Where am I at?

Continuing on from my previous post, I've continued work on my new card game Total Blast.

The rules have been tweaked to the point where they're pretty solid now. I've finished all the Cannon cards and have begun creating Upgrade card illustrations. I feel as though I am trying to put a little bit more into each card illustration I produce. It's taking longer than expected, but I'm very happy with how it's coming along. It's been a while since I was excited to work on a new product.

The project has gone from simply a desire to just create a fun, little game for personal use to wanting it published, distributed and sold in shops. I'm usually very self critical, but I genuinely think I'm developing something of value here. When it comes to most art projects, I'd typically already have a publisher or client lined up with a budget agreed upon and money in the bank before even starting. This time all the work is completely speculative. It means devoting a lot of time to a project which may never see the light of day, despite my efforts. I'll discuss my concerns a little more below, but overall I'm trying to just stay focused on the work at hand.

What is Total Blast?

Here's an Intro from the rule book:

"In the kingdom of Blastonia warring armies settle disputes in head-to-head battles of firepower, strategy and cunning.

Unique, magical cannons are loaded with powerful, mana-infused ammunition. A range of upgrades, special abilities and some luck of the draw is thrown in for good measure.

As army commander, you’re in charge of selecting and loading cannon balls into their corresponding cannons. You aim to carry this out at the right time, reacting to each of your opponent’s opposing cannons. By sourcing supplies for the war effort you can increase your cannon damage score with more balls and upgrades in order to over-power your opponent’s cannons and become victorious."

What do you think? Something you'd be interested in trying out and seeing how it plays?

Art Development Overview

Here's an example showing the very first thumbnail ideas through to the finished cannon card artwork. It's come a long way and is fitting in well with the previous ball card art:

I've now not only completed all the cannon ball artwork, the full set of 7 cannons, but have started completing upgrade and ability card art also. It's looking great.

As with all the artwork I produce, it's never a quick process. Each card takes 4-10 hours to produce. The fact that the artwork takes so long to create is certainly one of the main reasons why I want to see this game published and not just become a hobby project that doesn't ever find an audience.

Although while time-consuming, the illustration process I use has it's benefits. I separately layer each colour so that amendments are relatively painless as opposed to a quicker single layer/canvas digital painting style. [See my book Digital Manga if you're keen to learn how I do it] No only are potential amendments a little easier, but my process allows for potentially creating line art only 'colouring book' designs of each card which might come in handy. And I could allow for simplified 'Print and Play' test versions of the game to be produced which don't have all the glossy bells and whistles of a finished, rendered card art.

Current Concerns

I've managed to find time to continue with art production by cutting down the amount of freelance work I'd usually be doing right now. I have enough content to see it come together and it's beginning to look like a real game. 8 play tests so far have proved I'm on the right track. The closer I get to the finish line, the more I want it to succeed.

Thankfully I've already got the ideal skill set for this type of product. I'm capable of tackling pretty much every aspect of board game development (concept, design, art, graphics, web design, logistics and admin. I could even produce an animated video trailer with, animation. sound and, effects without any assistance if I need to). And the satisfaction of tackling everything myself is fantastic.

However I'm discovering that I might be biting off more than I can chew. I don't feel like any aspect of the work is beyond my capabilities, but logistically speaking tackling a multi-facetted project like this takes a lot of time. It seems more often than not, a team of 4-8 contributors are typically involved with small to medium sized table top game projects. Yet there's only one of me.  And so my first concern is:

Do I have the time and resources to convert a game idea into a product and then turn a product into a success?

As I spend my days sitting in front of the computer screen, pushing pixels around and finalizing artwork, I'm often distracted by the realities of what it takes to bring products, especially a board game to market. It's not easy.

The market is seriously competitive, with tens of thousands of table top games already in existence and new games being published on a daily basis.  I'm coming to this venture completely blind and without experience of the niche. While I don't feel my product isn't and won't be good enough to compete, some doubts are beginning to creep in. My second concern is:

Will I be able to get enough relevant eyeballs taking an interest in what I'm producing? 

Like with most product niches, it's true that some games aren't particularly fantastic, yet become fairly successful, while other insanely underrated and unknown gems never get their chance to shine. And so it's evident that marketing and actually raising awareness of the fact that I have a thing, it exists and is good will be the biggest challenge ahead.

What's next?

I've still got months ahead of me to produce artwork for the core game's 'Upgrade' and 'Ability' cards, as well as seven character cards, which I've decided to add into the core game rather than have them as a separate mini-expansion.

The Rule Book is mostly there so far as text goes. I'll then start work on the book's graphic design, adding in diagrams to clearly illustrate how to play.

I'll need to finalize the game's logo and also work on the cover art/box art. For this I'll need to decide on the box dimensions first.

The creation of another planned 40 or so expansion card illustrations will have to come much later.

