Andrew Croskery

When a man loves a zombie

2010-11-15T21:48:00.000Z

I haven't been very productive the last couple of weeks (damn you Dragon Age, being social and/or drunk...although I realise the first two are probably oxymorons), so here's a quick partially finished one. This is based on a really loose two minute jobbie I did on the bus. I was pretty pleased with the expanded version - a bit more detailed but retaining the looseness of the orginial sketch. This pair are looking at something, but I'm not going to tell you what it is.

This history t'aint in natur'

2010-11-09T23:20:00.000Z

I arrived late at the drawing on location group this week, so I only got one picture drawn, but I was reasonably pleased with it. I didn't quite manage to convey the scale of this (it was an escalator running up into a model of the earth) but I did manage to convey a big slimey tongue coming out of sphere. I *do* wish to return so that I can accomplish my goal of drawing Charles Darwin riding a mammoth prehistoric sloth.

Zombie secretary

2010-11-01T21:29:00.000Z

Quick one today - a zombie secretary. This was going to be a character in a new story, but that story has morphed into an entirely new story, which I shall tell you about in due course.

Also...

2010-10-25T22:15:00.000+01:00

Also, I'm now script editor for Tales of the... and The Sleepless Phoenix.

I should have told you that. I apologise.

Surgical sketching

2010-10-25T22:02:00.000+01:00

Good news if you hadn't heard it. Actually, it's pretty good even if you had. Kronos City has found a new home at Time Bomb Comics (you can read about it here, at the Kronos City blog, with a line drawing that I did of all the Kronos City leads, which I', pretty pleased with. I'll be interspersing updating my own blog with the Kronos City one.

But back to my solo stuff, which this week takes the form of my Drawing London on Location biweekly excursion. This weekend was to the Hunterian Museum of Surgery, a lovely place filled with pickled walrus and human face. I enjoyed this one a lot. I took a lot of the different items on display and made a composite sketch. The real place is much cleaner and has no blood stains.

The face on the back wall of the image is a replica of the death mask of Isaac Newton. Nifty.

The second piece of the day is from the park across the road from the museum, which, I think, is Lincoln Inn Fields. In this picture you will see a bandstand, a made-up lady (as in from my head, not covered in garish face paint) and lots of squiggles.

Comics Miscellany

2010-10-11T21:23:00.000+01:00

A couple of comics themed pieces this week. This is a sketch of Karl and Azure from Kronos City, which has been knocking about my sketchbook for a month or two. I'm pretty pleased with it, particularly with Karl.

This next one I drew after reading some of Peter David's X-Factor, which is a good read. It's been pointed out that Jamie looks like me in this picture. I'm not sure what that says about my inner workings.

I shall be at BICS this weekend. I'll tell you about it afterwards, I'm sure.

Pigs in love. The geese are just friends.

2010-10-03T22:24:00.000+01:00

As part of my drawing on location group, we went out last weekend to Hackney Farm and Victoria Park. Behold the results.

Pencils, inks and hungry witches

2010-09-27T22:35:00.000+01:00

We had a two part series running on Tales of the... over the last two weeks. They're a couple of dark fairy stories, loosely inspired by Jim Henson's The Storyteller, the mid-90s television show, by the Henson company and written by the late Anthony Mingella. The first of them (Tales of the Storytide presents The Little King with No Son) was fun to produce - it's an audioplay, with a lovely accompanying illustration by Ruth Kelly.

The second (Tales of the Storytide presents The Prince's Smile) is a piece of illustrated prose, and presented an interesting opportunity for some artistic experimentation with my good friend, and fellow Tales of the... co-creator, Stephen Downey. I did some rough pencils for the piece and he inked over them. This marked the first time that he had inked another artist's work and the first time that I had my work inked by another artist.

And I think the results are pretty impressive, with Stephen's moody inks suiting the subject matter much more than my more cartoony, clean style. Plus, he fixed up lots of basic drawing errors. What's that? I didn't say anything.

Presented for your intrigue and, hopefully, pleasure is a comparision of the inked and pencilled pieces. You can click on them to see them in all their unfettered glory.

Above you can see the first of them. If I had been inking them myself, I would have been using some brush pens and black drawing pens, whereas Stephen goes for ink and brush. Notice how he added a light source? I don't even need to pretend that I did that on purpose because that's something I usually decide on when I'm inking myself, but Stephen has much stronger shadows than I do.

