EXETER COMIC EXPO

I just got back from a small one day convention here in the UK. Last year I decided to start doing coloured sketches at cons using markers. This year I thought I'd try going a step further and using coloured fine liners to give them a sort of faux color hold type of look.

Mixed results on the sketches. I tend to do them really quickly as I always feel guilty how long I leave people standing around near the table while I sketch and want to get rid of them as quickly as possible so they can go and get sketches from a proper, professional comic artist.

I don't think I quite hit the characters. Both punisher and Dredd should look a lot beefier and meaner. Oh well, live and learn. I'll hopefully do better at the rest of the cons this year.

This is a Guy Gardner commission I just finished up. More coming soon :)

Something a little bit different for me. A commissioned portrait of someone's grandparents.

Below are a couple more convention marker sketches. John Constantine (Hellblazer) and the character from a new story I am working on.

Got back from the birmingham con late last night and I've been scouring the internet for anybody that has scanned some of my sketches. If I did a sketch for you this weekend and you have it online can you please email me the URL at jimmy@jimmybott.com. Many thanks.

Below are a couple I have found so far.







P.S. Dave, if you read this. I'm going to do a special peice to give to you at Bristol next year :)

This is a pinup I did recently for a friend, Arvid Nelson. To be featured in an up coming issue of his Darkhorse mini-series "Zero Killer".

I finally got around to ink this pinup. Most of it was done while I was sat at my table at the comic convention in Bristol last weekend.


Someone took a picture of me while I was sketching and I didn't even realise it :)

HALF DEAD REVIVED

Man, this book has been the craziest experience of my life.

For anyone wanting to know the book is resolicited in April through Desperado Publishing for June sales.
Diamond Code APR083747 PAGE 261 Price $10.99
Written by Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper.

We started out in 2005 as a mini-series with 'Speakeasy Comics' who went down before our series hit. We then signed with the Dabel Brothers May '06 who wanted us to sell it as a graphic novel for Halloween. Which in all honesty the format worked better with the story in my opinion. A couple months later Dabel Brothers finalised their paper work with Marvel and we were taken on as the only creator owned comic book they were due to publish at the time, but with plans to publish more. Half Dead was to be released in March '07.

March 28th 2007 comes and Half Dead is released, not too bad initial figures coming in at Number 50 on the chart, and steady reorders in the hundreds. Then, lightning strikes again, Marvel and Dabel split company, and the end of July/early august the book goes on stop at diamond. None to leave the diamond warehouse in Memphis until it's sorted. After the contract break, Marvel no longer had the legal right to distribute the stock and dabel brothers moved on and were no longer interested in dealing with it. Leaving us in a bit of a sticky situation. A bunch of stock we have already paid the printing costs for, heavily in the red on production costs and no way to recoup even a fraction of our losses.

After a couple months of working it out with Marvel and Dabels lawyers. We sorted out the situation and we got the paperwork to sell the remaining stock through a third party. Even though it was branded with the Marvel and Dabel Brothers logos. As diamond did not want to deal with me directly we had to go and find a publisher willing to help us. THANK GOD for Joe Pruett and Stephan Nilson at Desperado Publishing. Who have kindly worked their asses off to sort it all out with Diamond and get the book back on the shelves. I can't thank them enough for everything they have done.

So please, if you see it in your store, give it a flick through and see if it's your kind of thing. It's gone through a lot to get there

"HALF DEAD is clever, compelling and personal - with a unique narrative and unbelievable images that will haunt you. If Luc Besson and Stephen King had children, HALF-DEAD would be their beautiful, twisted offspring." --David Gallaher, writer, HIGH MOON, VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE, JOHNNY DOLLAR

This is just a bunch of stuff I've been working on recently I wanted to post.

Portrait of one of my sisters, Jenny.

Here's a sketch I whipped up after finishing todays page. I don't know about anybody else but I am really loving the new avengers Luke Cage. The whole family situation, being super paranoid about the possible skrulls in their ranks., getting jumped by SHIELD when he went to the store :) Possibly my favourite marvel character at the moment and Leinil Yu makes him look so damn kick ass.

I am trying to develope a style where I can add grey tones quickly to images in order to get a fast turn around time. This took me 2 hours to add the grey tones.

I've been approached by a book publisher this week about freelance work doing spot illustrations for a series of teen books. The books are going to be published at A5 size (around 8.5x5.5 inches). This was an experiment to see how what it would look like if I drew the work at A4 size. Because usually I work on A3. I think it came out okay. Going to add some tones to it soon.

So I haven't been posting much recently. I've been busy recently developing a couple of new comic book series that won't be coming out until next year. So currently unable to show any of that work. But the 4 page story I did with Doug Wagner (Writer of Guncandy, The Ride) is coming out in an upcoming issue of Negative Burn from Desperado Comics.

Below is a quick speed paint I did of an old school friend, Damien Jones.

This is a pinup for the new series of 'Atomik Mike' being published by Desperado comics. it was a fun challenge adapting the cartoony characters drawn by Israel Cruz in to my style.

Had a couple hours free this afternoon so did this sketch of 'The Phantom'. The grey was slapped on in photoshop.

Just finished another portrait sketch. I should really think about turning my intention back to more comic pages. But I've been having fun trying some new things out :).

I've been working on some portrait peices recently. I'm trying to create work to lots of different styles. Hopefully they're coming out okay :)

This is a peice of art I'm hoping to print up either as a digital canvas or a decent print and framed. It is meant as a gift for my friends Carla and Pete who got married last year.

My first attempt at digital painting/coloring my artwork. Something I've been meaning to try for a while. Miles away from perfect. But I definitely learned a lot doing it. Practice makes perfect so I'm going to do some more soon :)