Porcelain: In Shops TOMORROW!

Hey, Hey!

Here's just a reminder of that book what I done. because it's getting released tomorrow!!!!

a big load of love from myself, Ben and Andre has gone into that book and well everyone involved in Improper so please if you have the spare time and spare pennies get a copy! The link i'm about to share has  a free preview PDF so you can wet your appetite for the full book. also some of the first reviews to come in.

You can read that HERE

House Of Betty: Interview and Review of Porcelain

Here's a little quick fire question time I did with the lovely people of House of Betty. you can Read that HERE

They also have given one of the first full reviews of Porcelain. really recommend anyone interested in my first full Graphic Novel having a read of this. ever so slightly but not a lot spoilery.
Big Thanks To Oz of H.O.B for the very kind review :)

You can Read that House Of Betty Porcelain Review HERE

The Ones That Got Away: Part 1 - Wrath Of The Titans

More often than not as an illustrator you might have a project come your way and despite doing a chunk of work towards it, it wont see that light of day. That's just the way things go sometimes, you might get out-pitched by someone else or it just bypasses the right people.
2012 was a great year for me, I found I had more offers than I could take on and plenty that I would kill to work on. Some of those just slipped through my fingers... but that's just the gamble of pitching.
One that slipped through was for 'Wrath Of The Titans'. My eldest brother Tim Wildgoose was Armoury Supervisor on Wrath and wanted to pitch a promotional prequel comic to the director. Tim asked me to help with a little script he'd written and I drew some character sketches and a test page.

 

The script Tim had written was great, it was a 'Lone Wolf and Cub' style story with a drunk, rough looking Perseus carrying his son whilst fending off the odd demi-god.

We actually had full support from the Director and main actor and it all looked so promising but when it came to the studio's end it was unfortunately left alone. It was a great shame mainly for me as to work on a comic with my eldest brother would have been awesome but alas it just didn't happen..

Interestingly Tim had such good ideas in the script that some bits actually made it into the film. Apparently the idea of blindfolding statues of Zeus, so he couldn't witness the blasphemy's of humans made it into the actual film. So if you watch it, keep a sharp eye!

I've got more projects that I haven't had a chance or been allowed to mention so hopefully if the old clients/partners don't mind, I'll be able to post some more near misses. So stay tuned!

An Improper Valentines gift

Hello there!
Yesterday we at Improper Books released the free one page comic myself and Benjamin Read created for Valentines day. This is a slightly alternative Pagan-esq Valentines gift, check out our little piece 'Wood-Wife'

*note: this is mildly NSFW and definitely not for youngling readers*


Stay tuned as I'm hoping next week I'll be allowed to post about the process of making this little short.

Porcelain: Indie Launch! Buy it! Buy it!

Very Happy to announce the release date information on my first long form comic Porcelain: A Gothic Fairy Tale


On Wednesday February 27th, 2013 we are releasing a limited print of the book will be available from Page 45 (Nottingham), Travelling Man (Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and York), Gosh! (London) and Orbital Comics (London), and is currently available to pre-orderfrom said shops.

If you're interested in the book or just want to know more here's a little outline of the story.

'Porcelain is set within a world that’s a darkly magical echo of our own. It follows the story of a street urchin, known as Child, who leaves the cold streets of a snowy city behind when she climbs the high wall into the Porcelain Maker’s secret garden in a bid to steal whatever she can.'

You can download a PDF preview of the book HERE

Porcelain: Keeping It In The Family

Here's an interesting peek behind the scenes of Porcelain.
One of my elder brothers is a bit of a dab hand at...well probably everything but more recently he's become quite a mind blower with Google Sketch Up.
Working on a project like Porcelain Continuity an be a bitch, so to help with the reference i often make a Sketch up of certain rooms so I can keep my bearings and remember where i left say a globe in a room or how many shelves i had on a book shelf.
It's also pretty handy when working out where to place a vanishing point and helps me figure out a new way to approach and angle of a room.
One main help it can give is with complicated props. i'm quite rubbish on Sketch Up when it comes to individual props or something more complicated than a vase or window. This is where my brother Tim came in to help and helped me with some of the grander and more complicated set pieces.

I was going to write up a post myself about his help but he went and did it for his own blog. so i'll let him do the rest of the talking. You can read that HERE

Super 8: The Involvement!

When reading my bio, I’m pretty sure a lot of people have scratched their heads and thought: Wait a minute… Super 8?  If you’re new to my work then it’s likely the Super 8 connection seems unlikely or you remember the DC short by Peter Tomasi and Tommy Lee Edwards. But yes, my partner in comic crime Benjamin Read and I teamed up for the UK promotion of the film, we worked on a promotional website that had a bundle of Super 8 goodies.

The set up was to have an interactive desk of our hero Joe. On said desk is a comic entitled Monsters From The Morgue! Throughout the film the kids are making a horror movie and the comic is one inspiration for the kids when making their film.

We had a lot of fun working on this as we got to take it back to the 70’s and make a completely zany B movie short. So we were quite in our Sci-Fi element.

I have to say out of the whole project, the most fun I had was on the cover.

This had to look as authentic as possible. So we went for the heroic detective shielding the screaming dame. (Although this isn’t exactly how the interiors plot turns out) for reference we looked heavily at the covers from ‘Tales Of The Zombie’. Those covers often had a very beautiful painted style. I didn’t quite get the subtle beauty of those classics but it was a fun attempt. The cover lettering was custom made by Laura Trinder. She also worked on the fake retro advertisements and other bits outside of the website.

In the early stages of development we played with a few different ideas for the comic. One such route we tried, but sadly didn’t continue, was a sort of prequel short based around Charles himself.  Here are a couple of sketches done for that.

 

I’d also tried out my hand at some other bits for the desk interactions if you look through the desk you’ll find a storyboard sketchbook. This again was intended to be an item to back up the film the kids are making in the film. The intention was that one of the kids drew these rough storyboards. I think it’s plain to see from my version that I had a bit of trouble adapting my art style to look more like a youngster with not much art training. 

So again sadly these weren’t used but to be fair I hadn’t really met the authentic look!

People who will have watched the film will notice the story of these isn’t strictly what happens in the kid’s film. We were doing this purely from what we knew from the teaser trailer.

You can find the full website this work is on HERE