Jack Frost : Rise of the Guardians

Hellooooo,

A couple of things to blog today, the first is this

My friend and incredible artist Adam coloured up my Blacksad piece from a few weeks ago.  Some of you might have seen on it my facebook page this past week ( cause I couldn't wait to post it up). Hope he feels like colouring more of stuff, cause well he just makes it look better! If you dig his work, go check out his blog it's class!


I've been pretty busy this week. Just got a chance last night to knock out this pic for the blog. It's Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians. 

A great film that I only saw over Christmas and watched a bunch of times since.Wanted to have a go at drawing him since.  Anyways, thats me this week, catch you all next friday or over on my facebook page that im recently giving some love and attention to.

Laters!

Cappy

Working on some new test scripts at the moment. There's one or two people in it that I haven't drawn before and This guy, Cappy. Pretty swamped this week so I just inked up a sketch I drew of him during in the week, it started off as a lunch time doodle but I just kept ticking away at it. I'm always a bit, I dunno "surprised" isn't the right word but its all I got right now, to see Cappy with a gun and actually shooting people.

Really looking forward to seeing winter soldier so this was a lot of fun to do. hope you all dig it.

Blacksad and other stuff too

G'morning! ( or G'afternoon or G'night wherever you are)

A few things this week, first off BLACKSAD!  Blacksad is one of my favorite books so it's about time I actually posted a pic of it. If it's a book you're not aware of you now NEED to make yourself aware of it, the writing, the art ALL of it is so very, very well done.

Had a lot of fun inking the coat, I reckon I'll try some more Film Noir style pieces this year, referencing it was just great.

Aaaaaaand something new, I now have a facebook art page. There's a few pictures up on it at the moment I'll post more and more every week. So if you dig my art please go over there and give it a like by clicking here . Just to give you a little more incentive, as soon as I get to 100 likes I'm going to giveaway a few prints. So by merely just liking the page you could be in with a chance of winning these

Flo and Telephone Tess could be YOURS! So please click the link and I'll pick a name out of the first 100 likes and that person will get a copy of these.

I'll post up some sketches, warm ups, inspirational pics and pieces from the blog here as well, I'll also post up a lot of the figure studies that I only post on twitter so you'll get more than what will be up on the blog.

Anyways, that's it for now, catch you all on the new Facebook page and the blog!

Laters!

The Goddamn Batman!

Another Commission piece this week as the hand is only starting to heal up properly but look, NO SPLINT NOW :) HUZZAH!!

Was asked by family to knock out a Christmas pressie of Batman Arkham origins. Knocked this guy out, its A0!

Wouldn't mind having another stab at the Batman Origins costume, there's a lot going on in it. Next week I'll actually draw something for the Friday. 

Here's a pic from the printers just to give you an idea of the scale.

Anyways I'd better get back to work. Catch you guys next week. Same Bat time, Same Bat channel! ... (see what I did there? Ahur hur hur)

First Blog of the New Year!

Yooooo,

sorry about the blog silence but I have valid reasons

1 - Really busy up until the Chrimbo holidays and any free time I had went into the commissions I had to do, which I obv couldn't post cause it would have been a Christmas pressie spoiler.

2-  Look I sprained a ligament in my drawing hand so :P,  it's on the mend now tho and I'm back drawing, according to doc I'll be 100% drawing fit by next week

So I'm gonna post up some of the commissions I did now and keep some other ones for dry spells, like say when I'm busy or sprained my hand ( not that I EVER plan on spraining it again)

So here goes

This was for my friend Dave, who asked me to do a caricature of his missus Claire.  Usually when it comes to family and friends I point blank refuse to do caricatures for many reasons. But I grew up with Dave and Claire, now I live in Dublin and they're in Wexford so if I got it wrong, well I'm not around to hear about it! So why not have a go at it  ;)

