The Woods

I came back to Dorset to unwind for a couple of days and take some research pictures of the woods. As much as I would never dream to move back, I always forget what a beautiful place it is.
Anyhooo, here's a few from Powerstock Woods. I'm thinking this would be the perfect childhood home of the owls...?

Photos

I went to Southbank today to take a few research snaps. I'm a little camera-illiterate and ended up taking all my photos on some kind of lightless setting so they all turned out dark and gloomy. However, a little last minute editing managed to just about save them!

Also, pigeons!

Backgrounds

I'm working on the background for my pages. I want them to represent the shift from sunset to sunrise throughout the book. Here's an experiment for the first two pages. I quite like the silhouette of the trees. The sky is painted with watered down acrylics, although ideally I want all the backgrounds to be ink. I shall see...

Bearskin

Added bearskin hats for the mice. Just painted onto photocopies. I need to start drawing my animals in context intead of still, posed portraits.

Also... a fox. He's supposed to be rabid and drunk. Yes, he needs much work on him...

Hamster mouse

It annoys me that I haven't scanned everything in! The downside of having to use internet away from home. However, here's a couple more character developements that I do have on my computer. I am well aware that the mouse has more than a passing resemblance to a hamster...

Ink

I like the idea of having a simple black background so that the characters and landmarks really pop. Although I'm thinking of experimenting with different ink colours e.g blues, purples and reds to represent the different times of night.

This here one's the Thames and London bridge lit up by lights. Just an idea.

Landmarks

I know it's been a while, our internet STILL hasn't been been sorted.
Here's a few developemental drawings of landmarks...
I want most of them to be from an aerial viw as the owls will be flying over them for the most part.

More experiments

Experimentation with the different animals

Punky hedgehog and Queens Guard mice. (Yes, I am aware of the similarities to Marge Simpson's hair...)

Bit behind...

As we STILL don't have internet, I've been a bit slow on the blogging
Anyhow... here are some intitial sketches. Just character ideas.

NEW PROJECT

An adults illustrated book based on the David Bowie song, Heroes. The epic tale of two owl lovers who fly away to London for the night, and spend the night meet other nocturnal creatures. E.g gangsta alley-cats, punk-hedgehogs etc etc.
The inspiration for this project came from the Bowie owls I did at the beginning of the summer.
Here's a couple...

Final... Title Page

Cashpoint

Knives and dogs

This is my first attempt, I thought the cowering woman looked a bit too cartoony and the figures in the background made it a bit too crowded...

So here's my second attempt...

I think I like this one better...

... although the woman's face is a bit deranged...