NobbyNobody » Biro-art

Work in progress

NobbyNobody — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:26:24 +0000

I’m always starting new projects, I must have ten or more on the go at any one time. I do get them finished… eventually but I find it hard to stay focussed.
In fact Odd-Fish as a whole was partly an attempt to break this habit and force me to keep up a sustained effort over an extended period of time without letting it fall by the wayside and so far it’s pretty much worked. Odd-Fish has been studiously undated regularly for the last ten months.
But at what cost? Other projects, most notably Biro-Art have fallen foul of my old habits in favour of Odd-Fish and nor Biro-Art has only been updated once in nearly a year. It’s not that I don’t want to update, it’s just that I never seem to get the time. There’s always something else that needs doing, like an new Odd-Fish strip or something to watch on telly or the constant daily urge to eat and sleep.
I’ve even been avoiding getting any new games so that I don’t spend hours shooting monsters when I should be wrangling a biro.
It doesn’t help that it’s become a hell of a lot more busy at work either. I used to use drawing as a way of avoiding boredom on long, quiet shifts but now there’s no such thing. Our branch is no longer open overnight so my beloved night shifts are no longer available and the service stays stupidly busy well past midnight these days so I’ve pretty much given up even taking out a pencil at work any more.

Devil Duck

NobbyNobody — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:55:42 +0000

Last year I got a delightful email out of the blue from an American lady called Mrs Duck (for real!) who is starting up a small business making her own recipe of hot and chilli sauces.
She’d come across an illustration I did back in 2006 called Devil Duck which fortuitously was the exact same name she come up with for her sauces, what with them being as hot as Hell and her name being Duck. Makes sense.

She was interested in acquiring the rights to use my illustration on the labels of her sauces but being a fledgeling enterprise had very little spare cash to throw my way in recompense. I agreed with her at the time that she could use the image for a while till she got started then we’d discuss it again.

Yesterday I got another email from her. The time has come where she wants to ‘go live’ with her products and we need again to discuss the purchase of the rights to the image. Now I’m in a bit of a pickle. I know what the going rate is for this kind of thing and I really don’t think she’d go for it. Especially with how weak the dollar is at the moment, if I ask for sensible money in pounds sterling it’s going to be megabucks on her side of the pond.

So do I sell myself short and let her have it for a pittance just to get my artwork seen? or do I hold out for proper money and risk losing the deal altogether? It’s a problem, and no mistake.

Children’s Book update

NobbyNobody — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:05:00 +0000

Another four tiny teaser thumbnails of biro illustrations from the children’s book that I’m working on at the moment in between other routine biro-art stuff.
These are the illustrations for the pages dealing with the, (from left to right) Starfish, Squirrel, Whale and Ladybird.
There are still many, many more to do but so far I’m pleased with the way things are going. The design of the central character, the Frog has evolved a little as things have progressed so I may have to revisit or even completely re-draw some of the earlier pages at some point.
With a little digital jiggery-pokery it’s possible to just re-draw the bits that need updating then incorporate them into the original biro drawing so it shouldn’t be too much extra work. Still, it’s a learning process and hopefully when it’s done it will be something rather special. Here’s hoping.

Writer’s Block

NobbyNobody — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 05:55:00 +0000

Work continues apace with the new biro-art book, but I’m struggling a little with the subject matter.

The problem is I need to draw a fair few different animals but they must meet a series of quite stringent criteria:

Must have an exclusive or near exclusive diet
Cannot eat frogs
Cannot be a creature that frogs eat (flies, worms etc)
Cannot eat flies or fly-like bugs or things that frogs eat (worms, slugs etc)
Must be a natural diet not like ‘Dogs eat dogfood’ or ‘Mice eat cheese’

I thought it’d be quite easy to think of lots but having done a few I’m at a loss now.
Here’s a list of ones I’ve done so far or have planned:

Done:
- Duck – pondweed
- Panda – bamboo
- koala – gum leaves
- Starfish – shellfish
- Mole – worms
- Aardvark – ants/termites
- Macaw fruit & seeds
- Whale – krill
- Ladybird (ladybug) – aphids
- Marine Iguana – algae
- Squirrel – nuts
- Puffin – sand eels
- Vampire bat – blood
- Stag Beetle – nothing!
To do:
- Polar Bear – seals
- Penguin – fish
- Hummingbird – nectar

Any suggestions are very welcome, just send me an email

2007 retrospective

NobbyNobody — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 03:39:00 +0000

Here we are at the end of another year.
Another year of doodling with a biro, creating drawings that bring great acclaim but little cash.
I’m very grateful for the fantastic feedback I get for the stuff I do, but I do wonder if it’s at all marketable. After all, with a couple of minor exceptions no-one at all seems to want to pay me to draw for them.

