Haunted islands

I go there to think

Firstly, I have a new exclusive short comic up on the BIRDS tier of patreon, Saliva Helps With Wounds, aka How Patrick Got His Nose Scar. It plays off a scene at the beginning of episode 63 of ill fame, where we see our knights partaking in some bloody training. It’s a little bit silly, a little bit erotic, and has a lot of blood.

As I mentioned in a previous dispatch, I’ve started a new sketchbook. This time however, I’ve felt compelled to keep it primarily illustrative: no lists, no written notes, no annotations detailing techniques from youtube videos or books that I’ll never refer back to. (Any notes I have written have been covered up, creating ghost scribblings under the new ones. Seemingly, I can’t abide by the reminders of my own thought processes at the moment.)

I’ve come to realise that if I want something to stick in my head I need to draw it.¹

Green Man and tomatoes from photos I took at Arundel Castle, biro and gouache

Strange autumn vibes with a giant and blackberries, biro and gouache

Pigeons and monstera deliciosa, ink pen, biro and gouache

There are some drawings of places I’ve been to and objects from my immediate environment, but mostly this sketchbook has seen me draw more from imagination; off the cuff sketches done without much thinking. Despite this, they are not wholly imaginative, as in surprising and creatively designed: they are repetitive images of an island that doesn’t exist until I put pen to paper. It’s a compulsive island, it just spills out of me. It’s one for a future comic I’m planning on drawing (and of which I am half way through writing). If I was kind I would say it’s a subject matter that brings me comfort; if I was unkind I’d say I’m trying to exorcise it.

Indian ink and gouache

A slightly less haunted island, a study for a future episode of ill fame. Biro and watercolour. Also a drawing of my sisters cat, Pablo

Biro, liquid charcoal and gouache

Liquid charcoal and gouache

You can see I’m searching out materials, trying to find the right way to depict these ideas.

Lastly, I’ll sign out with a couple of recent fan art pieces that I made:

For Blumouse who makes Light Within Shadow

For Beta1042 who makes What the Luck

1. Once again revealing myself in my comic before I realise it consciously: episode 92 of ill fame where Albert asks Frankie what she writes in her rapidly falling apart notebook, “Is it all just your witchy spells?” Frankie responds, “Well, there’s… There’s a few spells, but it’s a lot of notes and places we’ve been. Things I want to remember. I don’t know… Sometimes I think drawing helps me see better.” Albert responds, ““See better”? But that’s what your eyes are for!”