Frazer Irving

2009-07-21T16:45:00.003+01:00

MORTALS.

So I jet off to SDCC in less than 24 hours of this writing, and I figured it'd be a good time to post my limited signing/appearance schedule up for those who want to come and say hello.

On thursday I will be at the Days Missing panel from 2.30-3.30 pm in Room 3, followed by signing at the Roddenberry booth #2734 from 4.00-5.30 pm.

Then on Friday I'm at the Top Cow booth from 11.00-12.00 noon.

Other than that I may well be lurking around the 2000AD booth #2301 over the rest of the weekend as well as the DC booth and the bar. Seeya there, possibly :D

MADNESS

2009-07-15T15:30:00.002+01:00

Aloha! I wave to you internet people from the hot and sticky cell that is Irving Towers, as I suffer the unpredicatble heat of a British summer and cough up gunk created by some sort of cold virus thingy I got at the weekend.

It's been rather busy here since the last update, not to mention frustrating as my internet kept going up, then down, then up etc. Now that the most important deadlines have been hit, my connection seems stable. I swear technology is self-aware and is prone to irritating me on purpose. This may well be due to the way I run my Mac ragged with my unreasonable demands whilst i draw at super speeds. Potatoshop crashed on avergae 5 times a day when I was at my busiest this month, so I suspect the machines want a peice of me.

For this update though, I have a cover for a new 3 part mini series from DC Comics called "Arkham Reborn", and it's all about the famous Arkham Asylum that Batman keeps sending nutters like the Joker to. i get to do all 3 covers, and here I present to you the sketch, the final, and some mid stages.

Cool! I like it. It's nice to do covers again, especially ones that have the kind of creative freedom as this.

Talking of creative freedom, GUTSVILLE has been cancelled from Diamond's books for teh time being because noone was sure when the next issue would ship, which is fair (though I would have rather not found out reading about it on twitter) but allow me to reassure loyal readers that I am still going to finish the story...though the current plan is to finish all 3 remaining issues before resoliciting them to avoid any further delays. So far, issue 4 is done and in between now and me receiving scripts for my 3 part run on Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin I shall be doing issues 5 and 6. The aim of this is to ensure that it looks as good as I can make it whilst also managing to pay the rent and fund my filthy habit of Eating.

Right, I got a week to beat this bug and get loadsa art done before I jet off to San Diego for this years Comicon! Awesome! I also need Tea!!

F xx

X-Men!

2009-06-11T18:40:00.002+01:00

Greets peeps

All is well in Irving Towers, tho the internet silence is down to the masses of art that my goblins have been creating over the past 2 months. Azrael wrapped up just in time for me to start art on my X-men Timestorm issue, which I present below:

Since that got wrapped up last week I have been scribbling away at a new job for Archaia, titled "Days Missing" and will post previews when that stuff is done too, tho that deadline is way tighter than normal so I may have to go underground again for a while.

And after that, we get some more Gutsville action. And after that, some Batman and Robin action. Wooop! Now I hope i can get a replacement passport in time to travel to San Diego Comicon next month....

Bus Bum

2009-04-09T23:04:00.002+01:00

People!

Gather round me, and hear my words: weekend travelcards should be half price if I only get to use half the frikkin service!!! Let's march for discounts!

Or not, cos I'm warm and cosy at home now, after another 5 hour trek on nighttransport. Pff, let them keep their money. It's amazing how tranquil one can feel with central heating, a nice internet connection and a cup of Baileys Coffee beside me. Anyway, onto the art:

This is a page from Azrael issue 1 which came out last month (on time too, naysayers). I decided to show a bit of the page process cos some people asked me, and I have no completed covers yet to show you. So what ye see above is the sketch, the layout that I use to base all the tricky arting on. Loose, eh? You betcha.

This next stage is where I use my ink layer to outline the main figures and whop in the boldest shadows. No backgrounds here, as I do that on a different layer.
Next up is the adding of greys. These really are the meat of the art, with the black lines being the skeleton, the colour being the skin, the...er...borders being...uh, the pants...*shuts up*
Ok, more meat on the bones. I love Potatoshop so much it *hurts*.
Here I add the background layer. It usually differs from page to page, but in this case it all was all on one layer and then I cut out the main figures. Like old school, but with shiny macintosh machines and less screaming.
Then I add the swords and fire to a new layer. What, you thought I drew that on the same layer...?...*chuckle*, no no no, Grasshopper. Noone would be that stupid.
This is where I thought I'd be able to leave it. I added a new layer for the colours and painted them on, and a few tweaks with some white paint, but then I got a most distressing email...
Yes, apparently I had got his mask wrong. So last minute panic revisions resulted in a new layer over the painting and some old school patch-em-up tactics were employed to remedy this error. Seamless, eh? Go on, you can say it, I'm not bashful...