After I told Dave I don't usually do caricatures of family and friends he said all he wanted was " a girl with black hair with a lab coat on" (as Claire works in a lab). When I got the chance to work out the caricature it didnt really take long, turns out Claire is pretty easy to draw.

side note - By the way EVERYBODY in facebook land, well finding reference on you to draw is a tad easy and a little stalker friendly... just something to keep in mind

So here's the pic, I just thought it would be a little funny if I threw in a bottle of wine into the mix and made it look like Claire was swigging wine from one of the test tubes in the lab.

and here's a pic of Claire with the pic, everybody's happy. ( Note her awesome Christmas jumper! )

Job Done! I'm back to blogging weekly now, I'll have a new Facebook art page soon that'll be updated a little more regularly so watch out for that too!

See yee next Friday!

Storyboarding Talk at Electric Picnic!

Hey Folks,

Happy Weekend,

late post this week as I usually blog Friday morning ( Irish time ) and wasn't sure what I'd post up until now. Buuuuuuut I have a couple things left handy for such a week when things get so busy I don't get a chance to finish anything. This is one of those weeks.

Here's a piece I'm still pretty happy with from a cartoon I still adore. This is Heatblast from Ben 10, I drew this up for a mates kid who had the flu at the time and was ( hopefully still is ) a Ben 10 fan.  Hope you guys dig it too.

Aaaaaand here's the Ignite Talk I did at Electric picnic this year in the science gallery tent.  I talked about storyboarding and the way the Ignite talks work is like this - there's 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds, for 5 mins. It was a lot of fun to so, some of you may have seen it already as I put it up on Facebook and Twitter during the week.



Here's the Youtube link as the video isn't loading via blogger, I'll try get sorted so it can play on this post.





see yee next week!

Back from a Brief Hiatus

Hey folks

sorry about the lack of posts but I was at NYCC and then last week was me dealing with the fall out of taking off to the comic con at short notice, I did post some figure studies I did on FB and my twitter tho. Just in case you missed em I'll throw em up here as well. I'll start with them and lead into the finished piece I did for this week.

this guy was sitting around the airport in Dublin

Two more guys in Dub airport

This guy was sitting in a pub in NY, drew him while I was waiting for some mates

This guy was in Central Park

My fav of the trip, this guy was on the plane home

Some doodles in the pad, mucking about with some pens.


Aaaaaaand the piece this week. Well a bunch of my friends got married this week, that's right a bunch!!!

One of those couples are my mates Ted and Kells. I went through secondary school with Ted, we quickly became friends over comics and all things film and nerdy. As we left school and did the usual drifting apart nonesense, he meets the great Kells, they get married and live happily ever after!
Sooooooo a nerdy friend gets married, what do I do? Seize the opportunity to draw these two something nice. 

I remember him being a big Joe Mad fan ( who wasn't right? ) and while being on the stag I remember Ted saying he actually knew Kells when he was a kid. So it kind of made sense to use Joe Mad's characters Red Monika and Garrison from Battle Chasers, since these two kind of had a Mulder Scully will they wont the thing later on in their life and knew each other as kids.

The problem here, well Red Monika dresses a tad... well...slutty. Pretty sure herself and Ivy from Soul Caliber buy their outfits in the same shop.  And Kells is a classy girl and Ted well Ted isn't a classy girl.  So I didn't want to have that overly busty almost nude Red Monika in their wedding present, it works perfectly in the comics but not so much as a wedding present.

Then I started thinking about the pose, well I've wanted to do some kind of homage to Rodin's "The Kiss" for a while now. It's prob one of my all time fav's of any art ever.

I remember studying this in school, reading about how uncomfortable the pose is for these two  and that the kiss itself could only last for a second before the pose would become so uncomfortable. Nonetheless the couple seem to twist into "unison" so we literally see the couple becoming one. Every beat of intimacy hit in this great sculpture and yeah they're nude but it's pretty classy, bet these two never twerked a day in their lives and manage to kiss and keep their tongues in their mouths.

