Strangebeard, Part 2

Hi everyone! I haven't updated my sketchbook blog much in the last little while because my work has become all-consuming. Along with the usual illustration work, I'm currently lettering a 160-page graphic novel, teaching a comics class, and updating The Adventurers AND Strangebeard twice a week.

Speaking of Strangebeard: thank you. Thanks for reading, thanks especially for sharing, and thanks for commenting. My little pirate-comic-that-could is getting thousands of hits and I am grateful for every single one of them. Part 2 has started, and Captain Jenny Strangebeard and her merry crew of rogues and ruffians are about to face bigger (and weirder) adventures. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

In honor of the completion of "The Girl and The Ghost", here's something from the vaults: the first-ever drawing of Jenny Strangebeard from the original pitch!
She hasn't changed too excessively; the colour of her two eyes is different and her general colour scheme is less saturated than it was.

Thanks again, everyone! Check out Strangebeard right over here, and come back every Tuesday and Thursday for new pages.

Pirate-style wanted poster

My excellent nephew Dane turned five years old this past week. I wanted to do something nice for him, but nothing cool immediately jumped to mind. I'd done the map of Blackbeard for him previously, so I thought I'd stick with the piratical theme and struck upon the notion of doing a wanted poster for him.

The idea came to me as I was watching Aardman's excellent The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists for the umpteenth time with my mother. Wanted posters are a big part of the plot (with the Pirate Captain's wanted poster starting out at a pathetic 12 doubloons and increasing exponentially as the movie goes on), so I started with the original design of the Pirate Captain's wanted poster and made it unique to Dane.

I took a piece of heavy 11x17 Bristol board and soaked it in tea (decaf, the wretched stuff). After it dried, I went over it with dirty ink for the greyscale stuff and thick black ink (using a brush) for the important stuff. I was pretty happy with it, it's a neat-looking piece with a good sense of scale. I had planned on folding it up but I was so happy with it that I made a cardboard carrying case for it, as my mother was taking on a plane with her.

My sister-in-law sent a charming little video of Dane opening up his gift (which included a DVD of The Pirates! and a skull-topped pencil) and it made my day. Thanks to director Peter Lord and writer Gideon Defoe for making a great movie that continues to inspire me, and thanks to pirates (who know why they're the best).

Mighty pirates!

I love pirates. If I could draw nothing but pirates all day, that'd be the best life ever.

So, here's a couple I've done recently. The first two are the hero and villain from The Secret of Monkey Island series, my all-time favorite computer games and the games that got me into pirates to begin with. Ron Gilbert is one of my heroes.

The last pirate was created by my four-year-old nephew Dane, who told me a long story about Skully the fifty-armed flying ghost pirate who he expected to see in Mexico. I don't know if he did, so I drew a version for him.

The Monkey Island dudes were drawn with ink and markers; Skully was done in my sketchbook with colours and textures done digitally.

Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate (and Murray the skull)

LeChuck, zombie pirate

Skully, the flying ghost pirate

The Monkey Island drawings are 9x12, full colour on Bristol. If you're interested in purchasing one, shoot me an email at kellyATkellytindallDOTcom. The Skully drawing is for Dane.