I think the prince in this second image looks a little bit like Alex Willmore's work, which adds a nice symmetry or serendipity, or something beginning with s.

And here's the last image. I think this is the best one. Stephen took a very unfinished pencil drawing and turned it into something special. The moon was a lovely touch, and if you notice the mortar looks much less like an antwerp, which, for those of you familiar with the Quest for Glory series, will add a further degree of whatever word beginning with s was decided to be the best one.

*looks at watch* I spent an awful long time farting around on photoshop arranging those tonight.

The future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

2010-08-29T22:54:00.000+01:00

Tesla was coming at me from three different sources today, so I thought I would get my own back by drawing him.

Relocation, relocation, relocation

2010-07-25T22:54:00.000+01:00

Hello! I have returned to my blog, which has become accustomed to my long absences. Much has changed. I'm now in London, and doing different things, so you'll be seeing considerably different stuff up here now. I've joined a drawing on location group, which is taxing my drawing in a much different way than I'm used to. It's been much longer than I'd care to admit since I drew landscapes and architectures. Here's some scans of my first couple of drawing trips.

First up is Richmond Park. This was the first landscape work I'd done in years and years, and it definitely shows. Pretty ropey.

Next up is another one near Richmon Park. There was a small fire which I exaggerated and added a spectator. Still pretty ropey.

I hadn't been extremely pleased with what I'd produced so far, so I decided to go for a more stylised approach, which I enjoyed a lot more, and I think is much more suited to my temperment.

I then stalked a squirrel for half an hour. I've got about 50 three second sketches of this little bugger. He wouldn't keep still.

What a difference two weeks makes. This is from my second trip with the group, down to Camden Lock. I was pretty pleased with this one. Still a ways to go but much better than the first couple of attempts. I spent much longer on this one than the other ones as well.

In other news, I now have an A3 scanner, so look out for me scanning in many big things and shrinking them down to fun-size.

AJC

The world's first completely silent runners

2010-04-30T23:59:00.000+01:00

There's always music in the air.

2010-04-29T17:57:00.000+01:00

These are quick two minute jobbies but that gum you like is going to come back in style.

Poison Ivy Sketch

2010-04-02T16:32:00.000+01:00

Woops. Haven't posted since October. Bad Andrew. He will be punished.

S'Been a While

2009-10-06T20:39:00.000+01:00

My weekly blogging has taken a bit of a nosedive of late but I plan to rectify that.

Had a very fun BICS at the weekend, where I met a lot of fellow Insomnia creators and staff which was great and some of Team Kronos City met for the first time. There was some bonding on Moomin love.

In Kronos City news, the first draft of the script has been finished!

Here's some pictures. Knock yourself out by looking at them. With your eyes.

First up is Guillermo del Toro looking worried.

The second should need no introduction. If it does, there's something gravely missing in your life.

The Truth About Kronos City...

2009-08-29T17:18:00.000+01:00

Lauren put up a post detailing how she thought that the idea for Kronos City came about, and I promised her that I would put up the real story, which isn't as interesting as all the mystery...I was out for coffee with my housemate, Ruth, and our friend, Elaine, and Ruth made a comment about how she measures time in streets or streets in time - I can't quite remember which. It was to do with how long it takes to get somewhere being determined by how many streets there are between you and it. Anyhoo, that planted the idea of streets made of time, which changed into canals of time, which was the starting seed for Kronos City.

I'm not entirely sure exactly where the karma idea came from. I was walking home from work (it's about 40 min) and I came up withthe whole karma inc concept, in a pretty similar form to how it ended up, although there's a few new ideas and subpolts that came together from some other stories that were floating in my head.

So there you have it...

I'm also firing up a sketch I did of Elektra a few weeks back. I like my brush pen.

Before Kronos City, there was Karl the Anorexic Vampire

2009-08-22T20:56:00.000+01:00

Good evening!

I am endeavouring to put up a blog post every Saturday. In honour of the first chapter of Kronos City going up online (at http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=14544 if you haven't checked it out), I thought I would put up one of the earlier Karl the Anorexic Vampire strips. Karl's a character I dreamt up a few years ago. He's since then found a home in the cosy surroundings of Kronos City.