Right, next time I update (like, thursday) I will probably show something other than the blow-by-blow stages of a picture, maybe doodles I make on the toilet...?...or perhaps drunken scribbles of naked ladies...

Whatevs. I have to get back to reality now and continue distracting someone from the boredom that is the internet tonite. Hi Kim!

F xoxo

Ahoy mateys

2009-04-02T20:10:00.005+01:00

Hello my lovelies

So, some of you out there have been wondering what has happened to The Great Frazer Irving International Comicbook Rockstar lately. Well I must confess the past 2 months have been rather hectic, what with me working like a madman on "Azrael" for DC Comics, as well as attending the NYC Comicon in feb, not to mention spending a fair few evenings racing around London's Soho in the wee hours of the morning with a thoroughly Awesome individual with whom I plan to rule the entire Earth alongside in the near future. Fret not, we will be merciful and benign dictators. But no whistling on a Tuesday!!!!

To tease and appease thy thirsts for art, I present to you lucky lucky people here some stages in the production of the latest cover I have made for "The Darkness" from Top Cow comics. Not all secrets are revealed, in fact, seeing as there's no fee for this I might just leave the images lying around with scant explanation. If I can get the html to work then I might make this a regular feature here, so you can all come back and salivate over yer puny laptop screens.

That's the sketch above. Messy, eh? yes, that's what my editors have to deal with. But it captures the essence, and you'll see how it all comes together...

That's the first stage above. This is where I do what is almost the traditional style of inking, where black lines are used to outline and define, with shadows n shit, but it's still far from done...

This is where I use Potatoshop's layers and start adding the greys. This stuff makes it so much rounder and Phatter, don't you think? And I can add more too...

Now here I've added more greys to give it more body and depth and ting. It's like using ink washes but without the pain and screaming.

Now I've jumped a whole buncha secret stages to the point where I have the background added and the colours too, all using my special secret ways. Don't ask, I'll have to kill you afterwards.

And here's the final image. Almost. There were edits afterwards, which those of you who will be buying the comic (not *just* for the cover I hope, but if you do I won't complain) will no doubt spot, but this is the internet, where you get to see stuff that never makes it to the page.

I may do more of this now that I seem to have overcome Bloggers utterly useless tools and got me pix where I wants em. Come find me on Twitter if you haven't already, and watch as I relate every tiny boring detail of my life online, just like everyone else. And don't forget to check out Azrael from DC, issue 2 out late April, issue 3 late May. It sells fast so grab one whilst you can.

And then expect the resumption of Gutsville. It ain't dead, loyal ones. Just sleeping.

Fraze xoxo

Ampersands!!

2009-01-17T21:55:00.002Z

Hello hello hello my lovelies.

It was my birthday on wednesday & I celebrated this event the following day in central london with my comics buddies & some other friends, all of whom are gorgeous & awesome. So if you were there & you are reading this, then that includes YOU.

Unfortunately I mixed a couple of liquids that I shouldn't have & spent a portion of the evening eating dinner backwards in a most shameful manner, & it was down to a splendid lass called Kim to ensure I made it out of the pub & into the safety of some transport home. She in effect was allocated the job of Guardian Angel. I know not who it was that said this because at that point I was halfway between this reality & some other, but around 4 am I had sobered (she not: it seems we exchanged roles at some point) & after putting her on one of those LOVELY night buses I myself got on one & trundled home, experiencing one of the most trundly buses I have ever sat on.

That same day a feature on me ran in the local paper (see above). A short but sweet article, the writer was smart enough to edit out all the non-family-viewable stuff that we discussed, & they also printed a photo of me sat at my Cintiq drawing a 2000AD cover. For those interested parties, I will upload a scan of the interview in a few days so as not to steal any potential custom that this newspaper may hope to get thanks to my mention of it here. What fun to read when slightly hungover.

