Nathan G R Sharp Illustrations

Neg 2. Sleepless Phoenix Comic Strip Colouring

2011-05-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

Working further on the Comic strip for The Sleepless Phoenix's Ages Anthology. I have been colouring the inked pages, using photoshop.

I began by making sure the document was in greyscale, as the anthology is black and white. Then I selected a texture for the background and edited the textures to fit the areas which needed the specific texture. For example I used a texture called Mountain Rock for the walls and floor as it made the area look dark as if in a bunker or basement, which was the feel I hoped for. I made sure that the textures were on the multiply layer setting so as the ink work could be seen through it, I also multiplied the inked layer as I needed to work tone onto it on different layers

After getting the textures looking right I cropped each panel so that the pages layout would be symmetrical, identical (other than were intended) and neater.

To add tone, I used a graphics tablet and selected the area I wanted to shade, then using a large blurred brush i added dark tones , then using a flat rubber tool on 50% opacity I erased away parts of the darker areas to give the tone more definition.

When adding the lighter tones I used a normal layer over the other layers. Then in a similar fashion to the darker tones i added white, and then altered the opacity of the layer to get the desired shade.

Also as the comic was meant to be from the perspective of a hand held camera, I experimented with lens flare, to do this I made circles by editing a solid circle made with a brush tool, to edit out the centre I used modify tool to contract the selection and the delete the area. I made several circles and 2 lines through so as to give it the effect I wanted.

This is a page which I used the lens flare effect I developed in.

Neg 2. Sleepless Phoenix Comic Strip

2011-05-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

As I have been working a lot with the Sleepless Phoenix on the blog and my Pin up being featured in last years anthology, I decided to submit a comic strip for this years anthology.

The theme was time and ages, and from this I devised a unique comic strip that goes from the perspective of a hand held camera used by a group of survivors trapped in a bunker after some kind of apocalypse. the camera has a time stamp which will be seen at the bottom of each panel to link the comic to the theme.

Obviously as I am hoping to be published in the anthology, I can't post the entire comic or even a fully finished page. However I can show some of the work I did in development (see older posts) and almost finished pages.

This is a page from the comic. I began by sketching the work in pencil as a rough. I then moved to A3 paper and ruled out the layout of the page that I had come to as well as drawing in detail the comic page, so as not to have rough marks on my inked pages I light-boxed the the pencils lightly on to Bristol Board. After which I worked over the pencil work using dipping pen adding tone and shadow to the original drawing.

Neg 1. Final Poster Design

2011-05-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

Having worked on Cold War and other communist propaganda work before, for example El Lissitzsy's Beat the White With a Red Wedge etc. I chose to use similar styles and ideas when colouring my Fox Hunting Poster.

With this in mind I have worked the images to make them look worn and used a very red and orange dominated colour pallet.

After getting to an image I was happy with i experimented with Russian and Soviet text styles until I found one I was happy with.

Quarantined Reveiw

2011-05-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Lately as I am writing and illustrating a comic strip for the next Sleepless Phoenix anthology, i have been looking at further work that Sleepless Phoenix creators have gone on to do, namely the new Markosia graphic novel, Quarentined.

Quarantined is the most recently published graphic novel by Micheal Moreci. However would not be possible without the artwork from Monty Borror, colours from Lauren Anne Sharp, letter work by Jim Campbell, and cover art from Keith Burns.

The story follows a father and son who attempt to survive the Zombie apocalypse in their small town home. The story begins in the stereotypical zombie genre way with the protagonists arguing the best survival method, barricade themselves in the house or find and help others, and also stereotypically they chose the latter. However in keeping to the classic zombie story is in no way a bad thing, in fact horror fans will probably appreciate the old-school feel to the story. It also explores the ideas of not just protection against zombies but protection against other survivors as paranoia builds and issues such as food and water shortages become another focus in survival. In summary Quarantined is a classic zombie story with plenty of nods to the genre, violence is expected but it is not at a level of being gore porn which often ends up happening in this genre.

Read the start of the book at http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=69366

Neg 2. Sleepless Phoenix Character Development

2011-04-28T05:40:00.000-07:00

Working further on the Comic strip I shall be submitting to the Sleepless Phoenix Ages Anthology, I have finalised the style that I have worked onto previously posted work. this style I am happy with as I believe it fits the mood of the story as well as the setting, seeing as both are quite dark. I have also worked further on my characters appearances by making full body designs, also in the style which I have worked on. with this in mind I am one step closer to begin work on the pages that I shall submit.

