leeoconnor

[leeoconnor]

Hey everybody, we hope you’ve had a good year, you have a good break and that 2024 has some good stuff in store for you. Happy Holidays.

In 2023, my country’s government – the UK Conservative Party – didn’t really do anything decent and just shouted about a load of xenophobic crap, like punching down on refugees arriving in small boats and a bunch of other stuff that kinda made them look like a bunch of fascists. Sadly. Please don’t be like them.

He’s deliberately being a dog-whistle for racists… Could this be a end of Highly Questionable Santa..?

See previous Highly Questionable Santas here.

To all a good night,

– Lee & Bex.

#Xmas #christmas #hqs #highly questionable santa #Santa #pedalo #christmas card #conservatives #Rishi sunak

[leeoconnor]

This is Red-Quill, former swamp bandit turned freedom fighter against the nefarious Lunar Empire, who is aided by his devotion to the god of thunder!

So I got to draw some duck-men. It was hilarious. It was a blast. They're from the fantasy world of Glorantha and you can play as them (or alongside them) in the RuneQuest TT RPG.

Here, a duck shaman is sending out her spirit to go and met her mentors’ spirits in the spirit world. Shaman business. Her look is actually based on a real duck breed. (I was thrilled endlessly that all of these fantasy ducks are based on real-world duck breeds.) The big one with the snout is a troll shaman. Also pictured: her pet bullfrog and the sculptures of it that she’s made, because she loves it so much.

So these aren’t furries or anything, they’re more realistic versions of whimsical, hissing cartoon ducks like Marvel’s Howard the Duck or Disney’s Donald Duck. They’re sword and sorcery duck people! More precisely, they’re part of the accepted and generally very well-loved fantasy setting called Glorantha. You will know about Glorantha in a roundabout way I suspect… The Elder Scrolls game Morrowind lovingly ripped off a bunch of it and it was the setting for the indie game legend King of Dragon Pass and its successors. The most popular way for people to experience Glorantha over the years though has probably been the table-top role-playing game RuneQuest.

Here, a healer initiate of the goddess of mercy Chalana Arroy, tending to some fellow ducks. (The seated guy in the middle with the shoulder bandage is supposed to look like a mandarin duck, I had to tone him down though, otherwise his bright colours would have stolen the show.) 

So Runequest has a very lovely new edition that came out a while ago. It has a unique appeal in that it’s an RPG that lets you play out mythology. Well, kinda. Being a mythology nerd (I have an in-progress Fionn Mac Cumhaill graphic novel as proof) I was powerless to resist. RuneQuest’s storied publisher Chaosium (they of the Call of Cthulhu RPG) run a community content programme for RuneQuest called the Jonstown Compendium (named after a big library in the setting of Glorantha) where people can publish their own adventures and sourcebooks as PDFs via DriveThruRPG and popular titles then become Print-on-Demand books.

A put-upon member of duck nobility here, she’s a big deal for the duck people, but sadly the humans nearby don’t take her seriously.  The crosses aren’t crucifixes, they’re the rune of death, which is supposed to look like a simplified sword. The runes that look like Ys are the truth rune. These are the runes of her god, Humakt, GOD OF DEATH. And sword fights. The duck people love the god of death. *Falls off chair*

You can buy the book with these guys in as either a PDF or a hardcopy, it’s called ‘Duckpac’ and is from Drew Baker, Neil Gibson and friends at Legion Games. (The title of the book is a bit of a pun on an old RuneQuest book about trolls, which was called ‘Trollpak‘.) This book is for you if you want to play as a fully-realised duck person, with duck-person things to think about, based on a history, genealogy and mythology of duck-people. Yes, really! It’s pretty incredible.

