Leonieblog

80's update

2012-05-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

Julia wanted pancakes for breakfast. Stupid servants!

I managed to get a bit further along with my 80's epic comic book (It has actually got a proper working title, but I feel like I'd be jinxing it if I started calling it by it's name when there's still so much to be done.)
I've also done a pin-up illo for an upcoming anthology and an illustration for a great short story (which should hopefully appear in a magazine sometime soon).

Julia, the central character.

This is Victor. Poor, poor Victor.

The comic has been my main focus though for the last few weeks.

But, for now, I must put it aside and concentrate on a new project. A huge project that I'm very excited about.
I've just been hired as an artist on a new graphic novel. It's going to be awesome!!! Great writer and a great letterer are also on board so it's going to be amazing (well, at least the story and the lettering will be amazing...)
I'll be super busy with it for the next few months, so things might be even quieter on here.

In other news, Comic Heroes Magazine gave my Monstrum Horrendum comics a lovely little review! Hurray!

Work in Progress : My 80's epic

2012-04-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

Julia - the main character in my new comic

I've been working away on a new comic. I'm only about 20 pages into it so far but I'm due to start work on a graphic novel in a couple of weeks so the rest of it shall have to wait until after that. The story spans from the late 70s to the early 90s. I don't know if people will like it, but I'm enjoying drawing it so that's okay!

I'm going to try and get as much done over the next two weeks as I can, but I predict it will be a long time before this will be finished. I'll post updates as I go.

Here's some of the inked pages so far. The finished thing will be painted.

Themed art stuff

2012-04-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Gonna have some new artwork from the comic I'm currently working on to show you soon, but in the meantime, I'm still contributing art to the Weekly Themed Art Blog. Here's all the stuff I've been doing for it:
Weekly Themed Stuff
And if you like the look of any of it, let me know! Most of my artwork is for sale and I take commissions.

Looking for something to read?

2012-04-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of all my comics currently available to read (free!) online:

Monstrum Horrendum : Vol 2
Maritime adventure stories.

The fixer upper:

A short comic about a ghost.

Dear Diary:
A bit of an experiment by Steve Holder and me. It's a little comic we did for fun based on Kitty Pryde.

And here's all the shark stuff:

Jaws the Untold Story:
A three page Jaws comic.

Mega shark vs Giant Octopus: The best bits:
The film condensed down to a short comic - just the best bits.

The Shark Report:
A zine about shark movies. Reviews, paintings, ramblings. Also features the comic strip Jaws: The untold story.

If you hate free stuff and would rather buy some of my comics:

Some Forgotten Part:
A graphic novel

Spirit of Hope:
Charity anthology from the Comicbook Alliance

Tag Team:
An anthology of sorts. A collection of stories by lots of great writers, drawn by me.

ALSO! 'Gone' by Nigel Auchterlounie is now available to download. Originally published by There Goes Tokyo... in 2003, it's now been remastered (i.e. I cleaned up the scans and sorted out typos that slipped through the net first time round) and can be bought from Monkeybars. (You do need to be a member of Monkeybars to purchase it, but it's free to register. Slave Labor Graphics publish on there too, so it's worth signing up):

GONE

Twitter

2012-03-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

After ages of tweeting for other people, I've finally started to tweet for myself! Come join me for everyday art work, comics, sharks and other geekery: @leonieomoore

New comic

2012-03-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Did some pencilling this evening for a new comic I'm working on. I had the idea many, many years ago and for some reason decided now was the best time to do it. I thought that it'd be quite a short comic. Now that I've started it though the story is actually pretty long ...
It's mostly set in the 80's and drawing the appropriate fashion / decor / technology is a hoot.
It's quite different to the other stuff I've done and I can't decide whether or not it's going to turn out okay, so far it seems a bit crazy. If it starts to seem too crazy I might abandon it and work on something else.
I have a big project coming up in a couple of months so I need to get it finished by then, otherwise it'll just have to wait. Will post updates as I ~~descend into madness~~ go.

Luke's Lemons update

2012-03-08T01:53:00.001-08:00

A while ago I mentioned about my little nephew and his charity 'Lukes Lemons' which aims to raise money for cancer research. Here's a little update on how he's doing and how his local community are really supporting his charity:

If the embedded player doesn't work, here's a link to the news site:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=8573041

The genius of Jaws 3

2012-02-29T09:55:00.000-08:00

My illustration of Jaws 3 / What I'd like to see next time I visit the local aquarium.

