Blues

Late post this week, I'm afraid! It's been a crazy hectic fortnight overall, between moving to my new little house and travelling to Derry for ComicCity, as well as getting back into the swing of college life and keeping on top of freelance-y work. It's been busy, but I'm learning so much, and I'm having an absolute ball!

Post-con blues have hit hard this week. I came home from ComicCity in the wee hours of Monday morning, buzzing with a renewed passion for creating things, and a huge appreciation for the people that work so hard to make things happen. This week, I've been feeling an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude, new admiration, and incredible excitement for the future in every sense! I've got lots of books to look forward to reading (check out the photo below!), lots of ideas I can't wait to get down on paper, and lots of experiences to anticipate!

Illustration | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Back in June, I got a message to ask if I'd be interested in doing some design work with Lightning Strike Comics, for a charity comic book called The Life and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Obviously, I was absolutely delighted to jump on board as a collaborator, alongside some really incredible artists and writers. I also provided an illustrated portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and arranged the text and logo placement on the front cover of the comic. I shared a tiny glance of the design work in this post (hopefully I'll show the design work in full here soon!) but today I wanted to share the portrait! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

Because the whole book was based on the very popular stories of Sherlock Holmes, I wanted to keep a slightly "vintage" and slightly "worn out" tone, and because I was illustrating a writer, I decided to bring in some inky, papery textures too. Compositionally, it was suggested that I arrange the illustration to appear in an oval frame, which is how it appeared in the final printed copy of the book.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the portrait turned out, and to have my name in a comic book for the first time... I'm still smiling about that!