Showing posts with label Marney the Fox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marney the Fox. Show all posts
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Marney the Fox
John Stokes provides gorgeous art for the 18th January, 1975 edition of Buster. I've included some larger frames for you to look at. I love the way JS uses various textures in his art from splattered ink to finger prints. I'd love to own one of these original pages.
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
Marney the Fox
Art by John Stokes. I think it's plain to see that this one was a labour of love. Such beautiful line-work. I'd love to have seen the originals of this one. As they say where I came from: bostin'!
Oh yeah, from Buster dated 1st November 1975.
I was in contact with JS a while back and have an interview (of sorts) with him that I'll publish at some point. Here's a little taste:
I found some Buster comics out the other day. You put an insane amount of work into those Marney the Fox pages. They look beautiful! I only wish they'd been printed on a better grade of paper. I see you used a lot of splatter techniques? Did you use an old toothbrush for that? Also I see a pattern that looks like fingerprints too? Your pages are quite textural. It'd be interesting to see an original Marley, to look at the surface of the art. What kind of pens/brushes/materials did you use?
It was the first time I had used spatter. If I wanted it to be random sizes and quite irregular, I used a toothbrush loaded with Indian Ink, and for a more overall effect I used a diffuser spray, which is a pair of metal tubes, joined together at a right angle. You put one end in a bottle of Ink, the other end in your mouth, and blew until you felt as if your eyeballs were about to pop out! It gave a fair approxamation of an airbrush, which were very rare at the time. Then I went to work with the process white to bring out the highlights, snow effects, etc. And, Yes, I used fingerprints too, anything to give the pages the textures that were everywhere in nature.
Who knows what happened to the pages. None were ever returned to me, so they probably ended up in bin-bags on a dump somewhere. At that time I was using a Gillot nib with a very flexible tip which was heaven to draw with, but after a few years the quality dropped off so much that out of a box of a hundred nibs, less than fifty were useable. I only used brushes to fill in black areas by that time, although in my early years I used a sable brush a lot, for figure drawing, but became dissatisfied with the amount of detail I was able to get with them.
Oh yeah, from Buster dated 1st November 1975.
I was in contact with JS a while back and have an interview (of sorts) with him that I'll publish at some point. Here's a little taste:
I found some Buster comics out the other day. You put an insane amount of work into those Marney the Fox pages. They look beautiful! I only wish they'd been printed on a better grade of paper. I see you used a lot of splatter techniques? Did you use an old toothbrush for that? Also I see a pattern that looks like fingerprints too? Your pages are quite textural. It'd be interesting to see an original Marley, to look at the surface of the art. What kind of pens/brushes/materials did you use?
It was the first time I had used spatter. If I wanted it to be random sizes and quite irregular, I used a toothbrush loaded with Indian Ink, and for a more overall effect I used a diffuser spray, which is a pair of metal tubes, joined together at a right angle. You put one end in a bottle of Ink, the other end in your mouth, and blew until you felt as if your eyeballs were about to pop out! It gave a fair approxamation of an airbrush, which were very rare at the time. Then I went to work with the process white to bring out the highlights, snow effects, etc. And, Yes, I used fingerprints too, anything to give the pages the textures that were everywhere in nature.
Who knows what happened to the pages. None were ever returned to me, so they probably ended up in bin-bags on a dump somewhere. At that time I was using a Gillot nib with a very flexible tip which was heaven to draw with, but after a few years the quality dropped off so much that out of a box of a hundred nibs, less than fifty were useable. I only used brushes to fill in black areas by that time, although in my early years I used a sable brush a lot, for figure drawing, but became dissatisfied with the amount of detail I was able to get with them.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Friday, 15 January 2010
Marney the Fox
Greetings! I've been a little busy of late: what with work and moving house.
Having given the kids an audio book version of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mister Fox for Christmas and having to listen to it several times a day since. I thought it'd be appropriate to start the New Year with Marney the Fox from Buster dated 27th March 1976. Beautiful work by John Stokes. I'm assuming he enjoyed drawing it because he puts an insane amount of detail into this strip.
Having given the kids an audio book version of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mister Fox for Christmas and having to listen to it several times a day since. I thought it'd be appropriate to start the New Year with Marney the Fox from Buster dated 27th March 1976. Beautiful work by John Stokes. I'm assuming he enjoyed drawing it because he puts an insane amount of detail into this strip.
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