Artworks continue to mesh, as I start drawing an Azrael mini series for DC comics, plus I have the late but great GUTSVILLE still gnashing away in the background, plus more covers for Top Cow comics (who recently let go one of my favorite editors, the splendid Rob Levin) & I am also learning how to play the drums. YAY!

Later this month I'll be giving a lecture at Leeds university to a bunch of art students, & shortly after that it's time for the NEW YORK COMICON!!!!!!! Which means more mixing of liquids & interdimensional merging.

Man, it's WINDY outside. My love to all of you & your kin. Especially to my Guardian Angel for guiding me into sobriety during friday morning :D

Ho ho ho

2008-12-25T16:37:00.003Z

DOGS!

2008-12-16T12:44:00.002Z

Greets, mortals.

Here in Irving Towers business is brisk, with many different drawings being made for many different people. Some take precedence over others sadly, but the latest have been for a good cause. The above image of the Wizard Dog is for a Dog shelter in Zagreb, and they needed soem cash so a bunch of designers/artists were asked to make greeting cards or posters based around the dogs so that these could then be sold and the proceeds put towards some blankets etc for the pooches.

The image above this is a snippet from my next Darkness cover, which ties in neatly to me plugging my 2 page contribution to the Darkness ish 75 anniversary thingy, which is what I'm wrestling with right this minute. Well, I'm not doing it RIGHT now cos I is typing, but once this is uploaded I'm getting straight back to it.

Had a splendid day/evening in London on saturday hanging out with the Crazy Katz from the Lundon Underground Comics scene, where I got a bit tipsy and probably said many vulgar things to some very nice people, but I hope I didn't make too many new enemies. Or start any rumours, cos I'm a good boy m'kay? Was much delighted to find that the small press scene is just the same (if not better) than it was back when I did it during the Iron Age and the personalities involved are even more entertaining than my old crew. They're way cuter too, tho I hope that didn't affect my judgement...

Now I draw again. HURRAH!!

F xo

2008-11-18T22:21:00.002Z

Greets, my lovelies.

Above is a cover I have recently drawn for "The Darkness" which is published by Top Cow. Dunno which issue it is yet but it'll be the one published in about 3 months. Lemme know what u think of it, eh?

So lately I been hopping around at conventions again. France was fun if a little bit hard work what with the 8 hour sketching sessions which we were not warned about, and Leeds was also fun despite the hangover that totalled me mid-sketch on saturday. Best things about both were that A) I got to hang out with old buddies I hadn't seen in ages, B) I got to make some NEW buddies in the biz, C) I got to meet some lovely consumers/fans/punters and finally D) each con had it's own hot babe for me to fixate on. The recipe for a good comicon if ever I saw one.

If I met u or spoke to you at either Lille or Thought Bubble then hello again, it was a pleasure. And if u got a sketch, then LOOK AFTER IT. THAT'S A BIT OF MY SOUL THERE.

I kinda need to get back to the drawing now to earn me some Xmas pennies, but I'll be posting more pix as and when they are ready for mortal consumption. Till then, keep it tight.

F xo

2008-10-30T11:04:00.002Z

"Three lullabys in an ancient tongue..." blah etc. Hey ho. I is listening to King Crimson whilst I doodle GUTSVILLE here in my ivory tower. Which, incidentally, is what the three images above belong to. Yes, due to overwhelming demand (Goran) I decided to add some pix to this rather empty blog, tho the problem is and always has been "what pictures can I add without giving away spoilers?"

Well hopefully these snippets of pages-in-progress will reveal nothing yet suggest MUCH. You can see that there are boobies in this comic now, but just wait to see what OTHER debauched goodies Si Spurrier has got me drawing for the issues following this one.

Issue 4 is almost nailed now...deepest apologies on a Russel Brand scale for the delay, but hey it'll be worth the wait.

Ok, pics uploaded, coffee drunk, Crimson playing. I think I need a walk into town and a visit to the bank to buy me some Euros for my French experience this weekend....

Xoxoxoxo F

O busy Bee...

2008-10-28T19:31:00.003Z

Well, thanks to an unexpected (and welcome) gig doing some art for advertising I didn't do the 24HR comic. Yet. Yes, it seems that 2008 has been one long exercise in procrastination for one reason or another, but as winter creeps upon me I hope that will all change and I can get back to being the busy busy bee I was back in the mists of time.

