Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Eat, drink and be merry! Seasons Greetings! x

Emmy The Zombie Sleigher

So, a couple more posts before I close up for Christmas...

Earlier this month, I did a comic strip for Emmy The Great and Tim Wheeler's online advent calendar for their festive album This Is Christmas. One of the songs on the album is called Zombie Christmas and listening to it gave me the idea for this drawing of Emmy The Zombie Sleigher. Move over Buffy...

Xfm are currently giving away a free download of Zombie Christmas as a special seasonal gift.

Look What THEY Drawed (Christmas 2011)

It's that time of year again, so here are a bunch of creative Christmas cards I received from some of my friends.

First up is this cute little dragon, courtesy of Richy K. Chandler...

Next, Yuki Nishimura drew this hilarious Christmas version of the movie Alive...

Joe Beale drew this picture of Christmas in Greenwich...

Zarina Liew sent me a festive picture of the characters from her
Le Mime web-comic...

And Arina Orlova produced this very topical illustration...

And finally, my dear old mother got in on the act this year and drew me a Christmas card featuring a picture of me pulling Santa's sleigh... Thanks mum! (Although she forgot to draw my beard...)

And thanks to everyone else who sent me a card this Christmas. And I hope you all have a great day tomorrow! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

***UPDATE 02/01/12***
I also got this neat card from Nanae Kawahara, illustrated on both the front and the back...

And I bought Nanae's New Year postcard from her Yaomart market stall at the Duckie Christmas Market at the Barbican, just in time for 2012 – the Year of the Dragon...

Sketchbook Project 2012 (Work In Progress)

Now that I've finished the commissioned work that's been keeping me busy the last few weeks, I thought I better get back to my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook...

I'm nearly at the end of my sketchbook now. It's been an interesting project to do, and I definitely plan to take part again next year.
If you haven't already, you can view all my previous pages here:
http://www.arthousecoop.com/users/PaulShinn/artwork

The Man In The Iron Mask

After yesterday's blog post about Daniel Craig starring in both the Bond films and the upcoming remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, today I saw the poster for the second Sherlock Holmes film and I began wondering if maybe there's a shortage of actors out there to star in all these franchise movies.

As well as playing Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Jr is also Iron Man and will be in next Summer's The Avengers movie. And Chris Evans (not that one!) is also in The Avengers as Captain America, but was the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies a few years ago. And before all this, Sir Ian McKellen was both Gandalf in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and Magneto over in the X-men films.

Surely they must get confused about which character they're meant to be playing...

The Girl With The James Bond Tattoo

While I was out and about yesterday, I saw the poster for David Fincher's remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on the side of the BFI IMAX cinema. Seeing Daniel Craig taking on the role of Mikael Blomkvist gave me the idea for this drawing...

The "James Bond tattoo" is taken (with permission) from my friend Arina Orlova's excellent artwork: James Bond: Kills and Kisses.

The Hole Opportunity

I was commissioned to produce an illustrated book cover for James Minter's first novel The Hole Opportunity.

The Hole Opportunity is an English farce, revolving around the misadventures of Colin Griggs and his wife Izzy, who decide to set up a "Hole Farming Business", supplying holes to the local golf course. When things don't go exactly to plan, Colin ends up making an enemy of the club's captain: Major Woods.

You can order a physical copy of the book, or download an eBook version, from Amazon.

Carols By Candlelight

I was commissioned to design a poster and marketing material for the University of Arts London's Christmas carol service, which was held last week at St Paul's Church in Covent Garden. The A3 poster had to appeal to people regardless of their religious beliefs, and I came up with this design using a hand-drawn pattern in the background to suggest Winter and the lettering in the title reflecting the long thin appearance of a candlestick.

Using a modified version of the design I also produced an A5 postcard, a digital image to be projected onto a plasma screen, and the front and back cover for the Order Of Service.

**UPDATE 14 March 2012***

And slightly belatedly, here is a photo that my friend Olympia took on her phone of my poster up on the wall at UAL's building at 272 High Holborn, which serves as a central hub for all of the various colleges...

The Line It Is Drawn Try-Out (Week 2)

So last week I shared my first submission for The Line It Is Drawn over on the Comics Should Be Good blog, and now I've got my week 2 submission(s) to share with you.

This week's theme was "comic book characters that haven't previously teamed up", and I ended up drawing two of the suggestions:

'Mazing Man and Forbush Man

The Monitor and The Watcher (watching Watchmen)

Voting is now open, and if you like my drawings, please click on this link and tick the box with my name (It's the sixth name down in the second list, in case any of you have a problem finding it). You can also check out the other entries while you're there, in the interest of fairness.

