scraperboard

Theda Bara and Rory Manning.
I've been experimenting a little with scraperboard these days, as if drypoint and monotype and general inking wasn't enough. I am all over the place this term. But anyway! Even though a little difficult at first (perhaps mostly to do with the shitty tools and cheap scraperboard - actually, not even cheap, it was fairly expensive, it just doesn't seem to be very good) I think I've kinda got the hang of it. And in doing so I created two images if Theda Bara - which is quite project-based, at least -  and Rory Manning, a model (I think? I don't know, she's utterly gorgeous and kind of a ghost on google). It's a great way to study contrast and lighting, really makes you think about negative and positive space.

Lulu

I've been wanting to do something on Louise Brooks ever since I watched Pandora's Box a few years ago. Actually, I've been smitten with her since well before then, as I grew up with Crepax's "Valentina" stories. So when my current project started going in a 20s direction, she was definitely going to have to be one of the subjects/characters. This ended up being a mini-project within the project, a little zine done in a mixture of drypoint and monotype (professional printmakers might kill me about it) which allowed me to have detail while maintaining the swishy inky goodness of monotypes. I'm also fairly satisfied with my hand drawn type. This will eventually be reformatted to fit the book I'm creating for my project as a short narrative under the name "the Courtesan".

squares.

 

Messing about with format and inking.

a little eye candy catch up.

Comica Comiket

So! This is quite late in posting, but last weekend the eye pie collective in top notch form (if a little tired) headed down to London for this year's Comica, the big city's own international and indipendent comics fair. The venue, Bishopsgate Institute, was pretty awesome and oh so many artists were there (Robert Crumb, Anke Feuchtenberger, Alison Bechdel, Joe Decie just to name a few). Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the full festival and many many events organized, but it was a good day, if a little excruciating having to stand by while people pick up your work, study it, read it, then leave it (it's £1 dude, honestly). But a very interesting experience nonetheless.