Monday, 21 September 2020

I Do NOT Have Sketch Books. I Have Doodle Pads!

 In one of my photos of Room Oblivion, someone saw the stack of sketch books on my table. I think I have about 10? There seemed to be the impression that these books must contain wonderful illustrations or sketches.

No.

I know people who keep sketch books like that but IO do not. Never have. A costume -I draw a male or female figure and outline the costume details on that. Not even tidy anatomy. My sketch books were kept for a reason.

Before my hands became more useless and I had to stop trying to keep notes (I have a lot  of note books covering comics and other stuff). I also had to stop "doodling". I used to carry a sketch book with me in the garden, going to the shops or, as was necessary, next to where I slept. All day I would get an image or idea and quickly doodle down details. At night I could fill pages. One page might be an idea for a 20pp or even lengthier series. Now my hands forbid doing this all day and my eyes are in collusion with said hands.

Looking through just two of the books last night there were enough ideas and stories to keep a small company going for a year -fair to say I am not going to be completing all of those! I have a blue A5 binder (all my sketch pads are around A5 size) that contains all the sketches and ideas for Fleetway projects. Fun and bad memories combined.

Here are a few images of people seen in the background (in Bristol) as well as some of the inhabitants of a non existent house on a non existent road in Bristol.






There is a "Bovine Youth" tackling an alien invader's...nose

One doodle made it as the splash page (redrawn obviously) to The Master Plan of Lord Sebastian Perish in Adventure (vol. 1).

And I did a lot of sketching for the Dutch Wars where Nom took possession of the first of the Ten Dancing Monkey necklaces. I did a few colour images of battle damaged men...which were never used.







So you see -nothing sensational. Just fun quick doodles for stories and strips. Doodles. Oh, there was this one time in 1999 -all these are from that year- when I had to "sell myself" to a publisher. If they like the story and idea WTF does it matter about my "philosophy behind projects" is...if any?
02:40 hrs....says it all really!



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1 comment:

  1. John 'Sepp' Schiltz22 September 2020 at 01:44

    Wonderful to see your sketches! I have often wondered if you kept any books or pads. I would have been surprised if otherwise. I have - as a rule - A4 Top-bound refill pads - importantly, so that I can open up for a spread-over landscape format drawing if I want to. Hopefully, I can make more of those I have amassed, once the move is complete. Still suffering the perpetual exhaustion though, apparently, that's part of the ASC, through elevated anxiety. Maybe, even, some of your readers will know of - or be experiencing - this themselves. This move is going to be complicated, more of an extrication. Trouble is, all I really feel like doing is sleeping.

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