Collaboration

Lady Phantom

Dear Reader –

I haven’t been posting much lately, and there are three reasons for that:

  • First and foremost, having a baby boy (he just turned 5 months old) takes a lot of time and effort.
  • Second, with the advent of our child. me and my girlfriend are busy planning our future and working toward finding a home for our family.
  • Third, the project I’m working on – the one I have been teasing here and elsewhere:

ladyphantomtitlewhite

So what is Lady Phantom, you may wonder?

Lady Phantom is the title and main character of an upcoming superhero comic, written by Julie K. Taylor and drawn by R. Thomas Allwin (that’s right – me!). Now, don’t run off and try to find it quite yet, though – we are just starting out. For the past six months, we have been busy refining the original concept, working out the script, doing concept art and storyboards – now, we have all the preparations done and we are ready to start in earnest.

It’s going to be a while before the first issue is available.

I am just now putting pen to paper and starting the actual interior art, and between my day job and my family there’s only so much time to put it. Our plan is to start with a six-issue mini series and go from there.

Everything else will be in your hands, as readers and critics.

You will be able to follow our progress on the facebook page:

Lady Phantom

We will post updates, teasers, news and information about ourselves there – though of course there will be updates on here as well – so if you want the latest info as it happens, swing by and follow us there. Who knows, there may even be some surprises popping up there later on!

lpcoverpictwitter2

Welcome to Costa City!

Sketch of the Week (or not)

Dear Reader, I am afraid I owe you an apology.

I was supposed to have a sketch to show you this week, but between the heat, my back acting up, and a severe case of procrastination I have more work to do before I’m ready to show it to anyone. Instead I will post this picture of a recent wall painting I did with a dear friend of mine in her new apartment:

FlowersOnTheWallMontage

The overall design is based on a sketch I did which we then worked out the details on together. The painting itself is a collaboration, with her painting the stem and leaves and me painting all but three of the flowers. It took us seven hours from first to last brush stroke, but it was well-worth it!

Collaboration and Recommendation

“Never forget benefits done you, no matter how small.”
—Vietnamese proverb

 

My collaborator Richard Wright has announced that he is going to publish two eBooks of stories from his project The 52. However, instead of choosing which stories to publish he will let YOU decide! From each half of the project, Richard will pick the ten stories with the most reads on his page. So if you want to see the story inspired by my drawing in a collection, please click on the link below and have a read:

The Echo of Strangers
The Echo of Strangers

 

You can read more about Richard’s plans for the project in his post Story Idol III.

Apart from this, life is keeping me busy as ever. I’m putting the final touches on a new short story, I’m wrestling with an art commission that has given me exceptional amounts of trouble and made me doubt if I’d ever draw anything decent again (people talk of writer’s block, but let me tell you – illustrator’s block is just as dispiriting!) and I’m trying to map out my writing, blogging and drawing goals for the next few months.

So far, so good.

I’ll leave you with another recommendation: this year’s winner of Norway’s Got Talent, Angelina Jordan, is well worth a listen. 8 years old, with the voice of an old soul, she does the loveliest renditions of old jazz tunes. If she can keep her love of music and cultivate her talent and voice, she’ll have a glorious career ahead of her. Check out the winning performance below:

 

The Echo of Strangers

“The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.”
— Louis-Ferdinand Céline

The Echo of Strangers

I made this little sketch for author Richard Wright‘s project The 52 – an ambitious undertaking to create 52 short stories in as many weeks, inspired by art and photographs submitted specifically for this purpose.

Today, he published our collaboration The Echo of Strangers.

We hope you like it!