ok so i missed an update

well i kinda missed one as i just realised its thursday and i haven't done it this week yet... :)

and i'll probably miss this weeks too as i have to fly out on the monday and i have a bunch of things to do... like see the hulk... ;)

but i will post during next week... and... there will be a review... at least one maybe more... wooooo... even though i'm guessing the reaction will be more like so what... but hey... movies at first, a few games, maybe even etihad as thats who i'm flying with...

but in the mean time... heres the next page from spidey... :)

i meant to mention before.... the character spidey is fighting here is obviously based on rhino... its all part of the bigger picture i had planed for the spidey pitch... maybe i'll finish it one day, but i may just adapt it for something else... although i cant see it working as well with anything else given spideys cast of characters and history...

enjoy the page ;)

ok, so here i am this time...

right, i'll be adding another new section... link of the week, it was going to be included in with reviews... but now its not... specially as i havent reviewed anything yet...

ok life first, why the delay in the post and all that

well aside from work etc. i hit something of a revelation on sunday about me, my life and my work and how they all link.

the long and the short, i'm coming at it all from a new angle. my work adds to the already up and down nature of me and my life, real highs and real lows, something i may go in to a little more at a later date. but for now i just hot some real highs and some real lows... as i do in my work... but what i realised sunday is one of the reasons why.

looking through the sites of some of my favorite artists and link hoping like i enjoy doing for inspiration... something dawned on me while looking at matthew humphreys blog... all the people that inspire me the most stay true to their art and who they are... whether its for work or not. something i realised i dont do.

i've been working for quite a while and over that time i've grown accustomed to the client, be it an editor or company saying "can you draw like this, can you do it in that style" and as i need to pay bills and not live under a bridge i say "sure thing. no problem..."

well, what i've realised is its a pretty big problem, i've spent so long doing that, i no longer do my own art for work... i work in which ever style i think most appropriate for any given project, or whatever artist happens to be at the top of my influence list at that time. to the point when people ask me about my work i actually say "yeah its not really art though, its just work"

but no matter how much i might say that, truth is, in my mind, i know it is my art as well... and i realise how miserable its making me...

problem is if i try to work like anyone one, or combination, of my major influences and the work doesnt come out even close to being as good.... which it never does, i beat myself up over it, it makes me seriously miserable. my work sucks, why cant i do it etc. etc. the reason i cant do it... is because its not me, its them and i should let them be them, influencing me, inspiring me, but not try to be them...

so i was stuck in a cycle, look at peoples work to pick me up, do my own which was never as good which brought me back down... and so the cycle went.

so sunday, was kind of a big deal for me... and then, as i realised this and how much better it will make me feel if i go back to doing what i do, rather than trying to be something i'm not for everyone else, i came across sean murphys blog and whilst looking through his quite stunning art i find this line... and i quote...

"The style I used here marks the last time I tried a clean look with my art. From here on out it's no more compromise."

jesus... it was like reading my own thoughts... maybe not the clean line thing, my personal work is naturally clean anyway... but it was someone else saying they'd made the same realisation at some point i'd just made... then... on his deviant art page his latest journal entry repeated the sentiment and went on to say how much happier he'd been and how much more his work had come on and so how much more work he'd been offered...

i couldnt believe it to be honest.... here was a voice from nowhere at a time i was questioning my work and what i should be doing with it, basically saying it was fine to be yourself. then i went back to all my largest influences, the people i admire, respect and look up to the most... and you know what, they all stay true to themselves... of course they have influences, of course people inspire them, but they dont let what others are doing twist their own natural artistic style and ability... these people stick to their art, their style, no matter how outrageous and do not falter from their path

from now on, neither will i... love me for what i am... or jog on

so a big thank you to sean murphy and matthew humphreys for helping to wake me up this weekend. but also to ben oliver, jock, frazer irving, eric canete, lesean thomas, cory walker, dave johnson, jason pearson, mike mignola, alphonse mucha, cheeks, kelsey shannon to name but a few of the many people who stays true to "their" art, even while working. and opening my eyes to the possibility of a happier future in life, my art and so my work.

ok, thanks and bleeding hearts over...

