Some sketches

from my sketchbook, where else

Sirius

Sirius Black from the Harry Potter books. Sketched this during the week and inked it in photoshop today for funsies.

Oisín the poet

 

Oisín (pronounced ush - een, for those non Irish amongst ye) was the son of Fionn, I drew him already remember. Oisín's story is the saddest of all of them, a sorry end to a great warrior poet. If you want to know more about him you may as well buy a few books and get to reading because there are a lot of different versions of what happened to him, my personal preference is in Lady Gregory's Irish Mythology, my bible. But if you dont want to go to any trouble, check him out on wikipedia link Now they say on there that his son Osgar or Oscar was born and raised on Tir na nÓg, but in most stories he grew up in Ireland and was a member of the Fianna, so I dont know. Its all very confusing

Cúchullain again

The greatest warrior of all time, Cúchullain, the hound of Ulster.
He was never a King in life, but in the tale of his death a prophecy is made that on that day 3 kings would die, it is explained to Queen Mebd the three kings were Cúchullain, the king of warriors, Laeg his friend and the king of charioteers and Macha the grey, Cúchullain's horse, the king of horses who went on to kill another hundred or so warriors even after Cúchullain died. I shall do them two next.
After giving Fionn in the previous piece a big giant sword, I thought the savage Cúchullain would be better shown with just bloody fists.
In all the books on Irish myth that I'v read, there has never been a very accurate description of what Cú looks like, even though everyone else is described in great detail. But of the fleeting descriptions, they normally say he was small and of a grim countenance with dark hair.

Inking away

I got back from Dublin this afternoon, myself and Beena went up for the night to see Batman Live. Great show, go see it if you can. Anyway, on the long drive I did some scribbling and filled my pocket sketch book so I scanned out anything I liked and was inking them there for a bit of practice. So, I present my version of Mr. Hyde (Toby's favourite for some reason) and a cowgirl in the wind

It should be noted, we popped into Forbidden Planet whilst in the big smoke and I bought a wolverine graphic novel drawn by John Romita Jr. His style makes me drool and cry, but I think my inks on Mr Hyde there a direct influence of staring at his work since I got home.

Practice makes perfect

So, some sketching from today, more messing with the watercolours and I bought a set of water brush pens for 4 euro 50 yesterday, which was odd since there were single ones for sale next to them for 8 euro each, sense, it has left. The point is that I was watching the master James Gurney working in one of his vids on youtube and he was using them to ink, I thought "isnt that novel" cos I think like that, so I got them and started having fun. Let me tell ya, they are fun, one filled with a heavy mix of black ink and water so it flows well and the other with just water for washing, if you can and are so inclined, give it a try.

Tyr the God of Tuesday

Check out the Islander Art blog to find out all about this groovy guy linky link

The dragon riseth

Inks for something Im working on