Volume 5 is *almost* ready!

on April 1, 2026 at 8:22 am

I’ve been busy with tying up putting volume 5 of Lloyd and the Bear together with the cover for issue #20, some bits and bobs plus the main cover for the book.

The volume cover itself stayed pretty much with my initial plan although there were a few changes as I went along.

The first change was the interior shot on the back. I had initially stuck with the same size of box as for volume 1 but the only image I could find that had a link to the volume title didn’t even have Lloyd, Bear or their ship in it(!) As it turned out I had so much text to put on the back cover that I needed a smaller image and hey, I found one that worked (I’m telling myself it was meant to be!)!

Then came the front cover and I’d put everything together and was about to colour it when I realised I’d missed Limel Lum (the orange dude) who’s kinda important as he’s been cropping up in various issues since pretty much the start!

Another change was that Grizzle’s cloak was originally purple as in issue #16 but as everything around him was also purple I switched it up by making it green. And hey, he sure looks like he’s been shopping at the same cloak store as Doctor Doom, yeah?

So after all that and having finished the colouring I realised I wasn’t happy with Bear looking up rather than facing out of the cover. My initial idea was to have a real movie-esque hero pose but it looked weird with Lloyd looking out the way and but not Bear so I changed it.

I’m really happy with how this came out – oddly enough I think my favourite thing is the colour of the Shoal’s cape on the back cover and how it creates a nice space for the ‘previously’ text.

So what’s next? I’ve just finished the bonus strip for this volume which I was going to keep secret but kinda want to talk about (as I can’t keep my mouth zipped!) so I’ll post about that soon and then I need to get to colouring issue #20 which is going to be a big one!

More soon for sure! Bear hugs!

PS. With Grizzle’s change of cloak I went back and corrected it in issue #19 where he crops up but left him with a purple cloak back in issue #16. Hey, he can have more than one cloak, right?

Revisiting issue #17

on January 24, 2026 at 11:19 am

Okay, so having finished issue #19 of Lloyd and the Bear you’d think I’d go and finish up issue #20 next right? Right?!? Yeah…. no. So one afternoon I went back and had a look at issue #17. Like, for no reason other than just aimlessly having a look but the ‘Ninja Turtle’ short story bugged me.

I wasn’t a fan of the writing and I realised the sound effects looked a bit naff too. It was the first short I’d done for this book and it just felt different. I thought I’d made my peace with it at the time arguing that the sound effects more fitted my own look and the writing was supposed to be a bit rough but y’know, the sound effects just didn’t work and the writing was actually rough rather than just ‘supposed to be’ so it was time to go back and make some changes.

And yeah, this took longer than planned as I didn’t have many pages that didn’t have the speech bubbles on them and I hadn’t kept the colour scheme either so I had to be creative with what new writing I did to at least fit it in – or be larger – than the existing speech bubbles!

So first of all, here’s the original and updated pages;

I spent a week on this making changes and then changing the changes and then changing the changed changes (you get the idea!). The opening panel was supposed to be a cute nod to what I was doing here with a Ninja Turtles-esque story but it just didn’t feel right. I had moved on to saying ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Extraterrestrials’ but that just came off stupid so I pulled back and made the snail sound more like a fanboy.

The writing at the end of page 3 and in to page 4 wasn’t working for me either. It just felt clunky and also, how did the snail know so much about what happened in the sewers?!? So yeah, more changes.

Now I did originally have sound effects (which I’ve since deleted… oops) but they were all super smooth and blocky and nothing like those in the original TMNT so I went back and messed them up a bit.

I’m much happier with how it looks now (even though as typing this I went back and updated the ‘Doof’ effect as I’d missed that originally as I was going through these pages) and now officially closing the door to this issue.

Issue #20 sound effects here I come!

More soon! Bear hugs!

PS. Adding the bandana to the snail was a real 3am-and-not-being-able-to-sleep idea that I put together the next morning. I admit, it looks kinda weird but hey, it’s a talking snail so what you gonna do?!?

New project!

on December 30, 2025 at 10:41 am

Because if juggling work with Lloyd and the Bear books and Fenton Hud comics isn’t enough I had an idea for a new story! I have zero time to do it all but I really want to get the first five pages out so today I started actually putting some work in to it!

I’m keeping quiet on what it’s about but this is the layout/title of one of the pages.

Sorry for being so mysterious but I’m torn between really wanting to keep quiet about this but at the same time wanting to say something!

Promise, promise, promise there’ll be more soon!

Bear hugs!

PS. Just realised I’m even being mysterious about which page this is from. Geez…

This was a tough one!

on October 14, 2025 at 9:42 am

Okay, so like I said this was a tough page to write!

Not only with having to deal with death but the purpose of this page and where it was going. Anyhoo, I should really show the page I’m talking about!

With the old saying ‘write about what you know’ I tried going with my own feelings and how I’m dealing with the passing of a really good friend but I realised that I was writing this like Fenton hadn’t been to visit Cuddles in an age and in my mind I figure he’s been there A LOT (or at least when he’s able to).

And the purpose of this page was not only to note the loss of Cuddles but also have Fenton looking for, and admitting he needed, help. But early takes came off like Fenton was there ONLY to get help. Then further attempts went kinda dark as I realised that we’re talking about finding Heston who had killed Cuddles in the previous issue (oh man, so many spoilers here if you haven’t read issue #3 yet – but then hey, why haven’t you?).

So yeah, I was trying to get the tone right and show that Fenton was missing Cuddles and to push the story along while not getting bogged down or making anyone look bad (and by anyone I mean Fenton). And like I said I found this page really tough but I think I got it right… Right?

Anyways, more soon including some long overdue Lloyd and the Bear updates!

Bear hugs!

I’m still here!

on September 27, 2025 at 1:36 pm

Okay, I’ve not posted in an age but I’m still here and I’ve been busy! Honest!

Issue #19 and #20 are now drawn and lettered and the shading worked out. I then switched over to Fenton Hud and worked on issue #4 and having got #13 pages in (13? Unlucky for some?) I realised I needed to take a step back as I work out the next few pages (I know where it’s going but really need to lay it out) so I’m back to doing the colouring on LatB.

Back when I started on issue #1 of the book I had some sketches of the main characters (some of which you can see in Volume #1 of the trade!) but when it came to colouring I had a sheet with each characters name and then the different colours beneath it.

Which… was fine but not 100% great as I still had to look at old panels to work out which colour block went where. Oh! Let me show you what some of it looked like!

So yeah, a whole page of these blocks? Not great. Also, over time I made slight changes to the characters looks (slight…. okay, in some cases A LOT) but with that as well I’d be looking back at old panels and seeing characters look different in some cases and this just confused me (and maybe even incorrectly draw new panels)!

I made the decision to go and sketch out each character fresh (their sized a bit dodgy but go with it!) and then actually point out the which colour goes where…

There’s going to be more pages as I bring in other characters and locations but this should really help me with getting the pages coloured quickly (and hopefully I’ll remember to post more of these panels as I go along!)

Soooo…… more soon! Bear hugs!

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