NEW WEBSITE!

Hey, hey!


I have finally got my act together and pulled together a website.

Chriswildgoose.com

I'm not sure if I will be posting on here any longer. I have always quite loved my blogspot space but I think I may be closing it down soon as I just dont update it enough.  Though as I still love this little space I may just keep it going and leaving it here with a direction post to the Website.

Meanwhile, the best place to find my updates on is my website or my Instagram

BATMAN: KNIGHTWALKER - PRE ORDER

Hey, hey!

You can now pre order our pride and joy Batman: Nightwalker right HERE.

Part of the first wave for DC Comic's new DC Ink line. We have adapted Marie Lu's original novel Batman: Knightwalker.
Story adapted by Stuart Moore,  Pencils & Inks by me, Colours by Laura Trinder and Ink assists by Cam Smith.

BATMAN: NIGHTWALKER !!!

Hey hey,

My next book was just announced last week! I'm currently working away at DC's Batman: Nightwalker for their New DC Ink line. DC ink is focusing more towards a 'Young Adult' audience but honestly I think any range up from there would be able to pick up Batman Nightwalker and get into some good old fashioned brooding Bruce Wayne dealing with Gotham and Arkham madness. (Am I right in thinking we've never really truly followed Bruce as a Teenager before?). A bit more official info on the latest DC Ink announcement here.

Batman: Nightwalker is a graphic novel adapted from the original pros novel by Marie Lu. Adapted to script by the mighty Stuart Moore, Pencils and Inks by myself and I'm so happy to say that my wife and partner in crime, Laura Trinder, is making her DC debut on colours! The book is going to be grey-scale black and white with a hint of colour now and then and let me tell you, Laura is knocking it out of Gotham's city limits! Letterer to be announced but I'm sure it will be a badass!

The cover art (pictured) was announced last week and I've been posting little sneaky snippets on my Instagram account for a little while so you can steal some peeks there.

Bonus Image! : As part of the first wave of announcing the active projects back in the beginning of the year, DC asked for a super quick promo image. I was away from home at the time and so I only managed to get in a little crappy rough sketch. DC put the image with the project name but didn't properly announce the creative team of Nightwalker at that first showing.

I've been gradually finishing the piece for myself over recent weeks, just as a warm up thing. I finally finished it last week so I thought I'd post it up. It's not been officially DC sanctioned yet so I may get told off for this but hey... 

FINALLY! A Little Catch Up!

Hey, Hey!

I FINALLY I thought I should put some life back into the blog! I think it’s been nearly 2 years since  my last post! My biggest apologies for those that may still visit to see if there are any updates, as ever I always get caught up with work and my Email replies and blog updates are usually the first things to suffer!  

I still like to use this place as a form of posting work but often my Instagram gets most of my quick snippets of work and sketches. Here I like to write up more of an extended post and get some words down. So without further ado:

So, what has been going on over that past two years, Chris?!

Well, I’ve been the artist of Batgirl: Rebirth for DC for a year and a half, under the word smithery of Hope Larson with colours by the mighty Mat Lopes, letters by the brilliant Derron Bennet and Inks were often finished by Jon Lam, Jose Marzan Jr and Andy Owens. It was my first jump into a monthly released book, which, to put it lightly, nearly killed me! Despite as hard as it got I always had a lot of fun with the Batgirl team and I came through the other end and jumped into something new for DC! To be fair to myself, alongside Batgirl I was also working away at our third instalment for Porcelain: A Gothic Fairy Tale titled ‘Porcelain: Ivory Tower’ which is a full graphic novel itself. The Improper Books team don’t cut corners and I won’t give up my inking duties on that one, so I had a ton of work on with both Batgirl and Porcelain.  I only have myself (and maybe Ben) to blame but It was worth it.

Now this is a rare statement for me but I have to say Porcelain: Ivory Tower is one of the things I am most proud of in my illustration career. Both in terms of the book on a whole and the art I put into it. Ivory Tower is one of the few books I can look back at, re-read and actually feel like I did a good job! As ever, there are always bit’s I would change here and there but this one I am genuinely really happy with! The blood sweat and near panic attacks were worth it!

Early in 2018 Ben and I were lucky enough to be invited back to France by our friends at Delcourt (our French Publisher) to do a signing tour for Ivory Tower. We visited Paris, Grenoble, Besancon and back to Parsi for a couple of days to finish.

Our trips to France are always so utterly heart-warming, I can safely speak for Ben and myself when I  say we both feel so at home over there, we have made some solid friends with the readers, shop owners and the publishing team and I know we both can’t wait to get over there again to hang out with the friends we made and make some new ones. A Soppy sentiment maybe but a true one. 

