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