Rædwald

I seem to have had knowledge of the Sutton Hoo mask from a very early age. Maybe there was a documentary I saw or something I found in a book, however I came by it it's always fascinated me. The eye sockets in the helmet seem to evoke the time period, or the soul of the person who wore it all those years ago.

In 2012 me and my lovely lady went to the Sutton Hoo site. We were both interested in going (she did English at university, particularly old English) and found the place absolutely fascinating. It's essentially a hill (called a barrow) with an old king buried inside it including everything that was left to him. The ravages of time have rotted all of the organic material, but the metal pieces (like brooches and sword blades) have survived. All that's left now is educated guesses and a bit of imagination. 

A lot of people believe that he tomb belongs to a mysterious king of East Anglia called Raedwald. He was a pretty major figure and it's a pretty impressive tomb so it very well could be him. I've felt like drawing the guy for ages so here he is...in all his mysteriousness.

Demogorgon!

Well, this was bound to happen! I don't watch a large amount of TV, lots of series tend to get bogged down in soap opera shenanigans...dull as dishwater.

Stranger Things on the other hand is only 8 episodes and things actually happen in it. Thumbs up from me. Liked it so much I felt compelled to do something I usually frown upon...fanart. In the style of my prehistoric stuff.

Not going to explain what this is. Watch the show if you don't know....watch it now!

Early to middle Jurassic

Thought I'd do another one of these dino collections. I did all early ones last time, Triassic to early Jurassic. These ones are from the early to middle Jurassic. Things are still kinda similar except that the big meat eaters are starting to appear and the long-necked sauropods are losing their clawed feet and becoming bigger.

1. Pisanosaurus: A sort of dino gazelle, thought I'd do him leaping about. Some of  the later ones have these big quills on the backs of their tails, thought I'd put some on this one.

2. Abrosaurus: Big and lumbering, though nowhere near as big as they were going to get. Thought I'd do a study of the face, get a look at their weird peg teeth.

3. Eustreptospondylus: An example of a large theropod dinosaur. Not quite up there with the biggest ones yet. For some reason I just love the name. It was also discovered in the UK, near Oxford.

4. Dilophosaurus: Ahh, the old classic! Been obsessed with this guy since I first heard about him from Jurassic Park. There's no evidence whatsoever that they had a big frill or spat venom. That weird crest is a mystery.

5. Scutellosaurus: A sort of companion study with scelidosaurus from the first one. Armoured and agile. Another one that might've evolved into stegosaurus.

Also thinking I might take these to MCM Comic Con in October so I've sort of standardized the info a bit. Also some line drawings for a bit more clarity.

The Cake's cake topper

A commission! Don't get many of those. Two friends of mine were getting hitched and they wanted a more-than-ordinary topper for the cake. One is a scout leader, the other has really got into martial arts..both like minions. I actually used a cake base for the base, really quite sturdy and I could cut the wire feet into it so I'll use them for anything going forward. The only issue I came up against was minion's bare feet...do we ever see their bare feet? They're always wearing boots. Went to the actual wedding as well so got to see it in action.

Merch

Quite a milestone post, this one. I've posted my separate dinos and stuff, but never had what I would call a 'line of merchandise' until now. I've been going to the MCM Comic Con in London's Excel Centre for 4 years now twice a year (on and off) and I started going with some short comics that I used to do about some cavemen that didn't sell too well. Gradually the dinos and other prehistoric stuff took the place of those and other random artwork over the years until now. I've got 3 epochs of time of extinct animals and a whole new 'sciencey' thing, planets! The idea for that was mostly inspired by a soft toy line called Celestial Buddies which do the same thing. However I extended it to all the spherical bodies in the solar system as well and added a lot of influence from Gustav Holst's Planets Suite.

I took these to the MCM this May and made more money than I've ever made before by an enormous margin. Don't quite know how to react!

Dinosaur Alphabet

Solar System

Holst's Solar System

Solar System in a line

I had planned to open an Etsy store with what I had left, but I pretty much sold out of everything. Guess I'll need to get more stuff printed! More on that later I suppose...look me up as my name or Mablox.

Triassic to early Jurassic

A bunch of dino drawings, not much to say about that. I started with the massospondylus in the middle and it ended up being a page with equally earlier ones. It's quite interesting (to me I suppose) to note that they have a fairly basic body plan this early on. No big crests and horns and stuff.

Clockwise from left:

Heterodontosaurus: A sort of ugly warthog-style one with weird tusks.

Liliensternus: I think some precursor to the dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park. Seems to have a similar double head crest like him.

Eoraptor: Not like an actual velociraptor style raptor, those guys won't turn up until the Cretaceous. They've named a lot of different things 'raptor'.

Coelophysis: A poster dino for the Triassic period. They've been found with their own young inside fossilized inside their stomachs...times must've got lean.

Scelidosaurus: A sort of dino pig-sheep thing. The palaeontologist from the stegosaurus lecture I went to said that stegosaurus probably evolved from this one.

Lesothosaurus: A sort of dino deer. I've thought for a while that most dinosaurs weren't all that pretty to look at, all spikes and scales. Maybe with some strange whisker/feathers as well.

Massospondylus: The one in the middle. A precursor to the big long-necked sauropods of the Jurassic. They didn't have the big elephant-like legs and long claws on their front feet.

Beyond the Surface

Here's a non-Christmassy flyer for the same theatre company I've worked for before (think it's been nearly 5 years now). It's for a production educating teens about online privacy and stuff like that. They wanted a lot of characters for it, took ages to do so many. I originally had someone based on Moira Stewart on the back, they wanted Davina McCall...can't say I'm totally pleased with it, but it took ages what with changes and stuff. Thought it should go here just because.

"I'm kind of a big deal!"

A bit of drawing here. It's been a while since a film got me interested in doing something for it. Fanart isn't someone being as 'creative' as they could, but it does have this irresistible pull. I didn't see Ant Man at the cinema, but wish I had. I absolutely loved it, best Marvel film for a while. I quite liked that it was a (no pun intended) small scale, no blasted American town with an army of cookie cutter villains. My lovely lady did the painting and the colouring.

Frasersaurus

It's been suggested to me a few times about doing personalized dinos. I only really sell my stuff at MCM Comic Con in London and they're all done in Adobe Illustrator. Kinda difficult to do them to order. Someone at work wanted this for his son. Quite a while since I've done something on canvas. Would rather have had more time to do it, stuff like this always surfaces around Christmas..all at the same time!
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Earlier this year my lovely lady bought us tickets to a lecture at the Natural History Museum called Secrets of the Stegosaur. Very informative and I got to hold casts of the bones of the new Stegosaur skeleton they have in there. Absolutely fantastic!