A bit of magpie

We all have bits and pieces we work on I guess, and this is from one of mine. 'magpie' is a love story in three acts, and I've been playing about with it for about 20 years on and off.

It's been a comic strip, a novel, a comic again, a screenplay, an illustrated story, a mix of all three and now perhaps a comic again. It'll never be finished I suspect, rather it'll remain something I potter on when the mood takes me. Whatever incarnation it's been, I've always tried to treat it's themes - relationships and sex really - in an honest and realistic way.

I'm posting it here for a couple of reasons. Firstly, despite having worked in this for so long, it has no real physical presence. There are notebooks full of story and sketches. There are pages of pages, ranging from layouts to finished artwork going back years, in a variety of different styles and competence. There is, however, nothing that I've ever shown, and I think I wanted to post a page or two, just to show that it exists! Secondly, every now and again folks here will comment on stuff, and I find that very useful!

magpie is ©2013 Jonathan Wyke




magpie contains lots of sex and swearing.

Some more experiments and character design

This is really just some continuation of the style experiments I've been doing, together with an associated bit of character design.

The character work is really just for look & feel rather than the absolute specific look. Still, went quite well I think.

All work is ©2013 Jonathan Wyke

 

Back again (Finally)

It's been a while I know.

This blog has tended to get lost in the shuffle of real life, and after an autumn / winter of floods and varied family illness, there was an awful lot of shuffling.

Now I'm back and I've been playing with a new illustration style. It originally came about from my trying to replicate digitally the look of contè crayon on coloured paper that I have often used when life drawing. Once I'd got the look more or less right, I wondered how it would look when used in a sequential narrative. What follows are the early results.

There's not really a plot. If it were anything, it would be inspired by Marvel's Daredevil, before he put on his tights. A Daredevil Year -1 if you like.

All work is ©2013 Jonathan Wyke

Just a quick Wordsmith update. I'm doing the pages in batches, and here's one of the painted ones - unlettered as yet.

Wordsmith Issue One

Wordsmith, Issue One

This is one of the penciled pages from the upcoming Iron Age Productions' mini-series Wordsmith.

Please excuse my rather wobbly pencils - there's a reason I don't post my pencil work very often!

Alan Po discovers speaking his poetry has dark and powerful effects on the world around him. By Santana and Wyke. Coming late fall from Iron Age Productions.
Wordsmith is ©2011 Iron Age Productions. Writer Jon Santana. Artist Jonathan Wyke

Iron Age Productions site http://www.ironagecomics.com/ (under construction)
Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/pages/Iron-Age-Productions/11345501205


MangaStudio Pencils

Wordsmith

I've recently been contacted by Iron Age Productions to work on a six issue mini-series with them.

Wordsmith, written by Jon Santana, with art by me, is scheduled for late autumn publication, and follows Alan Po, who discovers that speaking his poetry aloud has a dark, powerful and very real effect on the world around him.

I'll be posting bits and pieces here of the development of the art - starting with some of the initial character designs, and going all the way through to the final, if un-lettered, pages.

Iron Age Productions are here on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/pages/Iron-Age-Productions/11345501205

Some doodling

I've recently been playing with some new software, and this is part of that process. I'm enjoying using MangaStudio and my Wacom as a sort of fancy digital sketch book, and these hand studies are part of the learning curve I'm on.