2007 will see the release, by hook or by crook, of my first proper illustrated book. NobbyNobody’s ANThology was mainly an exercise in taking an idea to fruition and to investigate if my illustrations work in book form.
2007’s book will be for children with a simple story illustrated on each page with a full page drawing.
It will follow the adventures of a frog as he explores the world learning about other animals and their eating habits.
The book is designed to be read to a child by an adult and will include some ’stage directions’ indicating to the reader how to act while reading certain sections.

Initially, I will be attempting to offer the finished work for publication via established childrens’ book publishers but ultimately if that comes to naught I will self publish via one of the many services available on the internet.
I doubt I will use Lulu again, because they are expensive, slow and rather limiting on what they can produce. They’re excellent for experiments like ANThology but not cost-effective for the real thing. Plus with them being based in the USA, they do not offer some services to us non-US authors.

Work has already begun on the illustrations for this new project which I will not be publishing as large images on this site or over on Biro-art so that the drawings are new to people when they (hopefully) buy the book.
I will occasionally display thumbs of the pages as they are created, just to show the book’s progress and to keep interest up.
With that in mind, here are a small selection of drawings so far completed…

Published again!

NobbyNobody — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 03:25:00 +0000

Two of my biro illustrations have made it into a new book from Rob Manuel of b3ta.com and published by Friday Books called the Bumper B3ta Book of Sick Jokes.
This book contains the most offensive material possible and is certainly NOT for the easily offended.
The two biro drawings that made it in to Rob’s book as joke illustrations have not been shown on the main site at biro-art before because of their… less than family friendly subject matter.These drawings illustrate the rude joke:
What do elephants use as tampons?
Sheep!
and the considerably more unpleasant and offensive:
Why do newborn babies have holes in the top of their skulls?
So that you can carry them in fours, like beer-cans.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

New Greeting Cards

NobbyNobody — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 01:53:00 +0000

I’ve never received my ‘hardcopy’ of Khooligan Magazine which is a shame but at least I have the PDF version so all is not lost.
There have been a number of new drawings added to Biroart since I last posted, some of which have been in response to NobbyNobody’s Biromash Time and some of my own ideas.
I’ve created a new range of greetings cards which can be found on the biro-art Greeting Cards Store page. There are a few old drawings made into cards and several drawing created specifically for the purpose. These are the five Christmas cards, Unlucky Snowman, Get Stuffed, Manta Claus, Baaa Humbug and Penguin Santa.
Get Stuffed is also available as a Thanksgiving card.

Published!

NobbyNobody — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:09:00 +0000

So Khooligan magazine have published my article and a damn fine job they’ve done too.
Obviously I can’t read what they’ve written but it all looks rather spiffy.
There’s a hard copy on its way to me but in the meantime they sent me a PDF of my article. I love it.

In other news, the book has been available for just under a month now but has so far failed to set the world (and my bank balance!) alight. I didn’t really expect it to but it would have been nice to have sold a few more copies. Meh.
It is of course still available at the very reasonable price of £7.99 and I’m quite proud of it. Go on, treat yourself.

On the subject of treating yourself, All of the tee-shirts that are currently available in the the biro-art shop are now also available in rich red colour called ‘Cardinal’ as well as the usual white, black and light-grey.

First Biromash Book Now Available!

NobbyNobody — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:51:00 +0000

Finally, after months of drawing, scanning and waiting, my first book of biro drawings is available for sale.Entitled NobbyNobody’s ANThology it features all of the the ANT drawings that can be seen in the
gallery over at biro-art plus a couple never seen before.
It’s priced at just under £8 (plus delivery) and can be ordered now direct from the publisher right here.