Friendly Spidey Rivalry: My Ammunition

I have shown you what Tom has brought to the playing field, now I'm going to show all of you what I've been up to.

The one that started it all.

Steampunk Spidey.

Golden Spidey.

Homeless

Way of the Spider.

Mega-Spider

Spider-Guyver

 

Friendly Spidey Rivalry: Sweeney Tom's Ammunition

As I mentioned in a previous post, me and my good old buddy Tom have been having a competition seeing who can out do each other in terms of a Spider-Man costume design. I thought I'd take this time just to show you guys what this talented young man is capable of.

Armoured Spidey

Grinch Spidey?

OAP Spidey

WWI Spidey

Spider-Hulk

'I love to draw, that's how I do it.'

Why the title? Allow me to explain. The other day I was talking to a close friend of mine, who is an illustrator, about the amount of drawing we both been doing as of late. Now at the moment we're both in simular situations as the illustration field isn't our main source of income, so we both work at jobs doing shift work for ridiculously low pay. Now anyone who has ever done any kind of shift work (retail, fastfood, etc.) knows that it leaves you utterly exhausted by the end of the day, both physically and mentally.

Dispite that I always end up doing some kind of drawing everyday, be it a complete work that I post on 'Ant Can't Draw' and 'The Prophets of Illustration' or just a quick doodle in my sketchbook. I'm pointing this out because my friend ask me how I do it? Because of our situations we both feel like death when we get home and he said he never has the energy to to do anything, let alone draw and couldn't get how I manage to knock out a new drawing every couple of days. So he asks me, "How the hell do I keep drawing?"

My answer was pretty simple. "I love to draw, that's how I do it."

And I do love it. I been drawing for as long as I can remember and it's one of the few things I will brag about as far as my skills go. I went to college and university to do creative courses because I wanted a career doing something I love doing and not once have I considered it a chore. It is a great field to get into as you're always doing something different and seeing a piece you created either on display, printed, in a magazine, etc. is one of the most gratifying feelings you'll ever get. On a person level it keeps me sane as I use it as a way of escaping if I've had a rotten day at work or if I've had an argument and immerse myself in what ever I'm putting on the paper (which these days is a lot of Spider-Man drawings). 

Someone once said if you do a job doing something you love then you'll never work a day in your life and I believe that. I mean when ever I get a comission I never see it as work and I enjoy doing. Drawing, illustration, animation, graphic design and whatever else you can put under this field is my passion.

It's what I love to do.

Friendly Spidey Rivalry

As some of you are aware (and if you're not shame on you) I'm apart of a little collective called The Prophets of Illustration. It consists of me, Fuad Ali, Tom Dryland, Lois Dryland and Hannah MacDouall. Now Tom and I have started a little game of one-upsmanship based around 'Spiderman' in which we trying to see who can come up with a better costume. So far I have done two, a black and red alternative and a steampunk version while Tom has done an armoured spider suit. As it stands now I'm waiting for Tom's comeback to my steampunk, so watch this space.

My first attempt at designing a spider suit.

Tom's spider armour in a very cool pose.

My steampunk Spiderman.

Tom's Grinch Spidey (for lack of a better term).

New: Death Metal

My 'Death and Me' series has become something of a trademark for amoungst people who know my work, but I ran out of ideas a few months ago and haven't done. Thankfully, I had a new one the other day, now I have a flood of ideas. So here it is, the first in a new series of 'Death and Me'.

Inspirations: Comics

Incase you couldn't tell by all the chibi drawings I've done, comics play a big part in my life. The stories have kept me sane, the artwork has kept stunned and both combined have always inspired me.

The Amazing Spider-Man #568

 I have been reading comics for as long as I can remember and I've never got sick of them. When I was a kid I bought them just for the images and drool over how good they were as I never really cared for the stories. That soon changed though after I was given a Spider-Man annual featuring the story "The Sins of My Father". I started reading it as it featured the Hobgoblin and I was curious about who this evil looking villian actually was. As it featured the Osborns, Mary-Jane and various other key elements in the Spider-Man universe it made me go back and actually read the stories. So for my family and friends you find it annoying when I start reading and become antisocial, you can blame my nan for buying me the 1994 Spider-Man annual.

Most of my Chibis.

Random Batman sketch.

I started my collection 'Sonic the Hedgehog' comics (don't judge), but soon I developed some sense I started buying Spider-Man (Marvel) and Batman (DC) comics. They originally were the only characters that had any appeal to me, which looking back at it seems odd as you couldn't get two more different characters. One is a teenager with the powers of a spider who sets out to use them with responsiblity and looking to inspire others, is shy and with practically no social life in the beginning (think I just figured out why I was drawn to him). While the other is a dark, disturbing character who is out to strike fear to the corrupt and unlawful in the world.

Hobgoblin Chibi

McFarlane's Spider-Man #1 cover. (Second printing black and gold edition)

Looking at my collection of old stuff, I seemed to have been drawn to Todd McFarlane's work a lot when I was younger, with my first encounter being the cover above which is still to this day my favourate comicbook cover of all time. McFarlane was also one of the people who created Spawn (Dark Horse), which I fell in love with when I was in my teens. The story, the way it's drawn and the characters are so screwed up that I do wonder what they were on when they created it. I had never seen anything like it before and after a few reads I was hooked.

Another random Batman drawing.

This is actually a tattoo design I did.

Comics have always given me fantastic ideas over the years. And with artists and writers pushing the bounderies of what can be done, I'm sure they will keep inspiring me for many years to come.

Using Instagram A Bit Too Much

Instagram is an app you can download for the iPhone and I've only got into using it recently. Most of the people I know use it and I can see why. It is a quick and easy way to spice up a bland picture a little bit (like most of the examples below) and makes it incredibly easy to share on various social media sites, as well as their own site. Thing is it's so easy that I find myself using it more then playing about with pictures on Photoshop, which can't really be good.  

I mean one of the great things about doing creative stuff in any media is that satisfied feeling you get when you look at the finished product and know your blood, sweat and tears (in my case a lot of swearing) went into it. Learning and practicing the craft then putting the skills into action is one of the most gratifying things you can experience in my opinion, be it drawing, writing, music, photography and so on. Instagram and other apps like it diminish that somewhat as not only is it easy to use, but easy to finish a picture in under a minute, so you're banging out picture after picture after picture. Back in the day making pictures look better then they actually are took real skill, but now it just takes two clicks and you're done. 

Do you think I'm being too harsh? Incidently I'm not saying Intagram is an awful program, after all I am using it. I just think that I would of appreciated stuff like this a lot more 4 years ago as it took a lot of time and effort to create these effects.