Ghost Hunter designs

These are some designs I did for a mock project called 'Ghost Hunter'. The project was a part of a concept art course run by Leo Sandberg at the University of Gotland last summer. Leo is an amazingly multifaceted artist and a great teacher. It was a privilege to be able to learn from him.

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Leo Sandberg - Link
University of Gotland - Link

Recent Life drawings

It's been a while since I last did proper life drawing and it's hard to find classes in the summer, but I felt a strong need to get back into it so yesterday I splashed out on a slightly more expensive class than the ones I've been to in the past (previous post).

I've been trying to move away a little bit from the construction method à la Glen Vilppu. Vilppu's method is excellent for drawing figures from your mind and I'm still using it, but I think there's benefit in learning more approaches to drawing.
I need to give my mate John Aggs a great thanks for getting me Henry Yan's figure drawing book. Henry Yan has been a great source of inspiration for how to use charcoal, as has Nathan Fowkes.

My favourite from this session is probably this last one. It was one of the shorter poses, 5 mins, but I think enough information is suggested to make it readable and the pose ended before I could screw it up too much. When given longer time there's more of a risk for over-working the drawing.

I find it difficult to get the value relationships right. It's very easy to make something darker or lighter than it should be. I've heard that squinting is the trick but it's hard to see the right things.

Now that term is over it's become quite difficult to find cheap life drawing classes in Cambridge. The class I caught yesterday is run by Mark Rigby and it was unfortunately the last one for this summer. The next batch of classes start on the 8th of September. The class was held in St Barnabas Press on Coldham's Road. The building is a printing facility, mostly for artistic prints, and they also offer small studio spaces for artists.

These classes aren't cheap - £17 per session, but materials and easels are provided and the sessions are fairly long (3 hours, with a short coffee break). This particular class was not taught but Mark also teaches at the Hills Road Sixth Form College, and those classes are more structured.

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Mark Rigby's Life drawing classes - Link
Hills Road Sixth Form College art & design classes - Link
St Barnabas Press - Link

London Expo & Dino-Saw-Us!

London Expo is upon us once again! I'll be there both days this weekend (29-30 May). I'm bringing copies of Twelfth Night which I'm happy to sign and sketch in, prints and a few very limited edition postcards made from the Chinese New Year and the Showgirl pics I drew a while back. Of course, I'll be doing commissions and portraits as well. 

Now, let me give a plug to Dino-saw-us, a super fun sticker collecting game that will be run at expo for the first time .
You play by simply picking up a blank passport booklet at Expo (or print one out yourself) and then you find all the people with stickers. I hope there's time for me to go sticker hunting as well... I really want some stickers... Gotta catch 'em all!!
Hopefully this will become a reoccurring Expo activity that will yield a different collection of stamps each time. I can see the passports becoming collectors' items, and it's a great way to make some new friends!
Find out more about how to participate and who's got stickers on the Dino-saw-us blog.

My stickers arrived today and they look great! I almost want to keep them to myself but I'll give them up if people come and say hi at our table!

I'll be sharing table C17 with Amanda in the Artist Alley. There are quite a few new names on the list so it will be fun to see this incarnation of the Artist Alley. Floor plan here:

Hope to see lots of people at Expo!

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London Expo - Link
Dino-Saw-Us - Link
Previous post: Expo portraits - Link
Table buddy: Amanda Elanor Tribble - Link

Anna-conda

Found this sketch I did for one of Bobby Chiu's one-hour challenges last year. The theme was "serpent" I believe, but I didn't feel like going straight for the topic so I gave it a little twist.

Looking back at the challenges that I did for Bobby's live-streaming sessions, most of them seem to have gone in a humoristic direction. I don't normally do funny drawings, but Bobby's own whimsical artwork with a twist inspired me to think differently. I'm not a competitive person either, but challenges and competitions can push you in unexpected directions so it's worth going for it from time to time.

Topic: Cave man

Topic: Design your own Street Fighter character

Topic: Big and graceful

Topic: Creature cowboy

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Bobby Chiu's Imaginism Studios - Link
Sketchoholic.com- Live streams, contests and interviews

Previous related posts:
Chiustream cave man
Girl sketch

London Book Fair

Yesterday me and Emma Vieceli spent a few hours in the new Comics area of the London Book Fair drawing on giant A1 sheets of paper. This was the first time attending the fair for both of us and despite empty stalls due to the volcanic ash cloud, the scale and diverse offerings of the event was pretty impressive.
Throughout the day there was a steady stream of people stopping by to look at what we were doing and to chat about comics and illustration.

It was interesting to meet people with different backgrounds in publishing and illustration. There's certainly a big world out there outside of comics and manga.

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Emma Vieceli - website
London book fair - website