Many Mel Smiths

Author and film nut Jon Spira hired me to create 36 portraits of late comedian and actor Mel Smith. The images were created to go alongside the launch of Book #1 of the Forgotten Film Club Series, which focuses on Smith's "unremembered" classic Morons From Outer Space.

Go and order it TODAY!!!

A great little project, for which I am thankful. HERE is a link to Jon's Kickstarter.

 Smith of course is the legand from 

Not The Nine O'clock News, Alas Smith and Jones...

...directed The Tall Guy, rocked around the

Christmas tree with Kim Wilde...

BBC: Top Ten Comedy Kit

As you can see, I've given up on comedic-pun titles for this blog, and it's with some degree of irony here because this post deals with comedy.

Following on from my last post, the next many-drawings project for the BBC was The Top Ten Comedy Kit. In a nutshell, a bunch of comedians created top ten lists for a BBC3 short-form series and my job was to turn these lists into illustrated elements. This was done for you, the internet user to "remix" into funny animations on the online Mixital platform.

The official blurb makes more sense, is also longer and less lazily written than mine... HERE

So because Jessie Cave mentions a Haribo ring in "Top Ten Things about My Dream Wedding", I created a mean illustration of a Haribo ring... and so on. Other list providers include Michael Spicer, Jack Carroll, Nish Kumar, Mae Martin, Lazy Susan, Ken Cheng, comedy duo The Pin, Mandem on the Wall, Jamali, Steve Bugeja and Holly Walsh.

I'll put a collage below and then some of my other favourites in full, forgive me if I gush over these; I'm a bit proud of how they turned out.

Some stuff and The Queen. 

Roy Lichtenstein-esq explosions,

the works!

Aw, is that Emma's Special Bow?

(Wiggles reference).

Love the chair. It is based on an actual chair; I'm not a furniture designer.

Look at the shimmer on that. Love the plate.

Supergirl Pondering

...Images of Supergirl and other female superheroes posing or looking wistfully off into the distance are fine and dandy, until your mind starts to wander around the image and into what they might be thinking.

I like the idea of more than a pinup under the guise of "justice, justice and more justice" and instead into the realm of regular mundane thoughts... which in a sense makes it less. Does Supergirl not live on Earth afterall? ...I'm digressing there, basically I've broken the fourth wall, and once down, that's it; the floodgates are open! Just ask Ferris Bueller.

She shares my opinion on Richard Pryor

Who'd have thunk it?

Inglorious Bastard

A couple of months ago, a commission arrived in my inbox which was so baffling in concept that it made me think that a friend was playing a trick, just to see what the most outlandish thing I would ever draw for the promise money could be. However, soon I found myself getting stuck in, getting down with the synopsis presented before me and treating this job the same as I would with any other; by employing a high degree of professionalism (what? I can be all self-promoty sometimes.) ...I can't wait to read it.

I'm rambling. The project was an E-book cover image for a story titled "The Adventures of Bastard." The Author is Sam Gwillim and it is unleashed upon the world in December this year.

I won't say any more about the project, rather I will leave it to the official website which acts as a virtual  companion to the book; containing extra features, diary excepts from the characters and fun facts. Go there: http://adventuresofbastard.com/

The Right To Bear Arms

I drew this about a year and a half ago...

It was an idea that popped into my head that I felt I just had to get down on paper. Unfortunately this was just prior to my current obsession with traditional inking, so it doesn't quite have that vintage comic look that I was after. Also unfortunately, I recently saw an episode of Family Guy in which a similar "Bear arms" gag reared it's ugly head. Arrrgh! So just for the record, I made this, before I saw that.

The vague statistic in my comic strip is based on something I read about actual gun ownership in a Bill Bryson book. (Most likely "Notes from a Big Country" ...though I read it about ten years ago, if I could have been bothered to look up the actual passage which mentions the statistic as a percentage; I may have used it.)

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Comedy Night!

Materials used:
Indian Ink and Brush (Windsor and Newton University Series size 3)- (for Darth Vader waves and Jaws - I am aware that Jaws was not the shark's name! It was Bruce). Technical pen for the rest and Photoshop for colour. Texture was made by scanning in a blank sheet of paper and layering. All text drawn by hand.

Ever had one of those days where you just want to draw Darth Vader doing stuff?
Luckily for me this desire coincided with a friend of mine Robert Pipe requesting that I draw a poster/flyer for his London-based comedy night called "The Forgery." Movie themed of course. "Like" the Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheForgeryClub

Click to enlarge.

Ahh Star Wars and Jaws; don't quite know if there will be any sketches involving those two films. "We Brake for Nobody" is a reference from the spoof film Spaceballs (Mel Brooks), I thought I'd put that on there when I realised that my picture of Darth has a slightly oversized helmet, much like "Dark Helmet" (Rick Moranis) obviously.