Love you, France! 😊

Snippets of my Instagram feed:

And as for what’s next, well…. I’ll get straight on to the next post!

WORLDBUILDERS 2016

Hey, Hey!

Super happy to say that myself and the Improper Books team have donated a bunch of goodies to Worldbuilders again for 2016.

I won't try and explain what Worldbuilders and Heifer international do but go HERE, read the info and look around the site. You will see what a great, decent and intelligent thing they do to help make the world a better place. 

We sent a bundle of books for people to win. All books signed and should have sketches in them. 

Also myself I sent off a handful of the Porcelain: Bone China prints I made for this year's convention tours. Right now, the world builders auction is the only way you can get a sketched edition of my books or my Porcelain prints as I have no conventions booked for next year yet. 

Also, as a little bonus for fans of Patrick Rothfuss and his Kingkiller chronicles series. I gave the Worldbuilders team a few copies of a wedding decoration I had made for my wedding with Laura from earlier this year.  The piece is a pub sign design I did for 'The Eolian' from The Name Of The Wind & The Wise Man's Fear  (Full long and lengthy story behind my pub sign designs here)

Big, big thanks to Peter Berry at Bespoke Laser Cutting for helping me get these ready in time to send out to Worldbuilders. :D check out his Instagram HERE

So go keep an eye on the Worldbuilders Ebay auctions HERE. All Improper Books bundles, pub signs and more goodies to come. Just look at the lists for items from other artists and writers from all walks of fantasy and Sci Fi life.There is so much good stuff and the lists constantly update with new items.  

Here's a peek at some of the books and prints Laura & I sketched and sent in for the auctions:

Keep you eyes peeled and bid high! Every donation has an automatic match in place, so any money donated automatically doubles. As of the time of writing this they just smashed through the 2 Million mark which is incredible! Hopefully you can help push it further ;) 

BATGIRL!

Hey hey!

So this happened!
DC announced that I'll be taking the art helm of Batgirl after Rafael Albuquerque, from issue #7.

ARTICLE HERE!

The article linked above has DC's press release on it all so I won't fill this post up with too much that has already been said. Anyone who has checked my twitter will know that I'm super excited, nervous and honoured to be on board.
If DC had come to me offering art duties on any choice of character, Batgirl would have been number one or joint number one with Gotham Academy. I've already had little bits to do with Gotham Academy already so I'm feeling lucky and spoilt.
I've worked on bits of design and cover artwork for Batgirl, so I've technically already started but I start actual interior pages as of next week.

Readers of Porcelain fear not! I'm still beavering away at Porcelain book 3 'Ivory tower'. I still have a fair chunk to get through so keep your eyes peeled as I'll still be posting peeks of that as usual on Instagram.  And as Far as I'm concerned I'll still be working with Ben Read and Improper Books for as long as Ben writes me stories.

Meanwhile, here are the two first pieces of official Batgirl art I've done so far!

               


 

 

Also for anyone interested here are the thumbnails
and colour test sketches I gave in originally for the pieces. 

                                             

Page Process : Phonogram 'A Black Parade'

Hey hey,

So finally I've gotten round to pulling together a post on some of my process. I'm aiming to do some more in depth posts than this one, as this project was just a 5 page short and I didn't have much to design. Anyway stay tuned for more process posts, I'll try and make more of a regular thing of it.

So this post covers my work on 'A Black Parade', a short story for back of issue #3 of Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl by Kieron Gillen and Jamie Mckelvie.

                                                 


I'm a fan of the Phonogram series and of both Kieron and Jamie's work in general. By chance I met Kieron at a con a good few years back, we chatted and he looked over my portfolio and asked me to join him on a B-side story for the upcoming 3rd book. A couple of years passed, the book was delayed but Kieron still remembered me and kept me in mind for the B-side.

I'm always grateful for this little job. Kieron not only kept me in mind but also has never forgotten my face when meeting in person. He's put me forward to publishers more than a few times, so the guy really is a true gent. *Salute to Mr Gillen*

Right so, without further ado.

Character Design sketches   

So first off, after reading the script, I'll usually work out the characters that need designing. In this case I had some existing characters to work from but also characters such as the girls Kohl and Kid With Knives are chatting to. 'The Were-Emo' also needed some working out before moving on to the pages. 

 

Thumbnails 

After those designs get a nod of approval I get going with the thumbnails. Typically these are 12 x 8.5 cm.

Page Process

Thumbnail

Pencils
I usually print off the previously seen thumbnails at nearly A3 size.
Then I lightbox the thumbnails, tightening up the line work and adding detail on paper.

