Back to the strip

This is part one of the strip pencilled up. I used it to test the comic press plugin for wordpress. It works fine, but it's all a bit too clever for me.
I prefer the simplicity of blogger, especially now it's linked to my google account.

something else from the Archives

Spent all day at the allotment, and then servicing Dom's bike, no time for drawing. So here's a pic from the achives, a pencil rough for a strip in Robot wars mag. The story was submitted by readers, and the prize was to have their story turned into a comic.

In glorious Technocolour

Had a go at colouring the B/W strip. Photoshop does a lot of things logically.. but every now and then, I get stuck. I found some interesting tutorial style videos earlier today, but now can't remember where .. guess it's back to firefox history bar.

Into the dark

A while back Dom wanted to create a web comic, and we started working on a couple of simple stories, involving a character called Ned. I think his interest waned, so I have re-constituted the story to test an idea I had while listening to the penny arcade/PVP D&D podcasts. They were obviously having such a great time, it seemed worth having a go at doing a strip based on the "metagaming" I came up with the idea of a game driven by cards, which form the first panel.
I've done a couple but am generally quite unhappy with the art, as I tried deliberately to create characters that would be easy to redraw, and thus completely missed the point that what draws me to web comics is good artwork.
I'll work on this and post the results here.

Double post

For a bit of light relief I thought I'd have a crack at colouring the Jim Darkmagic sketch.
I'm not a used to using photoshop, and get frustrated by locked layers, and switching brushes etc.. I really need a good tutorial site to get to grips with what is a very useful tool.

Towel Fairys

If you aren't listening to Robert Llewelyn's absolutely excellent "Car Pool" (http://www.llewtube.com/) then you really should be. The latest episode the guest is Stephen Fry, there's a moment where they discuss the importance of being interested and enquiring, and Rob admits his desire that his son has maybe a little more interested in picking up towels from the bathroom floor... a feeling I share... hence todays doodle.. "The Towel Fairy", who is closely related to the washing up pixie, and the tea cooking elf.

More Archives

Bank holiday, took the boys to see "Star Trek", then did a 5 mile walk on Ashdown, So no time for a daily drawing.. Not doing very well on this resolution.
Here's something from the archives. This is the head design sketch I did for Mentorn and Channel 5 for the last house robot, Cassius Chrome. The end result did end up looking very much like the initial design.

Something from the archives

Not much time for drawing today, busy outside to enjoy the rare UK sunshine. to fill the gap here's soemthing from the archives. This is one of a series of pics I did for the monthly Robot Wars magazine.

Previous Draw off

The week before all this Kuta business started, Dom and I had a Jim DarkMagic Draw off...
Here's mine:


and here's Doms:


We've decided to try and do a drawing a day, and post them to our respective blogs..
Dom has set up a blogger account here:
http://insectsrulethesky.blogspot.com/ but he only gets an hour of mac/online time a day (I am a mean parent), so it might take a while to get it populated.
He created a header for the site this evening using Fireworks on the old PC.

Kuta in the family

So Dom saw the Kuta drawings and wanted me to draw with him... I had a bash at doing a grey Kuta, doing Single Whip from the first movement of Yang style Long Form Tai Chi.
Dom had a go at drawing Kuta as a damaged robot.

Kuta Colour

I am not a natural photoshop user. But I guess I will never get better unless I practice, so here's the Kuta in colour.
I think I may well have a bash at colouring by hand too, as I feel so much more control over real ink.

Staff meeting scribbles

I'm motivated at the minute to draw something every day, I spend so much time with my head in the interweb, that scribbling with a pen, on real paper is a bit of a release.
Here's todays scribbles whilst I listenened to clever people at a staff meeting.

Low tech Kuta sketch

So I had a good day in Sunny Coventry talking about technical standards for educational stuff, and after a pie and a pint of McEwans Champion, I thought I'd have a bash at some sketches for the Kuta competiton.... Only to see the awesome work of RAWLS.

So feeling slightly inadeqaute, I thought I'd better take another tack, and decided to go for the Kuta after hours feel.. watching TV, drinking tea in his vest and boxers. I did a quick sketch, and because I'm stuck 140 miles from home don't have access to my scanner, or tablet to finish the work.. so for the time being have just uploaded the pencil sketch....(from a photo taken with my trusty duck tape covered powershot)
More as and when I get access to my gear... though I'm tempted to ink it up in real ink...
Rob

Just thought I'd best test how images are uploaded and stored...
The terms of service look ok, nothing nasty in there about signing away copyright...
SO here goes..

Fresh Start

So the renewal notice has come up for my .mac, or should I say .me account... and I can't justify £60 for the mail service which I don't use... or the web space for backup as I'm now using time machine and an external HDD... I quite like the simplicity of iWeb, but £60, really? and no capacity to run scripts. I looked at Square space this morning, which looks nice, but then I saw the post on Cheeks blog, and I wanted to enter the Kuta competition, so I thought If blogger is good enough for Sean, it's good enough for me, and my entry.
I'm stuck up in Coventry for 3 days, so have a couple of evenings to get sketching.