You talkin' to me?

Work continues on Starship Troopers - I should have my first episode finished by next week :-) My comic schedule has been knocked back the past 2 weeks by all the paid work I've had recently - a comic strip for Manitowoc, more cartoons for Global Integration and more stuff for Easy Jet, all in colour. It's all paid work though, so I'm all over it, as they say... even though my drawing hand feels like it's about to fall off.

Bristol Comic Expo 2008

Well, we survived Bristol - and bloody good fun it was too! Met some great new people, showed my portfolio all over the place, met some editors, ate expensive food, drank expensive drinks, got arrested by some Stormtroopers (twice)... the perfect (very hot and sunny) weekend. I'll post a load of photos here for your amusement :-)

Cool new people we met: Jon Davis-Hunt (below, who recently drew Tempest for the Megazine). We bumped into each other throughout the weekend, and had a great artists' chinwag while waiting in line for a portfolio review - what a nice guy! He's going to be working with Tony Lee on a new series for 2000AD.

Lee Carter was another top bloke (he recently finished Dead Eyes for 2000AD) - I was amazed at how bright and vibrant the colours were on the prints he had of his pages - apparently there was a problem with his monitor's brightness settings when he was working on Dead Eyes, which led to the printed version in 2000AD looking too dark. So to everyone moaning about the "muddy" art, that's the reason!

Caught up with Tony Lee, who is truly the king of conventions - he knows everybody! After Starship Troopers, we're going to be working on something new and very cool, which I'll post about soon. Tony was responsible for the high point of my weekend - he brought none other than Comic Art God Dave Gibbons over to our table at the Ramada bar (I was fighting my inner fanboy instincts all the way). Dave was more than happy to sit with us and look at my portfolio and gave me some great advice and a few compliments too - it was a pure artist/fanboy moment I'll never forget. Thank you Tony - thank you Dave.

Another fanboy moment for me was meeting a very hungover Simon Bisley on Sunday Morning:

Sharon and I were impressed with the Ramada - nice room, great restaurant and (expensive) bar - we'll definitely be making the trip again next year. Another highlight was walking past the massive queue to get into the con on Saturday morning - and getting in for free, no less. It pays to be a creator!! A few more pics:

Lee Carter with Dave Taylor:

Harry Markos at the Markosia booth:

Sean Phillips with his son and friend Lewis:

Matt "Tharg the Mighty" Smith:

Dave Gibbons:

And last but not least, a Dredd page from my portfolio (still no work for 2000AD yet, but I'll be doing more samples when I have time). I did have a good response from some other editors, so I'll post any news on that in the coming weeks. And now... back to the drawing-board :-)

Look into the eyes, not around the eyes...

Well, the Bristol con is only 3 days away - we've got the train tickets and the hotel room all booked, portfolio is choc full of arty goodness, I have new business cards and for the first time ever I'll be a "guest" rather than a punter (which means I get to swan about with a name badge on, like I'm actually a somebody in the comics industry!).

Starship Troopers goes well - just 2 more pages and I've finished my first part. My damn hand problem reared its ugly head again last week - a full day of drawing followed by over 3 hours guitar teaching... I don't recommend it. My right hand had a shooting pain through it, which lasted almost a week - I couldn't draw, play guitar or use a mouse. Almost better now though and I'm back on track.

I'll take photos at the convention and post here when I get back back - looking forward to showing my stuff to the likes of Simon Bisley, Dave Gibbons, Duncan Fegredo, Dave Taylor, etc - and most importantly of all, Tharg the Mighty. There will be a few editors from DC Comics there too, so I'll take my chances with them as well.

Scary Bald Kid

Still hammering away at Starship troopers... should have another project to announce soon, stay tuned!

Triple Threat

Well it's been a while since I posted - I've been slaving away over Starship Troopers and it's looking good; fortunately the deadline has been pushed back, so that's taken some pressure off! I've had other illustration work to do as well as the comics, so the delay is more than welcome.

My story will appear in issues #9 and #10 and is called Triple Threat. There are three artists and three writers in all, writing and drawing the three parts to the story. One of the other artists is Scott James, who I've spoken to on the phone a couple of times - and his work is fantastic - he doesn't mind calling me all the way from the USA to talk comics, so he's a good guy in my book! He's also done the covers for the two books, and they look great.

Here is a sneak peek at one of my panels - I can't show more or I'd be giving away the story :-)

Troopers

Right now I'm working hard on Starship Troopers; 7 pages need to be pencilled, inked and coloured by the end of the month! The Bristol comic con is coming up fast too, so I've started putting together my portfolio for that.

More Dredd Colours

A before-and-after look at a panel of the Judge Dredd samples I'm working on.

Mega City One by night

How romantic... they should really be holding hands with a view like that...

Working on a few new Dredd sample pages this week, in preparation for the Bristol con in early May. I've taken the plunge and gone for full colour this time.

My big news is that I'm going to be doing a few pages for Starship Troopers comic (Markosia) - my first "real" published comics work! This is thanks to Editor/Writer Tony Lee; you can read more about it in the last paragraph of his latest column over at Comics Bulletin here:
http://www.comicsbulletin.com/hoaw/120579061026864.htm

Bloody hell, I better do a good job now, hadn't I! The Dredd stuff is a nice warm-up for the Troopers gig, as I'll be doing full colour pages for that as well - just waiting for the script...

Website Updated

I've updated my main site at last - I've changed the design to a much simpler, faster-loading no-nonsense look. No more rollovers and i-frames thank you very much... from now on it's clean and simple all the way (God I hate web design - I used to love it, now I want it as simplistic and unlikely to go tits-up as possible): http://www.jimmibo.co.uk/

The Creative Process (well, how I do it anyway)

Here is a little look at the various stages a page goes through - at least the stages it goes through when I draw it! This is another page from Imposter.

Pencils: The space on the lower left is for the titles and credits. Tony pointed out that I hadn't left much room for the dialogue in panel 2, so I enlarged that panel before inking...

Inks: I'm very into my brushes and dip-pens these days, they're really starting to work well for me. I used to use various technical drawing pens from 0.1 to 0.8 - and I still do for some bits and pieces, but it's 90% brushes and dip-pens now. The line is so much more varied and "alive." You can see below, how Photoshop saved my arse once again - I drew more space for the panel 2 dialogue, then photoshopped it to overlap the main panel.

Colours: Photoshop once again for the colours. Here's a shot as I started work - I wish I'd taken more as I went along, I'll try to do that with the next thing I colour. I always do the backgrounds first obviously, and the foreground figures are the last thing to work on.

... and here is the final coloured page!