Gator Man figure for Table Display at Conventions.

This year I've focussed my convention table more and more on the WesterNoir series.

Adding 6 inch figures of Josiah Black and Cassidy McRae to try to make my table stand out a little against the sea of tables of great comics books around me.

The figures certainly drew people to the table and I had some really interesting chats with people I would not had met had the figures not been there.

But I need to add some monsters.

I love Gary's design for the Gator Men, first seen in issue 2, and so this monster was the obvious choice.

The first thing I do when pinging figures is lay down a flat layer of the base colour. This layer is watered down a little as I want it to fill all the little cracks and holes. There's nothing worse than seeing a little bit of grey when you look in detail at your finished work.

The eyes are the first thing I actually paint as it's easier to move the skin to the eyes than it is to paint the right size and shape of eye onto the skin colour.

I was tempted throughout to paint the iris and pupil in but love the way the orange stands out against the green and so left it as is.

Putting a lighter layer for the skin gives the figure its three dimensional feel. I actually stopped the lighter green on this time, playing with it as I felt it better reflected a crocodile's skin.

Picking out the detail of the sales on his back with a little green, accentuated but a darker green circle around it ... I love the way this came out.

Then adding a dark blue for the jeans base colour. 

Yes, there are two figures, one for the Convention Table and the other for the WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter.

A nice brown belt and a simple dark brown base (I don't like the bases to be too busy as they distract from the figure).

and he's done.

Very happy with how he came out.

Just submitted my WesterNoir Tales for Review on Kickstarter

It's been a while since I used Kickstarter but am happy to say that, whilst it has changed a little, I could still work things out.

You can check it out at:- WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter

WesterNoir Tales

This weekend I'll be working on the Kickstarter for our collected WesterNoir Tales.

WesterNoir Tales is a collection of the tales in the three published Tales of WesterNoir, and includes some new tales and also things that we didn't find room for in the ongoing series.

The stories are all by Gary and/or myself but the art is from a lot of people we admire, and are friends, in the independent comic book scene.

Originally the printed tales were in greyscales but Gary and I have been colouring pages for a few months now, adding to some pages already coloured by Matt Soffe, and the book is now fully coloured and pretty much ready.

Here's the first view of the cover... by Gary Crutchley, coloured by Matt Soffe and designed by Andy Bloor, as always.

Well, that was EPIC

I really enjoy the Cons in Glasgow.

Jemma, my daughter, spent 4 years there doing her BA and I always enjoyed the city when visiting.

Steve and I have been to a few now, but this time we were forced to get an apartment in the city centre due to the ridiculously high priced hotel rooms. Turns out this worked out really well though as there were more food places to choose from and plenty of great little pubs. Also the trip in to the venue was only two stops on the train from the station that was only 10 minutes away from the apartment.

Yes, we'll be looking to do that again.

The two day event was busy for us on the Saturday and not so busy on the Sunday.

All in all we did pretty well though and were happy with the number of books we sold, the number of people we chatted to and the interest everyone showed in what we are doing. It was also great catching up with fellow creators.

I was particularly pleased that we sold some WesterNoir figures and badges.

It all helps 😀

I took this photo of Steve behind the banners
as I think it's kinder to everyone.

Had a great time and am looking forward to doing it all again in March.

EPIC Con in Glasgow

Steve and I are off up North on Friday for this weekend's ACME Con in Glasgow.

It's favourite of ours and one we look forward to.

Pop over and say 'Hi' if you're in the area.

WesterNoir TPB has a second printing.

 With a new cover...

and it looks great (thanks to Andy Bloor as always for pulling it together and making it look so professional).

For those of you who have been with us from the very beginning, yes, we've just to cover for from the very first black and white issue. I really love this cover and thought it deserved a chance to be seen again, and for a longer time.

To keep costs down we've not printed French Flaps on the Second Printing. This will make the first printings all the more special, and we will continue to have French Flaps on the covers of all first printed TPBs, the next one being the collected WesterNoir Tales, as we're now calling it.

This is also the first book to carry my new imprint West Words, although to be fair most of the words in the book are by Gary Crutchley.. hope he doesn't notice.

London Film and Comic Con

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since the Con now, and as tiring as it was I won't put the lateness of this post down to that entirely.

It was a two day event thais year, the Fridays of previous events just weren't worth the additional costs and thankfully to show organisers saw the logic in this.

Saturday was a bit quiet we found, and I think this was down to the hordes of people who had paid good money to meet Mel Gibson, for photos .. signings and who knows what else. These people buy the tickets had the knock on effect that not a lot of people interested on comics books were able, or willing, to face the queues.

We were in the smaller hall this years which pushed the comics up to the mezzanine level and whilst signage wasn't great, people did know that there was more to see upstairs. 

I focussed on WesterNoir (the poster with its back to the camera is the WesterNoir banner, letting people down below know that we were upstairs).

There was lots of interest in WesterNoir on the Sunday, comics, figures and the new badges, which was great and Sunday turned out to be a pretty good day.

LFCC is a very well organised and run show. 

The Mel Gibson factor was unexpected and there were many more signature hunters then I'd ever seen before but we still had an enjoyable weekend. 

Our table buddy this year was James Gray and we'll be inviting him back to join us next year, so he must have been ok 😀