LONDON MCM EXPO & MEEEEEE

Come one come all, this weekend!

www.londonexpo.com/show_features/comic_village__expo.html

did you go to college, and if so, what for?

Nope, I went to University. ( I think there's a difference or it could just be terminology, but I went to an actual university. )

BA in Design.

Ask me anything

Where do you get all of the photos of people's noses, faces, hands,etc. that you incorporate in your work?

From basically one or two photos I've had for years. If I use specific reference for a cover, it's usually pictures of my own face. Shhh.

Ask me anything

Scenes From The Road 12: Houston

Houston. I came in for Comicpalooza, a 2 day convention. The people were amazingly friendly... and no one sounded Texan! It's like the city sanity forgot though. No public transport, no cabs...no nothing except privately owned cars and poor city planning. I'm not one to enjoy wasting a lot of my life in a car getting from A to B in a massively sprawling place. Saw lots of boarded up buildings right downtown too. Saddened me greatly.

I signed boobs for someone. Officially my third pair, though... the other two were actual flesh and blood.

Signed a complete run of FELL. All FELL issues get a Snowtown tag on them too. Figured it was always a nice little extra. Hope Warren doesn't mind me defacing the books that way.

At a dinner before the con, we did Chinese food. We had fortune cookies. This was mine. Yes, am pretty sure it's telling me I should have a wank.

I did a few commissions at Comicpalooza over the weekend. I even took step by step photos of a couple. Here's Nick Fury pencils...



Basic inks...

Water colour to flesh out the final piece. As well as white lines to tighten the thing up a bit. If you dig this commission and are in London next weekend, May 29th-30th I'll be doing more at the LONDON MCM EXPO. First come first served! All are painted up like this. I can only do commissions at cons right now sadly, so this is your only chance. I do A4 ( or US equivalent ) for £100 A3/ 11x17 inch size for £200 And sketch card headshots are £15

Whenever I click on a link to your site, I come up with ridiculous spyware shit. Did you know that happens?

Apparently but only for a very few people. I think it's just the ghost of the actual worm/hack that got on the server space awhile back. Even those that initially said they had something come up seem to say it doesn't happen any longer.

This is why I love my mac.

Ask me anything

Scenes From The Road 11: Albuquerque

Did a super quick signing stop off at Astrozombies, a comic store down in Albuquerque. They'd awesomely ordered a special limited edition GI Joe Origins: Baroness cover they wanted me to sign the run of.

I managed to see Natalie Portman at the airport coming in and Val Kilmer again the same day going out. Slightly surreal.

I also got to deface, by request, an Xbox.

Have you always wanted to be a comic book artist, or did you have ambitions to be a visual artist (or indeed something completely different) and sort of fell into the illustration industry?

Nope. Before comics, I wanted to be an Entomologist and a Paleontologist.

But I never wanted to be a comic book *artist*. I wanted to do the lot. I wanted to tell stories. Just so happened the art came first because I was ok at it and it's easier to show people what you've got!

Ask me anything

CHOKER 3 Work In Progress Shots

With CHOKER #3 coming up, here's a peek at how the cover came together.

And yes, just so you know, this image should be a print, available at HEROES CON over in Charlotte, where I'll be, all days, June 4th to 6th! ( As well as the US premier of SQUIDGIRLS! )

Before all that though, I'll be at LONDON MCM EXPO, May 29th-30th. And, if all goes well, SQUIDGIRLS gets it's world premier there. Didn't actually plan it that way but hey, only fitting considering my Anglophile status. 9 And guess what, Warren "I will kill your dog if it looks at me funny" Ellis will be there, Saturday only, so it's probably worth checking out regardless of how much my presence may in fact, repel you.

After some rough pencils, I start adding some basic line work.

Then comes the watercolour washes and such. I do like the drips!

I'd actually already started on the white lines before I took these shots. Yes, I use a few white pens to get some of the details in.

The final, original art, scanned in. Added some white acrylic paint as well as a dash of red veins. If you like it, check out www.templesmitharts.com to buy the original art piece.

Added a bunch of layers of textures and medical type things, a bit of dodge and burn as well as fleshing out the skull with the photo I took for reference for the drawing in the first place.

The final image before it's slotted into the CHOKER cover design.

Wormwood vol 2 HC work in progress

Shots of the cover to the recent Deviant edition hardcover Wormwood that just came out! You got it right? If not... it's heeeeeerrrreeee... ( Yes, it shows the old cover on Amazon still )

Welcome to Templesmith.com

A public service announcement.

Allo.

www.templesmith.com

Scenes From The Road 10: Phoenix Part 2

Ending a night of Phoenix debauchery at 3 or 4am... I left a holy relic at the one restaurant still open.



Yes, I was asked to "correct" a christian bible. I'm not sure which version it was. ( There are so many, they should sort out which one is right! ) but I *was* asked to do this by an apparent holy man of the religion. Which means some Christians are extremely tolerant, even embracing of us followers of the Squid, and should be commended.



I assume this is to put a hex on the non paying customers.



Balls.



I forget the gent in the bar who wished to expose himself to me. He shall remain nameless. NAMELESS.



Brian Azzarello has the best little cigars. & he let me have one. And Ben McCool likes the camera.



Apparently, since I wore a suit, people kept showing me their ID's, so why not actually do the job properly eh? They needed a doorman.



I don't think I even got a free drink though.

Scenes From The Road 10: Phoenix Part 1

The CHOKER tour took Ben McCool & I to the rather warm, rather land locked, deserty city of Phoenix. We had a great, surreal sort of time and did some great signings.

We also got up to way too many hijinks. Mike Malve, Supreme Commander of Atomic Comics should definitely be listed as one of Arizona's actual best tourist attractions in his own right.





This is Xochitl. Yes, she is quite awesome. Yes, that's a Wormwood tattoo across her chest. Yes, it's based on a convention sketch I did for her about a year earlier. Yes, when she then told me AFTER I'd done that rather quick sketch, it was going to be a tattoo on her, I slightly freaked out. I'd rather put a little more time into such things!

Basically, this is the new yardstick in hardcore for any tattoos of my work. It's placement and it really is a complete reproduction of my original... it's just fantastic.

No, Xochitl, I won't tell your mum.



All the tattoo talk led to some...ideas... so later that signing we apparently got ourselves a tattoo artist ( I think your name was Brent, sorry man! ) and McCool and I decided to get one, during our actual signing.

All the actual good photos of this and a write up will be in the back of CHOKER #3 which means the next picture is...



CHOKER #3!

Coming to all fine comic shops everywhere, from this date. Unless monkeys steal them and a volcano erupts.



I need to get my entire sleeve done one day. Looking for good tattooists really in the SF or Seattle areas. Always looking for good excuses to get up there!

Looking for someone with fiiiine needlework who's *really* good at recreations. ( Of some medieval art )



After mine was done, I started doodling on McCool. See CHOKER #3 for the results!



Atomic Comics also worships at the Massive Brain Meat of Ellis, as do I.



I guess I've done a lot of books. Kind of awesome to have an entire shelf display showing years of your life's work.