So tried to capture the essence of Rodin's 'Kiss' and Joe Mad's generation inspiring Battle Chasers, this is what I got.

Left out the characters weapons for the most part as Red Monika is a kick ass mercenary who usually is up to the gills in knives etc, but left in Garrison's sword, put it behind them, almost a fading silhouette so it's almost suggesting that it's the end of one part of their life, but the blossom on top of the tree behind them is blooming, so it's suggesting new beginnings. 

Ted and Kells, Congrats you two. I wish you both all the happiness in the world.

100th POST!!

HEY EVERYBODY ( HEY DR. NICK!)

this is my 100th blog post.. somewhere Dan Spencer is laughing at the guy who never blogged and used to shun technology. But here we are, Technology embraced and a 100 blog posts later.

Here's my folio for DICE, the finished Northlanders pages I did last week and some Secret Avengers pages. Had a lot of fun on these

I just got sent my Ignite talk that i did about storyboarding as well, I was hoping it would be up on the website for the 100th post but alas it aint so, hopefully I'll have it for next week!

right these pages, they show action, some talking heads, cars, helicopters, longboats, they show some super heroes and some vikings. Covering as much as I could and here's hoping these are the pages that land me that job in comics!

Hope yee dig em! see ye next week, same Ben time, same Ben channel :P

50 Shades of Trixie

Hey folks,

Just managed to squeeze this pic out today. Maybe some of you know Andrew Hickinbottom's character Trixe? Well if you follow his Facebook ( and if you don't I recommend that you do so straight away) you'll see that everyone kind of has a go at drawing this character. I've wanted to for a while now so gave it a shot today.

Lots of fun to draw, I can see myself drawing her again just for kicks! hope yee dig it. I didn't want to post another in progress page of comic art, they'll all get postyed when they're done. so hope this fills a gap until next week!

Really digging drawing women at the moment ( as you could probably tell from the last number of posts ), might even take a page from Bruce Timm's book n draw a bunch for a book we'll see how that turns out.

If you would like to get you hands on a book of designs let me know via Twitter/Facebook and  IF I get enough interest I'll try knock one out for Christmas or something! Linsk to both my twitter & Facebook are to the right! :)

Laters!

Storyboard Workshop & A New Pin Up Girl

Hey folks,

a day late with the post but better late than never. I've just been busy this week.

Before I say anything else I want to say THANK YOU so much for showing such an interest in my storyboard workshop. Amazed with how quickly it sold out, i promise i'll make it as good and worth while as I possibly can. Thanks again!

Big thanks to Pegbar, Animation Skillsnet and The Science Gallery too for making all this possible.

Aaaaaaand below is something I drew up yesterday. Clearly I haven't had enough fun drawing pin up girls so here's another.

It's actually a character for a poster I put together for a friend of mine who's running a striptease aerobics workshop in Wexford. If any of yee are interested in the deets, give me a shout on facebook/twitter and I'll send em your way.

Kinda dig the character so here she is in all her glory.  As usual I prefer the black and white.

I'll do my very best to get next weeks post on time as it's been two late posts in a row now.

Anyways, chat then folks!

Fun Stuff!

Hey folks so here's this weeks blog post.  2 black and whites this week!

This is a birthday card I did for a mate of mine, she's been asking for a picture of Shakira's ass for a while, I felt it was my moral duty to oblige. Here's Shakira doing that 'bum lift' thing from the she wolf video

Aaaaand this is a project I've been ticking away at for a while now, just getting pieces done in  small pockets of free time. It's for my mate Paddy Lennon, he's a writer and he's currently sorting out his superhero novel 'Flare' and he was sound enough to ask me to do the cover. I've been one of a lucky few to read this book, It's Class! Recently Paddy has put excerpts of his book up on his blog so give it a read here so you can get a taste of the book and then spend all of your monies on it when it's out!

