Pen Dragons

2011-09-26T13:59:00.001+01:00

2011-09-26T13:57:00.000+01:00

SPIRIT OF HOPE

2011-05-31T10:24:00.002+01:00

A noble venture, folks doing what they can, in the best way they can- it's a beautiful book, with some genuinely stirring art and moving stories.

Britain's Comic Book Alliance will publish Spirit of Hope this month - a stunning-looking anthology featuring work by almost 100 comic creators in aid of survivors of the Tsunami and earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand which happened earlier this year.

The anthology features 50 pieces of donated art from 92 top international creators in the comic book industry. The pieces are mainly sequentials or comic strips but there are also a few stunning single page pin ups.

The brain child of the Comic Book Alliance, it's hoped that with all proceeds being donated, the project can raise over £30,000.

Edited by Alan Cowsill and Tim Pilcher, Spirit of Hope is being offered in two alternate covers - one by Jimmy Broxton (above), the other by Mike Allred (left). Creators involved include Natalie Abadzis, Nick Abadzis, Adrian Bamforth, Jasper Bark, Donna Barr, Jordie Bellaire, Paul H Birch, Bolt-01, Dan Boultwood, Mark Buckingham, Jim Campbell, Richmond Clements, Jason Cobley, Simon Coleby, Mike Collins, Martin Conaghan, Gary Crutchley, Glenn Dakin, Al Davison, Brandon DeStefano, Benjamin Dickson, Martin Eden, Mats Engesten, Gary Erskine, Al Ewing, Glenn B Flemming, Emma Flint, Henry Flint, Leigh Gallagher, Matt Gibbs, Gary Gilbert, Alan Grant, Jon Haward, Peter Hogan, Kev Hopgood, Graeme Howard, Inko, Rich Johnston, Ant Jones, GM Jordan, Jessica Kemp, David Leach, Tony Lee, Nigel Lowrey, Ciaran Lucas, Paul McLaren, Gary Spencer Millidge, Michiru Morikawa, Alex Moore, Leonie O’Moore, Michiru Morkawa, Eva Perkins, Grant Perkins, Martyn Pick, Maria Pickering, David Pugh, James Reekie, Regan, Neil Roberts, Darick Roberston, John Robbins, John Ross, Declan Shalvey, Liam Sharp, Akiko Shimojima, Si Spencer, Vicky Stonebridge, Lew Stringer, Steve Tanner, Archie Templar, S Thompson, Geoffrey D. Wessel, Chris Western, Andrew Wildman, WJC, Ant Williams, Rob Williams, Sean Michael Wilson and Yel Zamor.

Art by Mark Buckingham

Copies of the book can be ordered in advance and will be £14.99 + £3.00 p&p. Anyone ordering should state their preference of cover: both will soon be available to be seen on the Comic Book Alliance website or Facebook page.

Limited edition prints are also being offered to purchasers - check the sites for more information on these but one is a beautiful piece of art by Mark Buckingham (right).

Brizzle!

2011-05-12T00:44:00.000+01:00

Most (if not all!) the Pendragons will be at the Bristol Comics Show this weekend! Come by, wave, smile, buy sketches or pages, or indeed buy us beer, we won't say no! :-)

New Post-age!

2011-01-16T22:31:00.003Z

My god it's been a while!

Thought I'd post a couple of illustrations for the forthcoming Welsh anthology book '10thology' featuring the work of many of the Pen Dragons!

Enjoy!

2010-11-26T12:45:00.003Z

sorry for the lack of posts,

here's a sneak peek of some thumbnails of my contribution to a Chris Lynch story called Devolution, which is due to appear in 10thology - a collection of stories from a few Welsh creators (some of the PenDragons).

I'm only one of 5 artists involved in this story and can't wait to see how it all looks when it's published. I think it's launching at Cardiff Expo on the 26th Feb 2011 so come and have a look.

cheers

Tattoo Design 'on' the Flesh

2010-10-26T12:07:00.011+01:00

It's been a while since I posted here, so I thought I would make a come back with something a little different!

