CCGB #167

ccgb #166

ccgb #165

Movember, Moustaches & Me...

During November, I'll be one of the participating artists for the Gallery Of Mo event.  For those who don't know, Movember is the time when lot's of men grow moustaches to promote awareness of Men's health issues - primarily Prostate Cancer.  I and a few like-minded artists are supporting this by offering to draw portraits to raise money for charity - you can ask for a portrait (or take part) at the Gallery Of Mo.

CCGB #163

Quick one for this week's compo...   - it got 10 points  :)

"Can we keep him Sarge?"

Bit of experimentation here.  I started by drawing the trooper on paper, scanning him into Inkscape, and converting him to PDF, for exporting into Xara.  Once he was in, I though he needed something else, so I drew the rest, and added colours in, Xara.  I found out a couple of useful things here - firstly, when inking the characters, I found it easier to keep the line settings to one of the standard line types, with NO pressure input from the pen.  I also found a great way with Xara 2013 to add shadows to characters - simply add a black shape covering the whole character, set it's transaparacy, and then erase what I didn't need using the shape eraser tool.  It all works great!

Parp-Pants

My family NEEDS this item...  ;)

Selfish B**stard

"Below the elbow..."

Apparently, the St. John ambulance brigade must have bear arms below the elbows - but mistakes can happen...  :)

Poodle Biker

Actually saw this happening today - had to cartoon it!

CCGB #153

CCGB #152

Quick one this week - overrun with work...

CCGB #151

CCGB #150

CCGB #149

Roy Hodgson

CCGB #148

CCGB #147

CCGB #146

CCGB #145

Theme: BAD CHOICES
Quick one this week...

"Laugh it up fuzzball..."

I was intending this to be a new t-shirt design - but zazzle refused it.  Ah well...

CCGB #144

Subject:PHONE

New items in the shop...

Zazzle store now open!

Yup - I've gone and created my own zazzle shop!

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/voxtoons*

And here is the first T-Shirt!

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/please_dont_mind_me_tshirt-235668404274325548

CCGB #142

The cartoonist with no name

Me, as "the cartoonist with no name"...  A  little private piece I did to promote my my new site...

OOOeeeOOOeeeOOO....wah-wah-waaaaahhh....  :)

CARICATOONS is Live!

The new online shop for custom cartoons for that someone special is now up and running!  If you're looking for a unique gift, why not have a browse?

http://www.caricatoons.co.uk

CCGB #136

GluvZilla

This is our Family "Glove Monster" - people think we're weird... :)

CCGB #135

A bit of explanation?  British animators warned this week that unless the government introduces significant tax breaks, the British animation industry could disappear from the UK as it moves overseas to cut production costs...

CCGB #134

I've got two ideas for this week's caption - and I've finished both. Which one gets used will depend on which one my family likes...

CCGB #133

I'll admit - this one takes some explaining... :)

The theme of this weeks competition is "HOPE". I'm currently a moderator on the CCGB forum, and I've run the competition in the past. It's been a running joke that the Competition Moderators need tin hats to protect them from all the flack that they get, as well as an optional gold lame dress (it's a glamorous competition you know). My Avatar on the forum is a cartoon of me in a tin hat, watching out for incoming missiles, so the person in this cartoon is me, dressed in my CCGB finery, holding the winners trophy that i HOPE will win this week - geddit?

CCGB #132

Cold Snap

CCGB #131

Samuel L. Jackson

Clever idea

Something that's been mentioned over at the CCGB forums recently is selling original artwork. For someone like me, who works mainly digitially, this is a bit of a nightmare, as I obviously have no original artwork to sell (unless I create it again). The wonderful Steve Bright has come up with a hybrid solution for us digital creatives - for colour cartoons, simply print the colour layer, and then ink over the top of it.

It's so simple, it's brilliant! Why didn't I think of this before...

CCGB #130

CCGB #129

CCGB #128

News, news, news...

Firstly, happy new year everyone! I hope you all had a good christmas (mine was pretty good overall) and an enjoyable new year.

Secondly, the news. Exiting things are happening at Raven Towers. As I mentioned previously, I did some commisions just before christmas, and the response was such that I'm in the process of setting up a new website just to deal with the commisions side of my work. I can't say too much at present, as it's still in the planning stages, but hopefully, it'll be up and running before March. keep an eye on this blog, as I'll be announcing it here first.

I've noticed that my cartooning speed in increasing. This is good news, as it means I can produce more, including possibly submitting some more cartoons to Private Eye (I did recently, and got a lovely note from Ian Hislop, no less).

On the hardware side, my tablet now has Manga Studio EX4 (thanks Shelly), which will give me even more cartoon creation options than ever before. I'm also in the process of trying cartoons on canvas, using acrylic paints (more on this when it happens). All in all, January / February is going to be a very exiting time for me, cartooning wise.

My day job however, is making increasing demands on me - oh well, I suppose I'd rather be busy than bored... :)

Pork Chop

A paper / ink cartoon this time, at the request of Hans & Ulrike Twardokus, who have been collecting pig-based cartoonists signatures for over 20 years - I hope you like mine... :)

So sorry for the lack of updates recently...

...but I've been so busy. Not only has my day job been demanding, but I've finally started to get some cartooning work (thanks Annette), so my input into the CCGB compo has been limited,but there is news on the horizon...

Commission work seems to be popular, and I've had several enquiries lately for cartoons, including some on canvas (something I hadn't thought of), so coming soon will be a new look Hypervox website, complete with portfolio, and online ordering of commissions! I'm looking at offering cartoon and caricature commissions in serveral formats, including A4 framed prints, canvas paintings and so on. I don't know how far this will go, but the ride looks fun...!

2012 looks like it could be a good year for me - let's hope so, eh readers? :)

CCGB #121

CCGB #120

CCGB #119

CCGB #118

Tales of Tablets - Part Drei...

Yup - I'm back with an update!

Thanks to the guys at Speedie Computers, I'm now the proud owner of a Fujitsu Stylistic ST5112 Tablet PC...


Forgive the quaility of the pictures, as my phone is not the best. As you can see, the Fuji comes with a rotating stand (great if you want to do portrait stuff). It's faster than my old TC1100, and has more memory. Not only that, but it's a Dual Core machine....


My beloved OpenCanvas now seems more responsive, making it much more fun to draw. I used to draw my cartoon roughs on paper, scan them in, and then colour on the tablet - now I'm able to do everything on the tablet. It's not perfect - it has sometimes has problems with the digitizer when it comes out of hibernation, but all in all, I'm very happy with it.

CCGB #116

This was my original one this week - but went with this...

ccgb #115

Freddie Mercury

Got a massive 12 points for this one - WOOT!

ccgb #114

Tales of Tablets - Part Deux...

I was hoping by now to have done a few cartoons, and be able to enthuse about the speed, reliability and overall goodness of the Fujitsu tablet...

... but I can't. On the day of the last post, I arrived home to find a power supply, and with mounting exitement , pressed the "ON" button.

Only nothing happened - but it happened suddenly mark you!

I tried absoloutely everything I could think of, but no joy, so I've arranged for it to go back for them to attempt a repair - only it's not been picked up yet. And it's been nearly a week.

I am rapidly losing patience with the company concerned - if it's not collected today, I'm gunning for blood...