Cartridge Pen - Tumblr Posts

More character designs for the Goth Anthology! These two are for a slice-of-life strip about the trials of being a goth. They're an updated version of some characters I drew in 6th form for a comic called 'The Adventures of Bookworm and Gothgirl'.

Gothgirl is called Lillith Robinson and Bookworm's surname is Wheeler, but I haven't worked out a first name yet. 

Wheeler was too busy reading to shave her legs.

A little preview of my second comic for the Goth Anthology - Life is Suffering. It follows the classic format of 'friends talk about stuff', specifically all the worst times to be a goth.

Conventions are starting up soon! Sammy and I will be at the Bristol Comic and Zine Fair on Saturday 5th October, we'll have anthologies, What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? zines, and all sorts of good stuff.

Inktober - Day 26

More wonky anatomy, oh dear. This is what happens when I draw late at night.

Since you can sometimes see them a little bit in 3-quarter angle pictures, I wanted to show what the ritual modifications the Vrega get look like. Almost all Vrega are subjected to this when they come of age, as part of their Trial. Technically the spikes can be placed anywhere, as long as they're worked into the bone, but these placements are traditional. After their Trial women are usually taught how to fight using their new arm-spikes. Men just have to get used to not being able to sleep on their backs.

Inktober day 25 - cartridge pen Ahh, there's the window. This is the same pen I use for the water blended ones, although without the water there's no way to cover up my horrible perspective mistakes.

Inktober 2015 - Day 29 : cartridge pen Lena is showing her brother how to tell fortunes with normal playing cards. It’s a real divination system, so bonus points if you know what the spread says. Although I had trouble drawing the cards that small so I’ll just tell you that it’s reversed ace of spades/10 of hearts/4 of clubs.

Inktober 2016 - Day 3 : cartridge pen

‘Oh Meruch, you’re... so strong.’

Vekh, I hope you realise that if you embarrass him every time he agrees to carry you, he’s going to start saying no. (It’s true though, he is freakishly strong.)

I made a bad choice on how to ink this one! It looks fine now it’s finished, but it took ages to fill in the black areas with this pen. (I couldn’t swap to a thicker one because the ink wouldn’t match.) I have learned a lesson.

Inktober 2016 - Day 11 : cartridge pen Lena insists that the fortune-telling works better if you use Nana’s good tea set. Cake is optional but encouraged.

Inktober 2016 - Day 29 : cartridge pen I realised I’ve never drawn a dolly-style picture with my cartridge pen, so here is one! (I’ve used it for ink and water but that’s a bit different.) Spider is taking precautions with the tea tray, but Nettle won’t drop those.

Inktober 2017 : Day 19 - cartridge pen I draw Lena in fancy shiro-lolita outfits a lot because she looks cute, but in reality she and Lucas don’t have a lot of money and this old, eyelet-lace dress is the only party frock she owns. Look closely and you can see the areas where I learned the hard way that the train station roof is not perfectly waterproof.

Inktober 2017 : Day 25 - cartridge pen

Lottie is fairly sure she shouldn’t be talking to the Crow Boy, but she doesn’t really want him to leave either.

My pal Sammy told me recently that she’s having trouble drawing trees, so I made her a cheat sheet showing the major visual features of 8 common British trees. Whatever you want to learn to do, someone on the internet already knows how to do it and has made a tutorial. XD

Lately I ordered some nice pen accessories, including a cartridge converter for my Rotring pen and some coloured cartridges for my cheapo £5 cartridge pens, so I drew Nettle and Spider while I was messing around testing them. I’ve never done spot colour with ink and water, it looks pretty nice I think. Having said that, I’m not a fan of this ink. It’s a weird colour called Bilberry that can’t decide if it’s blue, purple or black. (I tweaked it in photoshop to make it more purple.) They do one called Imperial Purple that might have been a better bet. Ah well, next time.

Inktober 2018 : Day 5 - cartridge pen

Lena’s prophetic trances are involuntary, and come on without warning. Her friends have seen it before, but it doesn’t stop being frightening.

It’s finally time for my favourite art challenge of the year! I did a little cover page yesterday to celebrate. I have a full-time job for the first time, so I’m going to have to do all my pieces in 90 minutes or less, because that’s all the time I can squeeze in before work. How is this going to turn out?

Day 1 - ink and water

Spider often ‘falls asleep’ in lessons, but he isn’t always sleeping.

This is water-soluble ink spread around with a waterbrush. I’ve never tried using it on only some parts of the picture before.

Inktober 2019: day 7 - ink and water

Nettle is not renowned for her masterful control of her temper.

I wanted to have another go at blending only part of the picture like on day 1, but it didn’t work quite as well this time, it came out too dark and flat. In hindsight maybe spot colour would have been better, but hey ho this is how we learn.

Inktober 2019: day 24 - ink and water

This isn’t quite as dangerous as it looks.

This one was originally going to have a dramatic background, but I was travelling to London with a suitcase I could barely lift, so this was all I could manage. I think I might re-draw it so I can compare my worst Inktober days with what I can do if I have all the time in the world.

Inktober 2019: day 25 - ink and water

She emerged unharmed from a deadly house fire, and now when she touches objects they ignite.

This is the same girl from day 21, somewhat earlier in life. By the time she’s employed as a servant she’s learned to control whatever is happening to her, but at first she would leave charred footprints everywhere she went.

I was tabling at London MCM from the 25th to the 27th, so I tried to keep them simple.

One of the biggest disappointments of 2020 for me was failing Inktober for the first time since 2013. I even did most of my pictures at half size to make it easier, but I was so worn out by day 8 that I had to give up. I thought it would be nice to post the ones I did finish before the end of the year.

I marked out all the pages in my sketchbook at the start, so I’ll try to finish the rest before next October.

I tried doing some automatic drawing with different pens. I don’t really know what I drew, but I like them.

Clockwise, these are: fude pen, fountain pen, pentel pocket brush, fountain pentel.

Here’s a video on automatic drawing if you want to give it a try: https://youtu.be/MJYGFwGhHnA

Here I am, frantically posting the rest of Inktober 2020 before Inktober 2021 starts!

I’ve done Inktober every year since 2013, so I was quite upset that I couldn’t finish it in 2020. I kept trying for the whole month, but I only managed a few sketches. If you squint you can see there are two dates on some of these - those are the ones that were at least sketched on the right day, the others were backfilled months later. 

I’m going to try again this year, so hold your thumbs for me!