Girl, With Hammer

Found this in while flipping through a recent sketchbook and thought I would ink and colour it up for FUN!

Here's the original: It kind of turned into a promo piece / ad for Thumpculture, my awesome martial arts webcomic which I last updated in, um, February 2008. Hang in there, it'll be back one day.

New Doctor Who

The BBC put out a first picture of Doctor-Who-elect Matt Smith in his costume this morning, and I felt moved to have a quick go at drawing the guy.

(Background TARDIS shamelessly recycled from those sample pages I did a while back...)

As longtime readers of this blog will know, I am a bit of a Doctor Who nerd, and it is an outstanding ambition of mine to work on some Doctor Who comics. (I recently came close, doing some illustrations for the Doctor Who Storybook 2010 - coming out soon). One thing I have learned in this ongoing / occasional quest is that nailing likenesses is really hard, so... well, I thought it couldn't hurt to get started early. More attempts to follow, doubtless.

Meet Doc Dinosaur

A weird thing about the recently-completed A-Z of Awesomeness was that at no point did it involve dinosaurs, which is almost unthinkable given that (a) I am mildly obsessed with them, and (b) lets face it, they have an Awesomeness Quotient second only to Giant Robots and possibly Jack Kirby. Here to make up for it is the first of probably several dino-themed posts for this week! Meet... Doc Dinosaur!

This was a stray idea my fellow ex-DFC creator Mr Tony Lee was kicking around a while back. He is a dinosaur in a jetpack - there may have been rather more to the pitch than that, but that was all it took to sell me on it.

Here are some of my (somewhat TOO SCARY) initial sketches:

Will the adventures of Doc Dinosaur be coming soon to a comics shop / cinema / saturday morning cartoon near you? Oh, probably.

More awesomeness tomorrow!

Z is for... ZZ Top Zapping Zombies

Here is today's extra-final entry in the A to Z of Awesomeness! And we are ending the only way we possibly could have: with Zombies, getting shot the hell up.

Extra points if you can name all the zombies!

I am very sorry this is a bit late, real life kind of intruded on me towards the end there, and I didn't want to fob you guys off with a quick knocked-off doodle for the final entry, so I took a couple of days off from it. Anyway, it's done now!

Today's topic was suggested by Kelvin Green, with Brian Pierce throwing in the irresistible idea that said zombies should be all the characters from the A-Z so far. Thanks to them both. Gives it a nice air of finality, I think!

So yeah, that's it! A huge thank you to everyone who got involved here, on the Facebook Group and on Twitter, you have put more smiles on my face with your suggestions than I can count. And also the occasional terrified grimace, just to keep things interesting. Special thanks to those of you who really got involved with suggestions above and beyond the call, including Manolis Vamvounis, Edwin Austin, Elizabeth Taylor, Peta Waller-Bryant, Stephen Fitch, K. D. Bryan... astonishing alliterators, all. Apologies to anyone whose suggestions I never got to, I do honestly feel bad about these things!

To ease any possible awesomeness withdrawal symptoms, I will be updating the blog every day for the rest of the week with some stuff that, whilst not alphabetically themed, should hopefully be pretty awesome nonetheless, as well as hopefully some nice big poster-sized versions of the entire A-Z. Because I am SUCH A NICE GUY!

Y is for... stay at the YMCA, Yoda wishes he could, hhrmmm?

Here is today's extra-penultimate entry in the A-Z of Awesomeness!

Today's picture was suggested by Manolis Vamvounis of Comics Nexus, so I hope he will now forgive me for professor X's vile (and inaccurate) anti-Hellenic slurs of yesterday.

Only one left to go! If you have ideas for awesome things that begin with Z, well you'd better let me know sharpish! You can post them over on the A-Z Facebook Group, on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus.

I can't quite believe we're nearly finshed! What will I do with my free time now? Oh yeah, have some.

X is for... Xena experiencing Professor X's extravagant Xenophobia

Here is today's entry in the A-Z of Awesomeness, a nearly finished thank christ month-long project in which I draw a thing that is awesome for each letter of the alphabet!

Yes, Charles Xavier's dark secret is this: in his dream of peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants, there is no room for Greeks. Think about it, you've had X-men from Russia, Japan, Kenya, Germany, Canada, Ireland... but no Greeks. Coincidence? I think not.

(Please no-one remind me of some obscure Greek X-man I've forgotten, thereby spoiling my Hilarious Joke).

Anyway! Today's picture was suggested by Peta Waller-Bryant, so thanks to her! I decided to do it as a homage to John Byrne's classic cover to Uncanny X-men issue 138, partly because of the X-men connection, and partly because Mr. Byrne seems to have acquired a reputation for being quite the massive racist himself these days. And, y'know, because I thought it was funny.

I was trying to think of more racial epithets for Greeks, but I'm afraid 'Hoummous eaters' was the best I could come up with.

Two letters to go! If you have any ideas for Y or Z, you can post them over on the A-Z Facebook Group, on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus.

