Happy Christmas 2013.

Well, 2013 has been yet another wonderful year for me. Along side producing illustrations 

for various publications, I have also been very busy designing, teaching, creating personal 

commissions and working in a variety of creative areas. I can't thank you all enough for your 

support and lovely comments. It's all very humbling. 

2014 is already shaping up to be yet another exciting year. I'll be announcing all of my latest

 projects in the near future and I can't wait to tell you all about them (stay tuned, folks).

Thank you all once again and I wish you all a very Happy Christmas 

and all the best in the New Year.

I salute you all.

Enjoy!

David.

Phone Portraits

Whilst queueing or waiting for the kettle to boil, I've had a lot of fun 

creating these portraits on my mobile phone, merely for my own amusement.

Can you name them all ?...

(The answers are in the 'Labels' section at the bottom of this post, 

although they are not in order. A-ha! A game within a game!)

Enjoy!

Live sketch: London Underground Central Line.

Here's a live sketch I drew whilst travelling across the Central Line on the London Underground. I set out with a rough composition in my head, positioned myself at one end of the carriage and drew the various passengers as they boarded and left the train, filling the various positions I had designated in my mind and on the page. Admittedly, it was a very tricky/ testing exercise I had set myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. In many ways, it was more about watching, observing, and mentally recording information than drawing. I'm also very thankful that my pen didn't run out :)

Savage Zenith Page 1.

Here's my artwork for the opening page of Savage Zenith as featured in the

2000AD fanzine comic anthology, Drokk. Written by Chris Denton,

Savage Zenith is an exhilarating story featuring two of 2000AD's much loved

 characters, Bill 'Invasion' Savage and Zenith.

Copies of Drokk can be ordered through the FQP shop.

Click on the cover image to head straight to the FQP Shop.

Also, the publishers of Drokk (FutureQuake Press) will be appearing at this years

Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival/ Convention in Leeds, 23-24th of November. 

So, if you're at this wonderful event, why not pick up a copy. 

Thank you for your support. Enjoy!

Drokk #1 Cover.

Lettering by Bolt-01 (Dave Evans)

Here's my cover for Drokk #1 (published by FutureQuake Press/ Zarjaz).

This cover features two of 2000AD's most popular characters Zenith and Bill Savage.

The cover accompanies a story called 'Savage Zenith', which is written by Chris Denton.

I had the privilege to illustrate this exciting story, which you can read within the cover
of this fantastic publication.

Drokk also includes a 'A making of the cover' feature, a little insight on how I work,
and five other stories based on the characters from the Galaxy's Greatest Comic,
2000AD, written and drawn by some of the finest talents around.

To order a copy of Drokk #1, head over to the FutureQuake Shop here,

or pop along to the Comicsy shop for the digital version.

Enjoy!

And here's a version without the lettering.

Computer Game Cover Re-design: Atari's Berzerk.

This fun piece was for The Weekly Themed Art Blog, the weekly theme being Computer Games.

As a child (and still to this day) I thoroughly enjoyed playing Berzerk on the Atari 2600. Not only did I enjoy the game but I loved the brilliant illustrations on the boxes. Looking back, I can quite easily say that they were an influence on my young, creative mind. However, the illustrations didn't really convey the look of the game's graphics, which sometimes left me a little disappointed. So, for the theme I recreated the original game illustration in a way which is closer to game's actual graphics.

The original box illustration for Berzerk.

Coming soon...

Strangelands & Troublesome Things: Character Study.

While I've been working on the illustrations for Saraha Coe's novel, Strangelands & Troublesome Things, it occurred to me that I hadn't fully addressed this particular character (whose role in the story shall remain a secret for now). He pretty much appeared just as a scribble in my composition roughs. Recently, I put some time aside to develop this nameless (for now) individual. As you can see, there are slight changes to his appearance as myself and Saraha work on translating his personality from the story's text into an image, refining his visual identity and characteristics in a way we'd like to present him to the readers.

Progress on Strangelands & Troublesome Things is going very well. I had to take a short break from this exciting project as I had to attend to art duties elsewhere (stay tuned, folks). To keep up with the latest developments on Saraha's novel, please revisit, follow me on Twitter and be sure to check out Saraha's blog. Thank you.

Original artwork and prints for sale.

A sketch of one of my favourite Marvel super heroes, Moon Knight, which is currently for sale.

I now have a collection of my artwork and art prints for sale over at the Comicsy website,
all at very affordable prices. Please feel free to have a look. Here's the link...

www.comicsy.co.uk/davidfrankum/

Thank you.

Summer Sketch Book Studies 2013, Kent.

Dymchurch Beach

Hever Castle Gardens

Dungeness Beach

Lighthouse, Dungeness

Herne Bay Marina

Reculver Towers.

My Friend Pookie part 2.

Myself and Russell Norris worked on a well received comic strip for Top Shelf Productions called

"My Friend Pookie". The story is told from the POV of a six-year-old boy named Jack, who's got an imaginary friend he calls Pookie. Here is our second instalment of My Friend Pookie.

If you would like to read the first part, please head over to my website here.

If you enjoy My Friend Pookie, please get in touch with either myself or Russell 

with your thoughts and comments... He may well return...

Hawkeye/ The Green Arrow Commission

Wingham Wildlife Park Sketches 31/07/13.

Every year, I pop along to Wingham Wildlife Park in Kent (which I highly recommend visiting) to make studies of the animals. I'm always at my happiest when observing, studying and drawing from 'life'. What wonderful and fascinating animals to draw. Here's a few from this years trip. All of these sketches are fairly small (A6) and drawn with a grey and black brush pen and a fine-liner. All of the pens are unlidded and held in my 'sketchbook hand'. I constantly alternate between the three pens in rapid succession as I work on each sketch. It's an highly enjoyable (and sometimes unpredictable) way to work. I hope that you enjoy these studies as much as I enjoyed drawing them.
Please click on an image below to see a larger version.

      

  

      

  

      

  

      

  

Halo Master Chief Commission.

Here's a commission from last year of Master Chief as seen in the popular computer game, Halo.