Hello everyone hope you’re doing well!
I don’t have much to say this week (crazy right?) but I do have some comics for you! I’ve been trying to get better at digital drawing and colouring so the first three are just silly ideas that I’ve made partly as little exercises and partly for the lolz. The strip at the very bottom was actually published in Kerrang! magazine last month! Woo! Click on them for bigness.
Well let me know what you think!
Take care
Neil
Hello!
Hope you’re all well! To celebrate Valentine’s day I’d like to show you a wee five page soppy comic. Enjoy!
Happy Valentine’s day, whatever you’re doing.
Neil
I wouldn’t really call myself political. I mean, I have my views and opinions obviously but I don’t tend to voice them over the internet or put them into my pictures. But to contradict myself entirely I’m going to vent a wee opinion right now: I don’t like political cartooning. You know the one’s you find in newspapers with caricatures of politicians and celebrities? I have no love for them whatsoever. Although there is something I hate even more and that’s guns. I hate all the guns. Every single one, especially people behind guns that think it’s okay to shoot other people.
So I made a comic presenting a possible alternative.
Now, I should point out here that I don’t approve of violence towards animals. However, if I could choose between animals being shot or given a fair fight I’d much rather they were able to defend themselves.
Until next time!
Neil
Hey Everyone hope you’re all well!
Today we’re gonna have a wee art lesson, I’m going to show you how I make my watercolour illustrations! Now keep in mind, the way I do things is not gospel it’s just how I like to do things and it works for me. Today I’m going to be drawing my favourite X-man Gambit!
Now obviously in my style it’s not going to look anything like that but you’ve got to work with what you got and we’ll start by pencilling out our gambit.
It’s pretty rough but I quite like the pose so let’s stick with it. Next I’m going to ink over the pencils, I use fineliners (or sometimes brush ink) in this case I’m using a 0.1 pen. I sometimes also use a 0.3 for thicker lines. These guys are good pens.
Okay so I’ve penned over my Gambit and rubbed out the pencil from underneath with an eraser, he’s looking like this.
Now it’s painting time! I’m using mid range watercolours, Windsor and Newton Cotmans to be exact. Brush wise I’m using a small flat head for colouring in and a small round for finer bits.
Also for a palette I’m using a plate covered with tin foil, basically so I don’t have to clean it (when I’m done I just put the foil in the bin).
Now, with watercolours there is a strict rule of working from light to dark, following that rule I’m going to colour my Gambit in with the lightest shades possible. You can do this by really watering down your colours.
I should also mention I keep a scrap of paper handy to test my colours before they go on the page. I should also mention I’m using 300gsm watercolour paper.
Right, now it’s starting to take shape I’m going to start adding in darker tones. It’s very important at this stage to choose where the light might be coming from in this illustration, hypothetically the sun is to Gambits right hand side so his left hand side will be darker. While I’m doing this I sometimes use a damp brush to blend the dark and light tones.
He’s looking sweet! Now I’m gonna add a very thin and watery layer of pink around his cards for effect. I’m also gonna make him say something funny.
Now you might not be as funny as me but that’s totally cool, everything in time. It is also very important to SIGN YOUR WORK or it’ll turn up on reddit with 2 million views and no credit (true story). Right once it’s dry it’s time to scan it in.
In photoshop I might brighten it up with the levels adjustment and that’s it that’s how I do it!
Thanks for reading I hope someone out there found this helpful!
Take care!
Neil.
Yeap, that time of the year is creeping up on us again and this year I’ve got something really cool to show you!
It’s the limited edition Neil Slorance Christmas card collection!
Wow arn’t they cool!? Let’s look closer!
These lovely cards come in a set of 5 and includes 5 lovely red envelopes too. The sets are limited and are only £6($9) and I’ll write you a wee note with them too.
You can get them direct from my Etsy Store!
So yea, why not send something different this year and at the same time you’ll be supporting a local artist :)
Thank you!
Neil
Hello everyone!
I hope you’ve all been keeping well and that your weather is sunny.
I have come before you today to share exciting news. I have finished a new book! *trumpets*
And it looks like this.
In short it’s an illustrated travelogue from a trip I took to Barcelona last month. It’s done in the style of a journal comic and details all the people I met, places I saw and stuff I got up to. I realize this sounds like a comic version of someone showing you their boring holiday photos but without spoiling anything there’s a good bit more to it and I’ve put a lot of myself into it.
Most of it was drawn on holiday hence why the panels are fairly minimum. I guess I just wanted to get it all down when I was there, in fear of getting home and forgetting little bits. I’m actually really happy with how it turned out, at the time it started out as a little drawing exercise just to see if I could make a comic about stuff that happened that day but when I got into the flow of it I found I had so much more stuff to say and it ended up spilling into a 22 page book.
Anyways there’s only going to be 100 copies of it and I’m selling them for £3 (just over $4) . They’ve all been signed and numbered and come with a wee original drawing too!
If you fancy one for yourself head over to my etsy shop!
Thanks for reading, I’ll be back soon!
Take care
nx
Hello everyone!
Hope you’re all well! As some of you may know I draw a weekly web comic called Jonbot vs Martha, which is written by comics blogger Colin Bell.
Anyhoo this week I thought ‘Hey, why don’t I try and write a strip?’ So I did and here it is!
As you can tell I have quite a simple writing style. In fact my finished script was just 6 words and then 3 lines of ‘hahahahahaha’.
Hope you enjoyed it! There’s more at Jonbotvsmartha.com
P.S there’s only 1 first edition ghost book left :0 it’s here.
