Ghost Mania!

It’s been a very busy week for our wee ghosty pal!

He’s almost sold his first 100 copies, he’s been sent all round the world to exotic new lands and he’s even had his own launch night!

He’s also been getting some snazzy reviews! Let’s have a look at what’s been said so far…

‘A wonderfully fun little tale that never outstays its welcome.’ 

This comes from a fantastic review and interview from itsbloggerintime.com

‘It’s a lovely little thing.’

A short and sweet review from the music blog ayetunes.

 ‘Suitable for just about anyone’

A lovely article on the book from The Deadliness of Leisure blog.

‘Who would you most like to hang out with in a bar in the afterlife?’

See how me and Campbell answered this question over at Last year’s girl’s blog! 

Fascinating! Here’s a couple of photos from the super cool launch night, in this photo you can see people enjoying cake and activity sheets!

 

And in this photo you can see me and my writer pal Campbell doing a live reading/drawing!

Incredible! Remember there’s still time to get your copy before Christmas and the quicker you get in there the more chance you’ll have of getting one of these original drawings included!

Get yours now from my etsy shop!

Wahoo!

nx

 

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Birthday Blog Competition Winners!

Hello! Hope everyone’s well!

I am excited to announce that I had a great reception from this weeks birthday blog competition and had lots of beautiful entries to choose from.

unfortunately as much as I wanted to I don’t have enough stuff to give away to make everyone a winner BUT because I was so torn in choosing winners I have introduced two 3rd places, and all the runners-up will receive mars bars in the post.

Ok let’s get on to the winners! You want to play this while we do this.

Right in 3rd place is Isaac Lochhead, whom to my understanding is a budding young artist from the Glasgow/Paisley area.

Isaac adds “Happy Birthday Neil Slorance’s Blog!Hope you have a spectacular blogiful time,and you keep up the great drawings!”.

Thank you very much Isaac!(can I call you Ike?) I am extremely fond of this, especially the detail in my moustache and what looks to me like a drunk tortoise, your mars bar and print are on their way!

Also in 3rd place is Erin Kelly, also from the Paisley area.

As you can see Erin’s description is handily inside the picture! It’s clear to see this must’ve took ages to colour in and as some may know I’m a big fan of all things spacey and tortoise related so I could’nt not make Erin a winner.

Well done Erin! Your art and confectionary are on their way to you!

Ok moving on, in 2nd place is Rachael Gillies. Rachael’s entry is actually drawn onto an envelope!

Rachael adds;

Me and my best friend no longer live in the same part of the country so each week I write her a letter and draw her an envelope. Thought I’d send you my favourite one.

a) post is cool and is becoming an endangered species… we’re starting a postal revolution.

b) it’s nice to make your best buddy smile and this is one of the ways I can… a doodle from the heart!

If you’ve never drawn on an envelope before you should try it, it’s a lot of fun. And just think the postyman also gets a lovely surprise on his round. Always good because what if he has just been bitten by next door’s dog or had a Bridget Jones puddle moment.

I couldn’t help but find this entry utterly heart warming and as some of you may know from last years blog birthday, I’m a huge fan of keeping things in writing and using snail mail.

Well done Rachael, the colours are beautiful! Your prizes are on their way.

 Ok guys it’s the big one! brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm(that’s a drum roll btw) In 1rst place is Aldriana Amir!

 

 I have to say this picture just stunned me, it has everything I could ever want in a picture ever. Robots, penguins, a tortoise, a ghost, a Diplodocus, Spider-man AND a huge cake! But it’s not all about content, I really liked the simple approach that was taken as well as the bright and inviting colours and also the expressions and poses of all the characters.

 A very big well done Aldriana! Your prizes are on they’re way, congratulations :)

 Well weren’t they all fantastic? You all deserve a big pat on the back!

 Now then, let’s have a look some of the runners-up, This entry comes from Katy Penman of Girl Industries.

 

Katy adds ‘It’s called Goodnight and while it has little artistic merit, it has a lot of meaning.  When we say goodnight to our baby Amelia at nighttime, we always point out the star stickers on her ceiling and walls and count some of them, and try to look for the moon and planets hiding amongst the stars, and once she’s a little bit bigger, we’re going to start making up stories about the wonderful creatures who live in the stars, too.’

I was a huge fan of the picture’s back story, Katy your Mars bar is en route.

Next is a drawing from Morven McAlister

 

 I very much enjoyed the use of colour here, especially on the rainbow style brush stroke, I also love the use of ‘like a pro’

 Well done Morv!

 Ok last but least is an entry from Campbell Miller.

Thank you for your square pig Campbell.

 Well that’s it for another year! I hope you all enjoyed taking part, a very well done to everyone! It was a total pleasure hosting this competition and I have to say it was super hard choosing the winners.