NarratorSuzie (Daughter)MikeBillMora

Neg 1. Anti-Fox Hunting Line Work

2011-04-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

This week I have focused solely on getting this work for the Anti Fox Hunting posters finished by Easter. I have put all 4 images together and added suggested tone as well as direction to how the image is viewed by using vertical and horizontal lines, taking Will Eisner and Peter Kuper as inspiration. As well as blocking out the text banner. The next job to be done is to add subtle colour to bring out the foreground, which i shall be doing next week.

Neg 1. Anti-Fox Hunting Ink Work

2011-04-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have been working further on my Anti-fox hunting images. I have inked the four pencil drawings. However I am yet to edit the images, so there are a few visible mistakes and pencil lines visible, which will be edited in due process.

Top Left.

Bottom Left.

Bottom Right.

Top Right.

Neg 1. Anti-Fox Hunting Pencil Work

2011-04-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

I've been working towards finishing my anti-fox hunting posters, and therefore have began pencil sketches towards the final pieces, which shall be pen and colour through the use of Adobe Photoshop. The images are to be viewed as a collection of 4 posters slightly smaller than A3 arranged 2x2 on A1. The story line follows the ribbon flowing through all three images, which will have text in it.

Top Left Corner

Bottom Left Corner

Top Right Corner

Bottom Right Corner

Sleepless Phoenix Blog Work

2011-03-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

As well as working on the posters for the student guild, I have been taken on as The Sleepless Phoenix's official blogger, I receive info every month on 2 posts that are to be posted bi-monthly. Posts can be found regularly at, http://thesleeplessphoenix.blogspot.com/

The latest post I've been working on required me to design a poster asking for more artists to submit work for the next anthology.

Also I posted this on the blog along with the poster:

"Here at The Sleepless Phoenix we have come to a peculiar problem - no one seems to be a comic book artist! The Ages Anthology has been inundated with writers, which is awesome, but we need artists to illustrate these fantastic story entries! Therefore, Comic-book artists, Graphic-novelists, Illustrators and Art Students, we are calling you out!

Artists please send any previous sequential artwork you have done as a submission to … along with anything you think we might be interested in seeing, Blogs etc.

Also to you writers who have or want to submit strips, if you have an artist in mind or know an artist who could illustrate your work, or even if you are a writer and an artist and want to illustrate your own story, let us know or get the artists in contact with us.

This is a promotional poster asking for artists. Anyone who knows our team; bought the Survival stories anthology or is just interested in helping us publish our next anthology; please spread the word and if possible put the posters up where artists might see it. I will be putting one in the art building at my Uni; we hope you to do similar :)

Thank you everyone for the support you give us.

Check back with us soon for a look at the first strips to become part of the Ages Anthology!"

Prefessional Practice Cancer Research Poster

2011-03-24T05:54:00.000-07:00

Over the Christmas holidays I was asked by a friend of a friend to do some work for a charity event at the Glyndwr Student Guild in Wrexham on the 4th June 2011. We devised a Dead line of the 18th of March, fortunately I finished before hand.

I worked on the idea that 1 in 3 people are effected directly or indirectly by cancer, whether they are male or female, initially I began with drawing silhouettes of figures who could be anyone however I was inspired by my doodles of stick figures which looked reminiscent of gender symbols and so worked on a more graphical image of using the male symbol the female symbol and a X to represent cancer.

I was very inspired by screen print images I had seen in posters for bands such as Bon Iver, Death Cab For Cutie, Beirut, The Decemberists and Mumford and Sons as well as the book All Messed Up. With this in mind I worked on finding a distressed look to my work, however trying to recreate "accidental graphics" is far more difficult than I had anticipated and so went for a more controlled recreation using photoshop which took longer than I thought but came out looking better than the other work I had tried.

After a solid weekend of working on the final pieces I was able to send the images to Emma who approved them and will be displayed in the Guild shortly.

Poster 1

Poster 2

Poster 3

Ticket

Neg 2. Sleepless Phoenix - Characters

2011-02-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been working on several projects. I am working on art work for a anti-fox hunting campaign, promotional material for a charity event and working on The Sleepless Phoenix Blog and working on a comic strip to submit to them for their comic anthology on time and the ages.

Currently I have started drawing my characters for the story that I shall be submitting along with developing the story itself.

The characters are:

The Man

The Conspiracy Theorist

The School Teacher

The Man's Son

Neg 1. Horses - Anti Fox Hunt

2011-01-20T16:27:00.000-08:00

Working more on my book for the MacMillan Prize. I have a story drafted, and ready with development drawings. My biggest issue with this project is that Fox Hunters rid horses, and I am not confident in drawing horses. So today I spent a lot of time studying images of horses and drawing out horses legs in particular.

From this I have become more confident in drawing horses and think I am about ready to start working on roughs for my pages.

Neg 1. Man Fox - Anti Fox Hunt

2011-01-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been working towards developing a children's story book to submit to the 2011 MacMillan Prize. Working from a doodle I made during another project I created a character, and am currently working on an appropriate story to accompany the character.

