MARCH of the Penguins #31

Wow! I did it!

Although I didn't say anything officially when I started doing these March Of The Penguins comic strips, my plan was to see if I could do a daily comic strip for the whole month of March. And now I have! And I enjoyed it. So what now?

Well I kind of like these characters and have some more ideas in my head for them, so I think I'd like to carry on and see what happens. Although before I do that, I'm going to take a short break from them, if only for my own sanity. But they will be back very soon...!

TO BE CONTINUED...

MARCH of the Penguins #30

Superman III: Drunk Evil Superman vs Clark Kent

The other weekend, I sat down to watch a bit of telly while I had some lunch and discovered that Superman III was on. I was pleased to find that I'd turned on at one of my favourite parts, where a drunk evil Superman has a fight with Clark Kent in a junk yard. What I especially like about this scene is the fact that you know Superman is drunk and evil because he hasn't shaved for a while, and every now and then he sort of staggers around a bit. Also his costume is a bit darker than normal.

Anyway, after finishing my sandwich I turned it off before it got to the scary part with the machine that turns a woman into a robot, but I decided that I wanted to draw a pciture of drunk evil Superman having a fight with Clark Kent.

And here it is...

MARCH of the Penguins #29

Happy Blog-Day To Me...!

3 years ago today, on the 29 March 2008, I set up this blog and posted my first entry...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG!



It's strange to think back to that time. I had been working for nearly four years as an in-house book designer at a publishers near London Bridge, and while the job was okay, I felt like it wasn't what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life. I had the idea of applying to go and do an MA in Illustration and get back to my drawing, but at the time that seemed like a massive change, so to sort of test the waters, I enrolled on a short course at Camberwell College of Arts to get a feel for being back in a teaching environment...

I was a bit nervous before I started, and thought that maybe everyone else on the course would be a lot younger than me, but after the first day all those worries had gone. Quite a few people on the course were around the same age as me, and had come along for the exact same reasons as I had. At the end of the first day, I knew that this was something that I wanted to do, and sent off my application for the MA course that same week.

When I went back to work the following week, a lot of people wanted to know what I'd been up to on the course, so I set up this blog as a way to share what I'd done. I got accepted onto the MA course at Camberwell (as did one of my friends from the short course!), and left my job in August to enroll full-time in September.

Now here we are 3 years later. I completed my MA course in 2009, set up my own website – paulshinndraws.com – and have made over 300 posts on this blog. I am enjoying doing illustration work and hope to get a lot more commissions this year. It's amazing the difference a few years can make...

Here's to the next 3 years!

Illustration Friday: Toy

First I have a confession to make. I didn't do last week's Illustration Friday topic which was Cultivate because, to be honest, I couldn't think of anything to do for it...

Anyway, this week's Illustration Friday theme is Toy.

I did think of drawing something with teddy bears or lego people, but then I thought back to when I was a kid and decided I had to draw...

SKELETOR!!!!



They don't make toys like that anymore!

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SMILE JAPAN!

Kazu Morishita, Yuki Nishimura and Nanae Kawahara are three Japanese illustrators currently living in London who have set up SMILE JAPAN, a charity project to raise money to help those affected by the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami. They have set up a website to share information about this project which you can view here.

This Saturday they will have a stall at The Backyard Market in Brick Lane, where they will be selling postcards, greeting cards and printed art work to help raise money.

If you're in the area, please drop by and take a look. They all do amazing work and you're sure to find something that you would like to buy. I'll also be contributing some work for them to sell, as will other local artists. And all of the money raised will be donated straight to the Japan earthquake and tsunami appeal.



SMILE JAPAN plans to continue their fund-raising efforts throughout the year with further market stalls and other ideas, so if you would like to contribute some artwork you can find contact details here.

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Ganbare Nippon: Illustration Rally's Japan Tsunami Appeal

The Illustration Rally blog is currently running a number of events to help aid the Japan Tsunami Appeal. You can view more details here...