And along side of that, I'm gradually opening up myself to the business side of things. For example, considering publishers vs self-published via crown funding. In regards to self-publishing, researching manufacturing costs, marketing, distribution and order fulfilment.

Where am I at?

Continuing on from my previous post, I've further refined the rules for my new card game Total Blast. I've created some card art mock ups, and even gone on to finalize a full set of cannon ball cards. I'm making good progress. Although it's going to take some time. I've decided to move more towards illustrative card art as opposed to using basic icons and symbols, as per the first prototype. It's a good call from a visual standpoint and I'm hoping I can even develop a little bit more theme and back-story from the artwork to help give it some more substance.

New Additions

Speaking of adding depth, I've added in extra layers of complexity by introducing sets of optional expansions which can be added to the game to add more variety. These include:

• 'Power Upgrades' which can drastically power up your cannon's damage score.
• 'Power Abilities' which provide a one time use bonus
• Additional set of ball cards to help vary play
• Character Cards, which introduce an A-symmetric starting point giving each player an ability that the other won't have.
• Quest Cards (Or maybe I'll rename them to objective cards?), offering additional victory points for fulfilling certain conditions within the game
• Event Cards which introduce a small shift to the rules for each round.

It's getting exciting! The core game now consists of 101 cards. Adding in additional expansion cards means I'll now need to produce art for an extra 40-60 cards, (depending how many potential extra cards will work). Lots to be getting on with.

Card Development Overview

Here's an example showing sketch to colour mock-up to final card art. I may still tweak the layout, but it's as good as finished. The top portion of the card will remain visible when stacked underneath other cards. This helps calculate the damage score from each cannon at a glance. The bottom portion shows it's description.

Drawing this card helped decide on the theme and direction the game would follow. It'll be a medieval fantasy setting, with waring factions cannon-battling for supremacy. In this kingdom, rival mages and alchemists are summoned to infuse each ball with magical properties, increasing their potency. The balls now take on magical characteristics! I thought giving the balls some spice and character would look a lot cooler than a plain old cannon ball coated in red paint for example.

What Next?

I'm currently producing artwork for all the ball cards, then I'll move on to the Upgrade and Ability cards. Cards such as the "Coins" card and the "Gun Powder" card should be fairly straight forward. Others, not so much. There will be an upgrade card which allows you to add the damage score of your weakest cannon to the cannon it's applied to. I have no idea how to illustrate this!  Maybe I'll have to go a bit abstract with it.

In my last post I mentioned about getting a character art card and cannon card sample done- I'm more or less done with these also, so can post them in due course. Stay tuned.

Latest Book

A new project has been added to my Portfolio - A manga style Unicorns Colouring book featuring a selection of pages which glow in the dark. I'd considered the idea of creating a colouring book for at least a decade. In 2020 I finally got the opportunity to create one after being asked to work on a special Glow-in-the-dark book for Thunder Bay Press publishers. 'Unicorns and Mystical Creatures' has been available to buy for nearly a year now and has received a fair amount of praise and positive reviews since. While I've certainly drawn enough unicorns to last me a life time, I wouldn't say no to working on another colouring book whereby I got to pick the theme.

When is the next colouring book coming?

Customers who'd bought the Unicorns book have asked when my next colouring book is coming out. Unfortunately, there isn't another book in the works as of right now. I have been asked to work on a number of other colouring books since finishing Unicorns. We got so far as producing sample covers and a few pages of content for books on the theme of: Tattoos, Dream Catchers, Kaleidoscope patterns and Horror. Although due to budget constraints we couldn't quite make it work.

I'd be happy to work on another, but because of the amount of artwork needed to produce a good quality 96 page colouring book, I'd need to make sure there was sufficient funds to make it happen. It's tough- the market is saturated with colouring book options. I even saw one on Amazon the other day which used one of my artworks for the cover (illegally)! Although with so many sub-par books to choose from, it seems like a good idea to create a series of premium books. Books which have a lot of nice, high-quality drawings to colour on good quality paper. Perhaps also including how-to guides and advice showing how to use more advanced shading techniques? If you're a book publisher that wants to make this happen, let me know.

In the mean time I look forward to seeing what artists and colourists alike can do with the Unicorns book...

Here's a few coloured samples from the book:

[caption id="attachment_5031" align="aligncenter" width="940"] Colours by @colorfulcarey on Instagram[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5032" align="aligncenter" width="842"] Colours by @bizzie_lizzie.art on Instagram[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_5030" align="aligncenter" width="930"] Art and Colours by myself - Little tester with some new marker pens.[/caption]

Other designs:

I printed out a couple more of the illustrations from the book. A Mermaid and Harpy. These were added to A3 Bristol board so I could give them the marker pen treatment. I used a inexpensive set of bullet-point markers to colour these. While I prefer using brush markers, these can certainly do the job.

