Death and Taxes

Well it’s been a busy old time since my last post. I have spent most of the past few months working with games designer Andy Hobday on Death and Taxes, a 112 page campaign supplement for The Barons’ War miniature wargame.

I have worked on the design and layout of the book, provided illustrations and painted some of the Paul Hicks sculpted miniatures that feature in the book. Working on a project like this is a real joy, allowing me to indulge in all the aspects of art and design that I enjoy.

Templar Knights painted for the Death and Taxes book.

I’m happy to say that there is more on the way for Barons’ War and I will be working with Andy and Footsore Miniatures & Games on some really exciting new projects, as well as revisiting some existing favourites!

The priest of St Oswald’s church, as featured in the book, Death and Taxes.

Savage Frontier

Friday saw the launch of a brand new Kickstarter campaign from Footsore miniatures and games.

Savage Frontier is a new range of 28mm miniatures sculpted by Stavros Zouliatis for wargaming the French and Indian war.

I have provided illustrations and produced the graphics for the Kickstarter campaign and also cover art for the forthcoming rule book.

You can check out the campaign here.

Lockdown

Here is my cover art for the brand new book in the Lucy Wilson Mysteries series, Lockdown.

Here’s the blurb from publisher Candy Jar books….

Earth is in lockdown. But for Lucy Wilson, staying home doesn’t mean staying safe.

Dinosaurs, killer plants, even Meme Lords – some enemies just don’t respect social distancing. So Lucy and her brainbox sidekick Hobo have no choice but to come to Earth’s defence again – although never forgetting to stay two metres away from each other!

In this collection of short stories, Lucy finds herself contending with the challenges of a pandemic, while continuing to rise to the mantle of her legendary grandfather, Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. 

The Lucy Wilson Mysteries is a Lethbridge-Stewart spin-off adventure inspired by characters created for Doctor Who by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln. 

The royalties from this book will be donated to NHS charities. Whatever is raised Candy Jar will double. This book is available exclusively through Candy Jar and will not be available via any other retailers.

Lockdown is available to purchase here

Tunnel Fighter Time Lapse

My work in the tabletop games industry is continuing. I am illustrating and designing all sorts of things for miniature games such as logos, card art, dice, tokens and even the miniatures themselves! Alongside my children’s comics and book work it has meant that I have had to become a very versatile artist. It keeps things interesting and I have had a lot of fun developing different art styles for different projects.

Yesterday I took a bit of time out to draw something just for fun. Sticking with the theme of tabletop games I drew a Dwarf tunnel fighter. Here is a time lapse video of the drawing, enjoy!

Steve.

Mortal Gods

So in my last post I mentioned a move into the tabletop games industry!

Over the last year or so have been working closely with Footsore Miniatures and Games as a designer and illustrator on their tabletop miniatures game Mortal Gods.

The game’s theme is set in the Classical Greek period and players battle each other with war bands of Hoplites which are represented on the tabletop with miniature figures which the player will build and paint. If you’re familiar at all with Warhammer it’s that kind of thing.

The stats and rules for the warriors in the game are displayed on decks of cards, and it’s these cards that I have been illustrating. It’s been great fun to be able to work in a style very different to my usual humour stuff I do for the kids comics.

I took a lot of inspiration for the art style from the black and white art seen in the Commando comics published by DC Thomson.

This work is ongoing with the game proving popular, we are looking to expand the game beyond the Greeks and have it cover the Bronze Age period as a whole.

Also coming very soon will be a Mythic supplement so players can play out the adventures of Perseus and Jason and the Argonauts!

Here is some of my art from the game, enjoy!

I’ve been Time Trekking!

Crikey! It seems my last blog post was back in January! Where does the time go?

Well time plays a part in the absence of updates on this page, in fact time travel.

Since being back at the drawing board after the Christmas break I have been very busy illustrating a brand new 8 book series for Badger Learning, TIME TREK.

Time Trek is written by Scream Street author Tommy Donbavand and follows the adventures of two children, Spike and Mia as they chase Spike’s uncle Dr Darius Dire through time as he seeks to steal famous historical artefacts for his museum.

The books are bright, bold, colourful and loads of fun and are designed to get reluctant readers reading!

Spike and Mia chase Dr Dire and his grumpy cat Igor through lot’s of exciting time periods, and include encounters with Julius Caesar, Vincent Van Gogh, Cleopatra and William Shakespeare.

Working as the illustrator on these books was immense fun, I had a blast designing the cast of characters and drawing cartoon versions on the famous historical figures. I particularly enjoyed drawing War Over Waterloo featuring of course Emperor Napoleon Boneparte.

Napoleon loses his temper with Dr Dire!

We also deviated slightly from being entirely historically accurate, when Dr Dire attempts to steal Excalibur!

Spike and Mia meet the Knights of the Round Table.

All the artwork for the series was pencilled, inked and coloured using iPad pro and an apple pencil. Above you can see the process in 3 stages. Working this way really does streamline the whole process and particularly helps when working to a tight deadline.

I really enjoy working on the Badger titles, this one being my 3rd book series for them. I hope they prove popular and I am able to do some more.

As well as the illustrations I also designed the masthead for the title. Those graphic design skills still come in handy!

Here is a preview of all the book covers, they will be available soon so I hope you will check them out!

Watch this space for some news about another time travel related project I’ve been working on too!

Strange Town!

I was excited to receive copies of the brand new book series I was working on towards the end of last year. Strange Town is a collection of 8 books written by Danny Pearson and illustrated by yours truly!

Published by Badger Learning, the books follow the adventures of Eva, Logan and sausage dog Otis, as they investigate the strange goings on in Strange Town.

The Strange Town team encounter a whole host of interesting characters during their adventures. They give Bigfoot a make over, help a norse god get fit and even fend off an alien invasion!

The books are designed to appeal to reluctant readers and are available to order now from Badger’s website here.

I had a blast illustrating these books and I really hope young readers will have a blast reading them too!

The eight, 32 page books in the set are titled: Bigfoot Rescue, Extra Time, Going Underground, Rubbish Invasion, Shopping Spree, Thor Next Door, The Space Kitten, The Iron Stones.

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to pay a visit to Strange Town!

 

Time for Toots AGAIN!

It’s nice to see that my Bash Street Kids mini strip series, Time for Toots is getting a rerun over on Beano.com. You can read it here! https://www.beano.com/posts/toots-food-rush and more here.. https://www.beano.com/categories/comic-strips

Strange Goings On!

Well things have been getting a bit strange around here lately. I am currently very busy scribbling a brand new series of books for publisher Badger Learning. The series follows friends Logan and Eva and doggy companion Otis as they encounter all manner of weird and wonderful characters and mysterious stuff. It’s all very exciting and I’m having great fun bringing these adventures to life and working with author Danny Pearson. The books are due to be released in January 2017. you can read all about the series here..

In other news The Beano comic has had a bit of a revamp, some new snazzy design work and a new masthead but otherwise business as usual. I’ve been carrying on illustrating puzzles regularly for the comic which I enjoy, it allows me to draw a lot of the lead characters.

Beano.com has also had a facelift and I am pleased to say some of my work has made it on there too. You can currently read a few episodes of Time for Toots online here..

That’s all for now!
Steve

The Time Lord and Toots!

The current issue of The Beano features the Doctor looking for a new companion to join him on his time travelling escapades. Is Toots interested in joining him? You still have TIME to grab a copy and find out…

Artwork © DC Thomson & Co Ltd.