BOOKMARKS #2 "ButtCheeks"

 

(0.18 Technical Pen & HB pencil on 110mm x 30mm card)

It's not often I copy anything, especially my own work. It's not something you do with Skav Art. But with this, I wanted to try something out...

The actual Skav Art piece with these two is the top bookmark. That was done with a 0.18 technical pen that had the same diluted ink in it I used with the previous bookmarks I did. It's rough and ready, and has the raw, creative energy of a decent Skav Art work, and so is my favourite of the two. For example, I was going to put a tail on the third rear, but changed my mind at the last moment. Instead, I had the face of a caver poking out of her arse, as if he'd taken a wrong turn! That's the way a good Skav Art piece can be.

The one below it was a freehand copy done with a HB pencil. It may look neater, but it's not as good as the first, and so not really a Skav Art work. For one thing, it's a copy of the first, which rules it out from the start, and another is that it contains differences and refinements. In other words, that dreaded "process" was creeping in. The differences are small, but they are there. It proved to me that if I had taken the idea further, it may have totally eroded the original, losing much of its creative energy and ended up a lesser thing.

So it was good to do, even if it was to prove to myself what the negative effects of unintentional processes can do. It just means that I now have two artworks with the same title!

TEAM DAGON

(2B pencil on 100mm x 80mm paper)

 A decent little drawing based around H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. It depicts what a modern inhabitant of Innesmouth would probably look like.

Silas Grimbeard

 

(Fineliner on 115mm x 87mm paper)

A grumpy dwarf wizard, travelling with his feathery familiar.

This piece was done to try out some cheap gel fineliner pens I'd just bought, and they seem to work quite well, giving a good line and a decent opaque finish to the black areas. Not bad considering they're 3 for £1!

TECHFERNUM

 

(2B pencil on 120mm x 105mm paper)

This one turned out to be a good example of a Skav Art piece. It started out as a simple doodle which was worked on to a more finished level. And, like other Skav Art works I've done, it holds out that possibility of being something more. That I could use it as a base to create a more processed and pristine piece. The danger there, though, is that it would lose that raw creative energy that it has. Putting an initial idea through that design process, chopping and changing along the way, tends to do that. You end up with something which is muted, hammered away by further process.

This is what Skav Art rejects as it focuses more on that first raw idea.

TECHFERNUM is a word which describes a hellish reality of out of control technology which torments and degrades humanity more than it does aid it. The image above depicts an insane techfernum sorcerer, harnessing "magic" he clearly doesn't understand.

Merry Christmas 2023: DICKIE DUGGS

 

(HB Pencil on 120mm x 90mm paper)

For the artwork and story for this year's Christmas card, I've focused on a hapless stand-up comedian, and how not believing in fairies can be very bad for your health!

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

And you can read the stories from previous Christmas cards by just clicking on each of the years below:

2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 - 2021 - 2022

SHATTERMOUTH

(2B pencil on 132mm x 86mm paper)

A good little comic-book style frame. I did think of writing something in the speech bubble, but decided it worked better without it as a "Silent Scream" Some might want to use it as a meme and add their own text to it (as long as you credit or tag me when you do).

BOOKMARKS #1

 

(0.18 technical pen on card)

Cleaning out an old technical pen, I decided to use the diluted ink that remained to do a couple of small bookmarks on off-cut pieces of card I had. Each measures roughly 11 cm in height and, even they're basic images, they took a while to do with diluted ink in a 0.18 technical pen!

FF SPOOF Page VIII: "DRACOS"

Fighting Fantasy Spoof: Page VIII

 

(2B pencil on 134mm x 100mm paper)

This would be the last page of the Fighting Fantasy spoof that I'm doing, but I've decided to add one more page to it before finishing with it completely.

FF Spoof Page VII: "MILTON KEEN"

Fighting Fantasy Spoof: Page VII

 

(2B pencil on 150mm x 126mm paper)

Still continuing with my little celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, I created this little character: "Milton Keen" (who's from Milton-Keynes) and bumps into the player whilst playing the same "solo adventure" gamebook!

What he lacks in friends, he more than makes up for in body odour.

FF Spoof Page VI: "THE THOMPSONARI BOW"

 

Fighting Fantasy Spoof Page VI

(2B pencil on 158mm x 128mm paper)

Page 6 of this spoof Fighting Fantasy series that I'm doing shows a dark elf with a machine gun. The background is a simple outline of a castle, diffused as if in a mist. I did this because the focus of the image was the character itself.