Inks
The inks here are traditional ink on Bristol board. I print out the pencils in blue onto Bristol board and then ink over them with a brush, switching to fine liners for straight lines.

Colours
And here we have the magic of colourist Andre May. After inking I'll scan in the inks and clean them up and add any alterations in Photoshop.Then I send Andre the pure black and white inks.
Andre then works what I can only describe as colourful witchcraft.
And so here you have the finished thing!

The pages were lettered by Clayton Cowles. Lettering is itself a whole other art form and essential for the finished page. However, I'm usually not involved in this process. I'll skip it for this post but hopefully cover it more in other posts. 

This is a perfect example of Andre's genius and skill as a colourist. Page 4 really turned out to be something else with his work. In fact I'd say this whole set of pages became something much greater with his work on it.

* Inks for this page were drawn digitally using Manga Studio. At the time I wasn't confident in a heavy use of black on the figure, so I decided to do it digitally to allow for tweaking as I went. Funnily enough this was one of the pages that changed things for me and made me think of inking digitally more often.

One Door Closes...

Hey, hey!

I've still got the habit of postings peeks at recent work on Instagram and Twitter and not much on here.

I've been working away on a few things recently, unfortunately one door has closed on a project before it managed to really hit the ground but I've been lucky enough to have two more doors of cool stuff open. Also the trusty world of Porcelain has been there for me and I'm always at home working there so it's all good in the Wildgoose camp. 

Here's a little peek at some recent postings on Instagram of all the things I've been on. I've got some blogs I really want to write about projects I worked on over the past couple of years and they'll have a big chunk of my behind the scenes process type stuff to them so stay tuned! 

Book Wedding: Pub Sign Illustrations

Hey there! So here's a little personal illustration project I had for myself recently, nothing big... just y'know, my wedding!

Oh before we begin, I am totally aware this post may sound like one big proud horn blow but after all the effort we put into this thing, I feel like we're allowed at least a little toot. So bear with me...

I was lucky enough to marry my girl Laura a couple of weeks ago. Now one thing you must understand is that we are big book fiends, so we had a pretty obvious theme to the day.

The invitations were illustrated by us, based on traditional bookplate designs. The rings were tied into a secret compartment, cut into a book which means a lot to us (Neil Gaiman's Stardust). The table plan was a set of belly-banded books with illustrated bookmarks to show who was sat at each table. The table centre pieces were piles and piles of strange old books all stacked at odd angles, some with subjects relating to people sat at the table. The rest were simply about Romany gypsies, palmistry, Indian demons, long lost cults or good old fashioned Satanism. We had twig-covered vases made from coffee jars and wood collected from our local forest, countless twine-wrapped candle jars, potion vials of rum with hand written name labels and slow moving glitter jars catching the light for hours after being shaken (it took me ages and lots of glue and water experiments to get those bloody things right!)

Then there were the table names themselves...

Original pics by Zoe Andreas and Hannah Cumming

Now these were one of the things we knew we wanted before we even got engaged.
It's sad, sick and I want to punch us in the face for being the people who had these things in our heads before we were even on the horizon of getting married but when random chats got random, this was one thing we talked about. Each table was to be named after a fictional pub from our favourite books. Not necessarily a new idea I know, but I was adamant I would illustrate the pub signs and have them etched into wood. At one point I wanted props on the table relating to each pub too, but eventually I was talked into reason and just kept with pub signs. I spent an hour each morning for a few weeks, working on them as my warm up illustrations before work. My good friend Adam had the know-how to get them etched into wood and so here is the end result:

Can you guess which pub belongs to which book? Some are very easy but a few are very obscure.
Answers after the pics.

The Eolian - The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Three Broomsticks - Harry Potter by J.K.Rowling
The Poison Kitchen - Daughter Of Smoke And Bone by Laini Taylor
The Prancing Pony - The Lord of The Rings (The Fellowship Of the Ring) by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hallowed Bear - Porcelain Bone China by Ben Read, Christian Wildgoose (Me!) & Andre May
The Seventh Magpie - Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Leaky Cauldron - Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

Originally we had six tables but had to add a seventh thus a second Harry. Though we realised way too late we could've done The Admiral Benbow Inn from Treasure Island! There are definitely lots more we missed but these all meant something to us. Also, as you might know, I'm a huge fan of Name Of The Wind and know that 7 is a good number to have.

And yes I know the Prancing Pony illustration is a little cheating but if it it ain't broke...

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this little glimpse into the arty parts of our wedding. A tip from a recently married person: If you can make anything for it yourself, do. You'll get a lot out of it and your family and friends will notice the detail and effort you put in!