So about a year ago I had a comission to design a Welsh Dragon, half sleeve tattoo to work in with a celtic knot design. The brief was pretty straight forward, 'nothing cheesey and it needs to look fierce'.

Well last week I got an email with some photos of the tattoo in the flesh, so I thought I'd share.

Cheers

Wonder Woman Day

2010-09-20T15:40:00.004+01:00

My art for the upcoming Wonder Woman V Day. The money raised from auctioned artwork goes to help fund two Crisis Centres in the US, on in Oregon, the other in New Jersey. Details about the online auction (featuring some top artists from around the world drawing Diana Prince can be found at Wonder Woman Day V!

Creating creation

2010-08-10T13:03:00.001+01:00

Here's the third page of a short story called 'And He Did' written by Martin Conaghan, for a new anthology out at the end of the year . Quite a different kind of story than my usual but thoroughly enjoyed illustrating this little creationist tale. (Took me longer than 7 days though).

Inks and Neocolor Crayon washes on B4 Canson Fanboy Manga Paper (lovely stuff!)

Thanks for looking,

Cheers,

GETTING IN THE SWING OF THINGS.

2010-07-07T01:54:00.000+01:00

Page 36 of Unbelievable.

Art and Story by Simon Wyatt

Letters by Nic Wilkinson

Work on Unbelievable, my graphic novel from Insomnia Publications is nearly completed and so I'd like to share this splash page with you, as a little taster of what's to come. This was one of my favourite pages to draw and I still remember my little studio room and drawing board being covered in oak leaves and acorns at the time (there was no room for big black furry beasts though).

An insightful look into Nic Wilkinson's approach to lettering the story and more exclusive artwork can also be found over on Cy Dethan's blog

Until next time,

Diolch!

Simon

LEGION OF SOVIET HEROES!

2010-05-24T17:52:00.002+01:00

Haven't posted for a while, so thought I'd in something unusual...

Digging through my old art I came across this prelim for the Legion Archives volume I worked on. The final one was far more traditional but I kinda like this Soviet workers propaganda feel I aimed for here...

New Who!

2010-04-29T13:05:00.002+01:00

Subscribers copies are out today, so I'm free to post some of my 11th Doctor art-- here's the splash to the premiere story featuring Matt Smith

Hello

2010-04-16T15:24:00.002+01:00

Mr Collins kindly invited me to post on this fine blog and it's taken me three weeks to getting my finger out of my backside and post something.

And so here is my first post, which hopefully goes up okay.

I spend most of my working week creating comics and illustration for advertising, marketing etc.

This piece of retro-ness was created for a google ad campaign.

Hope you like it

Ant

Blatant Self Promotion

2010-04-14T21:52:00.003+01:00

So just the briefest post to plug a t-shirt design I've submitted to Threadless.

If you could just take a minute to visit the site and vote for the design, if I get enough votes, it goes into production and on sale via their website and stores.

Thanks again

Stu.Art

`Pick a card, any card!'

2010-04-14T01:22:00.006+01:00

With the sketchathon for Draw the World Together at BICS2010 fast approaching, I thought I should get in a little practice, so here is a selection of some Marvel character sketch cards I've been producing, to give myself a little break from the graphic novel.

B&W: War Machine, Grey Hulk, Spidey, Ant-Man (on Steed), Spider-Woman and Logan,with his bone-claws and I've added a little splash of red to this one, (I think it works?)

I like to pick a few retro characters now and again, as you'll see with the selection of colour ones I've posted below.

Col: Iron Fist, She-Hulk, Power Man, Deathlok (a personal fave!), a retro-ish take on Iron Man, Vision, Black Costume Spidey, Thor and Cap.

I'm hoping to bring along all of the ones I've done, including some DC and Indie characters. I'll be posting images of all the cards to my blog a little closer to BICS, really looking forward to it!

Till next time,

Si

Nuh- Nuh- Nefarious

2010-04-14T00:10:00.003+01:00

Aha, my first little contribution....