The characters your looking at here in the cover are (going from left to right are) Aimee DeWitt and in her superhero uniform she's kicks ass as Revenant, Ryan Curtis also known as Flare and Hiroshi who rocks it in a pretty awesome Mech suit, or as Paddy put it so elequently ' basically War Machine on steroids'!

Hope you dig em. See you all next week, same Ben time(ish), same Ben channel.

Pacific WIN!

Hey folks,

Started this late last night so it's only a work in progress.

Went to go see Pacific Rim this week. Holy Wow, I don't think I've had as much fun in the cinema in aaaaaaaaages! Really enjoyed it, if you haven't seen it I recommend that you do before it's out of the cinema, it's definitely a film that deserves a watch on the BIG screen. 

Reasons to go see this film - GIANT Monsters fighting GIANT robots, one of the best omoplatas you'll ever see MMA & Jui Jitsu fans, All of the Action, if you like anything post apocalyptic, FUN, cheesey dialogue & end of the world speeches, if you're a del Toro fan and if you like watching people stick fight! That's right it's got all these and waaaaaay more so I thought I'd throw my hand at some Pacific Rim fan art.

Here's Mako, she's pretty class in fight, as long as she's got that staff she might even beat Ronda Rousey.

As I said it's just a work in progress at the mo, I'll try finish it for the blog next week!

Hope yee dig it

Just Playing

Heya,

not much to report on this week, been doing some writing for Carrie and Rufus, finishing off a couple of other gigs and starting a few new ones. I did these in what ever time I had spare ( spare time is hard to fins at the moment cause it's really nice and sunny in Ireland at the moment and that never happens so I'm taking advantage of it while the sun's around!)

Here's something I don't usually post my warm up drawings, cause usually it's a page of circles as I don't really give the warm ups the time you see Young and Colman give them ( their warm up sketches are pretty amazing) but this week I drew up some heads, just for the sake of it really.

these are actually influenced by some failed figure studies of people I drew on the bus or in a café. Just trying to add some new shapes for myself to play with future character designs.

And the next is something I knocked up yesterday cause i thought just posting up the warm ups was a bit of a cop out. I've wanted to do a series of cartoon figures in real backgrounds for a while so I decided to scratch that itch last night. I'll do a better version the 2nd time round, this one was rushed and was a first effort. You might remember the girl from a previous post?  I guess this is what she looks like chillaxing at home.

Here's the original picture I drew over, next time it'll be photos I'll have taken myself.

Laters!

Oh Yeah and here's a banner I was mucking around with earlier in the week, at the moment it's just my facebook cover pic

Ben's Doodles!

Alright,

So here's more Carrie & Rufus, I wasn't going to post anything about them this week but this sort of transpired throughout the week.

Those of you who know me know I'm a massive David Colman fan, if you don't know about his stuff check him out here, the mans got skills. He did those great designs for Class of 3000, there was no straight lines in the designs, which kinda blew my mind!

And just for a change in the studio lately, I have a pic of his up by my work desk, it's one of my fav's, here it is.

So I've just been doodling pics of Carrie and Rufus in similar poses, while being on the phone, taking a little break or just trying to warm up. This pic constantly in front of me so I thought maybe I'd try my hand at doing my own rendition or homage so to speak with Carrie and Rufus. And so here it is

There yeh go, David Colman, still and continues to be one of my greatest influences.

Miki's Comic "The Jolly Roger!"

 More writing for Carrie & Rufus than drawing Buuuuuuuuut some awesome news! My friend Cara has joined up & is going to letter the book! Huzzah! Cara's an awesome graphic artist & when it comes to any thing to do with type she's a hero! Check out her stuff here,  here and her twitter here

As promised in an earlier post, here's some fan art of my friend Miki's comic the Jolly Roger. I remember Miki saying on one occasion that this character from the book was the most fun to draw, he wasn't wrong.

