Hard knock life

Robot trouble

Puzzling it over

Fairs fair!

Next Saturday I'm excited to be taking part in the Illustrators' Christmas Fair at the House of Illustration! There are full details are on their website, but it's in Granary Square, London King's Cross, from midday until 6pm next Saturday, 12th December.

I will be sharing a table with my friends and super illustrators Sharon King-Chai and Marta Altés! I had a table at the House of Illustration's summer fair a couple of years ago with Sharon and Mel and it was such a fun day and a nice vibe. 

It should be an ace day out and potentially a super hunting ground for unique Christmas pressies! Please do come along!

I am feeling much more fair-seasoned after Thought Bubble last month! I meant to post about it earlier, but I was preparing so much beforehand, and then the rest of the month just zoomed. In typical form, I took zero photographs of the rest of the fair, but my boyfriend and booth buddy Ben took a few of our table. It all looks a bit blue-screen in these pics, hopefully the effect was less so in real life... 

I learnt so much about having my own table, and displaying things - one big thing being I won't bother with the backing board next time! I don't think people looked it at much, and I felt like a backing-board wally. People were so friendly and kind, I had some lovely chats and discovered some new artists. 

My top highlights included: 

* Circling round Kate Beaton like a diffident shark a few times, though I never got the nerve to stand in the queue and say hi - next time!

* Tabling next to illustrator Emmeline Pidgen and animator Andrew Jolly, fellow Thought Bubble first-timers and perfect table neighbours (tabours)!

* Exchanging hellos with Darryl McDaniels from Run DMC, who appears to have branched into comics-making! (Apparently he did a surprise mini-set at the mid-con party, which I'd failed to get us tickets for - SERIO POST-FOMO about missing his performance of Walk This Way :-((() 

* Getting to meet some people whose work I'd admired in person, such as Zak Simmonds-Hurn, Joe List and Kristyna Baczynski - and getting to stare from afar at others!

* Seeing all the super costumes people came in, of which I recognised maybe 5% - need to bone up before next year!

Hurrah for fairs, meeting people at fairs, and having fair deadlines which make me mini-freak out but work more!

Bad show

Last of the caterpillars!

Concertinis winner

Thanks for entering my competition! The winner picked by random name generator was 

Chris Askham! 

Hi Chris, please will you email me your address and I'll send you the set? Thanks very much for entering guys, and saying nice things! All Concertinis are for sale in my shop.

And here is the latest instalment from Oddleigh...

New cards - Concertinis!

I have some new cards! I've been working on these for a long time, and now have seven designs. When folded shut they are standard postcard size and fit in a C6 envelope. Each one folds out to reveal a surprise in the middle! 

Some are birthday-friendly, or congratulatory - I thought the canon one could be for a "you'll go far!" type message - but I wanted to leave most of them blank for all occasions! They are professionally printed on nice thick white card stock with a matte finish on the front. The backs are left plain white for individual messages. 

Each Concertini comes with a matching coloured envelope in a cello bag. They are £2 each, or get the whole set of seven for £12!

Check them out in my shop now!

**To celebrate Concertini time, I'm doing a giveaway of a complete set of seven! Please leave a comment below to be in with a chance to win! 

I will do a random draw at noon UK time on Tuesday 24th November!**

New home for Oddleigh!

So I've got a new home for Oddleigh - it's a Tumblr made with the Simple Webcomics template, I think it's going to work well!

I've put a link in the tabs at the top of this blog. I hope you'll follow along with Sid and Jessie there!

But I'll keep posting them here for now as well! Having fun colouring them up, I think it's making them easier to read...

Colour caterpillars

I'd really like to start a separate blog for these guys, the comics kind where you have a forward, back, random button, so I can make them more readable and chronological - if anyone has any tips about this I'd be really grateful. I know there's a template you can use on Wordpress, but Wordpress really confuses me, even before I look into adding in other templates... any help would be really appreciated! Thank you!

Frogercising!

Thought Bubble Leeds weekend

It's the Thought Bubble Festival this weekend in Leeds! I have a table in the Royal Armouries Hall all day on Saturday and Sunday. I'll be at table number 3 - just before you get to the entrance for the talks and panels. Please come by and see me! I would love it - I'm looking forward to the weekend, and to seeing everyone else's super work. 

I'll have my Welcome to Oddleigh comic, 20 pages A5 size. I'll have stickers, cards and bargainously priced screen prints for sale! Including this new guy:

Wrestling cat wants to wrestle with you! Don't deny him this pleasure!!

