Sketches and new desk

Right, I thought I'd chime in with a quick update again before the end of the year.

I've spent the day re-arranging the front room at home to try and give me more workspace. I've also re-oriented my second monitor to portrait rather than landscape for some more deskspace (also it looks cool).

New setup

As a bit of a treat here are also a couple of sketches I did recently. The first is a nice winter scene with Moo & Keo in a snowball fight.

Moo has the right idea.

These were both done for some friends, I asked them to name anything for me to draw and I would give it a go (it's always good practice to draw outside your comfort area). That first one was pretty easy, Moo & Keo are an easy draw for me nowadays. Now this second sketch was a bit different, I was asked to draw "A T-Rex shooting lasers out of it's eyes at a Shark that is flying because it has rockets under it's fins oh and the T-Rex is doing an ollie jumping over a car or something". Suffice to say that sketch was WELL outside my comfort zone, having said that I was quite pleased with the outcome.

I drew in a Narwhal watching, just because.

I swear I want a T-Shirt with that on it.

Ok, that's all for now. Whatever you're doing have a good New Years. See you in 2010.

Matt

A Few Days to Go!

Well, I'm just about ready for Christmas.

As well as the usual presents & wrapping I've now got Moo and Keo all drawn and ready to go live until after Christmas. On top of that I was sat in my usual spot in the famous coffee chain yesterday and managed to write scripts for all the strips to the end of the first week in January!

Santa, my stockings are here!

I've been doing a bit of random sketching too. I did a very rough doodle called "Square One" which is an image that came to my mind when a friend said that as far as relationships were concerned he was back to square one (join the club).

"Square One" sketch and this week's M&K script sketch.

That's all for now. I'll try and get some new sketches in before Christmas.

Matt/Keo

Christmas Time

Well, it's that time of year again. Christmas has come around quite quickly this year, sneaking up on me from behind November like a Jack in the Box. I'm more or less ready present wise, just a few bits and bobs to get for the family at the weekend and I'll be fine.

The Comic is ready again this year, while we're in the middle of our mini "Moo & Keo in South Africa" storyline we won't be touching on Christmas as part of main continuity we will however be marking the occation with a special two part strip on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. Both strips were inked at the weekend and I'll be doing the colouring this weekend, so there should be nothing stopping them being up on time.

I've been doing a lot better time wise with the comics of late, I'm finding that writing in bulk helps very much. Also I've acquired a few more copic markers, and will be getting a few more again for Christmas. This gives me a lot more flexibility with what I can draw.

New Copics

Drawing Time

Sometimes I sit at home to draw the comic and I can't. It's not that I'm out of ideas or too tired, it's down to the fact that sometimes I'm weak to distractions.

Today is one of those days. If I'd have let myself I'd have spent all day playing Borderlands on my 360 (and I did indeed waste an hour on it this morning). What I like to do in such times is to bring myself away from the home distractions to do the work.

I'm currently sat in a branch of a well known coffee chain that is located inside a book shop near where I live. I've been here for the last couple of hours working on Monday's strip.






Not only is it much easier to work without the temptation to slack off but it's fun to see people's reactions too. I've been approached by 3 different sets of people asking about the strip so far, it's nice.

The view is quite nice too. To one side of the balcony the coffee shop is on I have a busy street view to the other side I have this:






Anyway, back to work.

Keo

Location:Piccadilly,,United Kingdom

More Sketches

Seeing as it is Sunday (or it was up until 20 minutes ago, I really should get to bed) I thought I'd share a couple of sketches of M&K with you. Yet again these are me trying to get better with the copics, hope you enjoy:

Keo reads today's comic script

Let's go fly a Kite!

Keo

Plush Hug!

The other evening I was bored and feeling not too well. I've had a stupid cold this last week and sometimes I just want to sit and do not much. In this instance I grabbed ahold of some spare fabric and started experimenting, the result being a HUG!

A Plush Hug!

He's made from soft fluffy yellow material that makes him very huggable to the touch. In the palm of each hand he also has a small pop button meaning he can hug most anything he wants to:

Plush Hug loves music & wine

This of course all started when I made a plush Keo for Moonica as a going away present. Having now learned to sew (albeit in a rather armature manner) you may see me do a few more plushies yet!

Copics

So, Copic markers have always been in the back of my head as something I'd like to try and mess around with. For those of you that aren't familiar with them they are basically alcohol based makers from Japan that are used a lot by professional manga artists. They allow blending between different colours, are re-fillable and can be re-tipped.