ART



so another spiderman page... page 4, in a style which was far closer to what i would naturally do... but still not 100% comfortable... i was no doubt looking at the work of rob haynes at that time looking at the page...

in the near future i will post up all the pages in one hit and move on to posting new personal stuff... lets see if i can find my own voice again... enjoy


REVIEW

will still no reviwe, i might scrap this section, when the field is so open, picking something out of thin air to start waffling on about seems to be trickier than i thought but i'll keep adding the section for now, i might get my head round it...

and to finish us off... the new section

LINK OF THE WEEK

actually this week its going to be two for obvious reasons if you read above

seangordonmurphy

this guys work is amazing, i love it, the mixture of the realism in his backgrounds etc to the slightly caricature nature of his figures to the small details... the blend, in my eyes, is spot on. great work.

matthew humphreys

now this was the guy where i first thought, wait a minute, this guy stays true to his style regardless of the subject matter and it work fine. his work is stunning across the board, maintaining that friendly accessible feel, regardless of subject matter, it oozes atmosphere without being remotely disturbing... you be temtped to show kids pictures of girls in underwear as you forget exactly what you're looking at... see yikes, love 'em to death, patchy, oopsieism and goth girl...

the more adult themes combined with his style make them so tongue in cheak you cant help but love them...

this is great work


so thats me for another week, i will do a review soon... maybe gta 4, theres a number of films i could insult, maybe some tv shows... who knows... till next time...

the update is coming...

give me a day or so... its been a weird few days and i need to get my head round it all without rambling for pages and pages on here.... like i just did to some other poor fella...

give me a day, two tops and there'll be something here...

its shocking, so far i've managed to stick to the whole, sunday comes, i do an update

ok, so i haven't managed to stick to the formula of rants, art, and reviews... as i havent done a review yet, but give me time. i will be getting round to it. at the moment i'm still on extremely tight deadlines (all my own doing) and so am just trying to get as much done as i can, giving me very little time for anything else.

anyway...

art



so i was thinking that i'd really like to start doing the 90 minute sketches like eric canete or the daily warm up sketches like cory walker (both huge influences)

but for now, another page from the spidey pitch i was working on, yes its page 3... which means page two is missing i know... being a completist i may well do page 2 at some point in the near future, just to complete the 8 (yes that means there'll be 8 of these) pages

just so you know, these pencils were all drawn print size... 17.5 cm x 26.5 cm... which is how big i draw all my pencils... actually, truth be told, i now do my pencils even smaller than that, and ink print size... i know... the horror right. to be honest i'm still trying to find the most comfortable way for me to work... not really found it yet, but i'm sure i will...

in the next few weeks i'll put up a step by step of my process... i promise, some of you will probably be horrified... sorry

next

review

as i say i havent really had time to have a proper think about this, but once i get on to a more realistic working schedule (so not 16 hr days) i will start reviewing all sorts of random nonsense...

but for now i will say farewell until next week...

farewell

ok, so for some i actually missed sunday, for others, i just made the deadline...

ok, for me this is actually monday... and for right now i will be keeping this very short...

i'm on deadline...


i have 6 pages to get done, when they're done i'll do a real post, but for now...

life...

im on deadline, thats all you need to know :)

art

ok, i will add a page, some of you may have seen this...

its page 1 from a spidey rough i was doing (this is what started my mind going on THE spidey pitch im always harping on about).

over the next few weeks i'll post up the whole 7 pages and my redesign on rhino,,, who's now been soaked p in to my tarzan idea as a character called stampede

enjoy



reviews

im on deadline ;) but my first review of sorts, will cover a host of things, i'm going to talk about the long awaited sequels... new star wars, indie, rambo, rocky, die hard... and give you my thoughts... and over all... its not good ;)

anyway, back soon... ish... ;)

so its sunday, here i am

like i said, its sunday, and i'm on the first of what i hope will be regular posts...

before i start i want to explain a little about why i've decided to do this. not the ins and outs of what im going to talk about... why, after all this time am i going to start updating regularly.

basically, i need some routine in my life and i believe great changes start in small ways... so i'm hoping that updating this regularly will start me down the path of other regular routines in my life.

so, first...

