ACEO

I've been working on some Artist Trading Cards to take to Thought Bubble next weekend. They are all original hand drawn cards and some of them are of the Giant Rhinos In Space characters. This is Terry, Annie and Lily

I'll be at Thought Bubble on saturday and sunday with Inspired Comics in New Dock Hall

This Is Not A Serious Music Publication

Sarah Fogg and I have been working on a music zine. It contains articles, illustrations and comics featuring Blur, The Kinks, Everything Everything, Peace, Gorillaz, De La Soul, Little Dragon, Helen Arney, Bellatrix, Gil Scott-Heron, Ghostpoet, DANGER DOOM, The Subways, The Clash, Elastica, Phillipa Hannah, The Unthanks and Young Knives. It also contains an exclusive Giant Rhinos mini comic. We're realising it tomorrow at the Birmingham Zine Fair and it's available to buy through my etsy shop.

Blur 2012

I went to see Blur last week with Sarah. It was amazing. I saw them at Wolverhampton Civic Hall in 2009 and was very glad that they were doing 'warm up' gigs there again. We couldn't see Graham Coxon well because the random seats we got were on the left balcony and Dave Rowntree was mostly silhouetted by the lights. I chose not to draw all the way through, but Sarah drew a lot more sketches and you can see them on her blog.

These sketches are of the warm up band called The Bots. They only have 2 band members and we couldn't see the drummer because of the balcony blocking the view again. They were a really energetic band and barely stood still to draw! I liked their amps being on a little train so they could wheel them off quickly between bands.The drum kit we could see is Blur's, as well as Damon's megaphone and many bottles of water.

Blur - Coffee and TV

I found it quite hard to pick just one song to post here. I've posted a video on this blog directed by Hammer and Tongs before. I think they've made some great ones.

News and Location sketches

I took the Inspired Comics stock to Manchester MCM Expo a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of fun, thank you to everyone who stopped by the table or bought something. I had the new Giant Rhinos mini comics/posters and plectrums there for the first time. I'm hoping Inspired Comics will have a table at couple of events in autumn including Thought Bubble.

These are sketches from the National Space Centre. I didn't get to finish the International Space Station drawing because the model actually rotates now. I think Voyager is the only sketch I forgot to label.

This is Bought Into Being playing an acoustic set at Sunday Night Live a couple of weeks ago.

Manchester MCM Expo 2012

This is the stuff I had printed early to take to Manchester MCM Expo this saturday. I'll be on the Inspired Comics table in the Comics Village. I'll be taking anthologies and zines created by the group as well as some of my own comics. We will have some brand new free comics to hand out too!

Black Like My Heart

Sorry, I've wanted to draw this for a long time. 

Background from NASA

Weekend Gig Sketches

Hello! I had some plans to post some location drawings this week but I had some unexpected problems. Last weekend we went out to the National Space Centre but then found out or annual tickets weren't valid that day. Then this weekend I was hoping to go to the Godiva festival but the event was cancelled because of the heavy rain and hail we had during the week. I went to see some of the local bands in an alternative venue on Friday night but I didn't get any sketches done.

The Olympic Torch was passing through yesterday and today so we did get to go to the park to watch the entertainment and see the last torch-bearer arrive into Coventry. These are the sketches I got of Morning Parade. 

Giant Rhinos On Tour #3 - The Crossroads

 

This 6 page mini comic is to be photocopied and given out at events. The printed version will also contain the ACE POSTER mentioned on the cover. I'm also hoping to print a full cover version.

Terry and Julie

Giant Rhinos - Steve, Terry and Carl.

Julie and Terry

Ray Davies & Damon Albarn - Waterloo Sunset

Sarah dared me to post this live version in the post with Terry and Julie. I do name a lot of characters after songs but Terry was originally named after something else.

Lot 105

Annie with her band. Jack on drums, Tracy on Keyboard and Louise on bass.