Okay, maybe not the 'genius' of Jaws 3, more like the 'potential' of Jaws 3. It's had a bad time of it, and seeing some Jaws 3 hating on Twitter (I guess it was on tv ) got me thinking about why I rate this film higher than the other Jaws sequels.

First of all, the original trailer is great, one of my favourite ever trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=636cMq0PFT4

'The third dimension is terror!'

The basic premise of the film is brilliant. A giant shark causing trouble in an aquarium. It pretty much writes itself. I don't know why this hasn't happened in more films / books / comics. The closest thing is probably Deep Blue Sea, but (unless you work in an undersea lab) it misses that all important element of familiarity.

Anyone who has visited an aquarium has probably thought at one point 'That glass could just crack...', (especially if you've seen the footage of the aquarium leak at the mall in Dubai.) Having gone diving with sharks in an aquarium and looking out from the sharky side at the people in the tube, I found it quite surreal that two such completely different worlds can be seperated by so little.

The Meg books got some mileage out of having a Megalodon in an aquarium. They made good use of scale and also there was a great sense of vulnerability for the divers who had to do maintenance. The game Jaws Unleashed (Xbox)had a fun water park section, allowing you to chomp your way through a variety of aquatic mammals, but they could've done more with it.

Really my point is that there's a lot that can be done with the story. Jaws 3 maybe isn't the greatest movie but I find it enjoyable, based mainly on how good it could be.

Reading through production interviews it sounds as though Jaws 3 started out as a pretty good film.

Initially there were no Brody family members in the story, it was a completely new film with no ties to the original other than a giant shark. There's a lot of classic monster movie references, most notably the similarity to Revenge of the Creature (1955) DVD, but apparently that was unintentional. Bizarrely, at the same time John Landis had pitched a Creature from the black lagoon 3-D remake but the studio decided to go with Jaws instead.

When it was originally released it was in 3-D, but it came out after a bunch of cheap schlocky 3-D releases so audiences were a bit sick of the gimmick by then and the backlash against 3-D has haunted it ever since. It still managed to be commercially successful, but the only reason that it seems to have been pushed it off it's recurring spot on 'worst movie' lists is because Jaws: The revenge was far worse.

There are some lovely shots which are let down a bit by dated effects and the poor quality of the non -3D video version. It was directed by Joe Alves, who was the production designer on Jaws, so it was a very visually driven film. Jaws 3 boasts the largest of the Jaws sharks at about 30 - 35 feet. It also has the addition of a baby shark, and it's quite sad when it dies. Maybe not the most original of plot twists (and maybe a bit too similar to Orca the Killer Whale *) but at least it gives momma shark an actual motive, unlike Jaws 2 and Jaws: The Revenge where we're expected to believe that some unkillable shark keeps regenerating to exact its revenge on one particular family.

At the time Jaws 3 was made it was believed that great white sharks couldn't be kept in captivity, Monterey Bay Aquarium has since managed to keep a few young great whites happy and healthy for limited periods in their facilities before releasing them back in to the wild.

Although Jaws 3 set up the premise and had a lot of the elements in place for a great shark story / classic monster movie, it just didn't quite come together.

During the course of writing I think this blog post has become less about liking Jaws 3 and more about convincing myself to make a shark story set in an aquarium...

* A little side note about Orca - that's another one of those movies that people always dismiss thanks to 'worst movie' lists and the odd notion that it's a Jaws rip - off. I often find people who complain about it haven't ever actually watched it. Again, it's by no means a cinematic triumph, but it is a really crazy film that's worth a watch. And the bit with the baby whale is unexpectedly horrible.

Digital comics panel

2012-02-27T07:09:00.000-08:00

I was part of the Digital Comics Panel at the wonderful Canny Comic Con back in December, along with Gordon Robertson, Daniel Clifford, Terry Wiley and our excellent host Stacey Whittle. It's now online for you to hear:

http://geeksyndicate.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/small-press-big-mouth-episode-35-5-digital-distribution-for-self-published-comics/

Here's a bunch of X-Men.