Chapter One Preview Online

2009-08-21T10:20:00.000+01:00

The first chapter of Kronos City is up online for all to see if you want to mosey over to http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=14544. It's been up since last night and we've already had 130 views! Tell your friends - they'll think you're cool.

A saturday afternoon's diversion

2009-08-15T16:55:00.000+01:00

This is what I did this afternoon. I'm pretty sure it's Halle Berry.

Did me another picture

2009-08-08T11:46:00.000+01:00

I also had coco pops.

Fables Art

2009-08-07T18:55:00.001+01:00

Hello! I knocked this out this evening while watching Pushing Daisies Season Two, which is very much worth watching. It's a scene from Fables: The Mean Seasons, which is very much worth reading.

Moon

2009-07-24T08:50:00.000+01:00

Moon, directed by Duncan Jones, is currently playing in the QFT until the end of next week, methinks. It's definitely worth a look. If you can try not to read anything about it and you'll enjoy it to its full potential.

Stephen's Blog

2009-07-22T22:08:00.000+01:00

Just like to direct you to Stephen "Cancertown/Slaughterman's Creed" Downey's latest blog update, mainly because he's put up a sketch that I did. :)

http://stephendowney.blogspot.com/2009/07/very-odds-and-sods.html

Letters Ahoy!

2009-07-20T22:58:00.000+01:00

We'd like to announce the signing of letterer Jim Campbell to the Kronos City team. Jim had sent us some really nice, thoughtful samples in different styles that really suited the feel of the book and the art. I think he'll make a mightily fine addition to the team.

Andrew

Clipping from The Red Eye

"A big welcome to letterer Jim Campbell who will be joining the Kronos City team, for starters. In the past Jim has worked with Classical Comics on their range of graphic novel adaptations of classic literature, and for Zenescope's Grimm Fairy Tales.

Jim's sensitivity to the art in devising his lettering styles is exquisite, and I'm incredibly pleased to have him on board."

Strangers in Paradise Blog

2009-07-09T09:57:00.000+01:00

Firing a link up to Terry Moore's blog from 2007, when he put up a sketch I had drawn, which tickled me all sorts of pink.

http://www.terrymooreart.com/blog/?p=90

The Strain

2009-06-21T23:02:00.000+01:00

I got sucked into buying books today. Very much looking forward to reading The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

24 Hour Comic

2009-06-12T12:12:00.000+01:00

Posting a link to my 24 hour comic which I did last October. There's an official 24 hour comic day every year, where you produce a 24 page comic within 24 hours, and that's including all the time it takes to come up with a concept, eat, drink and sleep...which explains the vastly varying degrees of art quality.

This year's is on the 3rd October, and they're great fun. Last year's one in Belfast was in Catalyst Arts and we had a video link with one in Dublin. They're a great way to get to know other creators in the area and get the juices flowing - you're not supposed to plan your comic in any form!

Here's the official website:

http://www.24hourcomicsday.com/

And here's mine from last year:

http://www.comicspace.com/belfast24hourcomics/comics.php?action=gallery&comic_id=23417

Kronos City Page One

2009-06-10T23:05:00.000+01:00

Alex and Lauren have been really busy and sent me the first couple of pages of art for Kronos City, and it's looking fantastic! It's great seeing the images in your head go, via your words, into something more beautiful than you can create yourself!

2009-06-09T23:39:00.000+01:00

2009-06-09T23:30:00.001+01:00

Hello everyone! This is my first venture into the hithero unexplored world of blogging, although I am a veteran facebooker...

I'm currently writing Kronos City for Insomnia Publications with lovely art by Alex Willmore and Lauren Anne Sharp, so I'll be posting updates on that.

I'll also keep everyone posted on the latest goings on at Insomnia.

I dabble a lot at the doodle, so you can be wowed by my penmanship. I discovered at the 2D festival in Derry that I'm one of the fastest pens in the west. I'll be posting some of my various dabblings as we go along. I like to draw the characters from Kronos City a lot. In the early stages of plotting I used to draw them over and over again until their personalities popped out at me. I'll get round to scanning them in some time as well.

I'm including some of my Dr Sketchy work from the burlesque life drawing held in the Menagarie in Belfast on the first Sunday of every month, which is excellent fun.

Enjoy!