A tale of ice cream

The beginning of forever...

About 18 months ago I set out to make my then girlfriend (now wife), a really special Valentine’s Day present.

We hadn’t been going out for long, but like a true romantic I wanted to give her something which offered a little more sentiment then a box of chocolates.

I am not the most talented guy in the world and so the chances of me writing a song or crafting a beautiful table with my own bear hands were slim and so I did the only thing I really now how to… Draw.

I decided to make a comic charting our lives at different points, concluding with the day we met.

The reason I decided on this was because the way in which myself and Sharon met so easily may not have happened. We have both lived very different lives and we nearly didn’t encounter each other after I changed my mind about not going to the friends Birthday meal I met her at.

I originally drew and inked the comic, but this year I decided to create a digital vector version of it so that we could show it at our wedding reception. I must admit creating it as a vector file proved to be a real time consuming project, but I am pleased I pursed it.

It also gave me the opportunity to update it, detailing our engagement.

I was a a little concerned you wouldn’t be able to understand the concept as easily online as you would with the physical comic, but in case you can’t, the top panel represents Sharon’s journey through life and the bottom mine.

I hope you enjoy it…

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!

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

Comicon Strip

New illustration

I have just had another illustration uploaded on to iStock. Well, it is one of many that I have completed this week. It is available to purchase by clicking here.

I have included the pencil sketch and the finished vector illustration.

Most of my work is vector* nowadays, but I am trying hard to go back to using good old pen and ink. I was massively tempted to produce the comic strips I have started working on as digital artwork, but wanted to have a crack at the hand drawn route for a bit. It may turn out that they do end up being done digitally in the end, but we will see. My pen work is still pretty rough as I have only just started using them again after about 10 years of ignoring my drawing talent. But you know what they say... Practice makes perfect (I hope)!

I think I must have stopped drawing when I was 14 and only started again 4 years ago (I am 28 now). In those four years all my work has been purely pencil sketches which I have then scanned and redrawn on my Mac. But now I want to do it old school for a while.

Any way, enough blabbering on from me...












*Incase you haven't come across the word vector before, it is a term used for illustrations or artwork created in programmes like Adobe Illustrator or FreeHand. This kind of artwork is made up of shapes which can be enlarged to any scale without the loss of quality, (which you would suffer from if you had a bitmap file, ie, a photograph or a scan). For a more indepth breakdown of the term vector click here... They can explain it better then me :)

London Comicon 2009

Tomorrow is the day when all nerds put down their X-Box controllers, don their Storm Trooper outfits and head out of the house for the first time in months as the London Comicon takes place in Earls Court.

I will be there without my normal group of friends as a mixture of the Swine Flu and the current recession have meant they will be forced to sit this one out. Still, me and my bro will be there nerding in up, but this geekfest won't be the same without them.

I'll be the obvious one in the Ninja Turtles T-Shirt, as I think I stand alone as probably the only Turtles fan left in the UK. Still, someone has to keep this franchise going huh?

Check out www.londonfilmandcomiccon.com for more info.

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!