W is for... Wolverine Wishing Wonder Woman Wasn't Wasted

Here is today's entry in the A-Z of Awesomeness, a month-long project in which, oh y'know, I draw stuff, and that.

Thanks to Matthew Halton, who suggested today's picture. He wrote:

"Wolverine Wishing Wonder Woman Wasn't Wasted

Wasted in the sense of drunk, that is. Not wasted as in, she isn't being used to her full potential. Unless maybe you think that would be better?"

Hell, why do you think she started drinking?

Good lord, only 3 letters to go. If you have any suitably awesome ideas for X, Y or Z, you can post them over on the A-Z Facebook Group, on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus. Speak now or forever hold your piece.

V is for... Venom and Voltron Voguing on Vulcan

Here is today's entry in the A-Z of Awesomeness, a month-long project in which I draw a picture of whatever random nonsense people on the internet tell me to for each letter of the alphabet.

The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice that I drew Vehicle Voltron, rather than the more famous / cool Lion Voltron, simply because he is more alliterative. Those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, I would refer you to the last episode of me and James' Unified Review Theory Podcast, in which we discuss the matter in rather more detail than is necessary or interesting.

Anyway, this was suggested by 'marinarusalka', so many thanks to them! Possibly the oddest thing about it is that this is NOT the first time I have drawn a giant robot vogue-ing, as readers of Mo-bot High may possibly recall.

You can suggest ideas for remaining entries in the A-Z yourself, although you'd better move fast as there's not many left and damned if I'm doing this nonsense again. Holla ideas at me over on the A-Z Facebook Group (which just hit 500 members, hooray!), on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus. X, Y and Z are still up for grabs, people. Dazzle me.

U is for... Uhura and Ultraman on a Unicorn Underwater

Here is today's extra-SENSUAL entry in the Eh? to Z of Awesomeness!

Russell Smith and Michael Goldrei both wanted an Underwater Unicorn-riding Uhura, which shows that great minds clearly think alike. I threw in Ultraman for my own amusement, to make it kind of like the cover of a romance novel from another, altogether odder, planet.

Anyway, sorry there was no pic yesterday, I was rather under the weather. Also it was a Saturday, and the 4th of July, so I figured absolutely no-one would notice or care. If you throw your minds all the way back to 'A', you will recall that I started this whole shebang one day early, so had a day in hand. Which I have now used up. My conscience is satisfied.

Hey, guess what? More awesomeness tomorrow! We have only got a few letters left, but they promise to be extra-bizarre ones, so why not suggest some ideas yourself? you can do so on the A-Z Facebook Group, on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus. Come on, think of awesome things for X, Y and Z. Think of it as a challenge.

T is for... Tintin and a Timelord Taking Tea in Tibet

Here is today's entry in the A-Z of Awesomeness!

I swear, if ever I 'make it big' in comics, I intend to immediately retire and just draw mountains all day long.

Anyway, thanks to Brian Pierce for suggesting today's entry!

More awesomeness tomorrow! If you want to suggest idaes for future entries yourself, you can do so on the A-Z Facebook Group, on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus!

S is for... Sulu and Spiral Swashbuckling in Space (with Several Serrated Swords)

Here is today's entry in the A-Z of Awesomeness!

Today's pic was suggested by K. D. Bryan, so thanks to him / her! Spiral is a slightly obscure x-men villain. Sulu is the Dopest Motherf*&#er in Starfleet. That's about all you need to know.

Thanks to all who've enquired about purchasing either the original art or prints of these pictures. I'm afraid that a) I produce them digitally and b) they are of copyrighted characters, so either option is unfortunately impossible. Yes, I have cunningly undertaken this whole project in such a way as to make it absolutely impossible for me to make any money out of it. I am quite the commercial genius, thank you.

More awesomeness tomorrow! If you want to suggest idaes for future entries yourself, you can do so on the A-Z Facebook Group, on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus!

R is for... Ranma Regurgitating Ryoga's Ramen

Here is today's extra-unsavoury entry in the Ayyyuuuurghhhh to Z of Awesomeness!

This was suggested by fellow once-and-future DFC creator Kate Brown, so you can all blame her. What does it say about me that this was possibly my favourite entry so far to draw? Absolutely nothing good.

Anyway - due to interest in this alphabetically-themed nerdy nonsense rather outstripping my expectations, I've had to upgrade my web hosting, so there's a chance that some of the images may disappear for a bit tonight while everything is re-pointed over to the new server, although hopefully not for too long.

EDIT: you can always check out the full set over at the Facebook group, anyway. I figure I am unlikely to suddenly become popular enough to crash facebook. Unless there are a lot more Manga-Vomit-Fanart enthusiasts out there than I thought...

Anyway, as ever, your suggestions are actively sought for future entries in the A-Z! you can suggest stuff on the A-Z Facebook Group, on Twitter, here on the blog, or over on Comics Nexus!