Here's a cropped and grouped collection of some of my digital art. Some bits dating back to as early as 2001 and others I'd done over recent years. Kind of interesting to see the different styles I've played with over the decades and crazy to think how long I've been doing the whole art thing for. It seems pretty common for artists to look at their older artwork with shame and embarrassment, but while I might notice a few flaws and things I'd do little different now, to be honest, I still kinda like a lot of it. 

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Any Ghost in the Shell fans?

I started working on a new bit of fanart a while back and thought it was about time I added some progress shots to my blog. I've been a fan of Shirow's (Creator of the Ghost in the Shell manga) work for 25 years or so. The first anime movie wasn't bad, but think they really managed to nail it with the 'Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex' anime series. Complex is a good word for it as it's not your typical, basic 'good vs evil' plot, but something I'd recommend to older audiences who want a Sci-fi series with a little more depth and intricacy. I wanted to pay some homage to the G.I.T.S. Solid State Society series with this artwork.

[caption id="attachment_3794" align="alignnone" width="750"] I usually start sketching in blue. This time straight into Photoshop. I want to go detailed with this piece so using a lot of reference to help out. The orange fade is just to stop it looking a bit dull, but I'd work with blue onto a white canvas.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3795" align="alignnone" width="750"] Finished refining the line work for Ghost in the Shell's main male character, Batou. I'll just add, I didn't particularly like him in the GITS live action movie. I didn't really like the movie in general, but I guess worth a watch and helped introduce the mainstream to the franchise.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3796" align="alignnone" width="750"] Finished refining the line work for Ghost in the Shell's main character, Major Motoko Kusanagi and Tachicoma robot behind.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3798" align="alignnone" width="750"] Finished laying down the base colours. Some artists might leave it there but I don't like the way art looks before I start rendering and adjusting the colour pallet.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3797" align="alignnone" width="750"] Began rendering. Usually I'll work my way through rendering each colour, then I'll begin adjusting the pallet, tones and contrast afterwards. It'll be several more hours until I'm finished with this one!..[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3793" align="alignnone" width="750"] On the last stretch to finishing, making some tweaks to the Major by zooming in. Here you can see me drawing on a Wacom Cintiq 27QHD.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3541" align="alignnone" width="940"] Here is the finished Ghost in the Shell artwork. Took around 3 weeks, but finally done :)[/caption]

Thanks for following through the progress with this one. If you happen to be a Ghost in the Shell fan and would like to support the work I do, feel free to head over to the shop and make a purchase. I currently have this one for sale as a signed A3 sized gloss print. If you'd be interested in seeing any more progress blog posts, let me know with a comment. I usually post works in progress first on Instagram and social media, so you can head over there if you're interested in seeing what I'm currently getting up to :)

Sometimes I'll create a sketch or two, other times more finished artworks, but most of the time I don't add these to my main gallery. I'm trying to reserve the gallery for my top 30 or so works but it's hard to know exactly which art to include in my portfolio. For now I use the Blog to update with other bits and pieces I'm working on. But even on the blog, it can be tricky to know if something is worth posting. I'll draw little doodles and crappy sketches often, but don't necessarily want to post every little thing and don't want to feel I'm contributing the internet's archive of pointless content! I think about this a lot- There's so much stuff on the web, so what is actually worth posting online?

For many companies, organisations and individual artists the idea is to post often in hopes of supplying your audience with a constant supply of content and sustaining yourself as a fixture in their lives, build some kind of online relationship, and in return you hope gain a following, receive kudos or generate income. For independent creators it can be difficult to post regularly or create enough finished content. So on the one hand I feel like I should throw up some rough sketches or incomplete drawings, since posting something is considered better than nothing. On the other hand, I don't want to litter the web or my sites with valueless (in my opinion) posts just for the sake of posting. Plus, to be honest, I don't like the pressure of feeling like I have to keep posting updates online.