2012-02-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

I like to see how artists work. I like to see the process behind an image. And I especially like it when artists blog about it. So I thought I'd make more of an effort to do that on my own blog.

This week is X-Men week over at The Weekly Themed Art Blog. I decided to do three images, mainly because once I start drawing comic characters I find it hard to stop.
So, here's how I went about it.

Wolverine.
Wolverine is one of my favourite comic characters ever. He's super awesome. He gets to have mutant healing powers and an adamantium skeleton and claws. But, he's a character I don't really try to draw very often. It's tough when you really like a character, especially one that's been handled so well by many incredible artists (Darwyn Cooke's version of Logan is probably my favourite, Bill Sienkiewicz
did an amazing Wolverine too), whenever I draw him he never quite looks right to me, I think that tends to happen with iconic characters. So I started off with a really loose sketch, focusing more on the feel of the piece rather than the detail:

Then I refined the pencils a bit more, mostly to work on the face and also sort out that hovering left arm.

Then I inked it on to some A3 Bristol board:

I added more detail during the inking stage too. I didn't want to add in a full background or leave it white, so I painted in a strip behind him using watercolour and indian ink:

After I'd painted the background, I painted the figure. I built up the colour with watercolour washes, which I think worked pretty good for his shirt. Here's the final version that's over on the Weekly Themed Art Blog:

Mystique:

I've always liked the character design for Mystique and I thought the blue skin / red hair combo would be fun to paint. I went for a full body pose because I like her outfit and wanted to draw the whole thing (especially the skull belt!)

First a sketch:

I went straight in with the inks, deciding to add the rest of the detail as I went:

Then some watercolours and indian ink behind her for a background:

Then I built up washes of watercolour:

Psylocke:

Psylocke is a crazy character, it seemed like every time I picked up an X-men comic she was someone else or had different powers...I had no clue what was going on with that character.

This picture pretty much drew itself. I didn't think about the pose or anything, I just put pencil to paper and before I'd even decided who I was drawing, this had happened:

So I just went with it. Here are the inks:

Then the background, watercolour and indian ink again:

I thought her hair would be fun to paint, I'd use washes of magenta and purples. I'd had magenta and purple hair during my teenage years, oh how it takes me back.

You can check out my Weekly Themed Art Blog versions here.

Even more mermaids!

2012-02-02T12:32:00.000-08:00

Don't you hate it when you're out having a wander and your enemy sneeks up behind you on some sort of shark monster? But, don't you just love when you're taking your shark monster for a swim and you spot your enemy?
That's the basic idea behind this first picture:

I guess after drawing mermaids for my latest comic I thought I might as well just carry on with it. Here's the stages the picture went through:

Pencil sketch

Inks

This painting shows what happens when you forget to feed your pet octopus:

I did the initial sketches for this using a Wacom Inkling:

But then, I found a neat thing that the Inkling does....it can play back your drawing line by line so you can watch it being drawn:

And here's what the image looked like once it had been inked:

Both paintings are available to buy. They are A3, watercolour and ink on Bristol Board, 50 GBP each including postage and packaging. They come rolled in a sturdy postal tube. Paypal accepted.

Email me at LeonieomooreATgmailDOTcom if you'd like to buy either (or both...)

Monstrum Horrendum : Mermaid Mayhem

2012-01-21T04:35:00.000-08:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More adventure

This is just a short adventure, set before the current story arc. It works as a stand alone story. It's only a 16 page book, Monstrum issues usually run at 52, although issue 3 looks set to be even longer.
The story is based on Issue 2 Vol 1 of Monstrum, which I think was released in 2004. It only had a tiny print run, so I thought it was worth reviving the storyline and updating the artwork and giving it a bigger release.
Click here for more Monstrum Horrendum adventures.

This Weekend.

2012-01-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

images from the new issue of Monstrum Horendum

I'll be posting up the new Monstrum Horrendum comic this weekend. It's only a short thing, but you read it all here (or on my site) for free!

Also, my art sale will be ending soon (31st Jan.) so please check it out and grab yourself a bargain.
Includes this stuff:

Almost done.

2012-01-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

Almost finished the Monstrum Horrendum mini comic, just a couple more pages to do, then scanning, lettering, collating etc. How quickly it gets finished depends on the rest of my work load, which is horribly unpredictable at the moment.