As the paying gigs take precedence over all else the 24HR exercise will be done once I get this Ad gig and some tutorials for ImagineFX out of the way, and then I will have to decide if it's actually worth showing online. One idea I had was to film the whole thing on the computer using snapsproX, but then I realised that 24 hours of that would probably kill my processor, so I am looking into alternative ways to document and thus prove my 3rd 24HR experience.

Weekend just gone I was at the MCM Expo in London's Docklands, where I got to hang out with some folks from the Wire and Heroes and Battlestar Galactica which was nice, and I was also witness to the largest gathering of 10-15 year old cosplayers brandishing their "Free Hugs" signs EVER. It was only when I saw the new mutation of "running hugs" where the "Huggee" stands in the center of a large ring of other cosplayers, and the "hugger" takes a running leap at them climaxing in a spinning hug that often went out of control that I realised that if there had been Manga cons when I was a kid my social development would have been distinctly different. That's not to say it would have been BETTER, but I woulda turned out DIFFERENT...

This weekend I do the Lille festival in France. Dunno what it'll be like but as it's only a weekend I reckon it'll fly by before I return to Blighty to resume the scribbling. I'll make art to show this time, otherwise this blog will just be lots of words and that's no good is it?

24 hours from Tulsa

2008-10-16T13:22:00.004+01:00

JINGS.

Is it that time of year AGAIN??? Halloween and the 24 hour comic book day are upon me once again, tho this time I'm going to be doing them both on a different continent. I may even dress up for one of 'em and post the photos from the last 3 years to compare.

The 24 hour comic is a different matter tho. The past 2 years I did the whole thing in the allotted time frame BUT the pages looked shite and it was all rushed at the end. Taking into account my current output and attention to detail, this 24 hour splurge of rushed panels may help get the artistic metabolism moving a bit faster. OR it'll drive me properly mental and I'll wake up on sunday in a padded cell drooling like a leaky tap.

The first year I did it I foolishly used real pens and ting, and that meant I could cheat loads and still pretend it was actual comics.

Second year I used my wacom and laptop setup so the art was a little better but i didn't finish the last 6 pages.

THIS year I have my Cintiq and I also have no distractions. And I also have 2 years experience, and as with all things experience counts for a lot. No more full black pages. No more stick figures. Maybe lots of repeat panels this time? How far CAN I take the piss? Unlike the previous 2 years I won't have anyone publishing my efforts in one of those over-phat A5 collections, so if I don't hate it utterly I'll probably put it online meself and let thou judge it with thy critical eyes. And then once that has been done you can all start asking questions like "Hey, if you did 24 of these in a day, where's Gutsville?" and I can return to my misery-pit draped in my Cloak Of Shame to finsih the pages to issue 4. There's some boobs in this one and I like to get them looking right. Research takes ages u know...

For any muppets who live in london and/or are planning to visit the MCM expo in Docklands in a coupla weeks, I'll be there avoiding sketches and flirting shamelessly with any and all attractive females that dare cross my path, and I'm also showing up at the Lille comics festival at the end of the month, which ties in with Halloween so maybe I won't be doing the costume thing afterall. I might post links to both of those events after the 24 hour comic thang has passed.

Brum brum brum

2008-10-06T14:33:00.002+01:00

Greets peeps. Took me 10 minutes to sign in and get to my blog because the stupid "remember me" button that I click EVERYTIME I USE BLOGGER didn't work this time and all the cookies were gone. Pretty dang useless if it only "remembers" me for a week. New password and all that shit. It's almost as bad as MobileMe, the latest and greatest shame on the face of the interweb.

ANYWAY, I was in Birmingham for the Brum comicon this weekend. It's the first year I've gone cos I have this mortal fear of new cities, but I discovered that apart from the loud drunken jailbait that gets drunk every saturday night in the middle of town dressed up like some dodgy punk-rock rejects, brummies were lovely! Especially the barista in Costa Coffee who showed me where the con centre was on the map cos she was well hot. That accent can sound SO sexy.

Speaking of which, of the usual 3 photos that I take every convention I did pose with the standard cosplaying Harley Quinn on the first morning. I took a shot of her solo, then I decided I should pose with the lass cos it makes for a better memento (and I never take pix of cosplayers at cons normally...I feel like I'm left out somehow) so I gave my camera to whoever it was that was talking to me and then proceeded to accidentally bump Harley's boob with my right hand as I put my arm around her shoulder.

