Feral Fergus Book Launch

Finally getting around to blogging about the book launch for Feral Fergus, my newest picture book with Sioban Timmer. We worked together on Toughen Up, Princess a couple of years ago, and now we're back with a new book in full colour!

Sioban and Moi:

The launch was held on September 2nd at the Amherst Community Hall in Gosnells. We had quite a crowd!

Our publisher, Cate Rocci of Jasper Books, spoke first, then I did a presentation about the creation of Fergus as a character, starting with my initial meeting with Sioban, where she told me she envisaged a cross between Alfred Newman of MAD Magazine, Ginger Meggs and Fido Dido, though various character sketches right through to the final character:

 

(My father took this photo, he is a master at catching me in weird expressions :P)

Sioban then took to the stage to discuss her role as the writer, while I provided some entertainment and drew Fergus on the whiteboard behind her:

After that we signed books:

We also had a colouring table set up for the kids, with some colouring pages of Fergus. You can download the pages to colour yourself from my website here. The colouring page pack also features the Feral Name Generator that is included in the book. You'll see from the photos that everyone is wearing a name badge - not with their real-world name, but with their feral name. If you're curious as to yours, go download the pack!

Thanks to Ken Mutton, Jane Hilton and Sioban Timmer for the photos.

I'll blog more about Fergus in the near future. I've been so busy with various projects it's been difficult to find time to blog about anything!

Morning Ablutions

Some privacy, please!

"Buttercup" for Colour Collective. There are daffodils in our garden at the moment, so naturally the yellow made me think of them. I tossed up for a while whether I would feature a black cat, as in my previous few CCs, or return to my Myrna series. In the end I chose a cat, but I would choose a very tricky pose, wouldn't I? =P It took a bit longer than planned, because I was exhausted after an extremely busy day, but I got it finished in good time, so never mind. 

Adobe Photoshop CC2017 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2, about 2 to 2.5 hours in total.

By The Window

Here's the little piece I did for Colour Collective's 'Cordovan' prompt. I'm still practicing cats. 

This had its start as a sketch on my father's iPad Pro. We had the electricians in, so the power was off. I had a multitude of things I should have been doing, ranging from drawing or typesetting for work to cooking dinner or practicing the piano, but they all required electricity (my Cintiq Companion has almost no battery life. Last time I ran on battery I got 20 minutes out of it (after which it shut down without warning), and my piano is in a very dark room so I need the lights on) so I picked up the iPad and started doodling. I quite liked it as a concept, but it was horribly full of mistakes (look at the length of her legs, oops) so I thought it would serve as a good starting point for Colour Collective:

This was a quick piece, a bit over two hours overall (plus half an hour or so for that original sketch). I don't have much time to labour over Colour Collective pieces, but I like to squeeze them in as a change of pace from whatever I'm working on at the time. I enjoy coming up with something for colours I might not ordinarily use.

Adobe Photoshop CC2017 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2

A Spot of Divination

Way back in highschool I drew a little witch with a goose (The goose was suggested by Monty Python-loving friends) and the other day she made a reappearance in a very quick bedtime sketch. I rather liked her, and other people seemed to as well, so the next day I spent a little time working her up into something better. I had a bit of a cold and it was nice to just draw something pointless, curled up on the couch. 

Here's the original sketch. Full of mistakes, as super-quick bedtime sketches are apt to be. Things changed rather a lot from this to the final!

Adobe Photoshop CC2017 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2. The sketch took under 20 minutes, the final took about two hours.

Some Bollywood Portraits

The other day, through a roundabout way, I found myself looking at photos from vintage Bollywood films. And I decided to sketch one:

This is Madhubala. Not a very good likeness. =P I sketched her on my father's iPadPro in about half an hour.

I was using Procreate, which recorded my process, but skipped some of it, for some reason. Here's a look at that:

A post shared by Alison Mutton (@alene.art) on Jul 30, 2017 at 11:43am PDT

The next day I thought I'd do another. So this is Laxmi Chhaya:

Again, not the best likeness. And again, Procreate didn't record all of my process. Odd. (You'll need to swipe over for the video)

A post shared by Alison Mutton (@alene.art) on Jul 31, 2017 at 9:37am PDT

A few days later I was feeling really terrible with a flare-up of my trigeminal neuralgia, and while I wasn't planning on another sketch portrait, I couldn't get my brain to focus on anything where I had to think. So I drew Nimmi:

This time I did get Procreate to record the whole process. (Again, swipe over for the video)

A post shared by Alison Mutton (@alene.art) on Aug 2, 2017 at 11:57am PDT

Oops! Sorry!

When Colour Collective came up with 'Portland Orange' I just knew I had to head into the Australian outback. Such a vibrant red-orange, perfect for Kimberley red dust!

I had such fun with the last CC I did, middle-grade-style linework with one-colour(ish) accents, that I decided to do that again this time. 

I chose to feature an echidna (because they're fabulous) and a spinifex hopping mouse (because they are the cutest things ever). Most of my time was spent on the echidna, because of all those spines. Now I remember why I don't often draw them! =P

Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2. About 2 hours, using Kyle Webster's brushes (China Marker, Perfect Pencil, Gouache a Go Go and Gouache Bonus Gritty Dry) 

Abandoned Graveyard

Colour Collective's "Pearl" prompt made me think of statues. And since I didn't want to go literal and draw actual pearls, I thought I'd run with that:

This went through several incarnations in the sketch phase. I started out with an Indian-style statue overgrown with jungle plants, and featuring monkeys. That was inspired by The Jungle Book. But then I decided I didn't feel like drawing monkeys and switched to a Grecian Muse type statue and squirrels. And then I decided that an overgrown cemetery was more atmospheric. I rather ran out of time, too - suddenly discovering I had a good two hours less to work on this than I'd expected. I was nearly finished, but if I had had the extra time I would have fixed up the squirrel on her head, which looks a bit stiff. 

There are 12 critters in this - two of them are very hard to spot.

Adobe Photoshop CC2017 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2. 2.5 to 3 hours.