www.somefield.com

[grasshopper]

Hey all, I should have done this awhile ago. I have a buddy of mine that does some fantastic artwork, and even managed to get a graphic novel published last year (with quotes from the likes of Ashley Woods and Jeff Smith).

His site is www.somefield.com

Unfortunately, the book didn't sell as well as he had hoped, so he's decided to try out putting the main story up online in instalments in the hope of drumming up interest in the book.

You can start reading the story from here: somefield.com/merricks_online/index.html

It's a great comic, so if any of you are looking for something new, check it out. And if you want the comic, I'm sure somewhere like Quality could get it back in (that's where I got it from).

[andreib]

Dude, that's absolutely eye-wateringly awesome stuff. I'm using his desktops now. I will probably try to emulate his drawing of women.
How'd you meet him?
Thanks for the link btw.

[grasshopper]

He and I met at school when we were six and friends from just about then on (there was a 4 year period when he moved to Costa Rica that I didn't see him). When I moved to Canada to study graphic design at 18 he decided to follow me up to do the same course and we lived together for the next 3 years or so. I cannot tell you how much I hated having to look at his work all the time. I'd finish my project, be all happy about it, then I'd see his version of the project, and I'd become depressed about mine.

It got even worse when his girlfriend (now wife) moved in, cause she was loads better then me too. And in the same course as well. So I had to look at two people's works that were better then mine. Every week.

[andreib]

Yeah, the only real thing you can do with people like that is be more active than them, or take your work in a different direction to avoid comparisons.
It's fucking insanely good though :drools:
I've linked the Dead By Thirty attendees to it, so hopefully he'll get some WA buyers of his stuff. Did he do any fine arts study or just graphic design? I'm looking at the way he draws girls and just thinking that there must have been some sort of lengthy period there where he'd have to have fine tuned that.
Like one of the reviewers say, he's so insanely talented I'd hate him if I didn't love his work so much. <3

[grasshopper]

In the mid 90's when he moved back to Barbados I discovered that he was really into drawing anime, and he drew that for years. It just really started to evolve over time though into what you see.

In terms of fine art training, we did an Art Fundamentals course (that covered stuff like life drawing and painting and photography and so forth), and the design course we did had lots of drawing and painting in it. Keep in mind this was from 1998-2001, I don't think they even had tablets then (all of his work is done on tablet, he doesn't touched a pencil in 3 years or so), and we weren't even taught web design as that wasn't part of the course.

So yeah, he did o quite a bit of life drawing and art history, but nothing intense like having to write a thesis or anything like that.