Now this is more like the kind of thing I want to be doing. It took a combination of…a few things…but I’ve had a real go at loosening up and mark-making and being happy with the process as well as the finished product. Still got to explore the mess where making decisions and sacrificing freedom meet, but I hope you can tell that I really enjoyed making this one.

Here’s one of the final pieces for the Soho project. It’s a personification of Soho (at least the aspect I saw whilst trawling Walkers Court). It’s to do with what the people think they’re like, what they’re actually like and how they’re perceived (thinking a lot about the transvestites). The plain black&white line drawing worked pretty well, but I wanted to add in the colours from some of the boutique-y shops around Soho. Turns out ‘fill’ works pretty well sometimes…

We had a ‘zany’ guy with green Wolverine style hair (well, if Wolverine was mainly bald…) in for life drawing a couple of weeks ago. I was getting a bit bored of how I’m drawing so after a couple of pedestrian pictures I thought I’d try the trusty ‘don’t lift your pen off the page’ trick. I’m quite pleased really…

And finally an idea I had when I was bored and looking through some of the texting options on my new phone. It doesn’t quite work because most people think it’s just a text I got rather than a menu for ways to start a text (most of them are real too…). Needs some work so I might have another go…

Should be back soon with more as I have to work madly for our project hand in on thursday. For the hundreds of people who are subscribed to my blog

Well it all worked out quite well in the end. I’ve had to sacrifice having a tablet (I’ll be saving up for a while methinks…) but I’ve got a brand spanking new laptop with the insurance money. It’s rather nice. So anyway, I’m back in business with a backlog of sketches.

These ones are from our map style project. Mine’s on Soho so it’s back to the transvestites…

First a little food though…

And here’s the guy from the previous post…

…and then how I imagine he sees himself…

Then a transvestite dude and the photo below it…

And some pictures from…er…some Soho literature. The first one’s vaguely disturbing.

And I couldn’t help myself when I saw one of the headlines on the cover…

So I was wandering Soho for the latest project, trying to ‘immerse’ myself in the atmosphere blah blah blah transvestite strip club blah blah blah.
I’ll put some photos up when the insurance people get me my new computer (fingers crossed people!) because they look wicked in a sort of androgynous scary dream kind of way. Also been sketching lots, naturally. This is a drawing from a photo.

Also, London’s pretty draining isn’t it? S’probably the money (lack of) and the building a new life bit I suppose.

So I won’t be posting any pictures for a bit (except maybe of me weeping) because someone stole my laptop and my tablet from the studio during one of our crits. Feel stupid because I saw the guy and kept checking my stuff, but then obviously didn’t check enough and it was gone. It’s a bit bum but there’s nowt I can do that’s productive except see what the insurance brings in. (Fingers crossed a brand new Macbook Pro, THEN I’ll be happy.) Backup your stuff too people! It’s the main thing that’s making me feel alright…that and the gin

Right. I’m finally getting somewhere. Moved myself out of the ‘only one sketchbook’ rut and going towards ‘scraps of paper on the train’ way. Or something like that. Entropy. It’s the future. No really. Well, unless the universe collapses again. Or something. But that’s a different matter.
Marker and tippex. Sorry about the bellends.

This is the sb cover…

(I drew the hands with my tongue. Blindfolded. And they were meant to be his hands. All in all, not a success.)

This was the first success of the day. No tippex. (Oh except the eyes of course). The gold pen doesn’t show up on the scanner unfortunately. It was shiny.

Some more demon wardrobe scary stuff. Really think demon wardrobes could go somewhere if i took the time butI’m lazy and the project’s in tomorrow so I guess they’ll never blossom…

Then I did some batman because of our lecture on comics. There’s some crumb influence and general comic-y thought influencing me too. The first one’s just the second with the previous page overlaid and a batman shaped bit cut out…

and

and

Now here’s Derek. I like this one.

And finally a wary boy who lives in a wardrobe. No I don’t know why he’s naked. Maybe he gets off on wood.

And now I’m gonna go to bed. Long day. Bye x

These are sketches from my day at the Royal College of Surgeons. There was SO much stuff I should’ve drawn there, but I got caught up with a few bits ‘n’ pieces. I really need to get on the whole drawing quickly and gesturally thing. This first one took a couple of hours I think (lost track) and it’s nowhere near finished. The whole skull was pretty dark…

I decided I’d be well arty and draw in my Diary of Samuel Pepys. The pen I was using only really worked well for the first one (big ol’ Charles) and they don’t look quite as good as in the book, but I’m pretty pleased with them. It’ll be cool to have a whole book of drawings in there.

Then I found this freaky little guy and did him straight into pen. His head was bigger than I did it originally, so the actual sketch has got two sets of lines. Deleted the bad ones in photoshop tho. Probably wouldn’t please my tutors that but hey ho.
Also chucked in a bit of photoshop colour burn to give it a slight ‘parchment feel’ just cause it seemed appropriate.

And finally, use a condom kids…
Oh yeah, and this guy’s skull was labelled Mr Norris. Evidently the brute actually succumbed to syphilis in 1811 and the one we see now is an android.

Right, I suppose I really ought to put stuff I’m not sure about up too. I fiddled with this illustration for the story about wardrobes (which is honestly more interesting than it sounds) for a while, but the only thing i was really satisfied with was when I put a light blue four lettered obscenity in the bottom right hand corner. It just looked better. But wasn’t entirely relevant so I’m left just unsure. Ahwell. I made the doll in a box too. E’s well sinisturr…

Oh and this is a picture of me. With a mustache.

And by the medium of time-travel, this is something I’ll need later…wow kids