Artwork of Fantasy and Imagination - Builders and sketches

I went back to The Builders from last week, and did some work on the colouring, based on some feedback I got.

 Also, here are some research sketches I've been making for the next couple of pictures. I've been using African masks and statues for ideas, and some of these are from the Bena Luluwa in Zaire, a Kasangu mask, from the Sola Mpasis of Zaire, a Ndimo mask, from the Makonde of South Tanzania, and a grimacing mask from Tunisia.

 ©2015 James Mathurin

More sketches for my next project

These are more preparatory sketches to go with the builders and faces I was drawing a while back. I'm quite fond of my fishhead guys, but I'm looking forward to using all of these, including the office scene.

©2015 James Mathurin

The Couple - Victorian sketches

I like the sheer stiffness and awkwardness of Victorian photos. It actually sums up the inhumanity that seemed to characterise that period. They're actually quite a contrast to the expressive, flowing Art Nouveau images, but I've enjoyed using them to make my Steampunk / robot / Art Nouveau pieces.

This is the preparatory sketch for my other Draw Me A Calendar submission, to go with the Nina Simone one I already shared. Down the bottom is the original photograph. Such a  happy couple.

©2015 James Mathurin

Nina Simone sketches

These are some sketches I did for a piece I've been working on. I really like how some of them came out, and frankly, I just love Nina Simone. I find it hard to imagine how you couldn't.

Here's the original images, and hell, a Nina Simone video for you (better than the original, IMO)!

©2015 James Mathurin

A Steampunk experiment

I'm taking a break from The Lady to work on something for a show / competition. Thing is, I think I'm going to need to not work digitally on it, which has really been my thing, as far as shading and colouring. So, I had a go at doing a quick steampunk / Art Nouveau sketch with felt-tips. Apart from the skin tone, I'm pretty happy with it.

©2015 James Mathurin

Acquisition, Page 8 pencils

I realised I haven't posted much lately, so here's the beginnings of the final page of my Acquisition story.

I intended this to be a learning experience, and one of the things I've learned is that there is wisdom in spreading your story out over more pages. I had headaches over the layout, but I'm glad I finally found an arrangement that worked.

I got the rough layout done, before I had one of those annoying 'should have thought of that sooner' moments, when I realised I had no idea what the doctors, who I only scripted for one panel, looked like. 

In the end, I came up with a kind of hazmat-looking outfit for them, then I could get going.

I did my rough pencils, and made the rooms less boxy, to differentiate from the other architecture.

So, then I just had to finish the pencils (and, just to be able to see them, I also removed the orange in the picture at the top).

©2014 James Mathurin

Supervillain Tutorial Part 2.

These are rough sketches for the villain comic i did with my comics group. I'm going to be putting up the finished page, but before I do, there were a couple of development sketches.

None of the frames in the comic show a closeup on Entomon's staff, but I did design it in a bit of detail, with a Praying Mantis motif, which I thought had some interesting subtext to a female villain. 

This is the very first rough sketch of Entomon, which I thought was a little too generic, so I tried to make more insect-y. The main thing here is the rough layout sketch of the page, where I arranged the frames, and what was going on in each one. I thought it was important to include this, as some of the children seem nervous about getting it right first time, and as you can see, this was just a very rough sketch, where I could make mistakes and rearrange stuff before I properly got started, as well as do practice dialogue.

©2014 James Mathurin

Art tutorial - figures

Another series of pictures that I used in my comics group. Before we started working on our supervillain idea, I was using these sketches that I did for Vic at Hazardous Publications.

The point of these was to illustrate a principle I had talked about with my group: If you can do stick-people, you can do a comic. I'm not the first to realise this; Randall Munroe has been putting that lesson to good use for years now. Basically, I say stickmen can make a comic, and any of the later stages you can get with practice.

• So, the first step is the one I think anyone can do - stick-people laying out the poses. This is the stage where it's easiest to fix anything you're not happy with. Check the poses, etc. At this stage I was using a blue colouring pencil, as it is easier to ignore and delete these lines once proper pencils and inks are used later.

• This stage is still a basic one - make all the sticks into solid body-parts, put in the rough lines for the face, and add in the rough details of things like fingers.

• Next, you add the rough surface details- hair, clothes, distinctive skin marks (hair, tattoos, etc). This stage is probably the last one where you can make big changes. You can see I've done that with the figure far left, whose pose wasn't working for me, and who would have been too difficult to change after the clothing and other details had been added.

• Next, I went to a 2B drawing pencil, which allowed me to draw more detailed pencil art over the rougher blue lines. This lets me add a bit of texture, detail and shade, and just generally be a bit more precise.

• Next, I switched to a thin black ink pen to reinforce the pencils, and make the lines clearer.

• Finally, I used a thicker pen to go around the edges of objects, which helped to differentiate lines that show texture and shade, and lines that show shape.

©2014 James Mathurin

Supervillain tutorial

I've recently started a comics / cartooning group at the Primary School I work at during the week, and once a week we meet, and I show them stuff I've been working on, and they show me stuff they've been working on. It's a lot of fun, and if any of them are reading this, hello.

We set ourselves a little project, which was to do a page of comic art from the same idea. The kids chose what it would be:

-Who? A villain;

-Were? In the woods;

-Doing what? Finding a cave.

The kids had noticed I draw a lot of robots, so I thought I'd go with a different influence, and try an insect-based character. Here are the first few sketches of Entomon, and her Firefly lackey, Cole. As you can also see, I thought it was a good idea to sketch out a couple of caves for her to find, too.

I tried a couple of designs for her head, but I liked the long head (which I thought was a good place for whatever organ allows her to control insects. For Cole, I realised I really needed to look at some firefly photos, and they're pretty cool.

©2014 James Mathurin

Superhero (secret identity) sketches

These are some character sketches that I put together for someone who... kinda dropped out. Anyway, I liked them. The idea is a kid who becomes a vigilante. My design started off nerdy, but then I was asked to make him look 'cooler'. I've also got a very rough sketch of his armour, but that design got changed quite a bit later. I'll post the (in my opinion, much better) designs for the armour later.

©2014 James Mathurin

More face sketches

Been working on some stuff for other people, so I may not be posting much for a while. Thought I'd do some more of my sketches, in case anyone thought I' gone missing, and sent for some rescue-huskies.

©2014 James Mathurin

Some more facial sketches

Another face sketch I did as practice...

©2014 James Mathurin

Face sketches

I've been doing some facial sketches, so I thought I'd share them here.

©2013 James Mathurin

Dr. D Devilish

This is a picture my sister asked me to do. In my mind, despite his name, he's not actually such a bad guy, no matter how his name sounds.

©2013 James Mathurin

New header

Now, this is a weird one. I don'treally have to put a new blog entry up for it, because, well, if you're on the site, you can see it.

It's right there.

Go on, look up the top, I'll wait for you to come back.

...

OK?

So, I did want to post about it, because, well, it took me a while to do, and I'm pretty happy with it, and I've been meaning to do it for a while. First of all, here was the first draft, which didn't have the Art Nouveau feel I wanted to go for (you know, to fit in with my stuff like l'ermitage and The Gentleman)

And here's the black and white version of it, which I rearranged and coloured.

©2013 James Mathurin

Victorian dress sketch

A sketch of a victorian dress from the collection of Ivan Sayers.

©2013 James Mathurin

Who wants a sketch of a child falling from a tree? I'll throw in guy getting blown around by the wind!

Some sketches I made from a photography exhibition at the MCA.

©2013 James Mathurin