Voting closes on Thursday 15 December at 11:59 EST and the two entries with the most votes will be the new weekly artists joining the current bunch of regulars. Wish me luck!

Emmy & Tim's Christmas Advent Calendar day 8

One of my favourite singers, Emmy The Great, has released a Christmas Album with Tim Wheeler called This Is Christmas. You should buy it!

I've been listening to it on my iPod for a while now, and was pleased to get an email last week asking if I wanted to draw a comic strip based on their song Jesus The Reindeer to be included as a festive treat as part of their christmas advent calendar on their facebook page!

My comic strip was featured today behind Day 8 of their advent calender!

**UPDATED 15/12/2011**

Tonight I went to Rough Trade East to see Emma & Tim perform an in-store gig as the last part of their This Is Christmas mini tour. It was of course a very Christmassy affair, and as well as the songs from their album they also played cover versions of Last Christmas and Fairy Tale of New York, as well as other Christmas songs. At the end of the gig the pair did a signing and signed a copy of my comic strip for me!

The Line It Is Drawn Try-Out (Week 1)

The Line It Is Drawn is a weekly online column on the Comic Book Resources website. Each week a comics-related theme is suggested on the Comics Should Be Good blog and twitter with people posting suggestions for that theme during the week. Seven artists then each pick one of the suggestions to draw and the results are posted at the end of the week.

Three of the regular artists involved are stepping down soon, so they are currently looking for new artists to replace them, and I decided to throw my hat into the ring. Over the next couple of weeks, all those people wishing to try-out for a position get sent the list of suggestions and have the chance to submit their work.

This week's theme was "Super-fy It: Turn a person, real or fictional, into a superhero". Out of over 250 suggestions, I finally decided to go with The Virgin Mary(!) and made her into the superhero Immaculate, based partly on the cover to the Image comic
Invincible #32...

Next week's theme is "Team-up two comic book characters who have never had a team-up before".

Sketchbook Project 2012 (Work In Progress)

Here's the latest page from my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook...

This is partly based on an idea I used for another illustration recently, but I quite liked it, so wanted to use it again. Plus Mr Freeze is one of my favourite Batman villains, mainly due to the awesome animated series (and nothing to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger's role as Mr Freeze in the movie Batman & Robin!).

If you haven't already, you can view all my previous pages here:
http://www.arthousecoop.com/users/PaulShinn/artwork

Sketchbook Project 2012 (Work In Progress)

I've been busy working on a couple of commissions the last few weeks – which I'll hopefully be able to blog about soon – but for now here's a couple of new pages from my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook...

If you haven't already, you can view all my previous pages here:
http://www.arthousecoop.com/users/PaulShinn/artwork

Look what THEY drawed... Me!

I'm frequently drawing people on the train/tube/DLR/Overground.
I find it's a good way to pass the time during journeys and also is good practice for drawing different faces and expressions.

But today I was drawn by someone else while I was on the Overground to Wapping! I look very sophisticated! haha

I noticed that he was sketching, but didn't know he was drawing me! Then before I got off, he tore the page out and gave it to me, with his facebook page to upload it to. You can check out his page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Inexmetris/358371295376?sk=wall

Happy Birthday Shigeru Miyamoto!

Today is the 59th birthday of Shigeru Miyamoto. As a designer and producer at Nintendo he has been responsible for many of my favourite video games over the years. Happy Birthday to him!

The Twilight Zone 2

I did another Twilight comic... if Twilight is about a vampire and a werewolf who live together. And if that's not what Twilight is about, then I don't want to know!

The Twilight Zone

I've never watched any of the Twilight movies, but the other day I saw an advert for the latest film on the side of a bus and had an idea to do a comic about a vampire and a werewolf...

Depressed Cat fan art

The other week I noticed a tweet by Lizz Lunney (@Lizzlizz) looking for people to submit fan art of her character Depressed Cat (who also has his own Twitter page – @depressed_cat). As I'm a fan of Lizz's comics, and Depressed Cat, I decided to join in and sent this image of the fed-up feline...

Lizz has featured the fan art images in her new comic book: Depressed Cat: Nine Miserable Lives.

I'm happy to have my drawing included in the book, and received a copy from Lizz yesterday at the Comica Comiket independent comic fair.

Depressed Cat: Nine Miserable Lives is now available to buy from Lizz's online shop.