[gallery size="medium" type="rectangular" ids="4609,4608,4606"]

[gallery size="medium" type="rectangular" ids="4615,4613,4612"]

Horror Book:

As mentioned earlier, I didn't end up working on a sequel, although here's some work-in-progress images for the Horror colouring book which didn't quite happen. I hope you find these interesting. I like the first Haunted Horror sketch, although it was deemed too sexual even though it's for an adult colouring book. I guess the client felt ghouls looked as though they were preying on the girl?

[caption id="attachment_5037" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Horror Cover Sketch 1[/caption]

I then amended to the second Hellish Horrors sketch. I like this one even better and makes it clearer that the girl is the one in charge here! Again, client not convinced. I needed to try again with a different idea.

[caption id="attachment_5038" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Horror Cover Sketch 2[/caption]

I designed the 'Head full of Horror' illustration. I liked the pun for the potential title and thought it would be impactful. It wasn't accepted.

[caption id="attachment_5039" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Horror Cover Sketch 3[/caption]

Eventually the corpse/ ghoul bride and skeleton groom below was deemed a little more wholesome. I especially liked the 'Eyes-cubes' in the glass.

[caption id="attachment_5036" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Horror Cover Final with Colour[/caption]

Making use of colouring books

With books like this, I always wonder how much detail is too much detail to include in a drawing? I've seen some colouring books which are effectively fully-rendered, grey-shaded pencil drawings which are presented as colouring pages. I'm not sure I like this idea. What do you think?

Someone choosing to colour a single page from the book might take several hours to finish. With close to 100 pages in a single book, it becomes a project which could take several months. With so many pages one could potentially colour, it seems to be the case that a colourist will more typically choose to work on just a few pages from each colouring book they buy. In the end I guess it's best to have a variety. Lots of details on some pages and not so much on others. If you like colouring books, let me know in the comments below what kinds of themes and styles you like colouring best.

Unicorns & Mystical Creatures is available to purchase via this site's Shop. As well as sites like Amazon, Wall Mart and Barnes and Noble. The Project / Case Study about this book can be found in my Portfolio here. If you'd like to share your coloured pages from the book, send me a message or link to your social media. I'd love to check them out :)

It was about time I created some new artwork. This time, an anime style school girl; A design I thought might work well as on a T-shirt or Art print with appeal to fans of Japanese anime and video games. I needed an object or symbol floating between her hands in the middle to denote a video game theme. A '1-up' mushroom (an in-game asset granting 1 extra life as originally seen in the Super Mario games) was added. The piece then gained the title 'Get a Life'! To start with, here's some progress images explaining the process.

Digital Sketching

The digital sketch was created to begin with. As with other recent works, I'd use multiple colours to separate out different parts of the image. This makes its easier for me to read should the line work start getting too messy and complicated. I also sketch the clothing and hair on different layers in Photoshop just in case I decided I wanted to change the hair style or outfit to something else, but still didn't want to lose the pose information. Then the outlines were digitally inked with a thin brush. The original canvas is big- About 12,000 pixel height. this means the image should like sharp even if printed out huge.

Adding Colour

Next I added the flat tones, followed by the first layer of shadows. For a higher quality 'cel' style (using flat tones) I'll usually add at least 2 tones of shading for added depth. Sometimes I'll add another layer of highlights as per the hair in the second coloured image. As mentioned earlier, the 1UP mushroom was added in and some Kanji added to the background. Time-wise I think it took around 20 hours to complete. 15-40 hours for a single character illustration is pretty typical for me.

Now available to buy

[gallery link="none" size="medium" type="square" ids="4963,4964,4965"]

If you like the artwork and would like to support my artistic endeavours, I've turned it into an A3 print, available to buy on my store. It'll be hand signed and shipped internationally. Alternatively, the design is available on a T-Shirt in either Men's or Women's fit. All shirts are currently on sale in the site's shop at a reduced price. Thanks for checking it out :)

Draw and Chill

Growing up as a kid I'd always be creating my own monsters, mutants and robot characters. Now, as an adult, whenever I have a few free hours to draw something, I often turn to my 'Monsters and Mutants' sketchbook to see what I can come up with. The aim isn't to create anything glossy and polished like a lot of my typical digital work. Instead, it's just about having fun and seeing what ends up on the page.

Most of the time I'll just start drawing random shapes and a creature seems to emerge from the page. Occasionally I'll have an idea to begin with. It might be to re-work one of my childhood drawings, or I'll use something from a film, or game as a starting point.

To be honest, I never intended to share any of these. Whenever there's an intention to show off my work it creates an added pressure to try harder or even be more self critical. That's not the point of this sketch book. It's all about drawing to relax and have fun with it. If you're an artist or creator, perhaps it's worth also considering the idea that just because you made a thing, it doesn't have to get posted online. It's quite freeing. But if you decide at a later date to share what you do with the world, there's no harm in that either.

