Inktober 2025 day 1

 I've been looking at the story of Beowulf, and thinking I could use it to have a theme for each day of Inktober. And I even dug up the first version of Beowulf I ever read, way back in Primary school, in the Janet and John Brave and Bold tales. I remember being confused by the images, and trying to copy one where Beowulf is doing what looks like a Judo throw on Grendel. Anyway. I read it and got stuck on the bit where Grendel carries off 30 warriors (handy number for Inktober).

And I got to thinking how big Grendel would have to be to carry 30 warriors, and so that's where I am.

Big Grendel and the possibility of 30 warriors previously unnamed.

The pens were Staedtler archive liners, and then a wash of DELETER no5 ink, diluted with some LIDL sparkling water as that was all there was to hand.

I've stuck the ipad on charge so I'll do a version in Autodesk Sketch too... later.

no undo

 The thing about real paper and ink is there isn't an undo button. You can white stuff out, assuming you can find your jar of dried up white-out, which I couldn't, or you can stick a bit of paper over stuff.

So I allowed myself the luxury of a quick edit in Autodesk Sketchbook to tidy up a fraction. 

inktober 2025

 I was quite shocked recently when I realised I'd not done inktober since 2018... that's a long time.

I think I got distracted teaching robots to draw cats or something 

In fact I've done very little actual drawing, especially not on computers.

So I bought some bic biros, and had a punt. 

..and it was alright, my eyesight is worse, so the detail isn't there, but I thought I'd take a leap and have a go at Inktober for 2025.

Obviously I won't pay any attention to the official stuff, and I won't be looking at social media as that'd ruin the remaining fragments of my mental health.

What mean Strange Biros

I was looking at Instagram, (which I haven't posted to since 2021) to keep up with what my friends at Uni of Brighton (I like to see what Philippa Lyon is up to ) and noticed my account still pointed at an old url.

So I changed it to https://strangebiros.blogspot.com/ rather than www.strangebiros.co.uk  which I had as a domain for years, till I realised I didn't give a fig if people actually read any of this guff or not.

Then I started thinking about where Strange Biros came from. 

It was a small press comic launched at the 1991 UK Comic Art Convention by me and my friend Paul Putner.

Indie comics were having a revival then, and we made a comic, printed off a batch and drove to the convention in London in a vintage Mercedes, Paul dressed as Judge Death, Adrian dressed as a purple man from 2000AD.

That Merc is probably worth a million pounds now, then it wasn't.

They dressed up to take part in what would eventually evolve into a cosplay competition, but they didn't get round to that bit, and just looked a bit weird all day.

We had an interesting time, attended the 2000AD session, and the artists alley, and left the stash of 'Strange Biros' comics with a bloke from the Small Press collective... and never heard from him again.

At the time we started an application to the Prince's Youth Business Trust to ramp up the production, but Paul became a smash hit actor starring in Run for Your Wife in London's West End, and I got married.

I'll see if I can dig out a copy of issue #1 and post some pictures here.

seeking sharks

 Following on from the Fake Sharks, or possibly before, can't remember I did a bunch of sharks in the Rocketboom Bears book... Nazi Space sharks;
https://books.apple.com/ca/book/rocketboom-bears/id1406133567

 It's there in apple books, but I thought there was a pdf version somewhere.

 

Fake Sharks of the English Coast

I think there used to be a page on here linking to this book what I wrote.

But I couldn't find it so posting a link to the Apple Books listing https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/fake-sharks-of-the-english-coast/id1450717002?mt=11 and the version that seems to be on a blogs.brighton cdn... so presumably at some point I stuck a copy on one of the blogs. https://bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.brighton.ac.uk/dist/b/6253/files/2019/11/Fake_Sharks_of_the_English_Coast_Arial.pdf I was looking for it because Dom was thinking about what to stick on his animation channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CooolDom and reading it made me laugh possibly for the first time in weeks. Thought it maybe worth sharing, as we could all use a laugh right now. I just checked instagram and it looks like I started this as an inktober project : https://www.instagram.com/p/BoYn7klgoF3/

RPGMaker MV making tiny tiny people

 I’ve been trying to draw pixel people. Using aesprite on my Mac, and Pixaki on my iPad.

First effort is here