Here's my completed colours for IDW Publishing's latest Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen sequel story, Nefarious #2. Lovely lovely lineart by Carlos Magno, and it's out this week!

cover method!

2010-04-13T11:23:00.008+01:00

I found a few bits and pieces which I thought I'd share. It's a pretty straight froward way of producing a cover for the mighty 2000AD. I'd get a call from Tharg with a general idea of a cover design, with one it was just to have Savage hanging out of his VW camper van firing towards us. I'd send a few thumbnail sketches for approval (usually 6 or so), and Tharg chooses the one he wants. I think pic 2 was chosen, but before I started I had another idea which worked even better in my opinion and sent a rough sketch off which was accepted.

I then drew it out about A5 size, I generally sketch out any large figures smaller as it's easier, and then blew the drawing up to full size (A3). I just light boxed(traced) it off onto the brstol board and inked it, it's all fairly straightforward really. No computers and such as I'm rubbish with them- as you can tell by this post with all the pics in the wrong order!!

It was later coloured digitally by Chris Blythe for publication (but I haven't a scan!), which was pretty good, although I prefer the B/W version.

My Name is Sancho!

2010-04-12T12:36:00.008+01:00

Here's a couple of pages from an unfinished project me and Chris Lynch did for our pals Alan Nolan and Ian Whelean for their Eagle Award nominated comic 'Sancho'

It was a fun, supernatural, action based comic and at the time I had only really done a bit of horror and suspense, so these were some of the 1st action panels I'd really gotten to draw.

There are more of these pages somewhere, but only have these 2 scanned.

Enjoy

Huuugggggooooooooo!

2010-04-12T09:18:00.004+01:00

In this year's Hugo awards, the Captain Britain collection I contributed to is on the Hugo shortlist for best graphic novel! I know I'm only there riding on the coattails of series creators Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk but I'm utterly stunned and excited to be part of the nominated team. Hugo Awards are given out by the SF community and the comics section is pretty new so we're amongst some rarefied names-- it's also the first Marvel Comic to have been nominated so they're pretty excited too!

And Now For Something Completely Different.

2010-04-08T17:03:00.004+01:00

So this weeks post is a little late from me and has nothing to do with comics. Sorry.

This week I have a logo I was commissioned for branding a local(ish) Welsh mountain biking club 'Broke Back Bikers' for use in print, online advertising and even merchandising.

They were looking for something young, vibrant and exciting which I feel the finished design captured.

Hope you like it.

Joe Rubinstein collaborations

2010-04-03T18:02:00.003+01:00

Over this past year or so I've been honoured to work with one of my all-time favourite inkers, comics legend Joe Rubinstein. It was an absolute dream come true to work with one of my long-time favourite artists, and I am very proud to be able to share this work with you. To see more, check out my very own blog space at soulmaninc.blogspot.com.

Draw The World Together 2

2010-04-02T14:40:00.003+01:00

More pics...

Draw The World Together!

2010-04-02T14:04:00.005+01:00

Started by Andy Wildman, this comics driven charity has been working away for the last few years, initially through the sponsorship of NC Soft and their City Of Heroes Game to fund schooling in Africa as part of the EveryChild project.

Now in the capable hands of our own Kat Nicholson and Jason Cardy, along with a misfit band of comics artists (myself included) they appear at various shows, sketching for the benefit of the charity.

At the last Memorabilia show in Brum, I was there at hand to supply art-- here's examples of the kind of stuff your well spent cash can procure. These pages will be for sale at either the Bristol Comics Expo or online.
http://drawtheworldtogether.ning.com/

Greek or Geek?

2010-03-26T13:14:00.008Z

With the release of the new Clash Of The Titans movie fast approaching I thought I'd add a little Greek flavour to this posting.

I'm huge fan of the original Harryhousen film, which was quite inspirational to me when I was growing up (along with the Sindbad films!)

I'm sure the new movie won't disappoint me, from what I hear it's not a direct remake and from the look of the trailer its full of monstery(?) goodness and fantastic action (they've even included a couple of new characters).

