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Here's a quick doodle that I did on the computer, I quite like the starkness of it and that there's not much feathering and faffing. I haven't decided on whether to have the Elephant in colour or B & W yet, it may depend on how much solid black is in the final artwork. I'm also undecided on whether to ink traditionally or digitally, on one hand I like the idea of using traditional materials and having original artwork at the end of it but inking digitally can be more freeing when you don't have to worry about art supplies and the mess and have access to that most wonderful feature - the multiple undo. I also find that I can feel more open to experimentation with the marks I make when inking digitally. I may end up with some sort of compromise, I could pencil the pages traditionally and scan them in and ink digitally.
Anyway, this is the Elephant with his companion Dwat, I've used the Dwat character in a comic strip before called The Malice Family. He was a somewhat unsympathetic character and I think I'm veering towards him being a bit more likeable this time around (I stress the "bit"). The Malice Family was semi-autobiographical and the Dwat character was based on somebody very real who happens to be one of those people that are so extreme and often very funny and entertaining when dropped into almost any situation. Or so I hope. In reality he was a never-ending source of entertainment but also a monumental pain in the arse. As I've explained before he's also to blame for the name of this blog.
I inked and coloured the sketches posted below and here's the result. He should probably be wearing a smoking jacket. Still, there's always a next time. All good men (and elephants) should wear a fez when relaxing at home. Cats & monkeys too.
Here's a couple of recent pencil drawings for a character that I came up with some time ago, I've always wanted to draw a comic strip with this character ever since I came up with a name for him (which I'm not going to divulge just yet) but I wasn't entirely sure of what I wanted him to be. Initially the strip was going to be a super-hero parody type of thing (if I can find the very first drawing I'll post it) but I wasn't completely happy with that and at one point I was planning on doing some sort of kids book thing with him and then I ended up completely second-guessing myself into inaction. Since then he's been lurking somewhere at the back of my cobwebbed mind, slowly taking shape, so I've decided to try and flesh him out in a more concerted fashion and actually do something with him in the near future. If I make some public proclamations I may actually feel like I ought to live up to them and produce some more comics.
Here's the final all coloured up (I kept within the lines and everything). This was for a client in the US, the publication is produced for schoolchildren and I was asked not to include too many pitchforks for fear of satanic connotations which seemed a little extreme to a Brit like me - bit of a shame as pitchforks do appear to be a more useful and deadly weapon than a spade or hoe.
Not that I'm an expert on such matters.
This is the line art. Finished art coming up next. 
The house I used for reference was a bit too grand so I had to change it to something more modest. Here's the pencils at a stage or two further on.
The second illustration I had to do for this recent job was of the militiamen, that Sybil had been rounding up, gathering outside her father's house, her father being Colonel Henry Ludington. This is the very first compositional sketch of the gathering that I did, it's very rough but it was just to see if I was on the right track.
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