The Fortieth Doodle

If this makes no sense to you, please refer thine eyes to doodle number Thirty Seven. 

I recently took a commission to draw out a card style king and queen tattoo, which I then turned into an illustration too. I actually had so much fun with it, I thought 'Oh buggar, I want to do all four suits now. Damn.' (I mainly thought damn because things are so mad busy at the minute, and I'm just giving myself even more work to do! I am a tit.)

So here's the line drawings of all four suites, spades, diamonds, clubs and hearts. They are obviously all quite similar, yet I strived to make sure each face had it's own characterisation, each outfit had it's own quirks. I look at loads of examples of old card designs, and sort of amalgamated all the aspects I liked into my drawings. 

I cannot wait to get a chance to finish them all off. As a set, they are going to look SICK.

The Thirty Seventh Doodle...well, sort of

So this is pretty funky. Seeing one of your doodles being tattooed on to someone. It still delights me when someone sees something I have done, and they think 'Yeh, that's awesome, I'm gonna get that inked on to me for the rest of my life'. 

Hardcore. No pressure then.

So this was my line drawing that was commissioned. The dude wanted a card style king and queen, but he didn't want the suit or an outline, which I agreed with, makes it seem a bit too stiff like that. He brought me a few examples but they were pretty shoddy, so I did some doodles and here was my result.

I have to admit I was so chuffed when I saw the final thing, it's very hard to know how your work will translate onto someone's skin! Though obviously this very careful line work is generally not my thing, so here it is again as a full on illustration in my very distinctive style-

A really good project I had a  lot of fun with!

The Thirty Sixth Doodle

So, I'm not entirely sure this could be called a doodle. It took a jeffing long time.

But the start was a doodle. Here is how she began life -

A very quick pen sketch in my ineffable style ('messy' I think, is the word). And I sat back and looked at her and thought, 'I quite like you, love'. I have always been fascinated by sugar skull designs as they think they are hauntingly beautiful. I had done one a while back, a very gypsy influenced one with polished lines and colours, stylized roses and specific curls of hair. I loved her.

BUT, I wanted to do a sugar skull lady again, one with a little more....me. So here we have it.

Obviously not me as in she looks like me. I bloody wish. She has got some great volume in that hair of hers. No; me in a sense of that erratic, verging on deranged, rather untidy style. So the lines are not perfect, the paint is thrown around and definitely does NOT stay in the lines. Just like me. Hohooo, I am funny.

Though I underestimated the power of her eyes. They genuinely scare me a bit. I love that.