I'll be showing my new Concertini cards... which due to being disorganised I haven't got enough printed of, but they'll be there to show and then in my online shop next week. 

Here are three of seven designs I've made:

There'll be cushions... there'll be risos... there'll be my nervous face! It'll all be happening.

Hope to see you there!

Caterpillar party 2

Welcome to Oddleigh - Caterpillar party

Rickety has had a name change! The bureaucracy was a nightmare, but finally Mayor Sheep approved the new name - Oddleigh. I just felt like something more obvious was called for!

Aleister Crowley KAZAM!!!

Think!

These intellectuals are being letters... do they show?

Storytellers, Inc. 2016 Illustrators Calendar!

Earlier in the year Katie Clapham, the owner of the independent bookshop
Storytellers, Inc. in St. Annes-on-Sea, asked me to contribute a page
to the fourth edition of the Illustrators Calendar.

I jumped at the chance to be part of this project, and managed to bagsie
October for Halloween-themed fun.
I made this two panel trick-or-treating picture:

Yesterday my copy of the calendar arrived, and it's come out so well.
I'm proud to be in the super company which you see here...

To go with the calendar, Storytellers, Inc. runs a project called ‘An Illustrated Year’
for Key Stage 1 groups in primary schools, delivering them a gift-wrapped
book by the illustrator each month, complete with an activity sheet to have
their own classroom picture book events. They send their packs each month
 to 28 local classrooms across nine schools. 

They've had great success and feedback with the project, and are hoping to
build on it for 2016.
I couldn't be happier to be involved!

The Illustrators Calendar 2016 for sale now on the Storysellers, Inc. website for £14 - a fine way to anticipate 2016!

Wistful thoughts

Pumpkin patch!

Here are Will, Bill, Florence and Shane hanging out in the pumpkin patch. 

When I was a child in California one of the highlights I remember was when the local destination The Nut Tree had their annual Pumpkin Patch. This included a ferris wheel and a biggest pumpkin competition, scarecrows, candy apples and giant lollies. And all the thrill of Halloween approaching! I'm feeling nostalgic for it this week - tinges of the excitement I used to feel on those lovely autumn visits. I wish I could ride on the miniature train again, and look through The Nut Tree's selection of semi precious stones for sale. And hang out on an enormous pumpkin!

Rushing to have more fun!

Turtle picture

This lovely picture is by Caitlin, my friend's niece. The crucial moment in Turtle and Me, where everything goes wrong for our hero! 

I think Caitlin has done a super job - look at the expressions on her people!! Poor old Turtle is really in for it!

Rickety comics

Rickety comics

Rickety comics

Rickety comics

Villainy at sea!

Probably true

Bits and bobs

I'm working on a few things at the moment, none of which are in a state of readiness, but I wanted to put a few bits up...

I'm having a go at a new range of cards, aiming to have them ready and printed by the time I go up to Thought Bubble in early November. I have a table there for the first time, and I'm so looking forward to it - there are some great contributors going and it should be a super weekend! 

Bit of a card in progress!

I'm also still working on my longer form comic ideas - the setting has changed but the characters remain. Here are two of them meeting a sinister stranger!

I feel lucky to still be illustrating Tralalire every month - here are Pouët-Pouët, Cacahouète and Patatras cosying up while it's cold outside.

Draw It! Colour It! Creatures

A little while ago, my excellent editor Emily Ford asked whether I could contribute to a project she was making at Macmillan Children's Books - and I received an advance copy yesterday. 

This is book is lovely; beautifully produced with many inventive, funny ideas inside. There are plenty of opportunities for colouring, plus some great exercises for drawing and imagining. 

I honestly think, bias aside, that this is one of the nicest drawing books I've seen - there is so much to get you thinking and drawing, and spurring the imagination while leaving a ton of scope for individual ideas and style. It's not prescriptive, and in concept reminds me of a book Lynda Barry might make to encourage ideas.

The excellent spreads inside range from drawing a nemesis for Alexis Deacon's monster...

to adding hairdos to Jules Bentley's wonderful characters (definitely going to do this one!)...

to finding shapes and patterns on Zehra Hick's funny spread...

to drawing lovely fish for Marta Altès's mermaid...

to adding to these shapes for Yasmeen Ismail's lovely idea...

to finishing these mirror drawings of a rabbit and a dog, by me! 

This book is really special, and I'm proud to be included. 

Thanks and congratulations Emily and Macmillan Children's Books!