Red Knee-Ride Hood

I've been drawing a lot of fairy tale characters doing BJJ/MMA recently - have a look at my Alice in Jiu Jitsu Land piece - this week, I took on the story of Little Red Riding Hood and gave it a typically Meerkatsu twist.

Colouring Art Cards

I printed five designs onto thick uncoated cards for use as promotional colouring in art cards. The video above shows me colouring in one of the cards - my fire rooster design. Here is a photo showing all the designs:

The pencils I used are made by Caran D'Ache and they are the Luminance range. They are marketed as high quality artist's pencils and I must say, the colours they produce are lush and very opaque. Perfect for applying rich colour to these colouring in cards plus experimenting with pencil techniques such as blending and burnishing.

I read a whole bunch of pencil reviews and many seem to suggest these were slightly better than Prismacolor pencils. I haven't tried the latter but when I get a set I'll do a side by side comparison.

In the meantime, I can attest to the sturdiness of these pencils and their bright, optical pigment quality when colouring in.

The art cards will be available as a special promotion for the first 50 customers of my forthcoming BJJ gi that I call the Orchid Dragon.



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Derwent canvas pencil wrap (30)

Demonic Twister

I drew two demons fighting in an aerial battle against a stormy background. The dominant demon is using a technique popularly known as the Twister. Available on my Redbubble poster site here.

Here is a breakdown of my working process:

Inktober 2015

Inktober is a yearly challenge for everyone (not just artists) to draw something every day for the whole month of October. I did it last year to the theme of Drawlloween but this year, I kept it pretty open. I asked for my followers on Instagram to provide suggestions. I also just drew whatever idea popped into my head that day.

Most of my finished work these days is drawn digitally so Inktober was a great chance for me to re-connect with the roots of drawing. Here are a couple of highlights from this month:

Custom Havaianas

I bought some Havaiana flip flop shoes in yellow and drew a Mexican style sugar skull onto it using Posca markers and Sharpie pens. A fun exercise to do! The pen marks are reasonably indelible but I will coat it with some polymer varnish.

Quick rough mock-up drawing on the computer to see if my idea would work

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Jiu Jitsu Tea Party

I recently read that 2015 celebrates 150 years since Lewis Carroll published his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Let's face it, Lewis Carroll was definitely tripping when he wrote that book, even by today's standards of fantasy and fiction, it's a bonkers story.

Anyway, I decided to draw my own jiujitsufied tribute to the book.

[The final art is available to purchase as a print and other merch on my Redbubble site.]

Software: Paintstorm - First impressions

I've been experimenting with fairly new digital painting program called Paintstorm. You can download a trial version (fully functioning for 15 days) here.

The full license version costs $19.

Here are my initial first impressions:-

Ewok vs Stormtrooper

To celebrate 4th May unofficial International Star Wars day, I decided to paint an Ewok. In my piece of fan art, the Ewok has taken down a Stormtrooper single handedly and is beating him senseless. They may look cute, but Ewoks are hard boiled assassins!

Here is a break down of the working process:-

Red pandas

I created jiu jitsu some red pandas sparring for my client Tatami Fightwear. The result is this rashguard.

Here's how I put the artwork together:

Software review - Krita - First look

Krita is a full function digital painting program with a loyal fanbase and more importantly, a price tag that can't be beat...it's free.

Jesus v Satan

For Easter, I thought it would be timely to draw an idea I have had in my mind for some time - Jesus fighting with the devil using jiu jitsu. Naturally, the submission he uses would have to be based around the crucifix.

You can purchase this image as a poster and art print over on my Redbubble poster site.

Here is more about how I put this artwork together...

Dragon drawing video

A short clip showing me drawing a chinese dragon in my Moleskine sketchbook. The actual drawing took about an hour of time. I trimmed a lot of the footage and increased the speed 8 times. All edited on Windows Movie Maker, yay for simple free apps!

It was quite enjoyable to make, although a bit nervy as it was a bit like drawing live so I couldn't afford to make too many mistakes.

More videos soon.


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Kleos Grappling Tournament poster

I designed a Medusa themed poster for a UK tournament called Kleos Grappling. Here is a breakdown of how I put it together: