Concept Illustration

Birthday Invite

This is a little invite for Harry's birthday party. Can't believe he's two already. I did this pic with whitener pen on the cover of my black diary at the recent Offset conference. I went to a talk by Gary Baseman (www.garybaseman.com), who did the artwork for the Cranium game. He talked mostly about his collection of diaries and sketchbooks, and I certainly fall down in that regard - I rarely have one with me. Anyway, he sat in front of me at another talk and just started sketching in his book. So I drew this image on the cover of mine.

It was a white on black drawing, but true enough, it came in handy when I decided to do the invite. A bit of Photoshop, a touch of InDesign and here it is.

Birthday Card

This is a birthday card I did for my niece who celebrated her eleventh birthday last week. When she was ten I drew a pic on her card with the number '10' as a balloon - and I drew my son, who had his first birthday a week later, holding onto the the '1' balloon and floating away. The image depicted my niece shouting at him that it was her birthday, and that his was the following week.

She didn't like it. She felt it cast her as being a mean cousin, shouting at the little guy. Tough clientele. Back to the drawing board, and no unintentional implications in the above.

TRANSFORMERS

My Transformers pages are coming together.

Cropped

Not only am I not drawing anything new, I am now cropping old pics. Brilliant.

Wonder Woman - Put Some Clothes On!

I see DC have redesigned Wonder Woman's costume, giving her leggings and some kind of cut-off jacket. This is to prevent any wardrobe malfunctions, apparently, and to reflect her status as some kind of street-fighting brawler. Always thought WW was more Superman's kind of gal than Batman's. Aside from the obvious shortcomings of the new design, what was wrong with the above? Ok, mini-skirts (or underpants) may not be practical in a superpower scrap, but you know, comic book heroine? I'm a firm believer that super-heroes should wear spandex.

Fine, costumes can be tinkered with - Cap's slightly more military look, Thor's more regal armour and Iron Man needs the latest tech, but why make an iconic hero look like an extra from a Paula Abdul video? Not-so-Wonder Woman.

My Wonder Woman above has an extremely small waist...

Here's a pic of the Blackcat that I did at a convention here in Dublin back in 2007, I think. Will try an add colour to this over the next day or so and flex my photoshop muscles. My very atrophied photoshop muscles. Totally lacking in muscle tone, as a matter of fact. Malformed. Not formed at all.

Magik

Did this pic after last years Infernus series from Marvel. I loved Inferno way back. Marc Silvestri's Uncanny X-Men run set the standard. Powerful, beautiful figure-drawing. Thankfully Illyana Rasputin was resurrected from comicdom's Valhalla, by however dubious the means, but when your soul is trapped in Limbo, I guess death will never be final.

I sent this pic to C.B. Cebulski and he actually replied 'Wow, Jason - that rocks! Thanks!', which is very cool. He didn't give me a job though...

Caricatures

A few caricatures here from 2006. I had a few good ideas for Michael McDowell at the time which never amounted to anything. This incarnation of him as Dublin 6's Caped Crusader stuck with me - he was always apoplectically ranting about hoodies and misbehaving teens and the like. I envisioned him leading a one-man assault on shop-lifting grannies. Bertie as Superman was just an extension of this, someone for him to play off. Bertie's pretty bad, but there's a look there, I think. The nose isn't right - Bertie's is far more amusing in reality. McDowell is kind of spot-on, though. It's a shame he retired from public office with the Progressive Democrats' demise though - I missed the boat there.


Mary Harney. I did all of these without reference, as I've tried caricaturing from reference before and it kind of messes with your perception of the characters when you're actually looking at them. For caricature, I think it's better to go with the image in your mind's eye; you'll probably nail the persona quicker. Still, reference is good for getting the actual detail right, such as Bertie's nose above, which isn't right at all.


George W. Bush, again from memory. As Commander-in-Chief. These pics are probably defamatory, but hey - satire. I don't think Dubya will be suing me however. Nobody reads this blog anyway. Back to comics.

On another roll...

Another old pic. This is cool - I get these online and out of my system, and maybe I'll start working on something new.

This one is from 2005. I must have been ok back then too because I still like this pic. It was also drawn on A3 paper (the scanner cut off the top half) so I was prepared to draw big. It's supposed to be Colossus and Shadowcat of the X-Men cornered by Sentinels. I really wanted to capture the 'Days Of Future Past' vibe from the Chris Claremont-John Byrne era, with the lo-fi look of the then futuristic mutant-killer robots.

Those X-Men comics from 1980 or thereabouts really sucked me in as a 5 year old. This particular story was reprinted in Marvel UK's Mighty World of Marvel, and from that point on it would always be the X-Men for me. It was also hard-hitting and pretty grim stuff as all the heroes were killed in that bleak future. Anyway, back then the comic would either come in to my local newsagent or it wouldn't, and then it was ultimately canceled mid-story around issue 10 - as a kid, you never knew why, you just went to the shop and hoped your comic would be in.

Spider-Man & Black Cat

An old pic here, but one that I am still pretty satisfied with and never leave far from my collection of what I consider to be my best work, which by definition is my most recent and therefore the fact that this was drawn in 2003 shows I was either better then than I would ordinarily consider myself to have been, or that I haven't improved much in the last 7 years.

Probably the latter because I haven't drawn much in the last 7 years.

Anyway, sometimes it's more than just the technical ability (or lack thereof) on show, and more to do with what you convey. Here I think I pretty much nailed the strength and power in Spider-Man's wiry, slight frame. Putting him upside-down on the ceiling is the easiest way to define the character also - letting the angle tell you this is Spider-Man as quickly as the costume would. I also think I captured a certain sexy playfulness in Black Cat's posture, as well as the requisite feline qualities. Her slightly teasing and dismissive stance sums up their relationship too, I guess.

There you go - a critique of my own, old work. Looking at it now I notice there isn't even the hint of a smile on Black Cat's face, and her stance is somewhat cold. The pic is obviously rubbish and should stay confined to 2003. Anyway, now that I've posted and my blog is active again, Hil will keep me alive. Cyberspacially.