The Future is Unwritten

The Old Crew

I know the new Abrams movie is just around the corner but today I decided to draw some of the old guys instead. The new movie certainly won't stink but it remains to be seen just how good it's going to be.

I'm more of a casual Star Trek fan than one of the true believers, but given the times that are in it, I think everyone going to the cinema this May could do with a good dose of entertainment and a bit of optimism.

EXP #0

This is a new page for something that might happen later in the year. I think it's about the fourth page in a six page sequence. It's at a very experimental stage. Lots of floating ideas without any structure. When I'm starting something like this I try not to pressurise myself into making too much literal sense of the drawings 'cos it'll just end up getting nailed down to some bullshit explanation without other possibilities being explored first. I like this page so it''ll definitely end up in the comic, whatever other decisions I make from here on in.

It's enjoyable because you're basically free to mess around with as many unrelated doodles as you want. I've mapped out about six opening pages where the sequences were created almost entirely on instinct. I might have stopped once or twice to ask myself what the fuck I'm doing and then alter my decision about what I'm drawing but most of the inital material is drawn intuitively. For better or for worse.

The Black Rider

Today I finished all the nib work for the windell book so to celebrate I naturally decided to do this drawing of The Black Rider. This ended up looking way more cartoony than I wanted. I just slapped it down without stopping to think what I was doing and this is what I got. I think I hate it.

Windell will be printed next month and available to buy around late April or early May. More info as soon as I know.

Promo Portraits

Here are three standalone portraits of windell characters created for possible use in an animated promo that's being created by Richard O'Shea. Go here: www.osheamedia.com

M

This sketch was done with black and white acrylic. It's one of my favourite movie images ever. I first saw it in an old movie magazine when I was about 8 or 9 and I just remember wanting to see the movie very badly 'cos I thought Peter Lorre looked so scary.

I only got to see 'M' properly in the last few years. I was expecting it to be an expressionistic horror thing with canted angles and Lorre leering down at the cherubs. Instead it's a very sober movie based on a real life case in Germany just before the film was shot. A lot of it's taken up with the unglamorous details of police work in tracking down a child killer. It's brilliant stuff, just not the ghoulish spectacle I was expecting it to be.

2 New drawings

I've been awake for about... oh, twenty odd hours straight. I did these two sketches in the wee hours this morning. I don't know what the hell is going on in the first one. The second one was sketched straight from a photo of Christopher Lee in a book I bought years ago called "Who's Who of Horror."

Last night I finished the centre pages for the Windell showcase. It's a Ms. Ice Skates story (not that that means anything to anyone yet) and its in colour. Only three pages to go and its finished.

Funny Fugue

Nothing new to post so I dragged this out from an old pile of abandoned stuff.

This comic was going to be a metaphyscial response to the Barbara Streisand vehicle "Funny Face".

Finished cover

This was finished by putting acrylics down over the pencils and then inking the outlines and other details over the paint. This is actually a scan of a laser copy of the original and the colours have come out identical to the original so there's zero need for any correction.

Oh yeah, and just for future retrospective reference, today was the day when the citizens of our fair isle (Eire) learned the full extent of our banking sectors GUBU status. It's history in the making folks.

Pencils for Windell showcase cover