Neil-Googe

i am still alive... i've just been very... slack in the past few years, time to change that...

so, some work, not new, just needs adding to the gallery though, and i'll be adding some more (again not new) over the next few days...

will have a real update soon as well, bith of art and what i'm up to... and more importantly, what i plan on being up to...

so, until then people (anyone who actually sees this that is) stay well..

ok so its not the art i said, but still.

as much as i want to stick to coming on, once a week, updating with all the lovely new sketches i was meant to have done... life just doesnt work that way for me, and most likely never will.

but i will do my best to update a lot more frequently than i have in the past... well... two years...

so, the art... first, the first three ipad sketches i did... i dont care what any nay sayers say, its an incredible tool for an artist as it stands now.. for any creator of visual or readable media... not only do i now do art on it, i am moving to do my rough comic pages on it to then ink them on the cintiq, not to mention the thousands of comic pages i have stored, the digital scrap book, books, word processors, i keep all my scripts on there, write all my ideas, e mail, internet... i tend to rant about the pad... but thats because i truly do believe it to be an incredible tool and not the pointless picture frame some are calling it... maybe for people who dont do art... maybe it wont have the same use... but i cant see how, if you use a computer...

anyway... the sketches were all created in under 45 minutes using sketchpad, an amazingly versatile art app, with so many features that i was really surprised at, especially with the recent update. i use the htc stylus, far better than the apple recommended one, as the tip is see through with a red dot so you can see exactly where you are drawing. you only need see what some other artists are doing with sketchbook to see just how good it is. although jim lees work on it is very nice, and seems to be the most talked about, with a little searching, there are a few guys around producing some incredible paintings on it..

so, enough on the ipad.

the last image is something i'm a little more pleased about, its a portrait of my girlfriend that i did her for her birthday. this is the first time in years, and i do mean many years, i have attempted something of this nature. capturing a real likeness, using something other than a blue technical pencil and technical pens...

it took me about a day, maybe 8 hours start to finish, and was created using various tools listed on the image, like i say on the image, its far from perfect but for a change i was very pleased with the resulting overall image

so... thats it for now, but coming soon are.... my world of warcraft rough sketches, all the pages from the dredd story i did, a bunch of my favourite wildcats images, and any sketches i manage to fit in in the mean time, ipad or otherwise

so, until then, stay safe

so, as i say, sunday came and passed... and low and behold... no update from me... no nice new drawings. with all the troubles in thailand and looming deadlines, remembering some things have become somewhat tricky, either that or i'm getting old...

truth is sunday passed without me actually noticing... but work has been done and will be posted... not exactly what i'd planned but still.

so, i got myself an ipad, well, it kind of landed in my lap and i couldnt resist it. i'm sure there'll be plenty "my god why waste your money" comments, and evil apple this and evil apple that... truth is, as an artists tool... theres nothing like it out there... i'd like to see someone drag their cinitq on the bus or to a cafe and work... with all the complaints i hear, i heard them all about the ipod and the iphone too... sales still boom as they will on the pad, faults and all... (which arent half as many as everyone seems thinks...)

like i say, is a great digital sketch book. while it doesnt have the accuracy of the cintiq, it is a lot more accurate than people think, especially if you get the HTC stylus. but then its a portable colour digital sketch book more than a work horse. no one was more surprised and astonished as i was, i was really anti them, at least the first generation ones. but one kind of landed in my lap and  i will certainly never be without one from now on....

so i'll post my first 3 ipad sketches with details of how it was done, what app i used, time it took and what not... i've also started doing all my rough page layouts on it too... especially combined with the word processor and what not...

anyway, enough about that... i will post the sketches i've done so far, along with all of the old dredd story and some of my favourite wild cats work

so... hopefully that will all be up before the end of the week...

WOW

thanks guys, seriously, i really appreciate the responses, i honestly didnt know if i'd get anything having been gone so long. so thank you all, has made me very pleased and proud to be a part of this community.

ok so i got some great suggestions in, some of which will be used in what i have decided to do. i spent most of last night trawling through DA again having been gone so long (some 15000 deviations.... no... i didn't do them all) and while looking at seangordonmurphy updates i noticed a thing he had called wolverine ABCs, which got me thinking.

i have a million and one ideas, as i'm sure some of you know, all of which need fleshing out so i am going to do a series of A-Zs... the A-Z of bazooka jules, A-Z of steve huge, as well as an A-Z of influences etc. etc.

so i'll be doing an image from the idea or subject, for every letter of the alphabet.

and referring back to the title, WOW not WoW...

so as some of you may know, and others may not, i am currently working on the World of Warcraft comic.... something else completely different for me... so as time goes on, and as i am allowed obviously i will be posting imagery from that as i go...

i also noticed that my gallery has none of the wildcats work i did, apart from that first cover.... so although this work is now very old, i will be posting select images from the project...

so.... lots going on...

and again, seriously, thank you everyone, i really am a little overwhelmed by the response, especially from people i am admire and respect so much.

so... the A of bazooka jules, hmmmmm... no... not her ass....

speak soon

me.

almost two years since i updated the DA account... where the hell did that time go...

so, almost two years, anyone who followed me for a while knows i have my ups and downs in life, dark periods, shadows that plague me. not much has changed there to be honest, although i did go through a brief period where i thought i'd got the better of it...

not so, and to be honest i doubt i ever will... but with acceptance, even of the bad, comes some peace strangely.... so even in those dark times i'm doing better than i ever have done.

anyway...

now i have that out the way, i plan to make a return to DA... for anyone who cares or is interested...

but i need some help... no, not an account, i'll sort that myself in a few weeks...

inspiration. thats what i need help with.

my work has got stale, i struggle to draw anything, anything i do draw takes me far longer than it ever has all in all, artistically im in trouble.... its not just affecting my artwork, its affecting my job and my personal life.

so, heres what i need, i need suggestions, mainly in the form of single words, character names a little like the 100 lists people were doing a while back. no scenarios... nothing like "spiderman swinging through the city fighting doc oc, whilst dropping off his dry cleaning" i want this to really push me to think about the image...

the images with be done over one or two days, i am going to dedicate my first 60 mins of work to this every day, no image is allowed to take more than two days, so no longer than 120 mins per piece, eventually i'd like to get it down to 90 mins an image.

any suggestion thats not a character name i will use one of my own characters somewhere in the image, even if just standing idly in the image...

so there we have it... any and all help would be great appreciated, if i start to get a lot of suggestions through i will have to find someway of filtering down the suggestions to stop me from being able to chose the one i fancy, to push me to deal with the word thats there... but i'll worry about that if i get bombarded with words...

so, i will be updating more often, i will post the images from the previous week every sunday, updating my DA page and maybe a blo or two at the same time... i think some structure should help get my creativity back in line a little...

hope everyone is well... more from me soon.... maybe with a little art as well... i'll check the gallery and see whats not been posted yet...

back tomorrow...

me

ok a quick update to the post, responses came in a lot quicker than i thought, is nice to feel wanted, thanks guys

ok, doesnt need to be a character name, can just be a word, anything to get me thinking really. pluck one from the dictionary if you like...

anywho, back to sorting through the mess that is my DA account... lots changed since i was last on...