Guess the Theme Competition!

It's only a week until my month long theme sketches start and as I mentioned a few posts ago I'm running a short competition to win one of the sketches from the coming month of October. All you have to do is have a guess what the theme of the sketches will be and leave a comment here. Two people have guessed already and have guessed wrong (have another go chaps) so to help a little I'll give you a clue.

It's a film.

So get your guesses in. There should be thirteen (work allowing) sketches for the winner to pick from by the end of the month and as I said before if we have more than one person correctly guessing the theme then the names will go into a hat and the winner will be picked at random. As always I'd like to ask you to be a 'follower' to the blog to enter and make sure you have an email address in your profile or left with your entry so I can contact you. Competition closes the moment I post the first sketch. Good luck and check back again later as I may update this post with a few more clues!

EDIT: Clues!
It's a comedy.
It was made in the 1980s.
"Listen... do you smell something?"

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Judge Dredd Megazine 301 on Clickwheel!

If for some strange reason you failed miserably to pick up issue 301 of the Judge Dredd Megazine to catch my first Dredd story 'The Natural' written by Gordon Rennie, inked by Gary Erskine, coloured by Chris Blythe and lettered by Annie Parkhouse, then shame on you. But have no fear you can still see the most excellent issue by downloading it at Clickwheel, where you can choose to view it either as a high resolution PDF or as a Comic Book Reader file (CBZ). You get the full magazine and the amazing Mick McMahon collection graphic too. No reason to miss out!

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Images 34

Yesterday the postman delivered my copy of the Association of Illustrators annual Images 34. What is Images? Well, I'll let the AOI blarb explain all:

Images - the best of British contemporary illustration
Images is the UK's leading illustration competition, annual, awards show, and touring exhibition dedicated to showcasing the very best contemporary illustration published in the UK.
Images is unique in that it is Britain's only jury-selected illustration competition, judged by a highly regarded panel of industry experts, spanning multiple categories.
The annual celebrates illustration excellence and is distributed to a specially targeted list of international commissioners and sold worldwide.

Back in October last year I heard that two of my illustrations for The Dangerous Book of Heroes had been selected in the book category and if I'd been on the ball reporting these things I could have pointed my London based friends to the exhibition of the work (including a piece by me) at the London College of Communication which ran for a week from the 7th of September. So if you invent a time machine and are stuck for things to do you could go check that out.

Anyway, being in the book is pretty much an honour and one of the few times I get to feel like I'm maybe doing okay at this illustration malarky. Well, getting away with it anyway.

If you want to know more about the competition, exhibition or indeed order the book head over to the AOI's Images website.

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Doomlord

Re-post from Scotch Corner! Doomlord first appeared as a photo strip in the 'New' Eagle comic from 1982. "Doomlord – servant of Nox, master of life, bringer of death!" arrived on Earth to judge mankind's right to existence and unashamedly went around killing people and adopting their appearances to remain undetected. The strip changed to an illustrated version when Doomlord (or Zyn to use his real name) was killed (or was he!) and a second Servitor called Vek was despatched to judge us. This Doomlord still enjoyed killing people but was a much more approachable alien who took a liking to mankind and decided to save us while staying at a boarding house run by a Mrs Souster.

Superbly written by Alan Grant and John Wagner and later with art by Compton, Heinzl and Bradbury the strip was extremely popular and ran for eleven years. Go check out this link to find out more. This was a ink sketch commission completed last week and as I drew it I couldn't help but day dream about being allowed to draw Doomlord every day, sigh, a lovely dream!

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Dr Whoops Winner and Guess the Theme Competition!

Yes, I've finally found time to let you know that the winner of the competition was in fact J.E. Remy who happened to be the very first person to enter. It just goes to show that when it's a lucky dip out of a hat it could be anyone who gets picked. So the sketch has been sent on its way.

I've run 'themed' week sketches on the blog before but next month, October, I'll be doing a theme month. Thirteen sketches on just the one subject will be posted up over the month and just for fun lets have another mini competition. If anyone can guess the theme I'll be doing before it begins I'll let the winner pick one of those sketches as a prize. If by some weird chance more than one person guesses the theme then those who guessed right will have their names put in a hat and the lovely Mrs Reid will randomly pick one winner. So get guessing, you have until the end of September to enter, just leave your guess in the comments to this post and please, please remember to make sure you have a contact email.