Runequest has a reputation online for being ‘the game with silly duck people in’, which is entirely justified, they’re like the cute mascots of the whole deal. The story goes that back in the late seventies, one of the gang of friends who help make the game world was a Carl Barks Donald Duck comic strip fan, resulting in a town called Duck Point existing on the map. There’s another story that someone involved was making lead miniatures of Carl Barks style Conan the Barbian gag ducks and he needed a game to attach them to so it didn’t look like a straight Disney rip-off. Stories real and apocryphal abound. There’s never been an official book about ducks (or the ‘durulz’ as they call themselves) for the RuneQuest game so this one’s here for you and has background, characters, locations, adventures and more.

A scarred duck boatman (boatduck?) and diver, initiate of a river god, on his barge, wondering what the heck you’re doing paddling about in his river.

The bit of decorated driftwood in the background above is his effigy of his god. I made him look like a Bronze Age version of a swimming athlete, like Duncan Goodhew with rustic trunks and a swimming hat. I was passed a reference photo of an upright duck (who looked amazing), so this was an upright composition, in a tall portrait frame.

Here’s a little vid of me flipping through the lovely hardback print version of the book. This is the first print volume and then there’ll be another volume of solo and group adventures.

That old love of the UK comics scene Mr. John Freeman even saw this madness and featured it on his Down The Tubes site here, Which Was Nice.

Oh and as if you above verbiage wasn’t enough proof, you can check my RuneQuest nerd chops by looking at my very own RuneQuest campaign log page and wiki here, if you fancy. It’s got more drawings on there!

#ducks #durulz #runequest #glorantha #jonstown compendium #drivethrurpg #chaosium #legion games #games #gaming #pod #rpg #ttrpg #brp #art #illustration #artwork #duck people #rpg book #anthromorphic art #fantasy #bronze age #Instagram

[leeoconnor]

Some interior illustrations for the Trinity Continuum: Aether tabletop RPG book from The Onyx Path publisher, successfully funded via Kickstarter (with a bunch of stretch goals too).

The Trinity Continuum games takes place in alternate pulp adventure fiction history. There’s the pulp modern age, pulp sci-fi, pulp superhero and now we have a forthcoming steampunk, weird science and superpowers Victorian pulp era game with ‘Aether’.

ZORP! Martians from ‘War of the Worlds’ attack Victorian London! Big Ben gets heat-rayed and the River Thames is clogged up with The Martian Red Weed! Because why just have weird science superheroes when you can have weird science fiction aliens too..? (A friendly reminder here that sci-fi is actually a Victorian period thing, from about 1850, futurist types.) I might have been listening to Jeff Wayne’s ‘War of the Worlds’ musical while I was painting the first one above. UULAAA!

Firmly back into the weird science with curious super-powers bestowed by the brand-new, alternate world science. This gentleman is clearly a Benimaru from King of Fighters fan, standing in his blown-out lap, presumably after repeatedly shouting, “More power! More power!” Hope your next leccy bill isn’t too steep.

Here, a fearless explorer thinks maybe she shouldn’t have gone so close to a volcano.

This is ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’, who was a genuine historical phenomenon where people (or possibly sensationalist newspapers) claimed to have seen someone (sometimes with fiery breath) who could jump as high as a building. Finding some period etchings to reference was fun, believe it or not there was no consensus on what the guy actually looked like. I’ve got him dressed in something a bit like some period accounts, jumping over a chimney pot like Victorian Spider-Man, while the police get left behind at street level.

Victorian urchins cutting some squares’ purses. Some ‘Oliver Twist’ style lovable scamps pickin’ a pocket or two so they can get some more gruel. All of these were painted in Photoshop, guvnah.

Say Onyx Path of the book;

“Trinity Continuum: Aether is a game of steampunk adventure, exploration, and mystery set in 1895 in the Trinity Continuum. In the decade prior, Nikola Tesla identified and learned to harness Aether, an energy source capable of spinning new realities or unwinding the effect to restore reality. Now, Aether users dot the globe, silently spinning and unwinding with ease while Victorian era society goes about unaware of the dangerous experiments taking place in underground laboratories, dark alleys, and foreign worlds.”

