One of the things I’ve been working on, well, two of them actually, comes to leave my hands and go to the hands of others soon enough.

The first, Dr Sylver and the Tapestry of Time, hits shelves in April after the most protracted birth of any of my projects, ever. Oh boy.

The second hits shelves before hand, despite only having been worked on since Christmas in any real sense. It’s been a theraputic piece of work in some ways, exciting in others. Ladies and Gentlemen meet Wombat and Wambot. It’s the tale of a small, furry amnesiac and his large robotic counterpart. Fairly obviously the name came first and the story… Well, there’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that in there. Sometime soon it becomes my own and then, shortly after, it’s going to be given over to others: much like the Big Book Draw the fun of Project Wombat is that others will fill in the middle up until the last page or so. That part will be the most fun of all. I had intended to show the project off sometime in the Summer but with the release of Brushes on the iPad in a months time it makes more sense to try and hit before then which has compressed my stretching out and relaxing time to a small, stressed ball of lack of time off. Still, I do love working on a project so hey ho, all part of the game.

Anyhow if you’re so inclined you could join the twitter feed at @wombatwambot or add the facebook page here… The more the merrier (and of course the more would help me out in showing the project off to others in the future so any adds would be gratefully appreciated).

((or click here for the bigger version ))

A couple of no-shows excepted we’re going great guns on the Book Draw. Some lovely artwork, both from well known names and well liked students is coming in and will be available for people to use on the day… This, above, may well be the centrepiece – an A1 image with fish printed on it from all of the people who’ve sent in artwork and a couple of others besides with a couple more to come… It’ll have a sheet of acetate over it that can have fish drawn on by the participants of the book draw itself. Should look interesting. Not 100% sure if it’ll work or not, but am intrigued to know how it’ll turn out on the day.

Apart from that events over the past couple of days have left me wondering if the entire education system in this country is fundamentally broken from cradle to grave. Very demoralising and two people said to me the same thing – be part of the solution… But the problem is that there is no money, courses and tutors are being cut without consideration, teaching power is being taken away from teachers and so on… I don’t know how I can be part of the solution to that. Tricksome and defeating, at the moment anyhow.

Still, book draw on Sat and hopefully it’ll be fun. Hope, hope, hope…

Have added the three new names: Mr Scruff, Kieron Gillen and David Petersen which is a bit exciting for me

((Also yes, did realise that the poster below mispells rehearsal. Ooops. In my defence I simply copied and pasted from an email but it is fixed now)).

So far getting some positive responses from people I’m asking re: the Big Book Draw. Still a little light on musicians, which is a shame as I love music so much, but apart from that have some ace names on the list. Here’s a prelim poster, more to come.

So: planning for October already: got the venue sorted – the lovely St Saviour’s church in Guildford. Its a fab venue: accessible, light, airy, perfect for drawing and creating something in. Hurrah.

Also the date is nailed down so if you’d like to come to a 5th Annual Big Book Draw in Guildford pencil in October the 17th. It’s gonna be all sorts of ace.

((I’ve also bought all the shrink plastic in anticipation and am now keeping an eye out for materials. More n that later…))

So, image above, process animation to come… Still loving brushes although I did have my first crash yesterday on this very image and, more worryingly it took out the image I was working on in its entirety. Fortunately I had just duplicated the picture (well, not too many steps beforehand) so… Well… Still loving it but that one worried me a little.

((edit1: updated image slightly. Added some shadows and glows.))