We moved!

This is just a quickie to remind you that if you subscribe to the SelfMadeHero blog via RSS feed, then we'd moving the feed at the beginning of November. The only difference you'll see on the blog, is the improved "Share" function at the bottom of each post. If you're interested, we moved the blog from Blogger to Wordpress. Our Flickr, Twitter and Vimeo feeds remain the same.

So... this is the new feed:

http://www.selfmadehero.com/news/feed/

See you on the other side!

Original artwork from 'GONZO' on display at the That's Novel exhibition at London Print Studio

Original artwork from 'GONZO' on display at the That's Novel exhibition at London Print Studio
Originally uploaded by SelfMadeHero

RSS subscribers: we're moving! (come with us)

This is just a quickie to say that if you subscribe to the SelfMadeHero blog via RSS feed, then we're moving the feed. The only difference you'll see on the blog, is the improved "Share" function at the bottom of each post. If you're interested, we're moving the blog from Blogger to Wordpress. Our Flickr, Twitter and Vimeo feeds remain the same.

So... this is the new feed:

http://www.selfmadehero.com/news/feed/

See you on the other side!

Guest blogger Rob Davis: Don Quixote and the Truth of Colour

Quixote sneaks out first thing in the morning, so early the sky is green.

I'll start with a mammoth digression (hang in there):

My good friend/Landlord/illustration mentor, Mike Charlton, and I once spent an entire lunch break arguing about truth in colour. We sat on his porch looking out over sunny Salisbury with him taking up his post-war rationalist opposition to my post-acid arty position, we pointed out shadows and highlights and bickered about their true colour. The conclusion he drew, in his usual acerbic manner, was that I either had a visionary eye for colour or I was just making it up. Now we weren't arguing about the existence of fairies or aliens, but the insinuation was the same - his argument was that the colours you see in Van Gogh are not what he sees they are an invention of the imagination. My argument (and yes, Mike, I'm still here making it!) is that art is about learning how to see so you let other people see too.

Hmmm... you can see the weight of Mike's case about me being full of shit – he's the one who made me see art as a job rather than some airy fairy mission to understand. The irony is Mike would use colour in a visionary way, but he'd just say he was doing what worked best for the picture not what the world really looked like to him.

I can't help wondering how much the arrival of photography impacted on how we see and what we believe about 'how things really look'. It is an aspect of seeing (with one-eye) that tells us so much, but not everything.

What has this got to do with cartooning, you ask, is he about to launch into a tirade against comic artists who trace photos for a living? Well, no, this is just a preamble to me showing you a few panels from Don Quixote Volume One. And the thing that you'll probably notice is the colours are a bit wangdoodle.

I've long found myself with a foot in both camps when it comes to drawing comics - out and out cartooning, with its possibilities for the pictures becoming graphemes, on one side and more 'realistic' action comic art, with its attraction of turning the mechanics of light and shade to schematics on the other. But with colour I don't see that dichotomy. Hopefully the drawing doesn't show the constant wrestling between cartoony and realisticy as a problem.

Don Quixote has given me the opportunity to put all of my ideas into practice – the book is all about perception and deception after all – I may well fall flat on my face like Quixote does, but I love the idea of being either a visionary or full of shit. Comics let you do that, and there's an audience for both.

This follows the big panel at the top of the post. It's later in the morning on the same day. The heat is in the land already, but the sky is still waking up.

 

It's late in the day when he arrives.

 That night at the inn and Quixote gets in a scrap. The night in this case is ochre, I wanted the night to feel warm.

Daft idea this – I tried to mix my colours of warm night with my green morning to give a symbolic lighting. It's a portentous moment and I borrowed the composition from those famous knight getting dubbed illustrations of yore. Of course the pomposity of the whole thing undermined somewhat.

This last one is representative of the whole of chapter two where all the backgrounds are bright yellow. It's a hot day, ok? I have a feeling the look of this chapter may have been influenced by the old Kia-Ora ad.

Guest blogger, I.N.J. Culbard: HERE BE MONSTERS!!! (and spoilers!!!)

It's really difficult to talk about At the Mountains of Madness without spoiling the story. So if you've never read it, go buy the book and come back and read this post later.

Often Lovecraft's creatures are 'unimaginable, indescribable' horrors. Things beyond the human spectrum of understanding. Fortunately, however, during Professor Lake's autopsy of one of the Elder Things we get a pretty good description of one of these... fellas.

"Six feet end to end, three and five-tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish stalks, are at equator in middle of these ridges. In furrows between ridges are curious growths – combs or wings that fold up and spread out like fans... which gives almost seven-foot wing spread. Arrangement reminds one of certain monsters of primal myth, especially fabled Elder Things in [the] Necronomicon."

The descriptions go on and we even get a detailed account of the creature's internal organs.

Now, since Lovecraft wrote those words the Elder Things have been drawn many times and because the description is so clear they all look vaguely similar. What I wanted to do with my Elder Things was suggest some practical movement. Notably the head, a starfish shape, as a gestural component. 

I wrote the adaptation appropriately in the winter when Britain, good old Blighty, seemed to have forgotten how to cope with the sudden snowfall.  When it came to drawing the book it was spring and there were tulips in our garden. I took to imagining them made of meat and that gave me the physical, gestural function for the head. Then plants took to being my inspiration for a lot of the finer details – like the bottom half of the Mi-Go looking more like bulb roots, their heads like the seed heads of a dandelion only considerably exaggerated and thicker.

An Elder Thing

Coming back to The Elder Things – the brain was nothing more than a cauliflower even if it was a brain more advanced than our own. All hopefully culminating in something that would likely, ironically, put you off your dinner.

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I.N.J. Culbard's graphic novel adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness is out today from all good bookshops. It can also be order from our online store for £10.49.
The author's first signing will be at Leeds' Thought Bubble Festival on Saturday 20th November, when he'll take requests to draw any monster from Lovecraft's Necronomicon on the title page at no extra cost. Don't say we don't give you anything.