It’s out physically in… March 2024! It’ll soon come round!

#rpg #illustration #art #ttrpg #aether #trinity continuum #storyteller #digi paint #digital art #photoshop #victorian #victoriana #steampunk

[leeoconnor]

Happy Holidays!

Hope your 2022’s been treating you well.

Happy slapping an insane, shirtless Russian despot and solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

But, raising the ire of the mad Russian bear… Could this be the end of Highly Questionable Santa..?

Season’s Greetings and all the best for 2023.

- Lee, Becky & Seb.

#Xmas #highly questionable santa #santa #bad santa #Christmas #putin #Vladimir putin #art #Christmas card #Ukraine #solidarity #illustration

[leeoconnor]

The METRONOMY ‘Small World’ album comic is out there in the wild! You can get them from indie record stores (like Drift Record Shop) and from the tour that’s happening right now!

The comic’s a plush 12x12” on nice paper to fit in with your record and the story is based on the ‘It’s Good to be Back’ video, see it if you haven’t yet, it’s amazing.

(Link in bio if you wanna pick one up with an LP!)

As ever, many thanks to Because Music, everyone in the band and everyone involved!

#Metronomy #small world #art #illustration #Comic #comics #music

[leeoconnor]

John Constantine - Hellblazer - and a beautiful female spirit of the cinematic glamour of yesteryear. An old DC Vertigo sample for Shelly Bond back in the day, back when comic conventions were a thing...

Looking this now, the colours - and textures in particular - are good, the linework is okay, but holy crap, What the heck is going on with John’s legs?! I was under the impression that I’d actually thought about this and referenced it, but maybe not... Maybe crop the thing off at John’s ciggie and you might be able to salvage this...

#Constantine #John Constantine #hellblazer #vertigo #dc #dcvertigo #art #illustration #artwork #comics #sample #tryout #cinema #magic #magick

[leeoconnor]

Another comic I did for the ‘Aberrant’ RPG book from Onyx Path Publishing. The comics in the book each riff on a different bit of superhero comics history. This one is paying homage to the ‘Silver Age’ of comics in the sixties, artists like Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Steve Ditko and so on.

It’s also supposed to be an-universe document: a recruiting leaflet for a particular group of superheroes.

I pored over any silver age comics I had to try and get the feel of this one right... Sadly I am no draughtsman like John Buscema and I can’t get the bombast that Jack Kirby had...

But I can try and bolster it up with jiggery-pokery like making it look like it’s on newsprint paper, the printing transfer isn’t great and there’s a phoney version of a four-colour printing dot screen... Which you can’t really see on this, but I’ll put up some details later on.

#aberrant #rpg #rpg art #trinity continuum #onyx path #white wolf #comic #silver age #superhero #superheroes #project aberrant #Jack Kirby #Steve ditko #John buscema #marvel #sixties #60s #illustration #screen tone #four colour #vintage

[leeoconnor]

Comic I did for the ‘Trinity Continuum: ABERRANT’ table-top role-playing game book from the storied Onyx Path Publishing. The theme of the game is comic book style super-heroes… So, comics plus RPGs together means its automatically me all over.

Not only that, but the chapters and the full-page art of the game book pay homage to different ages, styles and movements in the history of comics, which is sooo good to see. (If you’re down with that kinda thing, it’s magic. If not, ya might learn something.)

This comic was bit of a homage to Frank Miller’s ‘Batman: Dark Knight Returns’ series/graphic novel and it was great fun. ‘DKR’ brought in the MTV style, channel-surfing chatter of the eighties to comics and here that thread is used to inform on a quick primer for the ABERRANT setting.

(The ‘Aberrants’ are people who have developed super-powers, y’see.)

Onyx Path is the new name for White Wolf, the publisher of ‘Vampire: The Masquerade’, ‘Werewolf: The Apocalypse’ and all of the ‘World of Darkness’ games.

