I love Twitter... Oh and I have some new sketches

Things have been quite busy this week, as I prepare to finish my recent stint at the London-based Marketing agency Hype.

I have worked here on and off for nearly 3 years, and after a bit of thought I have decided to take a break from working here. For the last few years I have worked 2 weeks per month here and have then spent the rest of the month working for other recruitment agencies, in the attempt to keep everyone happy.

This has meant that I have had little, if any, time to illustrate. Hopefully me leaving Hype will give me the opportunity to concentrate on producing more illustrations on a regular basis and hopefully it will let me finally produce the comic/cartoon that I have promised for so long.

After this week I have taken a block booking which will last until the end of the year, but then 2011 (fingers crossed) should let me spend a little more time drawing. If things go well, hopefully I will be able to make more of a career of it.

I have enclosed a couple of illustrations I have been working on lately. One is obviously a sketch for the next Dan Hunt panel and the other is an illustration (that I will be producing digitally) which is in the same vein as 'The Fear of the Custard Cream'. I am really looking forward to artworking this, and will post the finished image as soon as it is done.

On a slightly different note, I know I have rambled on about Twitter before in the past, but if you haven't signed up for it before, I really do suggest you go do it... NOW! I would be the first to admit that I was completely against joining Twitter, as I couldn't see the fuss about seeing random thoughts/comments from a bunch of people, most of whom I didn't know. But after realising that most of my close friends were now using this, rather then Facebook, I reluctantly joined.

I was a little cautious when I first joined, but once you get into it, you really can appreciate just how much Twitter offers. Being a freelancer, this has opened a whole new avenue of showcasing myself as well as giving me the opportunity to make new contacts and speak to some incredible people.

I have met so many outstanding people on there, including the likes of Graham Johnson, Lizz Lunney, Philippa Rice and Timothy Winchester. The reason these guys impress me so much, is that not only do they all produce stunning webcomics which never fail to not only make me laugh (and also leave me feeling pretty darn jealous of their talent), but they are also just genuinely nice & funny people. If you do have a Twitter account, I suggest you start following these guys.

Actually speaking of Graham Johnson, he is a young illustrator I met on Twitter a few months back when I came across some fan art he produced for Marc Ellerby. I have been really impressed with the quality of Graham's work and his utter dedication to his art, especially for someone who is still only 18 years old.

Graham has recently started a webcomic called Private Study and to congratulate him, I produced some fan art of two of the characters. Below is an ink drawing of the characters (please ignore some of the shading. Magic Markers never scan well for me), but I do hope to get this artworked into a digital file in the near future.

So to sum up, if you do anything today... Please check out Graham, Lizz, Philippa and Timothy on Twitter and their respective webcomics.

Right, that is enough of my waffling! Thanks

©Dan Bailey 2010. All designs and concepts are strictly copyright of Dan Bailey Ltd. Do not attempt to use anything on this site without the authors permission first.

Chloe Noonan Fan art

Over the years I have been lucky to know some amazingly talented people, but of all
of these Marc Ellerby is one of the most standout that I have come across.

Anyone who has stumbled across my blog before knows how high I regard the talent
that Marc possesses and his pure desire and dedication for his art is nothing short of incredible.

For those of you who have never come across Marc before, he is one of the UK's biggest rising comic book talents and you can check his work out at www.marcellerby.com or read his weekly web comic at www.ellerbisms.com.

Marc is finally starting to get the recognition for his talents and he has recently been nominated for an Eagle Award, which are like the BAFTAs of the comic industry.

If you get a spare few minutes I really do encourage you to check him out (his work that is). His comics are packed with so much humour and emotion that you can't help but get absorbed into the world he has created.

I recently promised Marc that I would do some fan art of one of his characters, Chloe Noonan, and have included it in this posting.

I wanted to take the personality and concept of Chloe and portray her through my eyes.

As you can see from the original sketch, I ended up changing her expression as she is generally a more moody character then I had originally shown and personally I think it works a lot better with this change done.

I must admit I was concerned my original sketch resembled Garth from Wayne's World a little too much, but thankfully once I artworked her she became a little less Garth-like.

I am aiming to produce some watercolour illustrations next week and will post these as soon as they are done. Please bear with me on these as I haven't used watercolours since I was about 12 years old and so they be a bit ropey.

Have a great weekend!

Eye of Thundera

It's funny that lately I have noticed some of the ridiculous things I do when I am at home by myself. I haven't thought too much about them until I mentioned a few of the things I have done casually to one of my best friends on a morning commute to work.

He seemed to find them hilarious, if not a little odd, and so I thought I would put them into strips and upload them on here.

The strip above is just a typical morning for me while I am waiting for my toast to cook. I often relive my childhood and impersonate Thundercats whilst holding a butter knife waiting for my toast to pop up. I must admit I thought surely other people must do this too, but not according to my friend.

Any way, I also want to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas a Happy New Year.

Have a good one!

Web Comics

My attempts of writing a regular web comic are fast falling by the roadside, as the freelance design world is managing to keep me incredibly busy. As the design side of things is my main career and income I am not in the position to neglect this and so in the mean time, if you do crave some amazing web comics why not check out some of my favs:

Marc Ellerby's www.ellerbisms.com
The Everyday http://theeveryday.adamcadwell.com/
Sorry Comics http://sorrycomics.blogspot.com/

Happy reading, they are truly brilliant web comics!

Colin's Wedding Part 2

Sorry for the delay in getting this one uploaded, but things have been pretty manic in the freelance world. It is usually busy this time of year, as whilst everyone is off sunning themselves in glorious sunny locations across the planet, I am the guy who comes in and covers their workload. That isn't a grip though, as I love doing it and it has given me some amazing experiences. Though I would say, it hasn't helped my tan though!

Anyway, here is the second part from my friend Colin's wedding earlier in the month. Now this was supposed to be a three-part strip, with the second part being the most important part of the day – the actual wedding. But at the last minute I was thrown into the deep end when I was asked to video the whole day for my friend. That doesn't seem so bad I hear you cry. Well, for someone who has never used a video camera before that is very daunting! I had these nightmares of me not taping anything and ruining the couples memories forever! With this in mind I was pretty nervous around the time of the wedding and have managed to forget most of what happened – sorry! I hope you enjoyed the other strips from the day though.

Hopefully I should have another uploaded within the next week or so.

Thanks for dropping by!

Colin's Wedding Part 1

I wish...

Comicon Strip

Web Comics

Over the next few months I am attempting (and I use this word loosely) to get a regular batch of web comics online on my blog.

It is something I have been trying to do for a long time now, but have always struggled to find the time. Feel free to comment on them and let me know your thoughts!

Ellerbisms

If anyone has any spare time on their hands, then I absolutely beg you to check out the comic diary of one of the UK's most talented comic book artists.

His name is Marc Ellerby and you can check out his work at www.ellerbisms.com.

Trust me, you will not be disappointed!