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