drawings | this northern boy

2015: By the numbers.

Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for your continued support on this blog, and across Twitter and Instagram, over the last twelve months. Every like and comment is very much appreciated.

2015 was a pretty big year for me. After drawing more and more often for the last few years, I finally made the decision to try and start earning some money from illustration. I didn’t expect to get a book published full of my illustrations – and to be featured in another, or to have produced so many private commissions. While illustration only managed to contribute a fraction of my income for the year, it was a much better start than I could have hoped for.

My challenge for 2016 is to build on that success and hopefully get another book published – this time one that only has my name on the cover.

2015 by the numbers

On the blog…

39 blog posts written

40,533 page views

10,126 visitors

621 likes

154 comments (99% of them nice!)

Most popular blog post – Imagined Places – 568 views, 13 likes, 7 comments.

On Instagram…

361 posts

103,744 likes

Almost 7,000 followers

My most liked image – Tentacled Island – 1,132 likes

My favourite images on the blog for the year…

8 Comments

November 18, 2015

Beneath the Sea

I recently completed a commission for Max in Canada. He’d seen an illustration I did a while ago – The Island – and asked me for a new version.

The picture below show some of the process, from initial inky thumbnail sketch, to the final coloured illustration.

If you’d like to commission an illustration from me, message me here or on social media.

Initial inky shapes.

Tentacle details

Onto the illustration proper – outlines.

Adding flat blacks and thicker lines to create depth.

Detail goes in with a very fine pen initially.

I always get carried away at this point.

Inks complete.

Final image, ready to send to Canada.

This, and most of my illustrations are drawn on heavy, but smooth cartridge paper. I use Copic Multiliners, a Pentel Pocket Brush and Copic Ciao Markers.

5 Comments

November 11, 2015

Build! A Knight’s Castle.

Earlier this year I worked on the illustrations for a children’s activity book, published by Ivy Press, all about castles. It was a huge amount of fun, and allowed me to work on a real variety of subjects – skulls, castles, knights, medieval soldiers, siege engines…

A huge thank you to all the staff at Ivy Press that worked on this with me, and of course to the author – Annalie Seaman, and to Charlie Simpson who created an amazing paper craft castle. I’m really pleased with how the book turned out!

The official description…

Think like an archaeologist with this fun paper-craft title! Readers are given information about how archaeologists uncover remains, and use secondary sources. They are then given visual and textual clues about the site of a medieval castle, which was the location of a sieged battle. The final part of the book contains the press-out pieces to recreate a paper model of the castle and the historic battle, complete with siege engines and defending and attacking forces. The reader must use their new-found knowledge of how the castle was laid out, and what siege engines looked like to figure out how to piece the paper scene together.

Build! A Knight’s Castle is available in bookshops and Amazon now.

Here are a few of my illustrations from the book, all drawn by hand.

Cover.

Battle.

Heraldry.

Portcullis.

Siege Tower.

Trebuchet.

Skull.

2 Comments

November 2, 2015

The End of Inktober Sale

Inktober is now done and dusted, 31 days of brush pen drawings completed. I’d like to say it was fun, but actually it was pretty tough, and got tougher towards the end. I do think I progressed a bit in terms of technique, which was the main reason for doing it. I certainly feel like I have a better grasp of how to use a brush pen than I did a month ago. Huge thanks to everyone who liked and commented on my work across Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram, your support and encouragement was very much appreciated.

Now that Inktober is over I’ll be working on a couple of other projects, completing some commissions, and planning ideas for books and a comic – but all at a slightly less forced pace.

Quite a few people have expressed an interest in purchasing some of the Inktober drawings, so the images below are now available to buy. If there’s a drawing you’d like that isn’t included here, drop me an email – it may still be available.

The prices vary depending on how detailed the illustrations are, the size, and the quality of paper they are drawn on. Feel free to ask for more details.

To buy any of these, drop me an email letting me know which you’d like to buy and the postal address it’s to be sent to. I’ll then work out postage, and payment can be made via PayPal.

All enquiries should be emailed to me at rob@thisnorthernboy.co.uk

Illustrations are available on a strictly first come, first served basis.

If you miss out on an illustration, drop me an email and I’ll be happy to work on something brand new for you.

The Ossuary. £30.

The Sword and the Stone. SOLD.

The Android. £30.

The Deep Dweller. £30.

The Berg. £20.

The Creature. £15.

The Peaks. SOLD.

The Clown. SOLD.

The Explorer. SOLD.

The Lonely Robot. SOLD.

The Forest. SOLD.

The Lone Tree. SOLD.

The Island. SOLD.

The Old Town. SOLD.

The Stone. SOLD.

The Moon House. SOLD.

The Astronaut. SOLD.

The Day of the Dead. SOLD.

2 Comments

October 19, 2015

Inktober update

If you’ve been following my blog, or my Instagram or Twitter feeds, you’ll know I’m participating in this year’s Inktober. For an explanation of what Inktober is, have a quick read of this blog post.