So, inspired by the anticipation of seeing this new interpretation of one of my favourite Greek Myths, I dug out this colour character sketch from one of my sketchbooks, an unfinished Perseus and Medusa for you to enjoy.

(I'd advise looking at it in the reflection of a highly polished shield).

Till next time,

Cheers,

Si

2010-03-25T22:45:00.003Z

So this weeks post was an illustration I did for a short story for an online magazine (the name of which escapes me!).

The story was called 'An Eye for an Eye' and it followed an inmate on death row, who tended a garden and was eventually executed, before his clone suffered the same fate, over and over again.

Anyway, despite it's age, I still rather like this piece, the composition and the colour scheme and as I don't think many people have seen this (don't think the online magazine had a very large circulation!) I thought I'd share.

2010-03-22T22:54:00.002Z

Hi all, here's a first look at Bill Savage as he's set to appear in Savage Book 6 "Crims" this May in 2000AD. He's in another disguise (on the run and all), and has gone for a more Michael Caine/ Harry Palmer look. Although he looks more like he originally did when he first appeared, inspired by Stanley Baker. He does however slip into a moody Clark Kent at times, which I can't help!!

I'll try and get my backside in gear and post stuff regularly,

cheers

Rummaging Around my Hard-drive!

2010-03-21T17:25:00.003Z

So nothing new or even remotely sketchy to post this week, so instead I had a look through my old external hard-drive to see what forgotten gems/disasters I would find.

What I came across was the half finished 1st page to an experimental short story called 'The Night Watchmen' written by Chris Lynch, which featured 2 storied running simultaneously, seemingly unlinked that would eventually blur together. To help distinguish the 2 stories, it was decided one would be traditional sequentials, coloured digitally, the other would be painted illustrations.

Anyway, it never really developed past the 1st page, but I think it still looks interesting, even if the sequentials are still in black & white.

The beast is yet to come!

2010-03-20T21:50:00.008Z

As my first post, I thought I'd share this teaser page from my creator owned title, Unbelievable - The Man Who Ate Daffodils, coming this year from Insomnia Publications Ltd .

The remote mining village of Bryn Boncath has its share of stories, of local legends, of half believed histories. It is a close knit community, with even closer guarded secrets. Strands of Welsh legend, modern murder mystery woven with horror and a dash of crytozoology ask “What if seeing isn’t always believing, but believing will allow you to see?”

If you enjoy dark, scary, fairy tales, flavoured with a slice of 80's horror movies, this one's for you!

Till next time,

Cheers,

Si

Unbelievable - The Man Who Ate Daffodils copyright Simon Wyatt 2009

Bringing horror back to it's old-school roots.....

2010-03-19T19:04:00.007Z

A character sketch from my upcoming creator-owned project, working title: Vampire Saga. With the recent surge of Vampire related films, comics, TV series etc.. you may ask what will my upcoming Vampire project have that others do not?
Let's just say that I'm going to do my very best to make this one of the greatest character-driven horror stories in recent history. Wait and see... you'll see stuff in this you've NEVER seen before.

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.....

Artwork and character © 2009 Simon Williams.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Sample

2010-03-19T17:26:00.003Z

The sample page that won Jason Cardy and myself the gig we're currently working on; a 130 odd page graphic Novel of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for Classical Comics - We're currently half way through, should be done around the end of the year :)

Aberystwyth Mon Amore...

2010-03-19T11:53:00.001Z

A couple of years back I was involved in a pitch (unsuccessful, unfortunately) to make a live action/CG background version of the Louie Knight Aberystwyth novels. If you've not read them, they're a bizarre but wonderful mix of Chandler and Dylan Thomas. More info about them is at:

http://www.louieknight.com/default.asp?sec=1

2010-03-19T10:32:00.002Z

The Pen Dragons is the collective name for Welsh Comics artists including Mike Collins, David Roach, Dylan Teague, Neil Edwards and others.

The name comes via Simon Wyatt, and it's a little bit of genius.