Look at me with a Guy Davis rendition of The Businessman from Amperduke.

Another Guy sketch of one of my characters here

Hewwo fwends! I was fiddling with the textures again last night and made a little video of it all. This piece took about 8-10 mins in total

The highlights are done with the FX Glow brush. The art was done on paper with a 0.7 HB pencil and I had macaroni and cheese/lasagne kind of thing for dinner. Then I smoked a number and got some stank on my hang-low.

Yes, stop making the Irish Language compulsory in schools. Read this for more.
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So besides trying to increase my Google ranking for my pet hates I’ve been messing around with Corel Painter this week.

Looking at it now the textures are a bit corny but it was fun playing with them. The only other time I’ve used textures really was this thing and it drove me mad with all the layers.

The easiest way to add textures to your pics is to use the ‘Overlay’ layer option in Photoshop or Painter. Just grap a photo of some rust and plop it on top and you look like you know what you’re doing. It’s like having one dance move that you can milk for 4 hours.

I’m going to Brussels tomorrow for the Smurf exhibition in the comic museum thing. I love the Smurfs, Always have and always will.

Found these old designs from around 7 years ago. SEVEN fucking years ago! Wowzers. Time certainly flies when you having fun. Having fun or in the throes of crippling depression, one or the other, s’all good.

These were all done in Corel Photopaint. An outdated but great photo editing thing.

I have some deadly colour 2000AD work coming soon. So tie a knot in your willy to remind yourself you big dummy.

Yep fwendydoodles and snuggy bears it’s 24 Hour comic day tomorrow and I plan to do a bit of drawing, probably at home away from the giddy and sleep deprived. After a YEAR of computer problems, indolence and swanning around I finally have last years attempt scanned.

I drew 18 pages in 10ish hours last year. Poncho drew this one. I wasn’t really into doing it last year but I made a good stab at it. I picked one of the random titles but I can’t remember what it was AND I think I drew an extra page to warp it up which I can’t find.

Again, like the first one I did, it’s about destroying as much space on the page as fast as possible.

So here it is……….

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I moved into a new apartment and the grounds are all very well maintained by oompah loompahs or invisible caretakers. Every thing is spotless. But this morning I noticed there are little green boxes dotted around outside to catch mice or rats. I think it’s unfair. Yeah you can kill every pest INSIDE the apartment block but is it right to kill them outside? In their own environment. It’s like arresting people before they commit the crimes in Minority Report.

I fucking hate rats and mice. I’m like a menopausal wuss when I see them. But neh, I think it’s weird to kill them outside. After clawing acres of greenery away to build houses we should leave them little tea party sets and top hats instead of poison.

Finally got down to some artwork last night and its like a weight off my shoulders. These lads are for a new Twisted Tales

Wahey! It’s Thursday and I’ve a got a hot shit in the chamber!

I’m working on a NEW Amperduke 6 pager for The Judge Dredd Megazine and it’s going to knock your socks off. It’s another glimpse into the weird going ons in that dark basement we’ve all come to love. It’s a really sad story though, I got all choked up writing it.

Check this nonsense out. The first one is from the original Mister Amperduke 6 pager in 2003 and the other one is from last month. Spot the difference. It was a killer finishing the graphic novel because it was only in the Epilogue that I finally figured out how to draw the main character.

Remember when I used to draw comics?

It’s been a month since I’ve been able to draw any comics and it’s driving me nuts. After the holidays, moving house and my graphics card going gay on me, I haven’t been able to work. I’ve been drawing on paper like a madman but doing no story telling.

It’s a massive pain in the hole. I genuinely get anxious and depressed when I can’t work. There was a horrible time in my early 20’s when I just couldn’t get it together and was just pissing away my time with undesirables and I never felt so depressed. Heh, there was a thing in The Irish Times last weekend about me and today my inbox is full of messages from dopes and tramps from that era.

I have to try keep up with what’s happening in the news. Apparently all the banks nearly collapsed last week? I’m amazingly out of touch of world events, makes me wonder if there were people around in 1939-45 who had no idea of a World War raging around them. Some dopey Italian who lives alone in a basement fixing bike chains or something.

I was reading some of my Mam’s diary things over the weekend and thought of the short lived but hilarious comic I made of her. I thought nobody but my two bro’s would laugh at it but a friend tells me
it’s funny so here it is.

A similarly rushed comic can be found here.

Wiggedy wizzle. Back AGAIN. I was back again last week but now I’m truly back again. I got Salmonella poisoning, moved all my stuff to the new house, finally saw Batman and loads of other stuff in the past week. Salmonella makes your shit turn green. Frightened the life out of me. I have a story where my crap turned luminous orange too.

Here is something wonderful. We bought a suitcase full of kid’s things, books, clothes etc to Cuba to give to a local charity. This was on a packet of markers. A wizard dogging a happy little panda!

Cuba is a nutty place. Actually crumbling as you walk around. Physically falling apart on front you. Plus there’s the whole ‘end of an era’ vibe as Fidel concedes power to his brother. This photo I took while being held hostage by one of the many sponger/scammers we met typifies the general scruffiness of the place.

The moochers are rampant over there. Everyone gets a measly state salary so they all are looking for strokes. In the space of half an hour we were accosted 5 or 6 times; caricaturists, dudes with guitars, poets and old fashioned beggars who can’t think an angle other than to hold a new born puppy and dangle it on front of you. A big thing is getting commission for steering tourists into restaurants. We were in a CoCo Taxi on the way to a museum and next thing I know I’m being led into a lavish restaurant by the driver all confused.

A wonderful thing called a CoCo Taxi. Ridiculously funny way to travel

Another highlight was this little girl mauling a fokking snake, waving it around and mashing its head into the bars like it’s a doll.

I was amazed to see that every postcard preconception I had was right. Like if you were American and thought Ireland was full of cottages and Aran jumpers but you get here and see the swanky metropolis, every stereotypical image I expected to see, I saw. The big cars, dudes chomping cigars, everything. And none of it contrived or phoney. Well the fantastic Cuban bands playing in the bars are obviously the equivalent of my mates who make a living soullessly shouting rebel songs in the pubs in Temple Bar.

That pic was taken from the lobby our hotel. Delightfully scruffy. Loads of police over there though so you feel safe mostly. Plus every street has a little rat who sits on a deckchair who calls the real cops if there’s trouble.

But I’m now fascinated with seeing socialism in action. The disdainful and lazy workers, the open manhole covers on the street, no shops whatsoever but a weird sense that somebody else is going to take care of you, like a kind Mr Amperduke figure who looks after all your bills and housing and will give you pocket money if you pitch in and serve tourists ice cream or harvest sugar.

A fantastic towel sculpture by the grateful and well tipped cleaning lady. Hotel workers make more than doctors over there because of the gratuities

Definitely worth a visit. It can’t physically last another two decades as it is. I took hundreds of pics but mostly of old dilapidated buildings which gets sort of repetitive but I put a few up on Flickr.

I’ll scan the horrendous and decent caricatures I got as soon as my jaysis computer is fixed.