The Infamous Five: Suggestions

Here are the sketch and inks for the latest page of my comic The Infamous Five, go read the complete thing now at their website theinfamousfive.com!

Pokémon Fusion: Krabduck vs Geosey

I was playing around on the Pokémon Fusion website when I found two that I decided were worth illustrating. Krabduck just looked cool (and had a cool name), whilst Geosey made me laugh. It looks so grumpy to exist.

My previous fusion art can be found by clicking here!

Infamous Comic #36

Read at theinfamousfive.com!

Pokémon X

Guess which game I've been playing recently? That's right, Grand Theft Auto 5! But also Pokémon X. And it's such a joy. It's what fans have wanted ever since the first Pokémon games were released in 1996. A fully animated, three-dimensional world to move and battle in. It shouldn't have taken 17 years to get here, but it's here and it's beautiful.

Guess which starter I chose? I nicknamed him Pip. I tried to nickname every one I caught but that didn't last. "Furfrou? That's a stupid name! I'm gonna call it... uh... okay, Furfrou will do." I haven't let him evolve yet. He's too adorable. There's also the fact that a friend of mine tweeted "Oh god I evolved Chespin and now he's hideous why god why". I can't do that to Pip! But another friend described his third and final form as badass, so maybe eventually. I can swap adorable for badass.

I could check online myself of course, but that's not how I like to play games. That's also why I'm finding the game such a joy. Near-everything is a discovery. I already heard about mega-evolutions and the new 'Fairy' type, but I didn't know you got to choose a second starter. A Squirtle nicknamed Crusty, if you're wondering. And then there was the finding of Pokémon hordes, Pokémon jumping out of grass instead of waiting for you to walk in, and the new Pokémon themselves. Fletchinder, for example, is one I'd always hoped for: a fire-type bird. But I can't have two fire types on my team, so there's gonna be a difficult moment in the future where I have to choose between her and Litleo...

I probably add more drama to my playtime than I should be.

Obviously, I called the human character Gnarlee. And I'm rather enjoying his friends referring to him as 'Big G'. I might ask my real friends to do that.

Past and Future

Both my websites have now surpassed a whole year! That's my comic The Infamous Five and... well, you already know what the other one is called. You're here now. You know the name, right? Or do you treat this place like I treat free samples; eat the tasty treats without caring what they're called? That's okay. I don't mind. So long as you keep coming back for the treats.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I've been drawing for far more years than my websites have been around. I was going to describe the accumulation of paper, but it'd have more of an impact if I showed you:

Stop! Before you judge me I have to say, I don't live like this. This isn't a standard shot of my life. I pride myself on a tidy work environment. See all those folders and plastic pockets? I'm organised! I have separate folders for drawings of people, buildings, fantasy, fan art and even dedicated folders for my own story ideas, all of which have subsections, whilst half-finished sketches go in dedicated wallets and... You know, now that I'm actually telling someone all this I'm not sure whether complete organisation is weirder than mess.

Either way, I've made my point. I've been drawing since I was a kid and this blog about my life actually holds back on how much I've done. How much I love the craft. I'm gonna keep updating with new work, but I've built up a heady archive of material and it's all sitting in my room unseen. That's no good. Now seems like a good time to introduce it, as we surpass a year and I think about ways to move forward. Moving forward by showing you old work! Wait, no, I worded that badly. I'm gonna take the next step by showing you... old steps? No, uh, what I mean is we're going to progress by regressing to, uh... give me a sec with this.

*thinks*

I'M GONNA STOP HOLDING BACK.

There. That explains it.

Infamous Anniversary

Today is the first anniversary of my comic The Infamous Five! Here are the inks to the 'front cover' I put together for their first storyline. Head on over to theinfamousfive.com to see it in colour and discover the title!

Infamous Comic #36

Here are the sketch and inks to the 36th installment of my webcomic The Infamous Five! Visit their website to read today's discussion: Women's Issues. You should probably read the comic before you read any more of this blog 'cos it'll ruin the joke otherwise. See you in a minute!

Welcome back! Did you even leave? Whatever.

This one took a little extra work, as I needed to draw a woman on the front of Ant's magazine. I could have just draw a pair of boobs and been done with it, but I wasn't sure if that was enough. Boobs would have been enough for Ant but I meant artistically, it would just look better if I drew a woman on the cover. Also I think that, even though Ant's dialogue in the comic makes it clear what he's looking at, it'd make the joke work better if you saw what he was looking at too.

Now the magazine was too small to draw a woman directly onto it so I drew them both separately on A4-sized documents and will share those drawings in full at some point. Yeah, I said them and those. I ended up drawing two naked ladies when I decided there should be one on the back cover too. I could have left it blank, it wouldn't have looked bad, but again I just thought it would look better and help the joke if there was just an abundance of naked ladies by the time we reached the last panel.

Okay, they're not entirely naked. I did draw them that way, but I realised it wasn't necessary. I'm not sure magazines even have boobs and bums on the covers. So I put them both in bikinis. And it's a good job I did, because I then remembered I even put that in the funking dialogue. "The swimsuit edition".

COME ON, GNAR.