john welding illustrator

Young Waterton is stricken with fever and hallucinations.

Young Waterton is growing up fast and finding his way in the world, he starts his adventuring in Malaga, Spain where he witnesses a migration of Barbary Apes over the Rock of Gibraltar.

Close up colour details of the pages I was working on today.

Relocated to the kitchen table for a bit of room while I colour three Young Waterton pages.

WIP. The boy has grown up by the end of page 9. The final deadline for Young Waterton is in one week. Another three pages to go yet. Squeak!

Using a light pad to draw lettering SFX for the Charles Waterton comic strip. I am using the under drawing as a guide and a layout only, details comes later.

Here's a short video of how I draw my 'straight lines'. Drawing lines with a ruler can make a line too accurate. My freehand lines, even with an under drawing can go a bit askew sometimes.  To keep the line alive I use the edge of a sheet of paper as a guide, it gives my line enough life to live but not the freedom to ruin a page.

Character doodles for the role of Father Clifford, one of Charles Waterton's early mentors at Stonyhurst College 1796 (ish). The drawing on the left seems a bit rakish so I'm going with the one on the right, he's a bit more fatherly and willing to help the distracted young Waterton find his true calling.

As I was penciling Father Clifford's first appearance, he was coming across as young and swarthy. The trendy new teacher in the school staff room and looking like a villain which is the opposite of what his character in Waterton's story is meant to be.

I played around, the only direction I had was '...a bit Derek Jacobi looking'. The blackness of the pencil and brush marks in his vigorously coiffed hair make him look younger where what he needs is a bit more shorter grey/white to signify his age a bit more. Which is why Top Right works for me.