I saw something on the internet, can’t remember where, but it inspired me to do this simple ‘two colour’ idea, just quickly for fun. It’s all good, ‘getting to know her’ practice.

Had to break the monotony of doing page layouts, I’m itching to get on with the drawing, so knocked up a quick Nao for practice purposes. I’m afraid I neglected this blog somewhat while I was writing… but I’ll start posting more sneak peak stuff soon, so please keep coming back.

…No it’s not, but it does look a bit like him… when he was younger maybe… I think it’s the funny hair.

Good news – I’ve pretty much finished writing The Nao of Brown, just one more night with a fine tooth comb and then deliver it tomorrow. Woo-hoo!

Meanwhile here’s those boards I promised.

I’ve just taken a short break from writing Nao, in order to step back a little – plus a good storyboarding job came in at just the right time (which I’ll post here soon). When I get back to Nao (tomorrow), I’ll be starting on the 4th draft … So far I’ve really enjoyed the process… It’s gone from being something I wasn’t sure exactly how to do… to something I’ve done. And it didn’t seem to take too long…

And then tonight I had an idea for my next book.

Recently, while unpacking all the boxes that have been in storage for a while, I found this little gem…

This A5 copy of Circular Field holds a very special place in my heart, not only because it marks my first meeting with Philip Bond and Alan Martin, but because I just love the comic… to me, it’s one of the most perfect things that I have the pleasure of owning.

But the reason I’m posting it, is because as you can see on this page, there’s a washing machine… That washing machine wasn’t in the original comic… I requested Phil draw it for me… because his first Wired World strip in Deadline magazine featured, what I thought were, some very nicely drawn washing machines. Anyway, it feels like we’ve come full circle in some strange ‘Circular Field’ kind of way, because washing machines play a very important part in The Nao of Brown.

It’s a pretty well worn copy and as you can see they both scrawled some stuff on it as well as the nice drawing… but I imagine it’s a pretty rare thing. I googled it and couldn’t find any reference to it anywhere…

Anyway here it is in full… I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Writing update: Doing nights is proving fruitful, I’m up to page 83 and well over the halfway point of the first draft, still well on course to meet the schedule I’ve set for myself. Makes for pretty boring blog posts though… sorry.

I have to say, right now I’m feeling a bit weird. Like I’ve been given a very large unwieldy dark mass to carry… and I’ve got to sort it out, get it into some kind of shape. It’s way too big to carry unaided, so I better drop it down in front of me and start working on it. Roy Neary comes to mind…

“Have you ever looked at something and it’s crazy, and then you looked at it in another way and it’s not crazy at all?… Don’t be scared. Just don’t be scared. I feel really good. Everything’s gonna be all right. I haven’t felt this good in years.”

It’s been a very good week this week, I’m feeling very lucky. Today I signed my book deal with the lovely people at Selfmade Hero… Here’s a photo… I was so chuffed, they’d prepared one of those oversized cheques you get at charity events… That’s me in the red nose, Doug with the black tie and Emma’s trying to hide behind the cheque, I think she was a bit embarrassed by all the fuss. I don’t know who the woman in red is, she just jumped in at the last minute. Anyway, you can read more about all the excitement at the Selfmade Hero website.

Thanks Emma & Doug

I better get on with it.

I could only manage two and a half weeks ‘paternity leave’ this time round, before having to get back to work… And since then it’s been pretty solid… Lots of storyboarding (here)… as usual, they’re not necessarily in the right order.

More on The Nao of Brown soon.

Not posted recently, due to the birth of my second son . He’s filling out nicely thanks, four weeks old now and I’m having to get back to work, so posting will return to a ‘normal service’ very soon.

Meanwhile, somebody uploaded my Gorillaz ‘To Binge’ video to youtube. Here’s the storyboard for it… yep, that’s it… it was pretty easy to explain.

Oh, and one other thing… I’ll hopefully be reporting some very good ‘Nao’ news soon.