ART UPDATE...

i dont know if i will have been able to change the position of the art in a blog, so you may have already seen it at the top if not it should be below... now i was going to put a piece from wildcats up, but i'll start with something older... bazooka jules.

something i'll come to a little later... but this is the first image i did of jules, that i actually liked, long after i finished drawing it ironically, i actually found an image and style for her i liked... and this was it...

its not perfect, and not not what she will be when she comes back, but its a lot closer to what i originally wanted. its kind of somewhere between what i was doing and what i will be doing :)




LIFE...

ok, so i'm trying to turn things in my life around, for both my own sakes and the people who have to put up with me. as a part of that i've gone back to doing some more personal work. i have a couple of business ideas i want to get off the ground, and a bunch of ideas i want to get out, a few of which, obviously, are comics :)

i've been working on jules and steve huge again, jules is in a semi finished state and i'll be doing a re worked version of the ten pager that appeared in the com.x issue zero as soon as i have the time to dedicate to it

steve huge is in the same state, its all worked out, i have some story elements to tweak but the basics are there and i have the majority of the characters, when its more complete i have a ten pager for that planned too.

batman/robin and my spiderman pitches, also getting there but not keeping up on batman or spidermans universe, i'm not sure how relevant they will be. but i will finish them and im sure if any editor likes where i'm going with them, they'll point me in a direction that will help :)

i also have a number of other comic ideas in various states of completion but none of them are worth talking about yet as the need more work, some of them are stand alone some of them may just get swallowed in to other things like jules or steve huge. some of you may have heard of them already, the main ones are, the hood, britney, a re work of tarzan and daisy... but i'll leave those there.

along side those i'm also working on a pitch for a childrens tv show and a couple of other business ideas, but i'll leave them for another time... or i'll have nothing to say in the future ;)


REVIEW

these will have to wait, only because i want to have a think about how i'm going to do these before i do, but i'm hoping to have some sort of grip on that by next week, so i'll do two of them next week to make up for it.

so thats me done for this week

it probably rambles, but hey i'm new to this and hopefully i can edit myself with time. if you've read this you're probably bored as hell by now, but hey.. i did warn you i'd waffle... till next time ;)

look, im back....

so whats the order of the day... first look in to making this blog more reader friendly, i have no idea how to do... well anything in a blog, but i will figure it out.

secondly, try to get some sort of structure to the blog, cant just be my insane ramblings, i'm thinking one weekly update which will be three posts, my thoughts, my work, my reviews... seems about right

my work well thats self explanatory, but will cover everything, not just wildcats... the development of jules and steve huge, the growth of my on going batman/robin pitch, my dabblings in to filming and kids tv writing, personal art (if i ever find the time) and my latest business venture... which i'll leave for another time till i find my feet here...

my thoughts again, that'll just be me rambling about, well whatever really, my thoughts over the week, things that are happening in the world, to me... who knows, just what i think

my reviews now this will cover everything that i come in to contact with.... food, drink, films, games, books, places... you name it, anything i might have an opinion on gets the neil googe once over... need a rating system, will probably get thumbs ups and downs i think.

but all in all no punches pulled, if i offend people i'm sorry... well, no i'm not, we're all entitled to an opinion im sharing mine, you're more than welcome to share yours and tell me to go **** myself :)

i will try to keep it as... "family" friendly as possible, but i am an adult and at times i'm sure i'll cover adult things... whatever they may be

so there you have it... i'll most likely update every sunday.... and for now i'll leave you with the black and white cover to issue 1 of wildcats... its far from perfect, but after reason problems i've had, it was the first thing i did that got me back on the path of "actually, maybe i will be able to draw again some day..."

and with that... i'll see you sunday :)

ok, so i am going to take this a little more seriously...

so i dont ever use this and i should really... and i will, but it wont just be for art. from now on it will be my out let to the world. basically i'm fed up with ranting to myself, to my friend, or just in my head so i'll let it out here.

so there will be art, of course, but i'll also do film reviews, music, games, annoyances, likes, dislikes... whatever i want to talk about, i will.

now i know some of you are saying... if anyone is even reading, who cares what you have to say neil... well you know what, if you dont care, dont read :)

so, whats coming in the next few weeks, new art and my thoughts on my process, iron man, GTA4, and whatever else springs to mind or comes up in the mean time.

i'll get started tomorrow with an art update, followed by me ranting about something or other.

until next time...