Birthday Card Catch-Up

Here are a couple of birthday cards that I've drawn recently...

Emmy The Great recently teased the announcement of her upcoming EP and UK tour with a photoshoot including this image...

...which I used as my inspiration for this card for her birthday...


Here's a drawing I did for my friend Ayano's birthday recently. I scanned some patterned papers for the background and her shirt...


Here's a card I drew for my friend Sarah's birthday...


And finally (for now!) here's a card I drew for my friend Maria's birthday, based on one of her photos...

God Of Loneliness

A few months ago, I was contacted by Emmy The Great to ask if I wanted to collaborate on a project together. I'd previously done a couple of fan art drawings and produced a comic strip for an online advent calendar to promote the Christmas album by Emmy The Great and Tim Wheeler, and Emmy thought it'd be fun to work on something together for the release of her new single, God Of Loneliness.

A short film was being produced to accompany the single, directed by Chris Boyle and starring Isy Suttie (Peep Show) and Shazad Latif (Spooks), and Emmy's idea was to have four single-page comics which would be released online in the week's leading up to the release of the video, and act as a prelude to the events of the film.

We came up with the outline for the comics together, with the idea that each comic should take place at a different period in the life of the character played by Isy Suttie in the film, and then I developed those ideas into the finished comics. In the week's leading up to the release of the single and the debut of the short film, the comics were released individually online across different music blogs and websites, together with four remix tracks to download. Each comic would feature a guest appearance by the artists that provided the remixes (Banjo Or Freakout, Dems, Dan Le Sac and CSS).









All of which leads into the events of the short film released alongside the God Of Loneliness single...



I enjoyed working on this project and it made me more confident about working on a longer comics narrative, which is definitely something I want to develop.

Watch this space!

**BLU-RAY BONUS CONTENT**
This project made me develop my way of working, which was more involved than when I'm producing three panel comic strips. I did quite a lot of writing before I even started drawing, working out the narrative and where I could fit jokes within the story. Next I drew rough sketches of the comics to work out the layout of the page. I found it quite interesting to compare these sketches with the final comics, so thought I would include them here...

Originally I was envisaging working to a landscape format, hence the slightly different arrangement of these first two comics. After we decided upon a portrait format, I adjusted these strips accordingly, while still keeping the same idea in place...

Coming soon...

Exciting projects are exciting!

Watch this space...

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.

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!

Emmy The Great: no relation of Tony The Tiger...

This week I have mostly been listening to Virtue, the new album from Emmy The Great. I was also lucky enough to see Emma-Lee Moss and her band play live at St Pancras Old Church last Friday, and at an acoustic gig at Rough Trade East on Tuesday, both of which were awesome!

Anyway, here is my cover version of the album cover. Who doesn't love playing with dinosaurs...?