Infamous Fizz

There really is no better expression of who these characters are then having them burst out of a bottle of booze. Plus, it ends this illustrative trilogy with a bang! Or at least a pop. I can manage a pop. Hre's the previous two if you've missed them:

Infamous Flight
Infamous Puke

I like drawing expressive hands, and that unexpectedly became key to this drawing. I don't think bursting out of the bottle would have been enough to make this interesting, and then each character's hand can express who they are individually. Except for Ant's of course, who nabbed what he perceives as his rightful place, lazing at the top.

I almost left Tony's hand hanging lazily by his side to potray his apathetic attitude but it made the drawing look unbalanced, and it made him seem unengaged and unfriendly. I see him as wearied by the world, not entirely detached. You can still value things, even if you've stopped believing they will actually happen. Like being a professional artist for example. Wheeeeeeyy! Oh I made myself sad. Time for real booze.

Sketch Dailies

 @Sketch_Dailies tweets a topic every day for artists to sketch, then retweets the results. It's a good drawing community to be part of, where you can discover new artists and maybe be discovered yourself. I've built up enough of these sketches now to post a decent blog about it.

Kraken

The Topic here was 'Kraken'. I knew everyone would post giant tentacled sea creatures - because, well, that's what a kraken is - so I went the opposite direction to stand out. I... can't say this particular tactic has brought me much success yet.

Ghoul

This topic was 'Ghoul'. I thought that was just another word for ghost but apparently it's an evil spirit that eats corpses. I tried to draw loosely, hence the strange anatomy and weird eyes. I imagined he goes 'ngyun ngyun ngyun' as he eats. That was also the sound I made when I drew it.

Basilisk

This topic was 'Basilisk'. I assumed they were simply giant snakes but after checking, they're apparently smaller and with a white spot on their head shaped like a diadem. I also had to check what a diadem was. When I found out I had fun coming up with a design for it. Apparently Basiliks can have bird-like features too, but I went full serpant.

Kappa

This topic was 'Kappa'. I hadn't heard of a Kappa before, but after reading the Japanese folklore I was raring to draw one: a frog-monkey-like creature, with a tutle shell on its back and a pool of water in its head. It sounded really fun. I mean I did go on to read they sometimes attack, rape, and drown people but whatever.

Infamous Puke

My first post of 2016! Starting off weird. My thinking behind this piece was just to draw the Infamous Five characters in a way we haven't seen yet. I... don't think we've seen any characters anywhere like this.

Back in September I posted Infamous Flight and said it was one of a trilogy, but couldn't find the time to complete the other two. The great thing about a new year is that you put more effort into shit you want to do, with the intention of spending the rest of the year like that. That attitude usually peters out halfway through January. So I better get the final piece finished before then.

You can read The Infamous Five comic at theinfamousfive.com!

2015 Sketches

 If you're worried you put on weight over Christmas just read the loving messages, the emotional outpourings people are publishing right now across all social media and you'll vomit everything back up.

I don't usually look back on the year as its ending, much in the same way I don't look into my tissue when I sneeze. It's not gonna be pleasent. So I was startled when I realised this had actually been an alright year. I had a full time job, then when that contract ended I took a chance on studying animation. I am having a nice time.

All that stuff has taken away the time I used to spend drawing, but I grab spare moments when I can to do it. Here's some topical Infamous Five sketches from this year. See you in the next one!

Rogers vs Stark

Have you seen the trailer for Civil War? I saw the trailer for Civil War. I may be a little excited for Civil War.

I ditched their masks so that I could draw angry facial expressions. Assume their masks fell off earlier in the scuffle. That'd be a less interesting movie title, wouldn't it? Captain America: Civil Scuffle. Masks seem to come off a lot in superhero movies, even when the characters are fighting. I suppose if you've paid millions of dollars for a certain actor, you want to see their face.

I haven't given Iron Man any specific armour here. He always seems to have a different suit so I invented my own, based on the theme 'I don't know anything about robotics oh my god I'll just make it up as I go along shit um okay better put some extra bits here to make it look more machinery'.

 

The only change I made to Captain America is losing the pouches he has on his belt. Okay, so they make him look more like a soldier, but Ive never seen him take anything out of them. It owuld be cool if he did. Bandages, sewing kit, a dry biscuit ration even though he fights in cities and there's three Starbucks literally right there.

Smash Bros Assemble

I like The Avengers. I like Super Smash Bros. So I drew the Smash characters posing as the Avengers did in their movie poster. I should add, I don't mix every two things I like. I enjoy bacon and showers, but I would never- hmm, actually...

Sadly, I'm not the first to have this idea. As I often find with my ideas, the internet got there first. However, those versions were different to what I imagined. The internet may have gotten there first, but they hadn't tasted my particular brand just yet. I wonder where that metaphor took your mind.

Despite my enthusiasm, this took a while. When I started this, Avengers Assemble may still have been in the cinema. Pokémon Trainer isn't even in Smash Bros anymore. I wanted to get the costumes and composition just right. I know the composition was already laid out for me in the poster but I was inserting different people into it. Mario's giant cartoon head, for example, doesn't quite match Chris Hemsworth's chisled jaw. A 3 year long process began of working on it, setting it aside, doing other things, working on it, setting it aside again.... when it was finally close to finish, my computer broke. My external hard drive had broken the same month. This drawing, including every other drawing I posted and was planning on posting on this website, was in danger.

"You've probably lost everything." I was bluntly told. But I decided not to listen to the disinterested shop worker who hadn't even seen the computer yet, someone who had to be cajoled into doing most of her job. Instead, I took it elsewhere to get fixed and my data recovered. That's a long story, but all you need to know is that it took time. It took money. And I'm very happy I finally got this assembled.

Texture courtesy of bstocked.

Infamous Flight

Back in June I shared my sketch book, the one I scribbled in desperately whilst my energy was sapped by a "real job". It was a student shop in East London you may recall, and shortly after that contract ended the company that owned it sent me to another one they had in central London. It was nice, but TINY. I had been working in the flagship store and now I'd been sent to what appeared to be the unfertalised egg of a shop.

Oddly, it was in two parts. The second was located in another part of the university. It also tiny, but longer. Like a sperm? How far do I want to go with this reproduction metaphor? The manager did tell me they were planning to merge the shops into one. The miracle of life/retail.

The staff only totaled 4 when I arrived and the number of customers weren't much higher. Summer, you know. Usually the university was packed with rich foriegn students. So even though the shop was tiny, the unversity itself was VERY grand. It made East London look crummy, and I already thought that before seeing this place. It was a real eye-opener to the disparity between rich and poor. Not that I fought the power or anything. I just peed in the shiney bathrooms and ate in the wood-panel walls of the brasserie, a word I don't think I ever quite pronounced correctly. I really enjoyed sketching in that place, and what I sketched were The Infamous Five.

I have a little trilogy of Infamous drawings, all of them as non-sensical as this one. I've decided to colour them all. The third one is the biggest, but the next one is the weirdest.