Happy Birthday Dennis The Menace

Dennis The Menace is 60 years old today! First published in The Beano on 17 March 1951, the character has appeared in the comic ever since (and shouldn't be confused with the US comic strip Dennis The Menace, which was first published five days earlier on 12 March 1951).

Luckily for him, as a comic character he doens't show his age. But I thought I'd draw a picture of him if he did...

**UPDATE: 30/3/2012**
Kris White emailed me today to ask if he could include my drawing of the sexagenarian Dennis The Menace on his website The 1951 Club, which is all about people born in 1951, just like Dennis.

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Drawings On A Train

I recently joined a Facebook group entitled Drawings On A Train, set up by fellow Camberwell MA'er and fellow Paul, Paul Giles for people to post their sketches of unsuspecting passengers on the train/tube/DLR/overground [delete as approporiate].

It's been quite a good exercise and made me make the most of those mundane minutes onboard the train to do a quick bit of sketching. I thought I'd share some of my recent posts here in the hope that it might inspire some of you to take up the challenge. It sure beats reading the Metro...





If you're on Facebook and want to join, you can find the group here...

Japan Tsunami Appeal: Ganbare Nippon / Don't Give Up Japan!

The Illustration Rally blog today set up an appeal for those affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, with a call for illustrations for the theme Don't Give Up Japan to help raise awareness for the appeal.

Like most of the world, I have watched with shock over the last few days at the devastating images coming from Japan following the earthquake on Friday. I have friends living in Japan, as well as Japanese friends currently living in London with family in Japan. Thankfully they were all okay, but sadly the same cannot be said for many others.

As an illustrator and comic artist, I have been greatly influenced by Japanese animation. I wanted to create an image featuring some of these uplifting chacters which have bought so much joy and happiness to generations of children and adults. My aim was to produce an image to bring a smile to people's faces, even in this difficult time.



If you wish to donate to the appeal there are a number of sites you can use, including the following:
British Red Cross
American Red Cross
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Just Giving

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Illustration Friday: Stir

This week's Illustration Friday theme is Stir.

"Stir Crazy" is a term that originally refered to a prisoner who became mentally unbalanced because of prolonged incarceration, although it has now become used to refer to anybody who becomes restless as a result of being stuck in one place for too long.

This poor prisoner has gone completely Stir Crazy...!

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Colour Me Totem

Here is my submission to Inkygoodness' Colour Me Totem creative project to create your own Character Totem.

My creation is called Totem-Khamun. This poor wooden totem doesn't look too happy to see that hungry woodpecker though...

If you want to create your own, you can view the template and submission details here.

Illustration Friday: Warning

This week's Illustration Friday theme is Warning. Maybe it was because I've been posting some of my old drawings recently, but this made me think of a comic strip I drew back when I was at University doing my BA course. Like a lot of stuff I drew then, I didn't keep it, but I still remembered the idea, which seemed quite appropriate for this week's theme, so I decided to recreate it...

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Happy Birthday Zarina!

Last week it was my talented friend Zarina's 30th birthday and to celebrate I drew her a special card featuring characters from her excellent weekly webcomic – Le Mime.

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Although I've never actually watched an episode, the US comedy Seinfeld is often refered to as being a comedy "about nothing". Now this has often confused me, because surely just by its very existence the show must be "about" something, even if that something is nothing. Do you see?

For some reason, I'd been thinking about this phrase recently and wanted to try and come up with a comic strip about nothing. Again, obviously just by the fact that it exists, it must be about something, and it is. It's about two penguins. But two penguins who live alone in the middle of an isolated snow-covered wasteland where very little ever happens...

Old Skool Scribbling 2!

So I found this still life painting I did using acrylics for my GCSE Art exam...



And a couple of my sketchbooks from my A-level art course with these pen and ink drawings of imaginary landscapes and architectural views...