Here are some awesome pics from the cool cat Dylan!

Hello fellow scribblers!

Here be what happened to me the minute I got a full time job! I am a happy, sad and nervous man this weekend! Sad cos Jenna is working late all weekend at the Durban fashion week:( Happy cos I bought the second season of 24 and am already 3 DVD's into it! Nervous cos I'm taking Jen skydiving on Sunday!

Awesome! Hope y'all are kiff!

A few drawings from the new sketchbook. Must be something in the water here...

Following on from Jason's directive below... somthing fishy ;-)

I challenge you all to post something. Surely you haven't stopped drawing simply because the show etc is all over?
Come on, you can do it!





PS: did you see how I used italics for emphasis up there?

Is this place still open?

All you good folks should run out right now and pick up the June issue of Blunt Magazine. It features a fine article on The Sketchbook Project!

It's been a bit quiet round here, so I thought I'd show you some of the process behind the cover of Mamba No 5. It's not overly thorough but a little walkthrough of what went down. Ready? Here goes...

I had a bit of an idea of what I thought would work. I sketched a few thumbnails out (since lost in my house moving), and then made a few mock-ups using some new and old drawings I had lying around. I thinned out 3 options and sent them through to young Andy:


The above was my favourite. I 'doodled' it out in Illustrator. Supposed to look like a dude with his head open, worms coming out and chowing his neck/body! Rad!



This was a drawing I did a long time ago. I had it lying around and always wanted to do something with it. Check the hate, man!


This lady was part of a drawing I had up here not too long ago. I liked this layout quite a bit as well. And no, Andy, she's not puking!

Andy was digging the middle option, and it was starting to grow on me too. Direct and intriguing, right? Anyway, I drew a few more sketches - cleaning up the lines and then traced over that using my trusty nib pen, india ink and draughting vellum.


My idea was to have the face perfectly symmetrical. I thought it might be quite strong graphically. Or maybe I was too damned lazy to draw the whole face. You'll never know!



(Above) I scanned the linework in and cleaned it up all nicely in Photoshop. Lined up the two halves and start laying down some flat colour. Getting a bit abstract here..



(Above) I know, I'll add some orange and pink, and fill in the eyes so long... Nah, still not feeling this. At this point I'm thinking about all that beer in the fridge.


(Above) Getting upppity, I chuck out all the shading and lay down the law (flat orange). Add a gradient in from top and bottom, some skulls and stuff and suddenly it's looking OK. Ok?


(Above) It still needs a bit more punch. How about just a little shadow? Hmm.. I need to have a coffee and mull it over.

Ok, alright, I think it's working. Let's check it out in layout...


Should I go with a font or with handwritten type? That blue is kind of cool, but we're not there yet.



Andy's feeling the white option, and with the cover lines it all somehow looks OK. I added a halftone pattern vibe to the final version, which creates a little more depth.
Cool. About those beers....?




What do you think?