OFFRET – An Art Intervention on the London Riots

I was recently asked by 6th Hour Productions to be involved in their latest project: OFFRET, part of the Exchange Radical Moments! Live art festival.

OFFRET was planned as an urban intervention about the London riots of August 2011, focusing on the area of Clapham Junction affected during the rioting. On Friday night, a large-scale outdoor projection was presented onto one of the buildings which had been badly affected by arson during the unrest in Clapham Junction, offering a reflection on the multiplicity of perspectives regarding the riots: from local residents to police officers, youths and business owners, and addressing some of it's causes, feelings and consequences.

The other part of the project involved encouraging different sectors of the local community to get together and discuss the unrest caused by the rioting, through a series of workshops. The outcome of these workshops was the production of a fictional newspaper, dated 2013, with fictional stories about the future of Clapham Junction. And this is where I became involved in the project!

As well as the fictional news stories, the members of 6th Hour Productions also wanted to include a few "fun" elements to the paper, and asked me if I could come up with a comic strip that they could include.

There was no specific theme for the comic strip, but I decided that I wanted to work within the themes of the newspaper and the project and attempt to come up with a strip that made reference to the riots...

Click on strip to enlarge

The Skyfall Tower

The title of the 23rd James Bond film has been revealed as Skyfall.

The first thing that came into my head when I heard this was the story of Chicken Licken, who believes that the sky is falling after an acorn drops on his head...

Sketchbook Project 2012 (Work In Progress)

After a brief hiatus, here's the latest page from my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook...

You can view all my previous pages here:http://www.arthousecoop.com/users/PaulShinn/artwork

Hey! Listen!

Last night I went to the Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony concert at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was a memorable event, with The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra playing a series of arrangements based on the music from The Legend of Zelda titles. The music was introduced by Zelda Williams, daughter of actor Robin Williams, who was actually named after the titular princess of the video game series.

It was a really amazing evening, made even more unique by the guest appearance by Koji Kondo who has been employed as a musical composer by Nintendo since 1984 and has produced many memorable scores for the company. He ended the evening by playing Grandma's Theme from The Wind Waker on the piano.

Anyway, inspired by the events of the evening, I wanted to create a musical Zelda-based image, so here is a drawing of Link playing his ocarina...

Anders Nilsen in conversation with Tom Gauld at Orbital Comics

Yesterday evening I attended an event at Orbital Comics with Anders Nilsen in conversation with Tom Gauld, as part of this year's Comica Festival. Although I am a big fan of Tom Gauld's work, I wasn't that familiar with the work of Anders Nilsen, but it's always interesting to hear two creative people talking.

Here's a quick sketch I did of the pair before the talk began – and while they are both looking rather unanimated in my drawing, when the conversation got under way they were both very lively, engaging and interesting!

I got a lot of inspiration from the talk for my own comics work, and am keen to pick up Big Questions by Anders Nilsen, which has just been released by Drawn & Quarterly.

AND after the talk finished I was able to get my copy of Tom Gauld's Hunter & Painter signed!

Sketchbook Project 2012 (Work In Progress)

Another day, another page for my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook...

You can view all my previous pages here: http://www.arthousecoop.com/users/PaulShinn/artwork

Never Mind The Bollocks...

My friend Tom is talking bollocks! And not for the first time. But on this occasion it's for a good cause!

Tom is taking part in Movember, where thousands of men in the UK spend the month of November growing facial hair on their top lips to raise funds and awareness for both prostate and testicular cancer.

And I've leant my support by drawing him a portrait to help promote his efforts...

You can visit his donation page here: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1424566/

Sketchbook Project 2012 (Work In Progress)

Here's a couple more pages for my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook for the theme Heroes & Villains...

Sketchbook Project 2012 (Work In Progress)

Here are my latest pages for my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook for the theme Heroes & Villains...

One Flew Over The Penguin's Nest: The Observer/Jonathan Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize 2011

So as well as the i newspaper's Comic Idol competition, I have also been working on my entry for this year's The Observer/Jonathan Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Competition. I completed my 4-page comic story yesterday ahead of the deadline this Friday, and here is the result...

I enjoyed the challenge of producing a longer comic story, and am pleased with the final result. I came up with the idea for this story after reading news reports back in June about an Emperor penguin that arrived on a beach in New Zealand after supposedly getting lost while swimming from the Antarctic. Then I started thinking: What if he wasn't lost, and really wanted to go to New Zealand to get away from the Antarctic?

The winning entry will be printed in The Observer newspaper on Sunday 6 November.