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The Terminator - Ink Sketch#2

I'm still not quite getting Mr Schwarzenegger's features quite right, he's a tricky one but I think I've got closer than my last Terminator attempt. Plus to be awkward I decided I would draw him based on his look from the original 1984 Terminator film. It's interesting that the CGI 'Arnie' in the latest film, 'Terminator Salvation', actually gave him 'floppy' hair that you'd have seen him with during his body building career and earlier films like 'Hercules in New York' and 'Pumping Iron'. I decided to go with the spiky style that he had in the first film which by the time they'd gone onto T2 had become a very emaculate spiked flat top type thing. I'll need to revisit him soon to break my inability to get him 'just so'.

While I'm here I'll post a YouTube film that I was forwarded recently of a cut scene from the donkey of a film called Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, its hilarious.

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A Hard Day's Fight!

A couple of weeks back I was contacted by the Liverpool Roller Birds who wanted a design to promote their upcoming roller derby matches. The event itself is called 'A Hard Day's Fight' and the thought of not using the design from the Beatles album 'A Hard Day's Night' as a starting point seemed criminal. So having the concept approved I proceeded to illustrate all twenty members of the group all with the hallmarks of a successful roller derby.

So we have the poster with all the information for the derby and more in keeping with the original album is the T-Shirt design. I must point out that the Liverpool Roller Birds logo was supplied to me as you see it and I have no idea who designed and illustrated it for them? If you are in area on the 13th November make sure you drop by and catch the action.

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Dr Whoops Competition winner!

Did not expect so many great comments for this mini-competiton, thanks to everybody who entered and shared their favourite Tom moments. Thankfully I didn't have to choose which comment won and all the entries where placed into a hat and the lucky winner's name was pulled at random by my lovely wife. Unfortunately, a few entries hadn't joined the site as a follower and where therefore disqualified and a few have no visible contact email on their blogger profile and in the case of the winner this is also true. I've sent an email to an address on the winner's own blog but so far have received no reply so as it stands if the winner does not reply to me by the end of September then a new winner will be selected. If you are concerned that it may be you that has won and have no contact email in your profile either update your profile with a contact or email me directly to find out. As soon as the winner has contacted me I will announce properly who that lucky person is and if not check back at the start of October for a new winner!

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Kiss-o-gram Amy - Ink Sketch

This will be the first time I've drawn the Doctor's latest companion Amy Pond played by Karen Gillan and its in her kiss-o-gram guise of saucy police woman. Yes, I know he's just regenerated and I know he had a bonk on the head but c'mon Doctor a real police woman with a skirt that short? Well, he's from another world isn't he.

Karen was in Doctor Who before playing a soothsayer of the Sybilline Sisterhood in the Tennant episode 'The Fires of Pompeii'. Apart from that she's sort of known for her work on the comedy show 'The Kevin Bishop Show'. Apart from that she's a good Scottish lass from Inverness with what looks like a brilliant career in front of her. I really enjoyed her performance over the series, a perfect companion to the Doctor and now wife to Rory (Mr Pond). I think the three of them work so well together in the Tardis, its reminds me very much of the group or family feel that the Hartnell and Davison Doctor's had with their companions.

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Raggedy Doctor - Ink Sketch

It has been a little while since I managed to squeeze in a new sketch but having found the time its unsurprising that it should be Doctor Who and even less surprising it's the eleventh Doctor. As the new adventures finished on the TV here in the UK my two boys (3 and 5 years of age) suddenly took to the series, so much so that toys, posters, magazines, drawings and constant repeat viewings of the episodes have been the order of the day.

As a long term Doctor Who fanatic it gives me the greatest pleasure to have a couch of Reid boys all with eyes glued to the set watching the Doctor save the day. They've been introduced to episodes of Tennant's, Eccleston's and Cushing films but for them THE Doctor is Matt Smith. And of course he is, he is a great Doctor. So many hints of previous incarnations and his own very Gallifreyan ways. Fantastic.

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