New site!

 

Just a wee heads-up there's a new spot to see some more recent work! 

https://www.artbybeakes.com/

 I'll have a bit of a re-factor soon, but please bear with me for now! 

Agent Autumn

Instead of Inktober this year, I decided to do project dedicated to character design - Agent Autumn's goal was to create 31 character illustrations over October (and ultimately, as turned out November too)

I've really wanted to push my character work this year, and produce something little more polished and digitally designed -  a daily character each evening was that would ultimately cohere together a set was the goal.

In terms of reference and prep, I'd started to develop some reference and some loose descriptions, and titles that I could pick out of  a list day to day as I fancied. Thematically, I was drawn to the le Carre notion of secret agents as being as far away from Flemming's James Bond angle as possible, them being depicted as staid civil servant types, or dysfunctional odd - which seems like a good spot to aim for.

 'Unlikely agent sort of became the best descriptor, and I could look for tropes that I could affectionately reference. Some characters wound up being based on very specific people or actors in iconic roles, while others were more of an amalgam of a few different ingredients or genres.

Technically, the autumnal theme was expressed through the colour and the Autumn leaf motif employed in the characters costume. Having a reduced colour palette was essential in making the designs conform with each other, and to speed up  the design process. I actually realized how much colour decisions are a huge area in which I typically lose time on with designs while undertaking this approach - which was a pretty key take-away.

As a basis I actually just googled Autumn palettes, added a lighter and darker shade to each colour, and a slightly light off-black for essential shadows and black hues. Early designs tended to reference as broader spectrum of these as possible, while later ones were a lot less fussy. Colour language fairly quickly started to form across the various characters with certain red/pink colours doing a lot of the work for skin tones, or the off-black and olive colours offering some good solutions for materials such as leather and shoes.

Front-loading those decisions really allowed each character to be a case of sketching, with a focus on flow and rhythm, then applying the colour when blocking out. 

While some designs have definitely worked better than others, it's great to be able to see them all together It's been pretty personally fulfilling to get a new illustration project done in 2020. I'm currently looking to combine these into something between a comic or card deck game, so fingers crossed for 2021 should be able to get something together, and possibly undertake a similar project in future.

Thanks! 

Matthew

Photo roll paints

A selection of paintings from snaps on my phone.

Beaver Paints

Just a selection of the daily paints that cover all things Beaver related.

Beaver

Comics Retropsective

As it’s the season to apply to table at some great events so I thought it’d make sense to consolidate my comics stuff in one handy post, that's a little longer than usual.

 I’ve accumulated some comics and zines that nicely pad out a half table and have exhibited at Comic and Zine events over the past 6 years, including Thought Bubble, and Dundee Zine fest.

Working independently I create small runs of personal comics and zines - and each project tends to be its own separate setting and story that tries to experiment a little with small press and zine style comics. These include The Factory (2019), Coaster (2018), Red Planet (2018), Inktober 2015, and Stamp (2014)

The Factory is a 40 page no-text picture book style comic telling the life story of an embittered and unlikely industrialist. Rendered in sepia style inks. 2019

The Factory

The Red Planet is a handmade riso printed mini-zine experiment about a spaceman stranded on Mars, designed to be viewed with the aid of a specially altered pair of 3D glasses, the comic plays with changing perceptions to tell a story. 2018

Red Planet

Coaster is a small format comic, exploring a surreal sequence, each page displaying a marker and ink drawing rendered on a cardboard drinks coasters. 2018

Coaster

Inktober 2015 is a 60 page comic that explores the relationship between digital and physical, ‘analogue’ art practices, and the impact of setting ourselves daily artistic challenges. Probably the densest if not meta comic of mine, the project that both documents the inking and explores a month of creating the images, alongside actual diary reportage of the month. Tweets are rendered out entirely ink, as was the comics specially created font. Features a talking giraffe, Peter Beardsley, Phil 'the Power' Taylor and me. 2017

Inktober 2015

Inktober 2015

Stamp is a small playful comic about longing and day-dreaming, it employs a picture book approach (and it’s own set of stickers) to telling a surreal story of a woman who wished she were a postage stamp. (Originally created and debuted at Thought Bubble 2014.)

Stamp

I tend to prioritise the sequential story comics that I create when at events but also have some smaller runs of prints and postcards produced from smaller projects;

An Inktober postcard

An Inktober postcard

An Inktober postcard

 I work full time as visual artist in video games, while there's cross over - creating comics is a personal passion of mine, so i'm fascinated by little ways of making things, and maintaining creative momentum around other commitments I'll be getting involved with inktober again in this year to produce something new in 2020.

Perhaps on reflection, my work sits somewhere in the space between comics and zines, by being neither true to some of the more traditional comic formats, or being entirely in the cast of the 'lo-fi' handmade editorial of zines.

I suppose put a touch more simply, (and perhaps more honestly)  I'm making comics simply to figure out what they are. 

Thanks for reading

Matthew Beakes

30 min paint

30 min paint

30 min paint

30 min paint