#aberrant #RPG #onyx path #comic #art #illustration #colour #rpg comic #rpg art #trinity continuum #storyteller #role playing game #comics #alternate history #history #comic page

[leeoconnor]

Happy Bealtaine! Liath Luachra & Bodhmall are herding their cow between two bonfires while festooned in sunny yellow flowers to mark the 1st of May.

The May-Day celebrations stem from Bealtaine - one of the four major Celtic festivals of the year - when sprigs & branches in bloom were gathered. In Ireland, Gorse, Rowan, Primrose, Hazel catkins and Marsh Marigold flowers all were plucked and cattle were (and are) herded between two bonfires before they’re turned out to pasture for spring. Fires are extinguished, set alight again by Druids and may even burn all the way through the night.

Roughly, ’beal-’ means ‘shining’, ‘-taine’ means fire and the whole affair is lit by bright fire and the beaming of golden sunshine.

In the UK, the May Pole associated with May Day started out as the most handsome straight branch or tree trunk anyone could find, which was then decorated with flowers.

#Beltane #beltaine #bealtaine #Celtic festival #celtic #Celtic #mythology #Wicca #Wiccan #Fionn Mac cumhaill #Finn mccool #wheel of the year #pagan #brushpen #art #artwork #illustration #flowers #calf #ceremony #irish #fire #druid #witchcraft #folk #graphic novel #photoshop

[leeoconnor]

First five pages of the FIONN graphic novel finished! Written, drawn, coloured, lettered.

Next step is to carry on finishing pages, to get a pitch to publishers together.

(Ironically, the great thing about finishing something is finding out how it needs to change. And change it will, the very beginning of the story needs to really work well.) Anyway, thanks for your patience.

#mythology #celtic mythology #comic #fenian #fionn #myths #brushpen #graphic novel #irish #myth #Finn mccool #fionn maccumhaill #fianna #comics #folk tales #folklore #comic pages #illustration #photoshop #druid

[leeoconnor]

Apologies for subjecting you to my mug, it makes a change from all of the art and I have great news! I was stupidly lucky enough to be able to come up with a design for a… TEA TOWEL for the British band Metronomy. The idea is that it’s a spin on the tourist trap tat souvenir tea towels you used to get. It’s still making me chuckle. It’s Joe METRONOMY’s favourite spots in The English Riviera (the Torbay area of coastline in south-east Devon, UK). Locations include; the YMCA Skate Park and Shoreline Cafe in Paignton, the Avon Dam, Torquay, Totnes, Stoke Gabriel and more. I’m still obsessed with this record, even to this day, ten years after its release. It’s all about being from the bit of the country I’m from, the sun-drenched, sea-side, technicolour… Melancholy? The track ‘The Look’ is a stand-out one, if you’re short on time. ‘The Bay’ has more of the titular English Riviera conflicted feeling to it though. You can only get yourself a tea towel by buying the Tenth Anniversary double vinyl LP version of Metronomy’s ‘The English Riviera’ album from the Drift Record Shop. All the shouts out to METRONOMY’s label, Because Music.

#metronomy #the english riviera #riviera #tea towel #Illustration #design #because music #screenprinting #towel #tea #devon #paignton #torquay #torbay #totnes

[leeoconnor]

Don’t tell anybody, but I went off the deep end and started trying to make a comic lettering font for the Fionn graphic novel; that looks a bit like Irish Gaelic letterforms, to make the text unique to the book itself. First pass is on the left.

And then there’s the context for getting some Gaelic letterforms into the styling of a comic lettering font in the red pic. Examples are all different depending on who’s writing it, when they writing it and how they’re writing it, obviously. The idea is that everything about the book I’m doing is descriptive and is a chance to evoke something, even the letters in the speech balloons. Obviously, it’ll still read as English, because the goal is to get the source material - the old Fionn MacCumhaill stories - to as wide an audience as possible.

