New Website!
After lots of putting it off, and struggling with themes, my new website is finally finished! It contains lots of University work that never got posted up on here, so I heartily encourage you to check it out! If you hover over the ‘Portfolio’ tab a series of sub-menus will appear that will take you to whatever artwork you wish to view, whether it be comics, children’s illustrations, or fan art – many of which I’ve yet to post on here – be sure when scrolling down through the pages you give the theme time to load up all the images 
There are links to the facebook page and twitter page (to which I’ve relinquished control over to the site’s mascot; Cosmo Cat – be sure to follow him for arty updates from myself, and other artists I follow) as well as links to my deviantART, Instagram and of course, right here at Q.U.A.R.C.S! I’d like to thank all of you who have ‘followed’ me from when I started this blog back in 2009, your support and encouragement has been a great motivator so far, and any love for these new site’s would be gratefully received!
“What Time is it…? Valen-Time!”
This year’s Valentines Day card for my other half was inspired by Adventure Time, the greatest cartoon to have ever existed – Mathematical!
This is somehow my first ever fan-art for AT – I’d just like to add that as a English fan, it was REALLY hard to not add an ‘S’ to the end of ‘Math’, but I hear it in Finn’s voice, and it just wouldn’t have sounded right… also my real Totoro hat is blue, but it would have clashed too much with the sky, so artistic licence y’all.
There’s a couple of in-jokes in the background you probably won’t get, but don’t worry about it, just enjoy
(click to enlarge)
*BONUS MATERIAL*
As a romantic/creative type, I always like to go that little bit extra for those I care about, and this year it could be said that I went a little over-board. Lucy’s always been in love with Paris, and her recent trip has done nothing to quash that – unfortunately as a struggling artist, it will be some time before I can afford to take her. To make up for this, I decided to recreate a Parisian Cafe in our living room – the little table, white table cloth, candles wine and food were easy enough, and I found some music on Youtube (literally called French Cafe Music I think), but I wasn’t done there. Out flat has a little balcony, and I thought it would be fun if I created a silhouette of The Eiffel Tower, and hung it outside so it would look like a view onto the real tower… it seemed so simple in my head…
The first thing was to cut out the actual tower. I went begging at my local Tesco for a large sheet of cardboard, but apparently they don’t DO stuff in big boxes these days (hmm) and after a brief panic, I found a stash of A4 black card and got to work. The tower would need to be about 130cm tall to fit between the railing of our balcony, and the floor of the one above it, so I found a vector of the Eiffel Tower (thanks google) and set it out like this:
Each coloured block is the same dimensions as an A4 piece of paper, so this not only shows how many pieces you’ll need, but what you should be cutting out on each piece – simple right? Well… not exactly. The theory worked fine, and aside from the fact that I was working too quickly to bother with rulers and actual measurements, the tower ended up being pretty straight. The problem was that even though it’s got quite an iconic outline, it doesn’t really LOOK like the Eiffel Tower until you can see all the frame work, so I had to cut out MANY a little triangle…
Sometime later, I ended up with this:
See? Not bad eh? Of course, foreshortening does it no favours here (it was pretty long), and there’s a lot of tape on it – but that didn’t matter, because phase two involved using yet more tape to stick our Christmas Tree lights behind it to make it light up… and it worked pretty well too! Getting it to hang of the balcony by myself was a bit of a mission, but in the end it looked like this:
(photo taken by Lucy Benson via Instagram)
…and I was very pleased with the results – and more importantly, Lucy loved it 🙂 Now, a cynic might say “pffft, this guy’s just showing off” and frankly, you’d be right.
The King Of The North! (Pole)
Ok, so in the last few years my hand-drawn Christmas cards for my immediate family have always been a bit late for some reason or other – over the last few years it’s been due to University work, and this year it was because I had an abundance of commission work. In fact last year, because of dissertation-writing madness, my parents didn’t get one AT ALL… so this year I decided to put extra effort in and bosh out one I’m really proud of. My mum’s birthday is shortly after Christmas, so it’s a joint Birthday card too…
As you can see, it’s still 2 cards really, so it’s not as if I’ve cheated, they’re just joined by a common, Game Of Thrones inspired theme. Click on the image to enlarge, I’ve left it quite big, so it should be easy to read/spot all the little bits I’ve put in. If it isn’t, I’ll be changing that sharpish. I should add that the characters of my family are based on no House in particular, and the only reason I chose the form of a dwarf for myself is because Tyrion is the best damn character in the TV series (only got through one book so far) and if I could be half as cool as him, I’d be a happy (half) man.
Spider-Man Redesign
It hasn’t really sunk in for me that University is now over… projects are “completed” (some may require some ACTUAL finishing) Assessment is over (I passed!) and my work is framed and currently hanging in the end of year show (I might do a blog post about that in my new blog… when I BUILD my new blog…) – but it doesn’t really FEEL like it’s all over. Having been to three Graduations already (none of which were mine) I’m well aware that not everyone goes… seems strange that apart from random encounters, I’ll never see some of my classmates again. While I never got to be as close friends to some as I would have liked to, I’ll miss you guys – good luck with all you hope to achieve 🙂
*ahem* Anyway, to celebrate the end of deadlines, and some actual time off before I start my job at Mecca (thrilling as THAT will be) I now have time to catch up on all the drawing I haven’t been able to do, including birthdays and anniversary cards (whoops!) I simply haven’t had time to do until now… but before all that, I wanted to draw Spider-Man 😛
I’ve had this design in my head for a few years now (see how long it takes me to get around to things) and I think it started to evolve in my head whilst I was watching an old episode of the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon. As awesome as it was (and still is in many ways) it was annoying me at how bulky they had made him – Spider-man should always be spindly, and light-looking in my opinion, like spiders themselves. I originally had planned this Spider-Man simply to be a mutant replacement for the original (maybe he had abducted the original… maybe he had been drafted in by S.H.I.E.L.D or something) simply called ‘Mutant Spider-Man’, but in drawing it I started to develop a proper character behind the ‘mask’ – a mutant named Facsimile; who’s mutant power enables him to replicate any superpower in his own, unique way (an interpretation of that power if you will). He is limited to one power at a time, and can’t successfully replicate weapons (such as Thor’s hammer) or machines (Iron-Man’s armour) to their full extent. There was more, but hopefully it won’t be years again until I get to draw him, or other superhero Facsimile forms (such as the Hulk), so I’ll say more about him some other time.
Here’s a few sketches showing him doing ‘whatever a spider can’ to demonstrate how the design works…
And a few alternative colours for a Black Suit/Neon version (I saw Spidey in a neon costume recently… not sure what it was for)…
So that was fun! Better get on with those cards now…
Incidentally, I’m attempting to build myself a website, so unless I can find a way to splice it with this blog, this could be the last time I post here – or at least when I post that I’ve successfully completed the website, THAT will be the last post – thanks so much to those that follow me, stay tuned for more ramblings; different web-time, different web-channel!
Chris
Q.U.A.R.C.S 