Take care!
nx
Hello!
Hope you are well and having a great new year!
As many of you know I get a little bit excited and giddy when I start blabbing about space, I usually get the space bug periodicity around the winter months when the skies are darker and there’s less daylight hours. Anyways I thought I’d make a few pictures about some of the wee bits I’ve learned so far about space and astronomy.
I hope you find them insightful!
Extra fact! The north star’s real name is ‘Polaris’.
Extra fact! In 5 million years our own sun will become a nebula, I am gutted I won’t be around to see it.
Extra fact! From a distance binary stars just look like normal stars, it’s not until you peer through a telescope you can see that it’s actually 2 stars really close together.
Fascinating!
Well I hope you enjoyed my post, as always any feedback is more than welcome!
Take care!
nx
Hello!
I’ve missed you! I hope you had a great Christmas and a fab New year if you’re reading this in the future.
As most people do during the Christmas season, I tend to buy just as many presents for myself. So after I got some extra pennies from commissions and sales etc I thought I’d go on a mad Amazon book buying spree! Some books were educated decisions, some I just bought because the covers tickled me and others I bought because I just thought they looked up my street.
And now I’m going to review them before your very eyeses! I realize they might not all be everyone’s cup of tea but you never know! You might read through this and find a new favourite artist or author.
Ok Let’s GO!
Robot… by S.Lem, illustrated by A.Klimoski and D.Schejbal.
Who remembers this google doodle? It was my fav.
This was made to mark the 60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem’s first book. Lem was one of the worlds best Sci-fi writers and I’ve been trying to read more of his stuff as well as Asimov’s.
So as an avid robot fan I thought I’d start here.
This wee gem is a graphic novel with 2 adaptations of Lem’s short stories ‘Uranium Earpieces’ and ‘The Sanatorium of Dr.Vliperdius’. What I found upon reading through this was it was far more surrealist than I expected. The stories take place in their own strange universes and deal with some heavy subjects like slavery, revolution and communism. But that shouldn’t put people off as it’s all presented on a fairly innocent level almost like a slightly alternative children’s book. Although don’t read it to your kids as there’s a nudey woman in the second story.
There’s also a lot to be said about the art, I think the simple blockyness lends itself to a distopian feel and reminds me of early surrealist films like Metropolis. So yea, if you into classic sci-fi, robots and/or indie comics this is a good wee read (it’s not as heavy as I’ve made it out to be) and a great introduction to Lem’s work.
Ok next I’ve got I WANT MY HAT BACK by Jon Klassen.
This is one of the books I bought because the cover tickled me, I mean c’mon look at his face! That’s a bear on a mission!
As far as kids books go this was an absolute delight. As you can guess it follows a bear on a quest to get his hat back. He asks tons of animals, even a tortoise! And that swung it for me.
The art is this is very much adorable and the story is short and perfect. It’s also great to read along with kids as there’s plenty of opportunities to go ‘What animal is that?’ or ‘Can you spot the hat?’ or you can just read it by yourself and have a giggle like I did. An ace addition to your picture book collection!
And while we’re on picture books let’s look at Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers my favourite illustrator.
Oliver’s 7th book is a squeal to the penguin based heart warmer Lost and Found. In this one the penguin decides he wants to learn to fly so goes to amazing lengths to fulfill his dreams.
My awful photography doesn’t at all do the artwork justice. It’s very beautiful and at the same time simple and in my honest opinion the book would still work with the pictures alone. But that’s my beef, I’m not a huge fan of this story. Although it’s a great book I can’t help but compare it to it’s predecessors which feel far more unique and entertaining. I’d say if you’re a big Oliver Jeffers fan sure go for it but in my opinion although the artwork is stunning the story doesn’t match up to Lost and Found, The Incredible Book Eating Boy or my favourite The Way Back Home.
Ok let’s do one more and I’ll let you get on with stuff.
Here’s AMAZING EVERYTHING the art of ScottC.
I came upon ScottC through his Tumblr ‘Great Showdowns’ which is basically a blog full of cartoon adaptations of some the greatest good vs evil struggles in all history. And from that I decided to get his book which catalogs tons of his drawings, paintings, doodles and whacky inventions!
The art in this is very funny,very cute and very accessible, which is something I strive for myself. Being an art book it’s not really a ‘read start to finish’ affair, it’s more of a ‘flick through it now and again for a laugh’ kinda thing. So it serves as a great coffee table book, there for your friends and visitors to flick through while your making the tea. Or if you’re creative it serves as a great source of inspiration and motivation as ScottC’s simple style just makes you want to get up and colour something in!
Look there’s Morrissey, he’s dropped his tea bless him.
Right! That’s all from me today, I hope you found my post in some way interesting or useful. I’ll be back in the new year with toooons of new drawings and painting and silly stuff.
Remember I’ve still got some ‘How to be a Ghost’ books for sale here and you can read my last book review post here.
Thanks for reading take care!
nx
Hello Everyone!
I hope you’re having a wonderful festive time!
Just a short post here to say I’ve got some new postcards in my etsy shop. They look amazing and in my opinion are the perfect alternative to rubbishy Christmas cards.
The are sold in sets of 6 for £5 ($7).
In fact I’ll be sending some out myself! Look!
Also! If you’re thinking about getting the fabulous ‘How to be a Ghost’ book now is the time! Monday is the last day I’ll be shipping them, after that I can’t guarantee they’ll arrive before Christmas so go go go!
That’s all for today. If I don’t post up before Christmas I hope you all have a great one!
Take care!
nx
Neil Slorance 