#gaelige #gaelic #irish #letters #letterforms #typography #hand lettering #Celtic #text #old irish

[leeoconnor]

FIONN graphic novel, page 5 art! Fionn meeting his auntie’s girlfriend before they and Bran the dog all disappear off into hiding. I’m getting the hang of the organic frame borders more as time goes on. This is the first wave of colouring done, now onto more drawing...

#mythology #celtic mythology #comic #fenian #fionn #myths #brushpen #graphic novel #myth #irish #irish mythology #Finn mccool #Fionn MacCumhaill #photoshop #comic page #celtic #comics #colour #Druid #bandrui #female druid #cycle #adaptation #folklore #folktales

[leeoconnor]

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you and yours all the very best.

If you made it through the year and also remain unscathed by mental illness or poverty, congratulations. We’re sure you’ll just love 2021.

Highly Questionable Santa is pretending to be Dominic Cummings here, the British Prime Minister’s unelected advisor who was recently sacked; not for flaunting lockdown regulations, not for unpaid tax, not for disparaging comments about elderly people, not for colluding to suspend parliament, not dodgy dealings with the campaign to leave the European Union, not concerns over his links to Russia or any of that stuff… But instead because he was snarky about his boss’ girlfriend.

Soon afterwards he was photographed shuffling off with his possessions in a cardboard box.

Political alliances broken and humiliated by the press and the general populace… Could this be the end for Highly-Questionable Santa?

What a year. We were eyeing COVID-19 this time last annum, but we couldn’t quite see just how badly it could effect so much of this year, which has seen great upheaval but also a profound stasis.

If you lost someone this year, we’re so, so sorry.

Please take care, please stay safe.

All the very best,

- Lee, Becky & Seb.

#highly questionable Santa #Xmas #Christmas #Christmas card #Xmas card #Dominic Cummings #happy holidays #brushpen #photoshop #ink #ink and brush #10 Downing Street

[leeoconnor]

Happy Samhain, folks. Didya know that Samhain’s pretty much the origin point of modern Halloween? It can be Celtic New Year too. In the Fionn Mac Cumhaill story, Fionn fights Aillen, son of Midna - a fiery member of the fearsome Tuatha De Dannan race - on Samhain night. (It’s pronounced “Sow-in”.) Some Celtic ritual sites point towards the sun today too. Celtic mythology intones Samhain a lot, including; Fionn and his Fianna defeating werewolves and other Tuatha de Danann, the Nemedian settlers having to give the monstrous Fomorian forerunners an annual tithe, Ulster being invaded in the popular Cattle Raid of Cooley of stories, the grand battle of Magh Tuireadh that signals the end of Ireland’s mythic ages… And many more times besides.

Sleep tight.

(This isn’t Aileen’s final look, but he’s getting there. I don’t think I’ve really shown off Sabh looking like this before, but she does now!)

#Samhain #Halloween #Halloween card #mythology #celtic mythology #irish #ireland #Wicca #wheel of the year #Wiccan #pagan #Fionn #Fionn Mac cumhaill #Fenian

[leeoconnor]

FIONN page 4 coloured in. Well, first pass, anyway. Trying to balance up colour schemes for different scenes versus the local colour in things, versus the idea that it’s a flashback so it should probably be limited palette..? Sigh. As ever, probably going to revisit this a bit later. Anyway, good to see the dynamic duo Bodhmall and Liath Luachra in technicolour.

#mythology #celtic mythology #comic #fenian #fionn #myths #graphic novel #myth #brushpen #Fionn mac cumhaill #Finn mccool #Celtic #irish #Ireland #folklore #folktales #illustrator #illustration #colour #photoshop #Druid #druidess #comic page #huntress #hunter

[leeoconnor]

Found an old Mother's Day card wee Seb drew for his mum. (Honest.)