Duckie the Self-Aware Duck #9 A Re-Quack

Hey all. If you want to buy Duckie. He has been included in the last two New Zealand comics publications by Funtime Comics. Best way to touch base with them is via their facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/funtimecomics/

Anyway without further ado here's the next Duckie:

This Duckie is definitely a fan favorite. When back and forth a lot wondering if Duckie swearing was a good idea. I wondering what is the best word to go in the panel. "Shit" seems to be the best fit. Not having a panel boarder in the last frame also adds to the impact.

This really helped to define Duckie's personality and I was really glad how this turned out. I've seen ducks do this in real life and have always wondered why they did it.

Goodtimes :)

Lately....

After a short trip to Budapest. Here's what I've been up too:

3 Green Bars series 4 trailer:

I create a series called 3 Green Bars which looks at different fighting game communities around the world. Here's the trailer for this season.

My wife thinks "Just 99 more of these and I can start my new life" is funnier.

I actually love Disney franchises, they just have so many so I thought I'd poke a little fun

Between editing, parenting, teaching, drawing there's been a lot going on at the moment. I'll post some more updates next week.

Duckie the Self-Aware Duck #8 A ReQuack

Sorry about the lack of updates been in Budapest. Here's Duckie 8

One of my top 3 Duckie's basically sums up the comic in on strip. Does an even better job than explaining the premise of the comic than the first Duckie in my opinion.

We used to walk past a duck pond to our fish and chips shop every week and I would get a lot of ideas from there. Ducks would randomly quack at you for no reason and seem to have a lot of intent behind their quacks which is what inspired this strip.

 This is the first Duckie strip to have humans in it and it took a couple of tries to get their style down. After this comic the stories came think and fast and the world seemed a bit more realised.

Book Week: International School Hamburg

This week I had a blast running illustration workshops for the International School Hamburg as part of their book week. 

Kids from grade 3 to grade 7 took part in a total of 12 sessions of 3 days! (over 200 kids!)

All the kids and I had a blast. A huge thanks to all the teachers and people who made it all possible. And of course a big shout out to all the kids who created some fantastic characters!

Here are some photos taken by the Junior School principal Suzan Weisolf, more photos coming soon.

Having a chat about illustration

After a few years of teaching you learn to draw upside down ;)

The kids all pitch in their ideas.

The character the kids came up with is complete! BEAUTIFUL!

We all draw together step by step

Checking out everyone's designs as we go

Doing some dental work.

Working on some angry eyes.

Putting pictures to prose part 1

The job I'm currently working on is a childrens book written by esteemed Irish author Terry McDonagh. It's a beautiful coming of age story set in Hamburg called: Michel the Merman. It explores some really interesting themes and doesn't patronize it's audience.

A month we had our first meeting, I read the book and did some mock up concepts.

Making a Merman

Michel starts off as an 8 year old boy, transforms to fish-boy and over the span of the book grows into a young Merman:

Here's the current version of Michel we are going with:

As you can see he's not your typical Merman. The book is a real epic! It has Michel finding joy and harmony in new underwater home while coming to terms with his new fishier self. I thought it would interesting to have him look more "fishy" than the classic one half man, one half fish look.

His design had to carry over from how he looked when he was human:

So he shares Mike's smile dimples nose eyes and face shape.

Took quite a few designs to finalise Mike's look. Here are a couple of the drafts:

I knew I was on the right track once I drew one of the key scenes from the book:

I won't spoil the story for you but the contrast of Michel's fish appearance really shows you that he has no choice but to leave his life on land behind him.

Michel is so much fun to draw, as are all of the characters Terry has lovingly crafted into the book. You can check out Terry's work on his website:

http://www.terry-mcdonagh.com/

More updates coming soon :)

Duckie the Self-Aware Duck #7 A ReQuack

Here's Duckie 7

I remember this one going through several versions, trying different setups and punchlines. The idea was since Rock could talk Duckie assumed most things could talk. It was going be a story arch where Duckie would try chatting to various things. One thing that's never really explained his how Rock moves. You see in later Duckies, Duckie carries Rock. Here Rock appears behind the tree, how he got there is anyones guess. 

Duckie the Self-Aware Duck #6 A ReQuack

Here's the last in the get to know Rock arc:

Easily in my top 10 Duckie's of all time. Duckie puts Rock in his place not even meaning to hurt his feelings.