Filed under: comics, graphic novels, illustrations | Tags: art, books, children's books, comics, graphic novels, horses, illustration, writing
After a long hiatus, I’ve just finished drawing the gigantic project with G.Neri (author of Tru & Nelle), that’s been ongoing for some time. I’ve generated a four-inch-thick stack of pages with roughly the heft of a small child. Still much to do, but the complete, unedited thing is there, in a big box under my desk.
Filed under: comic artists, comics, graphic novels, illustrations, my comics, politics | Tags: art, books, children's books, climate change, comics, graphic novels, illustration, politics, sci-fi, science
So 
this is just one illustration for an upcoming info-comic-book, pamphlet, public-information type-thing, that I’ve been working on with the Supergen Bioenergy Hub. It shows energy crops being grown to produce bioenergy and reabsorb emissions released by the previous generation of energy crops, ad infinitum. Drawn with a brush and ink, but coloured digitally!
Several other artists have been working on the project alongside me, including the brilliant John Swogger whose blog is extraordinarily active and interesting. Check him out.
More on this project soon. Also, A Dream of a Low Carbon Future, shown in my last blog post, is out in print and digital format.
Filed under: comics, graphic novels, illustrations | Tags: art, books, children's books, climate change, comics, graphic novels, sci-fi, science
Take a look at just-a-few panels from my comic for the upcoming graphic anthology novel science book educational kids thing, A Dream of a Low Carbon Future, presented by Leeds University’s Doctoral Training Centre in Low Carbon Technologies.
The book’s a multi-character exploration of a future Britain shaped by climate change and showing how human society can use technology and new ways of living to adapt to a changing world.
The story I worked on is about a girl out of time, obsessed with a past which everyone around her sees as obsolete. It’s a sort of central narrative which ties together other parts of the book.
Filed under: graphic novels, illustrations | Tags: art, books, children's books, climate change, comics, graphic novels, illustration, science
All I’ve been doing for the last month is colouring comics digitally, but I’m finally done, and not a moment too soon. I need to get my hands back on some physical drawing stuff before I lose my mind!
Above: an unused illustration for A Dream of a Low Carbon Future. Looks like brown crayon in the lower part there, but it’s just pixels.
Filed under: comics, comics theory, graphic novels, illustrations, my comics | Tags: art, books, cartoons, children's books, climate change, comics, graphic novels, illustration, science, writing
I’ve been in the habit, for a long time, of drawing TOO SMALL! So right now, working on the Low Carbon Future graphic novel project with Leeds University, I’m drawing these pages at the largest scale I’ve ever done for a comic, and I have to say, it’s very refreshing.
These pages I’m doing are to be printed around A4 size (210x297mm), which is large, so I’m drawing them at something like 500x720mm, not far off A2, which is gargantuan. I think people used to draw comics on paper that large, to be printed on big full newspaper pages, and they scanned them with those massive old drum scanners you don’t see anymore.
Admittedly, I am making this easier for myself by using the ‘french graphic album method’ of drawing two half-pages and then printing them together. It makes having the thing on your drawing board a lot less cumbersome. Anyway, more on this when it’s looking finished.
Filed under: comic artists, comics, graphic novels | Tags: animation, art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch, writing
My graphic novel project with G. Neri has been in progress for a year now. The end may or may not be in sight, however.
I’m actually now redrawing a number of early pages. I started drawing the book at too-small a size, and I decided I wasn’t happy with it, and reformatted to a weird paper size I’m cutting myself (I’m envious of US paper sizes, since the standard formats we get here in the UK never feel quite right (or maybe I’m just that picky)). So I knew I needed to come back to those pages. Since I’ve had something of a deadline extension, I’m able now to go over some of this huge project and spend a bit more time on what’s be
en some truly tricky drawing.
In addition, I’ve been writing a ton of comics short stories, which has been a lot of fun.
Redraughting and drawing them up is a different matter, though. That’s the curse of comics: it’s all so time intensive, but I’d love to find a way to draw my comics quick n’ dirty in a way that works. At least I’m not an animator.
Currently obsessed with: Toulouse Lautrec’s sketches and drawings. He’s very much an illustrator’s fine-artist. Drawings have to have outlines or my puny mind can’t make sense of them.
Also: Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor. Which I’ve read about four times now and may be the most novel-like comic I’ve ever read. Nothing else I’ve seen by a single creator is as successful as this at giving you the scope and depth of a novel. I understand it divides opinion, mostly due to the kitschy nature of the eponymous sculptor-main-character’s art (according The Comics Journal, anyway), and I’d noted that, too, but in book on this scale, there’s bound to be criticisms of some elements. But the thing as a whole: wow, it’s a great comic.
And that’s Corban’s totally-late-to-the-party review.
Filed under: comics, graphic novels, sketchbook | Tags: art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch
One of the things that used to cause me no end of frustration when I would draw outside, from life, would be the necessity, sometimes, of drawing buildings. They’re always there, looming above us, often dominating the field of view. You can ignore them for a while, drawing a person here, a tree there, but if you want to depict any scenes from the modern world, buildings and architecture have to get in on your compositions.
It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve actually taken to drawing buildings: somehow having gained enough self-assurance that I can feel comfortable sitting for long periods of time putting together an office block line by line. When you start to embrace it, it becomes something meditative and fulfilling completely in its own right. These days, in fact, I tend to enjoy sketching urban landscapes more than people, who have the highly disagreeable habit of moving around.
Below: a few pages from a small sketchbook that survived a recent trip to the West Highlands with only moderate water damage.
Meanwhile: back to working on the sketches for my graphic novel collaboration with Greg Neri.
Filed under: comics, graphic novels, illustrations | Tags: animation, art, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration
In addition to writing and roughing the ridiculously long and totally gotten-out-of-hand graphic novel that I’ve been wrestling with for some time now, I’ve been doing some work recently with Stargazy Studios, doing character illustrations and frames and even some level concept-design for smartphone games. Take a look at Stargazy Studios’ portfolio page to see some cool stuff.
Below: scattered with abandon across my studio floor, we’ve got some pencils for game-character frames on the left; to the north-east we have just a few of many-(many)-hundreds of pages of notes, thumbnails, and sketches for a story; and in the bottom right: horse-drawing practice.
Filed under: breaker's end, comic artists, my comics | Tags: books, comics, competition, graphic novels
At next week’s Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds (15th & 16th November 2014) I’ll be at the awards night for the British Comic Awards, and I myself have been nominated for the Emerging Talent award. Specifically for Breaker’s End and my work on Dreams of a Low Carbon Future.
Looks like I’m up against some serious contenders though, such as the formidable Rachael Smith and Alison Sampson and… I think I might just be the underdog here.
I’ll be sure to keep all of my various digits and limbs firmly crossed for good luck until next Saturday, which will no doubt increase my chances significantly.
Filed under: illustrations, my comics, sketchbook | Tags: art, books, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, illustration, sketch, writing
You’d be hard-pressed to find any visual artist who would disagree that horses are hard to draw, but I’m working with Greg Neri on a comics project heavily involving horses. Like my short comic If Not Now then When?, we’re looking at working with a nice brown wash on ink lines, which seems to give it the right feeling.
Not going to say a whole lot about it at this point, but it should be a great project.
I have to share Kim Jung Gi’s portfolio with anyone who’s not familiar with him. Somehow I’ve only recently come across his unbelievably rich and detailed and living line-drawn panoramas. Do yourself a favour and spend some time looking at his interiors and street scenes, because I certainly am.
Below: just a little sketch of nothing in particular that was drawn digitally but looks sort of like pencil!
Corban Wilkin: Illustrator 