Whilst developing my initial drawings i did a variety of sketches to find an interesting way of keeping human and fox aspects of the character, deciding that hands, feet and face would be human. having to work out how they would work with the res of the body I made these sketches.

Blog Updates

2011-01-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

My New years resolution is to attempt to post on my blog at least once evry two weeks (not including this post).
currently I have been working solely on my dissertation, however will post some of my new work shortly.
Check back here for more information and images.

Proffesional Practice Finished Pin Up

2010-10-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I posted about the Sleepless Phoenix Survival Stories Anthology(http://thesleeplessphoenix.blogspot.com/). On the 16th it was officially released atBICS, and with that in mind I decided to post the work that I did for the anthology.

The anthology had to be printed in black and white and so my original work had to be altered for the book (but only slightly). However I still prefer the original and so that version of the work will be posted rather than the black and white.

Professional Practice Sleepless Pheonix Pin Up

2010-09-02T11:41:00.001-07:00

"On June 30, 2010, Insomnia Publications filed to cease trading with the UK companies house. Though Insomnia never officially informed his creators (or anyone) of this decision, all signs pointed to the end of Insomnia. And the creators, well, we were supposed to move on, chalk up a loss, and let all our hard work and dedication become a memory—lesson learned.

But we came up with a different plan. In the days following the news of Insomnia’s seeming end, one thing became clear: that all the creators involved believed in each other’s work. A mutual admiration was shared for the short comics that appear in this anthology, and we are determined to see it get the release it deserves.

And that’s how The Sleepless Phoenix—a collective of up-and-coming comics talent from both the UK and the US—was born. While the Comic Book Alliance works to settle the conflict of our publishing contracts, we took the only content that still belongs to us—this anthology."

Recently I have been working on a pin up for the sleepless phoenix comic book anthology, Survival Stories.
This project was given to me by my sister, Lauren Anne Sharp (http://laurenannesharp.blogspot.com) as she is also doing a pin up for the anthology.

For this project I began by brain storming ideas for an image to do with survival or a struggle to survive.
This gave me three main ideas which were an image of someone with their head in their hands, someone climbing a cliff or someone aiming a gun.
After some sketching I chose the man aiming a gun, I began by working on some of the sketches to make an inked idea while discussing it with my sister until I came to a good image.Since drawing this I have added a lamp to the background, I felt this gave a reason for him to be turning in panic, as well as adding blood splatter to the background. This is ambiguous as to whether he has shot someone or something else has happened. I also have chosen to colour it in black and white. I made two images one has red blood, which I shall use in my professional practice folder at University as this was how I saw my image coming out. The second image was the same, only the blood splatter was in white (inspired by Sin City) which will be used in the anthology as it will be printed in black and white.
The anthology can be found at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/910305588/the-sleepless-phoenix-comics-anthology
Any pledges towards its publishing will be very much appreciated, it is released in October 2010.

I shall post the finished work at some point after BICS (British International Comic Show) in October.

Amelia's Magazine - Green Power

2010-06-26T16:22:00.001-07:00

Doing a load of extra work for uni. This is a brief where I had to design a greener form of energy.

I chose a fusion reactor as although it takes a lot of energy to create and maintain the energy it produces is far greater, essentially using the same reaction that takes place in the sun to make an endless source of energy. And I had to illustrate my imaginings for a reactor.

much research followed and after a long week of drawing, printing, scanning, photo-shop and colouring and repeating all that I've finally come to a design I'm happy with.

And obviously I had to colour this and as I had gone for a steam punk style I had to use lots of coppers and brown colours, using a colour pallet pretty much of just orange and purple after hours of working today I'm finally set on my final image.

Spiders

2010-02-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

Spider 1

Spider 2

Spider 3

I am currently working on a non-fiction book cover, at uni. the requirements were a list of animals/ topics and a restricted colour pallet of 3 colours not including black.

I chose spiders as I noticed not many people in my group chose them, most likely as they are pretty offensive creatures and arachnophobia is common.

I have progressed 3 sketches into a photoshop coloured and acrylic and brush pen colour studies.

I Want You Parody

2010-02-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

Since finishing my 9 page comic brief, I have been working on a new brief. Based around a toy of our choosing I needed to research and make a poster to do with climate change using the toy as inspiration.My choice was a possibly war hammer ogre that had been left in the student house I currently live at.From there I linked the ogre to Uncle Sam posters by J.M. Flagg:

Thinking he could be a earthy monster (with much reference to shadow of the colossus, PS2 game) and that he needs us to look after the planet. Then on thinking of his character I came to the idea of him being Atlas from Greek mythology. my final piece i think brings together these 4 elements into a poster, based at teenagers and you adults.