 Here’s to another year of blogging!

 Take care

 nx

A Week in Pictures

This week kinda started out like this…

But it was cool because it ended like this…

I guess the best thing to do when you’re stumped is to just work through it till something happens. I’ve actually been getting a lot done recently. I’ve started a couple of new paintings and I’m just about finished illustrating the book I’ve been working on, here’s a peek of one of the mock ups but don’t tell anyone you saw it!

:) see ya soon!

nx

A Wave of Productivity

It’s funny how I seem to go through little patches of productivity. Days go by without having drawn anything with me knowing all too well that I’ve got shit tons of stuff to do but as soon as I get down to it I feel like I could lock myself indoors for weeks on end untill all my projects are complete.

Anyways that’s how I felt today, I got a lot done towards the book I’m illustrating, made a wee T-shirt design and finished a painting.

Let me share. This is a design I made because I love space and all things spacey so I drew this up with the intention of getting it printed onto bags and t-shirts so other fellow space fans can be proud of their space love.

I also did a lot of work for the book I’ve been yammering on about forever but I’ll explain all that stuff in a separate post once it’s done. I also finished a painting today, although it’s hard for me to tell when I’ve finished a painting I always feel that it’s missing something so I usually leave it for a weeks and then come back to it with a fresh head.

This will (If i still like it) be one of the smaller pieces I’ll be exhibiting at the end of the year along with tons more robot paintings.

As always any feedback is more than welcome, and please be sure to check out my shop as I’m always putting up new stuff!

take care!

nx

Neil Draws More Bad Comics

Hi pals! How’ve you been?

As I said in my last post I’ve been trying to do more comics, mainly to keep myself drawing but also as a diary exercise (I think diaries and sketchbooks and super important btw).

So I guess that’s what most of them are, like diary entries. Most of the time nothing exciting happens but you never know! I’m hoping to build up a collection of them in the future and maybe make a wee book although I’m not really sure if people would read it.

Anyways here’s a couple!

As always I’d like to thank you for visiting my blog and if you get a minute please have look at my etsy shop where I’ve got some stuff for sale :)

take care!
nx

Tiny comics

It’s been a while since I tried something in the comic form, and I’m a bit disappointed in myself about it because I read and think about comics pretty much all day. So I popped one out today,I basically just took some ramblings from my sketchbook and re-made it into pictures with panels but I’m quite pleased with it.

click for biggerness

It’s something I’d quite like to take a bit further though, like maybe make a little book/zine about my other wacky adventures. Someone I really admire in the indie comic scene is Jeffrey Brown. I’ve always admired his really simple style and the brutally honest story telling found in his autobiographical stuff.  Here’s a wee snippet of his stuff!

 Anyways please check out his stuff, I’m off to draw more comics :)

 Take care!

 Nx

My Holiday Diary

Hello!

Hope you’re all doing well! I had a lovely wee holiday, it was totally beautiful and just what I needed. Now I’m back feeling super relaxed, inspired and more importantly, more productive.

Anyways, I made a little diary while I was away that I’d like to share with you.

Below are my first few entries, I’ll be getting the rest up in the next few days.

Take care!

nx

Sketchbook Entry 12/11/10

 

So I got home from work today feeling a bit creative, but only having an hour or so to spare before I went back out. I thought to myself ‘maybe instead of doing my usual faffing about with computers or flicking through tv channels I’ll set myself a little challenge?’ like making and finishing something within the hour.

It was originally made of 2 or 3 different pictures but I ended up cropping it lots as I like this composition better. Anyways, It’s about me fancying someone.

In other news I have recently acquired a new robot, I think he looks like a Percy, wouldn’t you say?

As always, any feedback on my work is more than welcome!

take care nx

I like Penguins

It’s True, I like penguins, almost as much as tortoises.

It’s mainly because they’re super cute but at the same time I have the utmost respect for the little dudes, especially at this time of year when they start migrating in huge numbers to travel hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles for mating season, It’s a great and harsh trip and sometimes not all of them make it…

…so I wanted to do a little picture for them.

Good luck out there penguins!

nx

Picking up the brush again

I have a new painting to show off, and no it’s not a little sketch or a glorified doodle it’s an actual painting which took me a good week (on and off) to finish!

To be honest, I’d love to blab for ages and ages about what it represents and how it has a deep philosophical meaning but the truth is I just wanted to paint and this is what came out.

Beforehand I was flicking through some of my old books and found a doodle of a robot sitting at a bar and I thought to myself ‘I’d really like to paint that’ so I went ahead just for fun of painting something.

Having that said, it might actually be a sneak preview of some of the stuff that’ll be going into the next exhibition :p

nx