Happy Easter!

The Year of Luigi

While I was travelling on the Overground yesterday I picked up a copy of the Metro and was surprised to find an article all about Luigi, the supposedly "less famous Mario brother". While they did seem to be struggling to fill two pages – "Unlike his more famous brother, Luigi likes anchovies on his pizza" – the article was highlighting the fact that, in recognition of the 30th Anniversary of the other brother's first appearance in the Mario Bros arcade game in 1983, Nintendo have made 2013 'The Year of Luigi', with a number of Luigi-centric games due to be released this year on 3DS and Wii U!

So, in recognition of this fact, and the release of Luigi's Mansion 2 tomorrow, I decided to do a drawing of the Mario brother that is not Mario...

Emperor Yes Presents: COSMOS

I recently took part in the gallery show Emperor Yes Presents "COSMOS", put together by the band Emperor Yes and all the
work based around their new single, Cosmos.


Click on image to enlarge

The opening night for the show was very busy, with lots
of people making it along despite the cold weather...

Image © Ayano Fukuoka


Image © Ayano Fukuoka

Happy Birthday Ines!

It was my friend Ines's birthday on Tuesday and this evening she went for drinks to celebrate, and there was cake!

I drew her this card, based on her Facebook profile picture. Her toes don't actually have faces in the original photo...

Happy Birthday Rachael!

It was my friend Rachael's birthday on Friday. Her first full length comic book The Way We Write has been getting lots of good reviews recently (and deservedly so). I drew this picture of Rachael and her comic for her birthday...



The Way We Write is available to buy from Orbital Comics (London), Forbidden Planet (Leicester, Leeds, Glasgow, Birmingham) Travelling Man (York, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds) and several other comic shops across the country. You can also by a copy online here.

Sketches on the train (20 March)

I've been doing quite a few quick sketches on the train this week. Earlier today I accidentally picked up my diary instead of my sketchbook when I was going out...


Luckily, I was able to swap them before going out again later this evening...

Glasses Comics #1

The other week I went to have my eyes tested and had to get my first pair of glasses to wear when I'm working on the computer...which is quite often! Anyway, I made this comic (sort of) about it...

Drawing on the train (19/03)

A quick sketch I drew on the Overground between New Cross and Canada Water this afternoon. I'm pleased with this guy's hair...

Happy Birthday Natalie!

It was my friend Natalie's 30th birthday on Sunday. It was also Saint Patrick's Day. Hence the heavy use of green in the card I made for her...

Sketchbook Scribbles

The other day I was doing some drawing while I was traveling on the tube. I enjoy doing these quick sketches, as it's a challenge to try to draw someone when you don't know if they are going to get off at the next stop, or someone is going to suddenly come and stand directly in your way. It's all about speed and capturing the essential elements.

I also did a couple more drawings later while sitting and having a coffee (and sheltering from the sudden snowfall outside)...

Warm-up sketch: Robin

I decided to do a quick sketch this morning to get me warmed-up, and ended up drawing Damian Wayne, Batman's son and the most recent Robin...

Here's (more than) one I prepared earlier...

I've been busy recently working on something which I can't reveal just yet, so haven't had time to blog a couple of other things which I've done in the meantime. So consider this a catch-up post to bring me up-to-date. So here we go...!

Firstly, it was my friend Chrys's birthday almost a month ago (which just shows how long it's been since I've done a proper blog post!). After our work Christmas party we went to this bar in Soho where they serve cocktails in teapots, so I drew this picture for her birthday. And as we work at the National Gallery, I also took some inspiration from Caravaggio's technique of chiaroscuro, using strong contrasts between light and dark, and used a dark(ish) colour for the background...



Speaking of the National Gallery, when I was working last week, I found myself in a room closed off to visitors while technicians worked on the lighting. With little to do while I was there, other than keeping an eye on the paintings, I found a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket and did a quick sketch of Andrea Previtali's Salvator Mundi (1519)...



Next up, Little White Lies ran an 8-bit Creative Brief to draw a Start Screen for a fictional Disney video game using MS Paint, with the chance to win an iPad mini. I designed a screen for an ice-skating game featuring Bambi, but sadly didn't win. Still it was fun doing some old school digital drawing!



Sometimes ideas pop into your head at the most unexpected moments, and while I was chatting online with my friend Janice the other week, I came out with an especially pointless bit of conversation which just seemed perfect to turn into a comic strip (and quoted word for word!)...



I've made no secret of the fact that I love penguins, and I really enjoyed the recent BBC television series Penguins – Spy in the Huddle, three episodes featuring footage of penguins filmed using spycams to capture never-before-seen moments. After watching the final episode I drew this drawing of an Emperor Penguin and a chick...



It was my friend Zarina's birthday last week, and to celebrate I drew a picture of one of her characters from her new webcomic The Higgs...



And finally, for now, it was my friend Ireeni's birthday on Friday. She's recently been posting a lot of photos on Facebook of various gastronomic delights that she's cooked at home, so I drew her this card...

Acoustic Guitar - a 69 Love Songs comic

69 Love Songs, Illustrated is an online project, curated by Julia Scheele, attempting to illustrate all of the songs from The Magnetic Fields' three-volume concept album 69 Love Songs.

I had previously discovered the project towards the end of last year, and after seeing a recent tweet from Julia asking for more contributors, I decided to attempt my own interpretation of the song Acoustic Guitar.



After listening to the song a few times I made some notes and thumbnail sketches...



...and then condensed my initial ideas into a 3 page comic offering a slightly sideways take on the original song...
(click on the pages to enlarge)



You can view all the contributions to the project so far here, and if you are interested in taking part, the list of songs still available can be found here.