Artwork of Fantasy and Imagination - The Croydon Wanderers Linework

This is my last entry for Artwork of Fantasy and Imagination, the next exhibition that I'll be doing with the group I did the Sydney Comic Art & Drawing Exhibition with. The show will run from 17th - 24th December, at The Shop Gallery, Glebe, here in Sydney. 

Keeping with my idea of otherworldly refugees settling into everyday life, this is the pencil and ink work for an amateur team from Croydon (either Croydon near London, or Croydon in Sydney - my Anglo-Australian neutrality remains intact). The original art and the finished digital art will be exhibited with The Builders, and The Office.

Like I wrote before, I even came up with a story that links these pictures:

It's been just 18 months since the first of the refugees arrived through the portals. In cities all over the world, people have started to grow accustomed to having neighbours and, increasingly, workmates who would have been the stuff of myths 2 years ago.

While most refugees are reluctant to talk about their experiences, there are rumours circling of harsh and brutal feudal societies, with appalling living conditions. No wonder, many say, that they have been so quick to train and enter the modern workforce, and, where possible, assimilate into 21st century culture.

Of course, even extra-dimensional refugees need time off, and a Sunday league football team is  the perfect way to socialise with their neighbours.

 ©2015 James Mathurin

Pop Art Owl

This is a new version of the owl I did a while back, that I've done for the upcoming Sydney Comic Art & Drawing Exhibition at the ArtSHINE Gallery, which I'll put more information up about soon.

©2015 James Mathurin

Charlotte's Web and Smaug

Another couple of pictures I did for Tammy's classroom, this time a Charlotte's Web picture, and Smaug from The Hobbit (based roughly on an Archaeopteryx, rather than the movie version).

©2015 James Mathurin

Some insect sketches

So, I'm carrying on with the Entomon comic I started with my comics group, and that will require some more bugs (I would say insects, but I really wanted to include a Millipede, and that would just be scientifically inaccurate). Not all of these will be used straight away, but I'll be trying to work them in.

Seeing as this is part of my tutorial series, I will simply say this: If you're drawing something for the first time, do your research and sketching. Even if you don't end up with perfect copies, you'll pick up on little details that will make it look much more interesting, and will help you if you have to make up a fictional version.

Bombardier Beetle (an awesome creature that can literally fire jets of boiling poison out of its backside):

Millipede:

Beetle and Mantis (this is actually an old one that I seem to have never scanned before):

©2014 James Mathurin

Cyber Spider

Something I knocked together for a t-shirt design. This is the first thing I've drawn from start to finish on my tablet. I enjoyed it as a learning experience, I definitely like the more controlled quality of colour I was able to get, and the extra time I spent on the colouring felt worth it.

Hope you like it ,too.

 ©2014 James Mathurin

Trying out my new tablet

So, I got my first drawing tablet over the holidays, and this was my first experiment with using it for colouring. I posted the line work for this last year, and I'm pretty happy with the greater level of control I got with how I could apply the colour.

©2014 James Mathurin

Cyber Cat!

Finished the colouring work on this one, think it looks a little less sinister than its previous versions.

©2013 James Mathurin

Cyber Cat shaded again

Some highlights to add some solidity to the cat.

©2013 James Mathurin

Shaded Cyber Cat

I want to put it through some more stages, but here's where it's at now.

©2013 James Mathurin

Cyber Cat inks

Update for the cat picture I've been doing. Shading and possibly colour to come.

©2013 James Mathurin

Cyber Cat pencils

Pencils for a picture I'm working on. I've really been enjoying doing cyborg / robot pictures, so I thought I'd try an animal-style one.

©2013 James Mathurin

Meet Phillippe

A new rabbit for you.

Phillippe - He is Pierre's cousin. He came looking for him when he left France.
He has an obsession for French sticks and steals them from the Bakery across he road. He lives in a  burrow at the top of the yard. He is melancholy, though he does drink coffee to cheer him up. The others know he can't live without his toothpick, which he chews on constantly. He has a lucky beret.


©2013 James Mathurin

Pierre the Rabbit

Here is another character from the Mr Bones post I put up a while ago.

The text, by my wife, reads,

Pierre is a lonely, yet guarded rabbit. He carries a knife with him at all times (how he lost his eye). He is from the forest of Auvergne, though he hopped the Eurostar to London one dreary day..
He found his way to the Southwest, where he made his home an unsuspecting graveyard.
One day after making his home in 'Martha Tanwither 1894-1915', he encountered Mr Bones, the confident though slightly uppity fox.

©2013 James Mathurin

Gaze into the owl's eyes...

I've been sure, for a while, that a lot of my stuff works better with a splash of colour. This picture freaked out my wife, so I'm taking that as vindication.

©2013 James Mathurin

More owls!

So, here's a cleaner, shaded version of yesterday's owl.

Also, I did a pure monochrome version, that I think will work well as a t-shirt print.

©2013 James Mathurin

So, owls are kind of in at the moment, right?

Seriously, I keep seeing them on t-shirts and stuff, so you want owls? Here you go.

©2013 James Mathurin

Some beetles and Mantises... Manti?

Trying to get a handle on bugs and beetles to generate some robot designs of my own.

©2013 James Mathurin