Cover painting is finished though! (Work in progress pics here.)

2011 - The year in sharks.

2012-01-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

Shark Night 3D
After a slew of straight to SyFy nonsense, 2011 saw shark movies return to where they belong - on a cinema screen in 3D. The plot of Shark Night 3D was every bit as flimsy and idiotic as anything SyFy has to offer, but it had better effects and was in 3D. There was a good variety of shark on offer, even the ridiculous cookie cutter shark got in on the action. The constant giant plot holes were a bit unnerving when witnessed on a large screen with surround sound, a constant reminder that the only reason this made it to the cinema was the 3D-ness of it all.

Super Shark
When trailers first appeared for this online I instantly assumed it was another spoof - along the lines of 'Ghost Shark' or the more recent 'Shark Pool'. So I was pretty surprised (and secretly happy) when it turned up on SyFy in all it's schonky glory. It begins (and ends) with a shark on land fighting a tank with legs. The shark also has it's own song. That's really all you need to know.The effects are very poor, even by my standards.
Fun facts: The main actress in it also starred in Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus. The guy who directed Super Shark is the dad of the guy who directed Mega Shark vs Crocosuarus.

Swamp Shark:

Some weird looking shark gatecrashes 'Gator Fest'. Starring Kristy Swanson, who also starred in another movie about a shark in a swamp (Red Water - 2003). Awful.

Sand Sharks:
Yet again, the trailer would lead you to believe that this is a spoof. It isn't. It's an actual movie made by actual people. I haven't seen this yet, but it looks like it's about spikey sharks that can swim through sand and are intent on ruining some beach party. It stars Brooke Hogan, who will also be featuring in the Asylums upcoming Two-Headed Shark film.

Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week:
Wow. The internet went crazy for Discovery's Shark Week. It's a pretty big deal for Discovery anyway, but this year it seemed to be a meme, a trend...it took over the internet. I don't know what the viewing figures were like, but apparently 2010 had 30.8 million viewers. Not bad for some shows about fish.
I've probably watched more Nat Geo stuff than Discovery in 2011, they just seemed to have better shows this time. I've particularly been enjoying Nat Geo's series 'Shark Men' which follows a group of scientists (who aren't all men - stupid title) as they tag Great White Sharks.

Gamma Ray Sharks:
I haven't read any Hulk comics in a really long time, but thanks to the huge clunky chunks of exposition in this comic I was able to get up to speed on everything that was happening. I only bought it, like many other people, because there are hulk sharks in it. The only good thing in the comic were the sharks.

Note to Marvel: The Marvel universe needs more sharks.

Bye Bye Jaws Ride:
The Jaws ride closed it's waters to the public at the start of this year, making 2011 the last ever year to go visit Bruce in his Floridian holiday home. I didn't realise that at the time, and I never got to go see it, AND NOW I NEVER WILL!! But thanks to the magic of the internet, you can pretend you got to go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_t3Q6ahmyU&feature=player_embedded
I guess after being shot at and mutilated a few times a day the shark was probably due for retirement.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to share your favourite shark moments of 2011 in the comments.

The Eagle Awards 2011

2012-01-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

The Eagle awards are open for voting, and some lovely person has nominated me. Unfortuntely, I'm in the same category as comic legends such as Tim Sale and Duncan Fegredo, so no hope of winning, but I'm still very excited to have stumbled across my name on the list of painters. Maybe next year there'll be a 'most sharks' category and I'll be in with a chance.
The awards this year are a good reflection of the growing comic scene in the UK and Ireland. There's tons of homegrown talent on there, a great variety of work and lots of new titles.
Go vote for your favourites:
http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/nominations/

Some new art for Luke's Lemons

2012-01-02T13:43:00.000-08:00

A few months ago my nephew Luke (age 7) was diagnosed with leukemia. He and his brother decided to raise money to help other children with leukemia, but rather than open up the traditional lemonade stand they decided to sell 'digital lemonade' and so 'Luke's Lemons' was born. Lukes Lemons is a non-profit organisation that helps to raise money for leukemia research.

