Sketchavember 2012 - Part 3!

Sketchavember 2012 - Part 3!

21 - Meilee, my adorable and awkward factory girl. She always looks pretty gormless, because people leave you alone if they think you're an idiot.

22 - Lin, who came to the same conclusion in the boy's side of the factory. Also has the misfortune of being on the back of Jemima's page, which I shaded with markers.

23 - It got to about 11:30pm and I was falling asleep, then I remembered I hadn't done a picture, so I drew Coda falling asleep.

24 - I almost got through Sketchavember without drawing Duo again. Almost.

25 - Noone, the main character of a graphic novel which I planned and then scrapped. I still want to do something with the characters though.

26 - Haha, I tried to draw a demon but he kept going wrong, so I rubbed him out and drew an angel instead, which was a million times easier. I wonder if that says anything about my psyche.

27 - Ah, here's the demon.

28 - Having developed a character model for Hephzibah, I completely failed to make one for Gorse. Oh well.

29 - A Vrega, having a nice stretch.

30 - Last but not least, Kero. Originally he was some kind of alien that resembled a demon, but I've been thinking I might just make him a sort of feral demon instead.

And that was last year's Sketchavember! I hope you enjoyed this insight into my pathological fear of drawing anything that's not people. XD

These are the other five postcards I made for Thought Bubble, in my 'dolly' style. These are all my own characters as well, but they're not all as well developed. I was still aiming for a limited colour palette with these, and I think I was fairly successful. I definitely like my own work more with fewer and duller colours.

There's Coda, a young princess who suffers from an arranged marriage and is moved from her home in the mountains to her husband's kingdom, which is largely forested. Then there's those two creepy edwardian children from the Danse Macabre postcard, perhaps this is where they found their skeleton friend. Then Lena, sister of Lucas and possessor of the gift of prophesy, following a ghost lantern. A little witch in a field of eyes. Lastly, young Nettle and Spider, enjoying a psychic tea party (the best kind). Possibly Spider will read their tea leaves when Nettle puts the cups down.

In other news, I'm incredibly tired and I don't know why. The weather? Not wanting to go to work? My house being really cold? Tis a mystery.

SO EXCITED.

OKAY GUYS, HUGE NEWS! My upcoming graphic novel (based on a YA novel by Prudence Shen) NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG, will be serialized online from now until its publication in May 2013! 

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is a graphic novel about two guys, Nate and Charlie, one’s a nerd, one’s a jock, but they still manage to have this weird, kind of combative friendship. Until they both get tangled up in a highly competitive school election that spirals out of control and then … well, you’ll have to read it to see. ;) This book contains ninja cheerleaders, over the top comedy and SO MANY BATTLE ROBOTS. Seriously, I was reading through it the other day and I had to draw like 50 pages of robots fighting and it is insane.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE COMIC! I would really, really appreciate it! The comic is going online with the permission of my publisher, First Second, and I’m very grateful to them for letting me share it with the internet. So, internet, please tell everyone you know of its existance! 

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong will be updating with a page every weekday, and Prudence and I will be blogging along with the updates, giving readers insight into our creative processes and other nonsense.

Yay!!!!

Until I'm done with a few projects, have some more thank you letters! I seemed to have so much more success getting them sent on time when I drew pictures on them that I decided to keep doing that.

They did turn out thematically more boring than the birthday ones though, on account of my spending all the money I got on the same thing. Oh well, it was expensive!

These are five of the ten new postcards I made to take to Thought Bubble. I'm really pleased with them, I think they show improvement from the last batch, which is always encouraging. Part of it might be because I really tried to limit my colour palette for all the new postcards.

They're all my own characters this time. There's Meilee and Lin, who have fallen asleep in the rain because they can't find any shelter, Shasta contemplating a remnant of the Old World, Jessie looking out over the castle town in her Patchworker uniform (it's a sort of messenger and general dogsbody, if you're curious), Louise being led into the woods by some fairies (they're still after that key), and the Crowboy giving Lottie a little gift.

Since a copy of the book arrived in the post just before Christmas, now seems like a good time to show you these!

These are a pair of illustrations I made for a Save the Children poetry book called Born to Giggle. I was assigned two poems, called Hair So Long Song and I Like A Wood. I thought they were both sweet, and I like having the chance to work without shading. I think the second picture is my favourite, but I'm pleased with both. Later I got given an extra one about a missing tortoise, so I got to draw a tortoise as well!