Concept Comic Art

2010-01-26T14:29:00.000-08:00

Page 2Page 3Page 6Page 7Wow! entire day of colouring and after starting at 11:30am I have finally finished at 1:00am

this is my entire story. if your read it in order it sort of makes sense but its really not.

Page 1 : Man goes to front door, unlocks door with a Click, and goes up the stairs to his apartment.

Page 2 : He he washes his hands.

Page 3 : As he washes his hands his hands deform and an explosion from the sink pushes him away.

Page 4 : The explosion from the sink trashes his apartment leaving him in an empty room in shock.

Page 5 : A broom falls over notifying Man that there is a giant set of pure white curtains.

Page 6 : He investigates the curtain.

Page 7 : He opens the curtain and dark red liquid pushes him.

Page 8 : He falls to the floor and he drops a bottle of pills and a gun.

Page 9 : he takes the gun and puts it to his head alone in the empty room, Click.

More Comic Work

2010-01-26T11:34:00.000-08:00

Have whizzed through 5 of the 9 pages of this comic book brief. unfortunately the next 4 pages are a set of 2 double page spreads so i can't imagine them being the easiest... hence being last to be done. this is the first time i have properly used photoshop to colour work and so far I'm impressed at myself (I had imagined a far worse turn out)

Page 1

Page 4

Page 5

Page 8

This has been a very influential brief and I have been enjoying it and can only see it opening new doors to explore for my late work. I shall most defiantly be using photoshop more, and getting a better graphics tablet.

Back to work on these double page spreads...

Comic Art Last Page

2010-01-26T05:05:00.000-08:00

This is page nine of my comic/ concept art.

to be honest its a very simple page and didn't take me very long to do for obvious reasons the hardest decision with this page was background colour, my brief did not allow dark atmosphere limiting my use of black. this lead me to take a leaf out of my sisters work for kronos city and work with dark reds.
If possible I will post the rest of my pages along with some rough work (if my A4 scanner works for a change that is)

Pen Work

2010-01-25T09:41:00.000-08:00

Considering this is the first time I've used a brush pen I think that it turned out quite well this is the first and last pages of a 9 page comic.

Page 1

Page 9

Concept/ Comic Ideas

2009-12-10T04:38:00.000-08:00

I have not been able to post any updates in a while due to having so much work to do at uni. But the work is paying off and by next week I shall have roughs scanned and ready to post.

Currently the brief I am focusing the majority of my efforts on is my narrative brief.

it started as soon as the summer holidays were over, so its been a lot of work, at the start we were told to chose a genre of book/film/comic and being the horror buff, you can imagine what i chose. we were told to point out just ten cliches and essentials in our genre.

for horror mine were as follows :

Dark atmosphere
Entices emotions of fear, terror and horror
Involves themes of death, supernatural and/or mental illness
Plays on insecurities
Fast vivid shots (film)
Suspense driven
Contains subtle yonic and phallic imagery
Violence
Causes tension
Artistically creepy

Of course i later found my characteristics of a horror was very detailed perhaps too detailed, especially when i found that the later majority of the brief was to create a set of images or comic book that still falls within our chosen genre but doesn't follow any of our ten characteristics.

However through loopholes and knit picking at what I might have meant rather than what i did mean i have managed to write my story. initially a comic but its slowly progressed to more of conceptual art. although still in the roughs stages, which are particularly scratchy, work nonetheless is very much on the way. I'm looking forward to what i churn out as to be honest where I'm at surprises myself!

Life Drawing

2009-11-16T11:49:00.000-08:00

This is some life drawing sketches I did last year. Its nothing special but the start of my posts of old work I'm proud of.

Another Karl

2009-11-16T11:36:00.000-08:00

This is another drawing I did for the Kronos City blog. Unfortunately it will have to stay as a line drawing as I am swamped with uni work, some of which I will post soon.

Karl

2009-11-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

This is something I drew recently for http://www.kronoscityblog.com/.

This is Karl who is a character in the kronos city graphic novel (to see full details visit the kronos city blog).

My sister Lauren Anne Sharp is colourist for kronos city and posted on the blog asking for entries for peoples opinions of what karl looks like to them.

My entry along with others will be displayed on the blog as well as at the Thought Bubble Convention in Leeds. I shall be sending and posting more as I am interested in getting more involved with Lauren's work http://www.laurenannesharp.blogspot.com/.

I shall post older work as well in due time.

Nathan Sharp Illustrations

2009-11-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

Hi my name is Nathan Sharp.

I'm currently studying Illustration at university in wales.

I have only recently started this blog as aid in professional practice and as some added promotions before I finish university so as I might be able to find a job, hopefully following my sisters footsteps into the comic book industry.