Another thing, I'd be happy to post more on my site's blog (here) since I have a chance to go into more detail about what I'm doing or thinking (or also keep it simple), but 99% of my audiences are mostly on social media - primarily Instagram. And Instagram's format isn't really suitable for more than a square image post and a line or two of description. Unless this blog was to get more attention, it's hard to justify spending too much time posting here often. Therefore, for now I don't.

Moving on, having said that, here's a piece I'd been wanting to rework for a few years:

The Photoshop screen shot above shows the original concept on the left, and the update on the right. Decided I'd make the final version below a little lighter and although it's a little sketchy and unrefined, I think I'll leave it as it is for now. Not all ideas or art needs to be polished to perfection.

Here's another selection of some of my older manga, game or anime inspired artworks (originally posted on my Instagram and cropped). Let me know if you have a favourite out of these :)

Check out Art Dump #1 and Art Dump #2 for more.

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From time to time I like to tidy up my portfolio. Never an easy task to decide which works stay and which ones go and there's usually at least one thing I like about every image I create and one thing that demonstrates a different skill or technique I'm capable of. Originally my portfolio was only ever going to be around a dozen pieces, but my gallery layout allows for more without looking over the top so decided to populate it with some extra works.

Decided to remove this ninja girl commission I did back in 2013- seems a little basic compared to some of the more recent stuff I've been doing but still like the bold red background and the flower boarder, so maybe I'll use those elements in a new piece some time?

And I've added the following:
Harley Quin Fan art I did this year in Markers and Ink which I since sold to a customer in France. Plus a more monochromatic Skull/Wolf/Girl image I created for chrome/mirror prints (which can be ordered in the Shop) This one was done in Photoshop CC with my Wacom Cintiq tablet. That now makes 31 portfolio pieces.

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This one was a commission of hip-hop mascot 'Dirteee'. Although pretty basic, I had an original reference design to work from, and the brief was basically to draw it in my own style. I like to mix my style up a lot- drawing semi-realistic comic characters one week, tattoo art the next, then going back to my manga roots after that. And even within the manga sub-genre, I vary styles from time to time :)

As always, starting with a sketch and then moving on to colours once the client approves the design:

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[caption id="attachment_3351" align="aligncenter" width="704"] Final Result[/caption]

If you'd be interested in commissioning me to create artwork of your character, a portrait, mascot etc, leave a message or contact me and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

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Here's some progress shots of my recent frog girl illustration. I originally shared these on my Instagram account. At first this was just going to be a grey + one neon colour marker-only piece, but decided to give it the full digital colour treatment also :) Any preference on which version you prefer?

If you'd like to own it, I've added exclusive signed prints of the digital version to the site's Shop.

Wanted to try out another portrait framed by hair and including splatters and drips, this time going with a cute anime style or 'Moe' anime style. Sometimes it's good just to focus on a head rather than feeling the need to produce full body posing images every time- It gives me a chance to play around with facial styles which is a lot of fun, and without needing to pour in 100s of hours every time I create a new bit of work. Having said that, making some nice, neat line art and smooth colouring still stakes a few days compared to messier painterly styles. I think I did this one over the course of 3 or 4 days?

At the moment I'm using a Wacom Cintiq 27QHD graphics tablet to work on, which is also a lot of fun.

Also thought I'd experiment with a few different colour variations- Dark skinned anime girl with red lily and light hair anime girl with pink lily. Any Preference? Let me know which version you like best :)

Thought it was about time I got back to drawing some fan art. Genuinely a big fan of the manga / anime Hajime no Ippo, about a Japanese high school student who becomes a pro boxer. I love so many different styles of art, and even within the manga niche, there are a million ways to produce a cool looking image. This time I wanted to try out a chibi style :)

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Here's a few sketches I doodled recently. I originally posted them on Instagram, but I'm aware of the fact a lot of people don't use it, so thought I'd add them to my main website blog. I kinda like Instagram as a platform for posting sketches. Final works would probably be better off on Tumblr. I share all my Instagram stuff to Tumblr anyway by default, just to cover all the bases although since having had my own domain for probably around 15 years, I still prefer sharing work on my own blog and web site :)