witches. This is the first bit of pencil work done for the project. There will likely be a lot more coming. :)

Witches and Faeries - Doodle Session

 I'm pretty much staying in the same zone for the time being - witches and faeries in the woods - more or less :)  It is my intention to complete several, larger than usual personal pieces this spring and summer, but because I'm pretty busy at the moment with commercial projects there really isn't time for more than sketching. I want to stay on track and not lose focus so I continue to draw and redraw the same themes until I can actually sit down and paint them. This is good because it gives me some time to plan and consider what I'm doing - a luxury I do not always have.

Home of the Mouse Witch.

This year I am determined to get at least three personal pieces done between all the client work I have going. I will be heading out to an Illustrators conference in November and I'm planning for it now. These pages are just a bit more thinking about possible subject matter - all to be Faerie Tale oriented of course, with an emphasis on environment and mood. I want to create interesting places for the characters that I draw to inhabit.

Sketches

Some recent rough work for a personal piece I am planning for the spring. I'm still figuring out how it's all going to fit together. I know that I want to have the girl posed in front of the tree but I need to have something in the background that will help tell a story. Is she hiding ? Is she waiting ?

I need to have something back there. At first I was considering a dragon but I think that might be too much. I don't think this is going to be that kind of picture. I want this one to be more about the environment she's in. Maybe a flock of crows. Something has startled them - maybe - don't know yet - still thinking. More drawing required.

Witches - Spidery

I've been thinking about witches lately. I have some new personal pieces planned for this spring and I keep coming back to the theme of witches. So here are some witch deigns or improvisations. I'm calling these ones Spider Witches because I'd like them to have long arms, longer actually than I've drawn them here. I think that will give them a creepier look. These will not be the nice and helpful kind of witch but more the mean and nasty type.

Pixie Witch

This one came out this morning while doing some warm-up drawing. I drew it from reference but took some liberties with her likeness to push the character I really wanted to draw. Then I gave her a snail. The hair needs more work but I can come back to that later when I'm in the mood to draw tangles, string and knots. She could probably also use some talismans and magical artifacts woven in as well.
More drawing required :)

Wood Sprites - Recent Sketchbook

Wood Sprites - I'm still messing around with these ancient creatures. I have absolutely no time for this as I have several deadlines at the moment but I can't seem to pull myself away from these ideas. The pages are done during the in between moments, usually at the start or end of the day when I'm really feeling the need to put a bit more of myself down on paper. These drawings of course are simply stream of consciousness improvisations done completely from the imagination without any planning or reference - searching, searching, searching.... Boy would I ever love to paint one of these right now - hopefully soon :)

Twigs and String - Faerie Witches

Some sketchbook activity from the past few days - planning for a personal piece I have absolutely no time for.
With these ones I'm really interested in their hair and drapery - flowing and morphing it all together - string, moss, spider web and twigs. I want them to look like they just animated right out of the ground.