Luke's been really brave, he's going through a lot and keeps on fighting with a strength and determination well beyond his years. It's wonderful that he and his brother were so quick to think of others and they've already managed to raise and distribute $2000 towards leukemia research.
If you'd like to help them you can buy digital artwork for a small fee via their Monkeybars page. All the money goes to charity.

I contributed some artwork to the cause:

A lemon themed picture (of course)

And a sea turtle (because Luke likes sea turtles)

The lemon artwork is currently available to buy.

You can purchase it here: https://www.monkeybars.net/society/thing/1671?sid=61#.TwIPP0ax3lA.facebook

Or check out Luke's Lemons for more art: http://lukeslemons.org/

The sea turtle painting will be realeased at a later date.

Cover art in progress

2011-12-31T08:19:00.000-08:00

Work in progress...artwork for the cover of a mini Monstrum comic, due out soonish (will be online for free).
Did the preliminary sketch using my new Wacom Inkling:

And here are the inks:

It's on A3 Bristol board, will finish it off with some washes of watercolour. Think I'll use a limited pallette to make it moody.

Shark man and friend.

2011-12-30T11:10:00.000-08:00

Maybe the strangest thing I've ever assembled....a shark headed man (I don't know why LEGO designed this, but I'm glad they did) on top of a shark. Thanks to Vicky and Chris for the shark, and Andy for the random shark man.

Also got a lovely surprise gift this Christmas...the new Wacom Inkling (also, thanks to Andy). Had a quick go, it's fun and will be useful for sketching. Planning on taking it out and about in the new year to do some doodles at the local museum.

Nom Donner, Nom Blitzen...

2011-12-22T11:12:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas!

Art Sale

2011-12-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

I am selling off some artwork at super low prices (limited time only) - Originals, prints and canvas prints. Most are from exhibitions and come ready to hang.
Better for those in North East England (could arrange pick up or delivery) as postage will probably cost more than the actual pieces in most cases.

Click Here to see prices and descriptions.

Some favourite moments...with Hook Jaw

2011-11-26T07:31:00.000-08:00

I know some of you visit here for the shark related posts, and usually I do stuff about shark movies but today I thought I'd share some of my favourite comic book moments.

Oh, that Hook Jaw. Such a mischievous little scamp!

That's not the...oh, never mind.

Stewardess school did not prepare her for this...

'Can I get some complimentary drinks to go with this pilot please?'

Thought Bubble 2011 successfully completed.

2011-11-24T05:45:00.000-08:00

Thought Bubble. Wow.
I won't even bother trying to do any kind of review because I really wouldn't know where to even begin.

This year I didn't bother with a stall, since a lot of my stuff is now available as a digital product rather than as physical books and my latest work has been published by other people (with bigger, better stalls) so it seemed pointless.
It worked out to my advantage, I got to meet a ton of people, actually ran out of business cards (first time EVER), and just got to do a lot of stuff I would've missed out on if I'd been stuck behind a stall all day. I don't go to many conventions anymore so it's lovely to catch up with everyone and see what they're up to. Also, I've been hooking up with more projects online and conventions are often the only chance I get to meet with my collaborators!
Brought a portfolio with me and had a great response from publishers, and some wonderful feedback from Marvel which made me almost explode with joy, also met lots of other great writers/artists/editors. Still managed to miss all the talks I'd planned on attending, but spent some time watching amazing artists drawing things so I feel like I learned something.
It was an exhausting but inspirational 3 days.

While I recover I've got a bunch of projects to finish up on. So I'll be spending the next few days drawing comics and storyboards, reviewing a years worth of footage (so I can see if there's actually a movie in there), and typing away at some new scripts. Luckily, I can do all those things from the comfort of my sofa with a big mug of tea.

Flying Sharks

2011-11-10T13:24:00.000-08:00

I did a comic in 2001 (I think? Maybe 2000? Sometime around then anyway.) about flying sharks. I haven't gotten around to doing a sequel yet (busy!), but if I did it'd probably look a bit like this:

2 - Headed Shark Attack

2011-11-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

After a two headed shark was recently mentioned in the news I joked on facebook that I'd have to make a comic about it quickly before the Asylum made a film about it. But, they've beat me to it! Damn their super fast movie making skills!
Yes, this is a real movie. Yes, I will be buying it.
It's due the end of January.