Thank you for your patience, Corporate Skull issue 4 finally begins TODAY. NOW. I’ll write a bit more about what’s in store for this issue at a later date, but I’m hoping this issue will kick it out of the park.
Click this cover thumbnail to read issue 4 from the start. Enjoy! (contains swears and offensive humour)

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And here, we’re done. I hope these have given an idea of this little world I’ve been working on, and the eight main characters who live, play and fight in it. Thank you to everyone who’s had a look and shared them round! You can read Bunny Vs Monkey (alongside many, many other wonderful comic strips) every week in the brand new UK children’s comic The Phoenix! And it launches TOMORROW (Saturday, 6th jan 2012), available in some shops or by subscribing, check out all the details HERE.
Seriously, this is such an exciting time for UK comics.

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I went a bit nuts with the water here, and drove myself mad trying to get what I wanted. Turns out I needn’t have bothered, the water in the actual comic is a much simpler affair, but it was fun to play around with.

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Those of you who used to read my comic Bear may recognise this little chap, in name at least. Action Beaver was a character who bounded into situations, made noises, and bounded out again. Ever since I started forming the teams for Bunny Vs Monkey he’s been in there, the perfect recruit to any battle. Here he is the stuntman, the unhinged daredevil who merrily test-pilots all the bizarre contraptions, with no fear for his (or anyone else’s) life. Action Beaver is, I’ll be honest, one of my favourite

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You may recall me mentioning that in January my comic strip BUNNY VERSUS MONKEY begins in the new UK children’s comic The Phoenix (which you can check out/subscribe to HERE). I was real excited to be involved, and BVM itself has a very special place in my heart (as to why, perhaps one day we can share) so I wanted to get it absolutely right. The story revolves around a woodland, and the trouble caused when a monkey crash-lands in the middle of it. Soon every animal in the woods is taking sides, and some rather remarkable weapons come into play.

That’s the concept. The animals are cute, the fights exciting and the humour silly (or that’s the plan AMIRIGHT?). But with BVM I have an opportunity to do something a little bit special, to make the woods as much a part of the story as the characters. I wanted the woods to look beautiful, and to ebb and flow through the seasons AS THE COMIC DOES. So if you’re reading a Bunny Versus Monkey comic in february, the woods will look far colder then they would in a summer strip. The woods are as much the animals’ homes as their battlegrounds, and provides really unlimited room for variety and change.

This idea really excited me, though I knew I was a little limited. My backgrounds are hardly very detailed, I tend to begrudge having to draw them, so I needed to force myself to work on that. I looked through all the backgrounds that inspired me, in particular many of the Disney backgrounds as mentioned in the previous post (though of course, there are a wealth of other talented studios who produced beautiful woodlands, Ghibli being perhaps the best example), and found as much reference as I could. Now, obviously I can’t just paint to these levels, it’s too highly-skilled and if anything wouldn’t fit in with my rather more simplistic style. I just wanted to absorb.

So I set to work on eight scenes to get myself in practice. Each scene shows a different side of the woods, and one of the characters playing around in it. They served to get me into the right mindset and really convey an important part of Bunny Versus Monkey, something I haven’t consciously worked on before. It’s about the feel of the place I’m asking you to step into, the unspoken atmosphere.

I’ll be posting up a new scene every day until The Phoenix launch date on January 7th. They are all a little rough round the edges, they were never intended to be finished art, just glorified sketches. Today’s was the first I did, showing our main hero Bunny in reflective mood.

Tomorrow, I’ll post up Monkey. Thanks for looking!

One of the unavoidable tragedies of animated films, I think, is how much incredible artwork whizzes past your eye without you even needing to think about it. None more so than in background art, where studio artists will labour for days on exquisite scenery, only for it to be a pretty two-second support act to the action in the foreground. I know, that’s what it’s there for, but considering how talented the artists involved are, I’d love for more attention to be paid to their contribution.
Thank mouse jesus then for this Disney Layout and Background book which I got for christmas, but you can pick up for only THIRTY QUID at amazon right now (clicky!). And it is a weighty tome, a big beautiful chunk of a book, filled with some of the most exquisite background art to be seen. Disney always were masters at this kind of thing, and the passion shows in every piece. It’s also fascinating to see the different styles they adopted, and how art went from pencil to paint.
Please excuse the terrible photos below, they do no justice to the artwork, I just wanted to get across to you some of the work inside, in the hope you might go and buy the book too.

This year in particular I got a little obsessed with background art, I’m going to start detailing the reasons why on this blog tomorrow, and then every day for the next week. See you tomorrow.