If you don't know this book or Miki, you're really missing out, here's a link to his artists facebook page, hit the life drawing album, caricature album and obviously the Jolly Roger album, you'll leave inspired.

Anyways, that's me for this week. More next week. I'll have some more Carrie and Rufus work & something to go with em!

G'luck!

In with The New, Out With The Old

Hello,

Things have been a mixture of busy and messy these past two weeks, so only getting to blog now.

First off, here's the final version of the Fred's Got Slacks cover. Differences between this and the last WIP are the paints on her back, some hue changes and obviously font and background changes.

If you feel like adding some new tunes to your playlist check em out they're pretty class band! Here's a Link to their stuff, all the songs that are on this EP are here and there's a few more as well!  Give em a listen you'll be happy you did.

Before I go any further is should say a BIG congrats to my friend Miki who has just finished his book The Jolly Roger and it looks AMAZING! Be expecting some fan art here of his book The Jolly Roger soon, check out his work here . And another BIG congrats to Darrin & Shawn for getting Earthruler sorted over on Kickstarter anything you pledge from this point goes towards an extra special stretch award! Check that out!

And here's the next thing. This is something I've been toying around with for a while now and since well, what seems like ALL my friends are doing comics of their own now, I'm going to bite the bullet and get a comic of my own on the go.

 That's right John you'll no longer have to ask me when I'm going to bring out my own comic, it's happening.  I haven't chosen a name for the series yet but it's 8 issues of short stories about Carrie (the character above who you might remember from an earlier post ), and Rufus, the fox below.

It's early days yet, still writing the majority of it and still working on the designs. Rufus's design is essentially finished but I'm still playing with and trying different things with Carrie's design. But here it is, I've said here now and I will finish it.

Because I love post apocalyptic EVERYTHING! That's the kind of story this is going to be, where these two survivors happen upon each other by chance and grow to be a formidable duo against the dangers of the post apocalyptic world they now live in.  Yes, there will be zombies. I like zombies.

I'll post up my progress with it as I go along. I'm also working on two other comic related gig's at the moment. With two awesome writers and all around really sound blokes! Aaaand if I get their permission I'll hopefully have some character designs posted here next Friday. I'll also have some samples from a Northlanders sample script I'm working on at the mo.

So there it is, many irons in the fire, at least one's gotta come out with some kind of notice right? ... right? RIGHT?

so Sin é as we say here in Ireland. More to come really soon. Laters!

Shelter From the Storm

New piece up. Playing with black and whites again. Enjoyed this one, it's a bit different than stuff I've been working on lately, this was just a drawing for drawings sake.  Just about got this done today,

I was about to start work on a friends wedding card, looked over some old reference. I was always a big fan of Rodin's 'The Kiss', such an awkward pose for both people, so you get the idea that it's something that only lasts a second before one has to completely change their position. but the way they are just so entwined together really hammers home that feeling of 'one-ness'. Decided I'm gonna start doing some of my own versions on famous pieces I like ( big ask right?) for the mean time, here's a piece I've called 'Shelter From The Storm'... yes I was listening to Bob Dylan recently

Still blogging once a week! See yee next week!

Fred's Got Slacks WIP

So as promised, a new blog post.

This is still a work in progress but I really wanted to keep the weekly blog posts going so here's Fred, she wears slacks REALLY well! A mate of mine asked me to do an album cover for their band Fred's Got Slacks ( awesome name right? ) You can check out some of their stuff here .

It took me an AGE to get around to it but I finally am. Pretty happy with how it's going so far, when it's finished, I'll post up the final piece.

Really enjoying doing my black & whites lately so here's another!

And here's the colour in progress. More to come soon. I'm hoping to get a bit more time next week to work on some new blog stuff as well, between trying to get to the 2D Fest this weekend and clearing out work for it, it was next to impossible to do a whole lot more this week.

Anyways go enjoy the bank holiday weekend, I'll see you all next week! Laters!