18 days in to the project and I’m part frustrated – that I haven’t made more progress using the brush pen, it still feels damn tricky to get the line quality right – and partly delighted to be producing illustrations every day that I’m (more or less) happy with.

Time, as always, is a big factor. I’m back working in London Monday to Friday now, and getting home at eight in the evening doesn’t leave lots of time to think or draw. I try to get out of the office at lunch time and do some sketching, getting some ideas together for things I might draw that evening or the coming days. This can really help, if I don’t get to my desk until after nine pm once I’ve eaten, having an idea ready to go is a weight off my shoulders.

I am still drawing each illustration with my Pentel Pocket Brush, although I am sneaking in a little detailed line work here and there with Staedtler or Copic pigment liners.

Today’s drawing is still yet to be done. I’ve one idea half finished, that I’m really not too sure about, and a bunch of doodles and notes scribbled over my desk that might become something.

Here are the first 18 drawings for this year. I’ll post another update for Inktober in a couple of weeks when it’s finished.

: Day 1. The Inkbot.

: The Spacedog.

: The Island. £40.

: The Stone. £20.

: Day 5: The Reaper.

: Day 6: The Forgotten.

: Day 7: The Altar of the Moon.

: The Lone Tree. £40.

: The Deep Dweller. £30.

: Day 10: The Pumpkin.

: The Machine. £40.

: Day 13: The Visitor.

: The Moon House. SOLD.

: Day 15: The Whale.

: The Berg. £20.

: The Old Town. £30.

: The Android. £30.

2 Comments

October 3, 2015

Inktober so far…

Here’s a peek at the first three days of my Inktober challenge. I’ll probably post an update in a week or so. Even just a few days in I think the practice is making a difference. The brush pen is pretty tough to control, so it really does pay to use it a lot.

If you don’t know what Inktober is, have a look at my last blog post.

1. The Inkblot.

2. Space Dog.

3. The Island

September 26, 2015

InkTober

Throughout October I’ll be participating in the InkTober drawing challenge created by Jake Parker. The aim is to do one ink drawing a day for the whole month. I’ll be trying to complete all my drawings using my Pentel Pocket Brush, a tool I love but I’m pretty rubbish at using

 If you’d like to participate head over to Inktober.com and check out the rules.

Have a look at Jake’s video below to get inspired and find out a little more about Inktober. You should really check out all of Jake’s videos – fantastic stuff from an amazingly talented artist.

1 Comment

September 11, 2015

New Commissions

I’m now happy to accept a new round of illustration commissions. Over the past few months I’ve completed over 40 commissions, so if you’d like some original, affordable art to hang on your wall, here’s how it works…

Commissions

If you would like to buy an original drawing, email me at rob [at] thisnorthernboy [dot] co [dot] uk , you can request one of the following:

A robot
A Spaceship
An imagined place

If there’s something in particular you’d like, that isn’t one of the above, just let me know – it might be something I’d be interested in drawing for you.

What you’ll receive will be a black and white pen drawing, on an A4 sheet of good quality, 200gsm cartridge paper. The artwork will be approximately 240mm x 160mm in size, centred on the paper so you can frame it easily if you’d like to.

You can also request for the illustration to be landscape or portrait in orientation.

Any other requests – type of landscape, style of robot etc. can be made, but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to take this into account. I know this sounds a little strict, but I only want to accept commissions that I’ll enjoy drawing right now, and in return you get a lovely surprise when you open your finished illustration.

What will this cost?

I charge a flat rate of £60 including post and packaging for the UK, and £60 + post and packaging for the rest of the world.

When you email me to request a commission, if you can include the address you’d like it shipped to, I’ll work out the cost of postage and let you know. If you’re happy with the overall cost I can accept payment by PayPal.

When will you get your drawing?

I’ll aim to complete and post all illustrations within two weeks of receiving payment.

What might your commission look like?

Well, it could look a little like these…

: Astronaut

: Stilted City

: Steampunk Spaceship

: Spaceship

: Island

: Cityscape

: Heavy Droid

: Lighthouse

2 Comments

July 31, 2015

Steampunk Spaceship

My most recent commission was for a spaceship, with some steampunk influences. I wanted to keep it very much like one of my spaceships though, so it’s kind of an amalgam of my asteroid belt clippers, and some weird alt-history Victorian airship.

I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out, it was one of those rare illustrations that just flows nicely all the way from initial doodles right through to the final ink.

Finished Steampunk Spaceship.

Work in progress.

Initial sketch.

4 Comments

July 20, 2015

Imagined Places

I’ve drawn a fair few cityscapes and imaginary places over the last few months, some of them purely personal, some have been commissions, some have been posted here before, some haven’t, so here they are collected in one place.

The first, City on the Edge of Nowhere, is one of my favourites.