Japandex Day... Oh I've lost count, but it's almost over lol

Attack of the 50 Foot Japanese Lesbian by Bridgeen Gillespie

Bridgeen! Hooray! I first met Bridgeen after witnessing a Curb Your Enthusiasm-style email faux pas she made (I won’t embarrass her by revealing the details, but it was one of those mistaken ‘reply to all’ things) – I sent her my sympathies and we had a laugh about it and got chatting and became mates. Her work had actually caught my eye a few years ago, when she made a comic based on the Kate Bush song Rocket’s Tail, which is a great idea.
Bridgeen is one of the friendliest people in the small press, and everyone seems to know Bridgeen! She does comics about her creations Mr Maximo and Rabbit (www.koniption.blogspot.com and you can check out new stuff here http://www.derrywalls.blogspot.com/) and she’s worked on a specially commissioned project called ‘Stranger Danger’ which is a safety comic for kids. You can also see some of her creative writing here: http://www.elephantwords.co.uk/
Bridgeen only came on board Japandex on Sunday, but got this lovely pic together for me nice and quickly! So glad to have her involved!!
Okay, just one more pic to go, might take a couple of days…Plus a little something extra special… Stay tuned!

Japandex Day 24!

Japandexbot by Mark McKenzie Ray
Mark is another of my colleagues! He sits opposite me and we are both huge comic fans and Mark is an aspiring artist who is starting to draw more and more.
Mark worked on this for me and I absolutely love it - and it's the kind of thing that I could never really draw myself, as I am allergic to rulers an...d technical drawing. I think this pic sums up what I like most about Japandex - it's clever (it's fun working out which limb corresponds to which team-mate), it's good, it's cheeky - it sums up Japandex pretty well.
Thanks Mark!
Okay, I wanted to wrap up Japandex on Wednesday (last day of the month) as I don't want to become a Facebook irritant - but I had a couple of late entries worth waiting for, so it might go on for a couple more days... Stay tuned!!!

Japandex Day 23

PINK NINJA WAVE by John Riordan
Now this is something else, isn't it? When John sent it to me he said that he's happy to be able to finish drawing Pink Ninjas now - and after Spandex issue 2, I know exactly how he feels lol! But wow, this is amazing - the detail, the idea, the Spandex depictions, the colouring... it's pretty much geniu...s.
John got in touch about Japandex and we chatted about what he could do, and he suggested doing something with the Hosukai wave, and I think he pretty much nailed it!
John's current big project is a new comic with Dan Cox called Hitsville UK. It's available from the etsy shop on John's website http://www.johnriordan.co.uk/ or you can read it here http://issuu.com/johnnyfighters/docs/hitsvilleuk.

Japandex Day 23!

JAPANDEX by MARTIN EDEN
It's me again! I just wanted to get this out of my system, just a nice black and white pic of the team, with all their names written in Japanese. If you're new to my comics, you won't know that my previous series, The O Men, was all black and white, and with Spandex I'm actually getting used to doing colour comics. So this is me going back to basics! It's also a nice opportunity to show the characters' names in Japanese lettering.

Japandex Day 22!

Mushishi/Musashi by Jay Faulkner
Jay got in touch after being told about Japandex by Stephen Downey (who he is working on 'stuff' for www.talesofthe.com/). Jay mentioned he might do a Neon Musashi image, and I mentioned to him a gorgeous movie poster for the film Mushishi (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk216ltuj-CRkxNv3iYdDKvijv3KwcFn7B-LLtORCijSWEH2oyRGTV_EbUvcPs4ZHcRSrEKy3kYX00h-vHJx-H3yZj-tInWYJzVK4O4GrFWr80HabGCqH981LAQwpOTY-JwzirgYPeTPI/s400/MushishiDVD.jpg), which might look good with Glitter in it - and Jay did both! Although instead of the eerieness of Mushishi, Jay went for a nice calmness and cherry blossoms. Jay only wanted me to put Mushishi up, but I've surprised him and put both up - a first for Japandex, a double whammy!

This is the first time that Jay has put paint on paper in form of a water-colour in nearly ten years - as he spends most of his time either writing his own published stories or publishing other people's work in his art inspired online magazine, 'With Painted Words' (www.withpaintedwords.com) - but loved the idea of Japandex so much he dipped his toe back in the water (when that didn't work he used a brush as every sensible artist does!) and has caught the bug again.

To find out more visit www.jayfaulkner.com

I am going to finish Japandex on Wednesday (last day of June) and a couple of people have dropped out (or at least gone quiet on me lol), so I have one slot left to fill, so if you would like to do a pic and have time, I have a couple of great ideas - first come, first served!! martrpeden@yahoo.co.uk

Japandex Day 22

PAPER PINK NINJAS by PHILIPPA RICE
If you’ve been to any comic cons over the past couple of years, you may have bumped into this talented lady, Philippa Rice. She is a bundle of unbelievable creativity. She does loads of comic projects, but her current main ‘thing’ is My Cardboard Life, which is a strip about a group of paper characters and it’s all put together by hand by Philippa. It’s pretty unique and it’s absolutely adorable and hilarious.
You can check it out here:
http://mycardboardlife.com/
She does a new one every weekday.
I knew Philippa would do a knockout job with the Pink Ninjas idea, and of course what she came up with was super kawaii (cute)!
P.S. ‘Interesting’ (?) anecdote: I actually knew Philippa’s sister, Kate, before I knew Philippa. Kate joined my Japanese class in my second term and was with us for a few more terms. I was at the UK Mini Comics/Web Thing and couldn’t believe it when I bumped into Kate – I thought it’d be the last place she’d be lol! But Kate joins Philippa at loads of comic cons, which is how I discovered My Cardboard Life. Interesting eh hehe?

Japandex Day 21!

HARAJUKU GIRL AND SALARY MAN by ROGER MASON
I’ve known Roger for a while, since my first Bristol comic con a few years ago. I love his art – it’s very bold, very stylish, very clever. A lot of his work is in black and white, and one of his most well known graphic novels, The Mice, is a great example of this. Roger has also had graphic novels published in Europe (jealous!), done storyboarding for TV and advertising (jealous!!), and most importantly, he drew a lovely cover for an anthology issue of my O Men comic!
You can check out all of Roger’s work at www.looksgoodonpaper.co.uk – go on have a look, it’s awesome.
I invited Roger to do a moody drawing of two of my J-Team characters (I love those guys!) and I was pretty stunned by what he came up with. He nailed them pretty well and makes me want to do a J-Team comic even more!!!