Tuesday 22 July 2014

A PAIN IN THE ASS DOUBLE SPREAD IN 2000AD PROG 1891!!!

Y'know what, I'm just gonna come out and say it: I %*&$£"$%!$ HATED drawing this double page spread! But, it just goes to show you what we 2000AD droids go through in order to bring you quality THRILL POWER every week!

2000AD prog 1891, featuring AQUILA:CARNIFEX episode two is out in all good stores and digitally from the 2000AD online store, tomorrow!

AND, as a bonus, it also features a brilliant new story called BLACK SHUCK, written by my old university buddy Leah Moore and her beardy hubby John Reppion, drawn by   Steve Yeowell, coloured by Chris Blythe, and lettered by my buddy Simon Bowland! 


Anyway.... onto the making of this pain in the ass double spread! First, script by Gordon Rennie....



Afraid I can't find my pencil files, so here's my inks...

Then onto Dylan Teague for colouring....

And finally Annie Parkhouse for lettering!
So yeah, this took me a bloody long time to do, but it worked out nicely in the end, and we have some even nicer pages to show off in the coming weeks,,,,, right, I'm off for a chicken fillet burger.....

Tuesday 15 July 2014

AQUILA RETURNS TO 2000AD IN "CARNIFEX"!!!!

I'M BACK!!!! Did ya miss me??! No? WELL FINE!!! SEE IF I CARE!!! (Sniff...)

So yeah, sorry for the blog silence. Having a baby kind of side tracked a lot of things, but I've been working hard in the background and in tomorrow's 2000AD prog 1890 you can find the return of AQUILA in "CARNIFEX", written by Gordon Rennie, drawn by me, coloured by Dylan Teague and lettered by Annie Parkhouse!!!!

There's a preview of all the stories in the prog from a wealth of talented fellow droids on the CBR site HERE.

Here's the lovely cover digitally painted by Karl Richardson (with a making of it on 2000AD UNCOVERED here!). Always fantastic to see another artist's take on a character you've co-created, and he did us proud!


And speaking of a "making of", I've not done one for a while, so here's how the first not one, but TWO pages of the first episode were put together, starting with a brilliant script from Gordon Rennie....


After scratching my head a lot, not because of a rash or anything, but because I have to get back into Roman research mode, I created these loose pencilled pages. I was pretty happy with the layout of the first page with a nice dramatic opening for our hero. It's just a shame that the ferocious man-goat kills Aquila on the third page, making it the shortest series ever.... ;)



Inks....



Next up, we have Dylan Teague's gorgeous colouring. Particularly happy with the sense of depth on the splash page.


And then finally it goes to the marvelous, and recent True Believer Comic Award winning Annie Parkhouse, to letter!


So that's it! It's bloody good to be back in 2000AD! You can find this in all good comic shops, newsagents and digitally at the 2000AD shop, every Wednesday for the next 10 weeks!

Right, now I just need to finish the last few episodes....

BYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!