 

 U900 - Twist and Shout

I thought about posting a couple of different songs before remembering that this would be perfect. It's everyones favourite crocheted ukulele duo, U900!

Lilly

I'm pleased with this illustration so I'm going to skip my upload plan and post it now. Her name is Lilly but I don't want to tell you any more about her because of the risk of spoiling the comic.

I buy a lot of my CDs second hand because its cheaper and I usually don't mind waiting until I eventually find an album at a good price. Theres a couple of little sketches from the Adam and Joe Show all about CD's that I wanted to share but I can't find any of the specific clips in high quality to post. But you can watch any episode online through 4OD. I recommend the first episode of vinyl justice - you can skip forward to the middle of the episode, just after the advert break.

The Wannadies - Big Fan

I love the music video for this song, it was really low budget but works really well 

Kerry

 

Kerry is in the fictional band called Black Like My Heart with her best friend Wayne. You can read more comics about them on the mini comics page. I like drawing these long faced goth characters, these are Kerry's cousins.

Black Like My Heart can't afford as many different outfits as they would like or the instruments they really want. Kerry would love to own a Keytar, because she really loves style over sound quality.

Cat's Eyes - I'm Not Stupid

Black Like My Heart's main outfits is obviously a reference to My Chemical Romance's Black Parade. But this song is probably my favourite emo song. I quite like how over the top it gets at the most heightened points of the song. It also beautifully produced and nice to listen to regardless of the content. 'Never Trust a Happy Song' almost fits.

Lee Mitchell, Isabella and The Voice

 

I've not done many gig sketches this year but yesterday I went to see Lee Mitchell at Sunday Night Live. I really love the chilled out atmosphere you can find at music events in coffee shops. They're better for location drawing because the room is well lit.

  

There are not many opportunities to draw drum kits, so I always jump at the chance to practice. I think I enjoy it a lot because there is a large variety in shape, size and set up. At most gigs its usually pretty difficult to see the drummer too.

 

I've decided that each week I'd like to show you some of my character sheets and development illustrations. Last week I posted a drawing of an alien called Annie, this new picture is of her mum Isabella.

Arctic Monkeys - A Certain Romance

"There's only music, so that there's new ring tones."

 Recently I found a piece of work I'd written in secondary school that quotes this song. I think the task was to write an article based on the title 'Young people nowadays don't know what real music is.' It's mostly a big rant about the music I liked and disliked when I was 15. I got a B grade and a little note that just says 'I thought this was good!'

One of the original starting points for this project was to make some comments about the mainstream music industry and reality TV. I've been watching The Voice so that I could make an informed opinion instead of annoying assumptions. So now I spend a lot of time ranting about it like I'm a teenager all over again. It makes me very wound up that the show pretends to be an Anti-XFactor show when really it's just the same thing. I'd write a proper article if I was better at that type of thing, but I can put my feelings towards the situation into this graphic novel instead.

Annie

 

Hello! I'm working on a new free mini comic to hand out at comic book events (and for you to read online of course!). The printed version will be in black and white like the old mini comics, but I was having so much fun with the cover and back page I decided to colour them.  

This is Annie, one of the main characters in the graphic novel.
 Fun Fact: I named her after a song!

Elastica - Annie

.... In Space

Hello, I'm still deciding what type of design work I would like to post here without giving too much important story information away. I found some drawings (from reference photos) that I did at the beginning of this year to try and improve the science fiction element of this comic. I got a bit carried away and started turning them into little zine articles.

 

 

 

 

 

Billy Bragg - The Space Race is Over

I was planning to put some of these illustrations together in a zine but I didn't get around to it. There was a playlist of songs that was going to feature in the back and this was one of them. (I'm hoping to link you to more influences as I go along)

I've also finished scripting a new mini comic and I'm hoping that can go online quite soon.

Thanks for reading!
Sammy

Blog Relaunch

 

It's been a long time since I updated this blog but I'm going to be working on this project more this year so I've been editing the layout ready to start uploading regularly again.

Thanks 

Sammy