Pen and Ink

For some reason I decided to stick with black and white pen drawings for these. Each image starts off as a pencil sketch. I use my trusty Pentel mechanical pencil with a 2B lead. After I've got the basic gist down, I take over with a Zig Manga Ka Flexible pen. I use Fine for the lines and Medium for larger areas of black. Occasionally I'll use black Kuretake Fudegokochi Brush Pen. Although the Fudegokochi pens have a nice flow of ink, sometimes they can over-flow and spill out a bit too much. I've quit using them as I don't want to wait for ink to be drying. I've recently bought a set of white Gel pens, which I expected to use on these, but not had too much opportunity soo far. These are all drawn in an A5 Molskine sketchbook:

[gallery size="medium" columns="2" ids="4823,4821,4824,4822,4857,4856,4855,4854,4853,4852,4851,4850,4849,4848,4847,4846,4845,4844,4843,4842,4841,4840,4839,4838,4837,4836,4835,4834,4833,4832,4831,4830,4829,4828,4827,4826,4825,4820,4819,4873,4864,4872,4863,4865,4866,4867,4868,4869,4870,4871,4862,4861,4860,4859,4858,4818"]

More creatures to come...

I'm just over two thirds through my sketchbook so far. I intend on finishing it, even if it takes another year or two! If you're interested in commission me to draw you a creature of your own like the above, let me know. Otherwise, I'll continue to rely on what my crazy mind can come up with :)

I'd recently finished binge-watching the first 4 seasons of super-hero anime 'My Hero Academia'. Despite initial reservations after the first episode, I ended up getting into it and really enjoying it. My goal was to create some All Might fan art in a similar style to the Tattooed Goku I'd created a few years back. Here's some work in progress images to show the process:

Digital Sketching

I started with a digital sketch using reference from bodybuilder Jay Cutler who reminded me of All Might. This was then refined and tidied up, adding his "I am here" catchphrase to the banner- a line he must have used a million times in the anime!
Time: 7 Hours to draw

Adding Colour

The first image on the left is probably around 60% through the colouring process. It was getting a bit dark, so brightened it up and added colourful background splatters to finish. I'm happy with how it it turned out- makes a nice little tribute piece to the series 🙂
Time: 10.5 Hours to colour – 17.5 hours total.

[gallery type="square" columns="2" link="none" size="medium" ids="4387,4390"]

If you like the artwork and would like to support my artistic endeavours, I've turned it into an A3 print, available to buy on my store. I've thought about creating and offering shirts featuring this and other designs on my store also- something to explore if there's more interest? In the mean time this design can be bought on a T-Shirt via my TeePublic store.

I wanted to create a couple of new fan art pieces for fun. This year I decided to take a crack at Bowsette and Boosette (aka Booette)- a couple of spin-off meme creations from Nintendo’s Mario game series. The goal was to go full-on kawaii manga style with these two- huge eyes and small mouths.

Digital Sketching

I started with a digital sketch. Using multiple colours helps prevent getting confused by too many messy lines all over the place. After Bowsette was finished, I used her as a template for creating Boosette.
Time: 16 Hours

Neat Outlines

Then came time to clean up the artwork by digitally inking it. I kept the line work pretty thin for this project and not using thicker, heavier lines for the outside or varying line weighs like I might do in previous images.
Time: 11.5 Hours

Flat tones

The next stage is laying down the flat tones. The process of sketch, ink, flats and then rendering the flats is a technique and workflow I’ve been using in digital artwork since the late 90s. It’s a process that works out great for being able to isolate certain colours and parts of an image, keeping the artwork looking tidy and smooth, while retaining the line art, rather than painting over it.
Time: 1.6 Hours

Colours and Shading

Then it’s time to choose colours and a light source. This time light is coming from the centre/ top left. I start with an ‘anime cel’ style to figure out how much shadow the put down and I could leave it at the cel stage by sticking with the flat tones but I’m always too tempted to start rendering and adding gradation to tones. As much as I love anime, I thing I prefer a more rendered artwork look aesthetic.

Finished Artworks

Lots of rendering time later and both are finished. They make a good pair- by having opposing colour schemes- one with red/orange and the other with purple and blue. The artwork is tight and polished, making it suitable for large scale printing with the original images each being close to 14,000 pixels high.
Total time: 56 Hours – 28 hours each.

What’s next? I love experimenting in different styles, so I’ll probably take a break from the Kawaii manga look for a while and try something else. But this project showed me if I ever want to create more artwork in this style, I know I can nail it successfully 😊

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. 

[gallery columns="1" size="large" ids="3695,3696,3697,3698,3699,3700,3701,3702,3703,3704"]

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.