Anyway, Philippa Rice (a.k.a. The Juzzard, the wonderful artist behind My Cardboard Life) announced on her Twitter feed the other day that she'd been playing around with some. After a brief chat about what she thought and her recommending a supplier I decided to take the plunge and try them out myself.

So far I only have enough colours to draw Moo and Keo themselves, copics are expensive, but it's been enough for me to fall in love with using them. I've found that I'm goig to need some better paper stock to be going forward as tey do tend to bleed through very easily (I have just ordered some copic pads). Below is one of my first tests of Keo:

Keo Drawn with Copic Markers.

It needs further experimentation to be 100% sure but at this stage I'm tempted to make the investment of more copics, better paper and eventually to do Moo & Keo's art 100% by hand.

Anyway, more drawing ho!

EDIT:
A couple more examples for you

Moo on the phone

Keo, also on the phone

The Weekend & My Foot

Ahh, such a fun weekend was had.

I got down to London on Friday afternoon and in true Matt fashion I ended up doing something silly.

My first aim was to go and find a shop that sells copic markers (awesome markers imported from Japan that manga artists use) as I want to start using them for Moo & Keo. While on the coach I'd looked on the web (I love you iPhone) and found the list of stockists in London (hardly any). So, off the coach i got and headed straight for the nearest one which was a short walk from Picadilly Circus tube station. I got to the address all ok only to find that that particular art shop had closed down a while ago. *sigh* Anyway, I brought up the next nearest shop on my phone and decided to pop it into google maps to see how far away it was, 11 minutes! Score!

After about 15 mins of walking I checked my location on google maps only to find I was only almost halfway there O_o. After a closer look I noticed my mistake, I hadn't looked and Google Maps had defaulted to working out the time for a car journey not walking *DOH!* Anyway, despite my foot hurting like crazy (more on that in a minute) I decided to walk the rest of the way, got the pens and all is good.

The rest of the weekend rocked, I got to see Moo & Mr Moo and they had an awesome goodbye party. I also got to hang out with some good friends new and old at said party. *Waves at FaiD'ites*

My Foot!
Ok, to cut the backstory short I hurt my foot at the gym, it started off as a small niggle but has ended up 5 weeks later as a painful limp. I went to the doctor finally on Tuesday only to be told that I have to see a specialist as it may be that my foot has always been screwed and nature is only just catching up with me (I may have to have special shoe inserts, joy). I still have a limp while I wait for my appointment to come through but at least I have pain killers now too :D

Looking to the Weekend

Well, it's Tuesday afternoon, but that's almost as good as Wednesday to me this week as I have Friday off! Woo!

My friend and collaborator Moo is leaving this fair (snigger) country soon to go live in South Africa with her hubby and family so I'm heading down to London come Friday for a leaving party weekend. Due to funds (or lack thereof) I'll be sat on a coach for a fair number of hours come 8am but it's about three times cheaper than the cheapest train fair so I can't grumble to much.

Other than that things have been going a little "meh" of late. I've had a stupid cold that has made me useless for most tasks (sorry "MORE useless"). I'm coming round now but still not sleeping too well.

Tonight I'll see if I can make an effort drawing, I need to do next week's strip before I go down to London if I can at all help it.

Keo

Halloween

Well, it's the spooky time of year again. We don't go for Halloween in the UK as much as they do in the USA but it's still a likable event where spooky things happen. For instance, my friend works as a curator for a local museum. Normally every year they set up some sort of ghost event (the museum is in an old old hall that lends itself very well to such things), this year however they have decided to go a little different.

Does anyone remember the bits of 28 Days Later where they're all in the secured old hall estate with the last rag tag bits of the army? Well that's what they're doing, setting up the place as if it's one of the last hold outs of a Zombie Apocalypse. They have people playing army personnel and scientists and then a whole butload of people playing zombies.

Anyway, I'll be spending the night as a Zombie for them :) it should be fun!

I'm also doing a series of drawings for Moo & Keo this week with M&K in different costumes. Moo & I are racking our brains trying to think of cool new costumes for them every day so make sure to check them out at the usual place over at www.mookeo.com

Anyhow, to top it all off I'm currently trying to carve a pumpkin. I'd better get back to it.

Speak later Interwoods.

Keo

New Blog

Ok, I've decided to have a blog again. Moo has one now and I'm jealous. He he.

Well, it's Saturday evening and I'm with good friends watching "Strictly Come Dancing" (the UK version of Dancing with the Stars). Tomorrow will hopefully be a Gym and Art day.


Keo