"Oh, terribly sorry" I said. "Thass o-kair" Harley replied in some midlands accent. Now THAT'S the kind cosplayer I LIKE. And dammit if only I'd got a shot of her as Lara Croft cos the costumes were very well done and I only recognised her cos of the shape of her nose.

I may have found a new hobby. Anyway, aside from that all I did was wander around the con and bug people like McKitten at their tables until I got bored. Then we did the whole drinking thing in the evening again and it built up until my good friend Lou (who is currently manager of Forbidden Planet london) got so pie-eyed that she decided to harrass John (Astonishing X-Men) Cassaday and smother him with adulation until she started crying.

This is the only photo where either of them looked vaguely un-wasted. And I care about my friends' vanity.

Now I sit back in my ivory tower, sketching warm-ups before wading back into GUTSVILLE. And if you're good, I may show a sneak peek of some covers I've been doing lately to pay the bills.

Fraze xoxoxo

Hola! Viva Aviles!

2008-09-18T18:10:00.003+01:00

Hola! Yes, that means "hello" in Spanish. I think. There are a lot of things that I was unsure of when I went to Spain for The Best Comic Con Ever, one of them being how to ask for coffee, and also what sort of pants to wear. What I didn't know though was that the "devil horns" gesture that one makes in the UK to represent "Awesome" means "your wife is shagging another man" in Spain, but they were so nice there they just let all of us smelly brits and yanks do it for pretty much every photograph regardless.

Besides doing lots of sketching for the politest fans in the world, I also drank lots of excellent red wine and ate some awesome food (tho I must confess when the menu was all seafood I was a little less impressed, what with me not actually liking sea food one iota) and only suffered one hangover. Magic!

There was an award ceremony on the saturday and I was the proud recipient of the Ron Garney award for "most cute guest" which was decided by a UNANIMOUS vote. The fact that there were only 2 judges makes no difference. I got the award, you didn't. So there. There is a picture of said award at the top of this post. The little guy (who is clearly high as a kite on mushrooms) is holding Strawberries, which is where my first name comes from. It's derived from the french word "fraise" as far as I know. Soon I will write the actual award info on the little guy as soon as I get it translated into Spanish.

Other than that, I have finally got this bleedin blogger crap working, put up some new galleries and am hard at work drawing GUTSVILLE issue 4. Yes, GUTSVILLE is still alive despite the fears of many of its faithful readers. I fell off my log a few months ago and I realised that in order to save my sanity after drawing non stop for 8 years that I needed a wee break, and the wonderful folks in Aviles restored my enthusiasm for the triptacular world of comics. So now I can get on with the job and complete this most excellent of stories.

And as soon as I figure out how to put hotlinks in this text I'll add more entries with links to really really cool stuff.

Back from the dead

2008-09-16T19:01:00.003+01:00

Ah, Spain is so nice. The spanish are so nice. The Spanish Wine is so nice. Sadly I have yet to adjust to being back in smelly old England but when I does I shall make sure I fix this bleedin website, cos I know I told a few of you to come here to email me, and it's all a bit "under construction" right now.

ANd I will also have fotos of my latest award for all to see.

Hello? IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

2008-07-18T15:13:00.002+01:00

O my word, my website just up and vanished. Well sorta. In fact, most of it's still there but I decided to redo the front page cos the updating thing was a freakin pain in the butt, and I have so far replaced it with this blogger page.

I still need to get the mechanics of it working, add some pictures to brighten it up and shit like that, but gimme a coupla days to ponder on it.

San Diego Comicon (SDCC as it is known) is next week and boyoboy I am excited! I LOVE Comicon. I love the sun, I love the sea, I love the millions of people, I love the really fit cosplayer chicks that dress up as Psylocke from the X-Men by wearing some dental floss and a band aid, I love the Californian herbs, I love...I just LOVE. Ok? Full of, squirting everywhere.

So After THAT I'll sort this shit out ok? Don't get upset. Just come back in the first week of August and all should be well.

Till then, enjoy the above pix and have a nice weekend

xoxo Frazer

2008-07-16T22:59:00.007+01:00

bah! Does it work??? DOES IT FRIKKIN WORK??? C'mon blogger, be nice to daddy, make it work...