Assassin's Creed Comic - Cover 2

Hey!

Just got wind that they posted up my Cover art for the Assassin's Creed comic from Titan.

Here it is with and without title. Pencilled on paper, Inked on Manga Studio, Colour and Effects via Photoshop.

Pac Man - 35th Anniversary

Hey!

You may know that it was the 35th anniversary of Pac Man this year and Bandai wanted to pull together an artistic celebration in honour of the dot munching hero. They gathered 65 artists  and I was asked to be one of them. Apparently the art was on display in Jump Festa expo in Japan though I haven't been able to find any pics yet
There is talk of an artbook but nothing certain just yet. meanwhile here is my piece:

Drew this almost completely digital this time around. Pencilled on paper, inked in Manga Studio and coloured in Photoshop. 

Assassin's Creed: Covers

Hey, hey!

CBR just did an article about the new run of Assassin's Creed comic and the variant covers and mentioned one of the ones I've done. HERE
The self important artist in me noticed that the colours of my cover on that article were ever so slightly off because of it being a CMYK file and I find colours almost always look awful when posted on the internet in that file type. So to soothe the fussy art beast in me here's an RGB version which should better show how it will come out in print :)

I've got another cover for that run too, both I'm really happy with.  I'm genuinely a big fan of the games so It was awesome to be able to do something for Ubisoft and Titan.

Also mentioned in that article is the Templar series that will have covers by my buddy Marc Lamming I've had a sneak at another one and trust me they are wicked! I think he's also doing some for AC too so keep your eyes peeled!

Worldbuilders 2015: Original Art & Book Auction!!

Hey!

So for the second year in a row the Improper Books team have given some of our works to the Worldbuilders/Heifer charity team for their annual auction.
Last year we gave away some copies of our books but this year I think we've really given some good bundles of things to auction.

So if you know me and my work you may also know(And be annoyed) that I haven't sold any original of anything yet (I'm hoping to in the future but still no idea when) Meanwhile this is actually the first chance to get your hands on my actual inked pages.

I've given the guys at Worldbuilders a page of inked artwork to go with a copy of each of the respective books. Also it's not mentioned in the description but with each book that comes with the artwork I've signed and sketched in the font too.

Also if you are new to our works or fancy a pack of it all for someone who hasn't read any of our books then we have also given in 4 bundles of all of our books. in there. so that is Night Post, Porcelain, Porcelain: Bone China, Briar, Butterfly Gate, Night and Dragon and Mulp - Books 1+2.

HERE is a link to the auction listings. If you scroll through you can find our stuff in amongst the other auctions.
There are tons of great little item packs in there so be sure to check out all things  up for bidding. Speaking as a big 'Name Of The Wind'/ Patrick Rothfuss fan there are some achingly good trinkets on there.

Remember this is more importantly for a good cause, a great cause in fact. So bid high!!
I don't want to butcher the explanation for what Worldbuilders do so here is a video by World builders about what they and Heifer do:

Also here are the pages that you can get hold of in the auction (they are all brushed Ink on Bristol board A3 pieces):

Butterfly Gate:  Chapter 2 - Page 31 

Porcelain : A Gothic Fairy Tale
Chapter 3 - Page 1

Porcelain : Bone China
Chapter 2 - Page 22

Briar : Page 31

Dusting Off The Blog.

Hey All,


Wow, so it has literally been well over a year since my last post. I feel equally ashamed and ok with that as the large gap has been literally because I've just had too much to do with work.
So just quickly I wanted to say "hey! I'm alive!" and stay tuned because I have a lot of posts about work and a ton of posts I want to put up about projects I've been working on and I really want to get some posts about process up here too.

Meanwhile to prove I've been busy here's a bunch of pics from my Instagram account which I tend to quickly snap and post glimpses of things I'm working on if I can more than anywhere else.
Some I can talk about some I cant but trust me it's all fun stuff.
Stay tuned! Loads to come!...... I promise!

Signing event at Chaos City Comics! Plus new print!

Hey Just wanted to post up quickly about a signing event I'm at this weekend at Chaos City Comics In St Albans.
We start at 2.00 PM and they have some amazing guys signing and sketching. So pop by and say hey if you are near. I'll be doing the usual free sketch in copies of Porcelain and Butterfly Gate and Chaos City have stock of said books so I'll have all my wares with me. 

Also I'll be selling a limited A3 Colour Matt print I've drawn up especially for this event (pictured above) If any are left after the signing, I'll be selling privately (Contact me via Email or DM me on Twitter)
Though as I say they are limited to just 17 and will be numbered so they may not be around long. They will be £20 each.