Annie and Lot 105

This is sort of a online Christmas card for everyone. Hope you have a great Christmas! The character featured is Annie, a alien from this graphic novel. She hasn't been in any comics I've published before but all the aliens in Giant Rhinos in Space are loosely based on some aliens in a comic I wrote called LATE, and you can read it all online.



Annie has her own band called Lot 105 (named after a Blur song). These are the rest of the band members (left to right), Tracy, Dan and Jack (also song title references but maybe more difficult to figure out? does anyone know?).


This is a development pencil sketch, I leveled it a bit for clarity on photoshop because I usually use a 2H pencil which is quite hard and scans pale. I was pleased with this, I managed to sketch looking at a drum kit closer than usual.

I've been drawing some of the sets for the graphic novel because they probably wont feature in the first chapter and I hope this will make the comic easier to draw when I get to scenes in these complex locations. Stella arena is supposed to be like a TV studio stage in a large indoor arena.

Steve

This is Steve the drummer of The Giant Rhinos. He's quite a hyperactive and loud character.

I've found the drum kit is quite difficult to get right. This is from a page I worked on a couple of months ago, I realised when the picture was finished I've probably drawn his arms doing the wrong thing.

When I've been location drawing there wasn't many opportunities to get close enough to a stage to draw drum kits in that much detail. The drummers I have sketched all have slightly different playing styles too. I'm pleased with the sketch at the bottom from the Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2010 but its probably not the right kind of body language Steve would have while playing.

Terry

Today I'm going to post some stuff about Terry this time (sitting on the floor in this picture). He's Giant Rhinos front man, lead singer and guitarist. I thought it would be nice to mention some of the inspiration and reference points.

When I designed him I gave him those glasses because I'm a fan of a lot of 'britpop' from the 90s. It was supposed to be a reference to both Jarvis Cocker (also in Pulp) and Graham Coxon (also in Blur). But I think most people at the moment think of current hipster fashion like this ...


Daley (and his hair) is now on the BBC's Sound of 2011 list. (But I thought I'd note that its not what I was trying to reference with the glasses. I wasn't referencing Weezer or The Decemberists either, but I don't think these bands are bad)

I saw Daley sing with Gorillaz in November at the O2 arena. These are some of the sketches, Daley is in the top right corner)

Giant Rhinos & Carl

I've been working on this project for about half a year already so its difficult to know what to start this blog with. I think I will start with Character sheets and then try and add interesting things in between. I hope you enjoy reading about the project.

These are the main characters in the graphic novel (right to left) Terry, Steve and Carl. I spent most of the summer trying to give them more consistent character designs because when they first appeared in Best Day Ever and a Free Mini comic their faces changed every time.

This is one of the pages from Best Day Ever that they appear on. You can read the full Best Day Ever comic online.

This is a page from a free mini comic I created very quickly around the same time as drawing Best Day Ever. I still didn't have the final character sheets at this point so the characters would have inconsistent hair and faces.


I'm very glad I now have the character sheets to refer to and drawing the characters many times actually changed them slightly to how they first appeared, but I think this is an improvement.

I'm currently working on a new free comic to give out in the new year, I'm hoping it will be a better representation of my work because the first free comic was drawn very quickly and rushed. The character featured on the cover is Carl, the bass player in the Giant Rhinos.

I've tried to do as much location drawing as possible for this project. Mostly of any live music I went to. These sketches are from when I saw blur in 2009. I have based some of Carl's playing habits on the body language I have seen at gigs. I try to make Carl seem as laid back as possible when playing which is interesting because he worries and panics the most out of all of the characters when they meet aliens.

This is a small pen drawing from one of my sketchbooks. The 2 girls probably wont feature in the graphic novel, but they are Carl's elder sisters, Em (left) and Nat (right).

You might find it interesting to see my friend Sarah's drawing of Carl in her own style.

Thanks for reading, I will try and update with some more stuff soon.