Truely a blast from the past. An image from the many original drawings I have from the Golden Dragon game book series. The foxing and yellowing is caused by the Cow Gum I used to use to glue the layout paper on card. I think it looks quite good! I’m packing them all up to take to the Fighting Fantasy Fest to show and sell. Own a real piece of the great game book phenomenon!
Mouldy old captain Sludge. Painted in an odd corner while working on a pirate book and listening to Treasure Island on Audible. I’m all piratical today!
Here’s a scan of the map of Kazan from the Fighting Fantasy game book series. I’m very excited to be attending the Fighting Fantasy Fest this weekend as a guest, (Sunday, 7th Sept from 10:30 to 17:00). I’ll have a stall set up and you can ask me to do a drawing for a few quid and see some of the original artwork.
Looking at this map and the compass I can’t help feeling that I left it unfinished. I usually drew the compass in some detail but here it’s just N, an arrow and a couple of concentric circles. No point worrying as the deadline was passed about 23 years ago! Although I only illustrated the maps for the Fighting Fantasy series I did hundreds of black and white illustrations for the Golden Dragon game book series written by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson and published by Granada. I recently found the originals all suitable yellowed and foxed with age and will bring them along too for your perusal.
I look forward to meeting you at the first ever dedicated game book festival! There is still time to buy tickets here.
Slightly embarrassed duckling from my sketchbook.
From my sketchbook.
The pug was sad. All day he had sat on his little velvet covered stool at the queen’s behest, never once averting his eyes from hers. How that little dog love his mistress, how little he knew the power he wielded in the royal court. “Well, pug”, cooed the queen, “should this man loose his head?”. Her gaze turned to the accused, “If pug nods his head,” she informed him, “you loose yours”. With that she produced a small delicacy from her purse, and moved it up and down before the pug who dutifully nodded his head. The man was dragged away to his fate, and queen rewarded the dog with the morsel and, until the next time, the little pug was happy.
I have just finished adding my work to yet another illustrators directory site. It’s taken me the best part of the day resizing images, chopping and cropping and filling in the daft tags and description forms. It’s something an illustrator must do, marketing! it’s interesting the effect of marketing. Many assume it works by putting up an advert and a client sees it and asks you to do a drawing in exchange for a big cheque. None of this is true, especially the big cheque!
What happens is I put up hoardings everywhere I can, jostling with the thousands of other artists doing the same, and I keep putting them up. Eventually, after months, even years, my work may flicker in the back of a potential client’s mind when they happen to want my particular style of illustration. They are inundated and I am trying to stand out and each see the other at a certain moment in time. It’s no one’s fault and it’s frustrating for both parties, as though we are hunting for each other in a thick fog.
I’ve pretty much lost count of the sites I’ve put my work on so I thought I’d post a handful of the more important. If you have a moment visit and share. Every little share helps to dispel the fog!