Oh wow, just a bit of a delay between updates there, eh? Sorry about that.

So all the various Doctor Who titles I worked on have now come out, and very good to see them it was too! “Autopia”, “Room With A Deja View” and “Cold Blooded War” have all hit the shelves, and I’m really proud of them all. Each one has a slightly different style and approach to the colouring, as dictated by the line art, and I think all of them turned out well. Kudos as well to the various writers and artists across the three books, who were all fantastic to work with, and to the editor for all three, Denton Tipton at IDW, for giving me a crack at the books in the first place!

Transformers-wise, All Hail Megatron 15 has also just been released, with my colours being used on the Nick Roche’s story in the first 11 pages, and WHAT a story! I’ve always been a huge fan of Nick’s work (and was chuffed to get to work with him again), and this issue I feel is one of the strongest IDW has published since they got the TF licence. Brilliant stuff.

I’ve started doing a brief guest strip for Ben Paddon’s Jump-Leads comic (http://www.jump-leads.com), it’s fun to try and stretch the old drawing muscles, but my god my stuff looks rubbish compared to the pro’s. Oh well.

Got to be a guest at Auto Assembly in August of this year, and it was one of the best weekends of my life. Got to hang out with so many talented guys – fellow South Wales based peeps Simon Williams, Jason Cardy, Kat Nicholson and Mike Collins (thanks guys for the company on the drive there and back!), and once in Brum, Liam Shalloo, Nick Roche, Lee Bradley, Staz, Greg Berger, Jon Davis-Hunt, Lee Sullivan, Andy Wildman… It was awesome, just staggeringly good fun, and I’m looking forward to going back in 2010! Simon Plumbe and his band of helpers (hiya Martin!) did an amazing job.

Colouring work has been thin on the ground for the last few months though. I did get to briefly help out colouring Transformer: Tales of the Fallen #2, supplying flats to Moose Baumann, but that didn’t work out, more’s the pity.

Ceri and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary, which was fantastic, but also had to have the entire house re-wired from top to bottom, which wasn’t quite as fantastic…

The day job continues to be a mounting frustration, working in the call centre. I find my temper rising and patience falling more and more with each passing day, and mentally and emotionally I find myself to edging into a very bad position, a position I’ve not been in for over five years. We’re also quite broke as well, but hopefully, things will somehow turn around.

Busy times, busy times!

Currently working on two Doctor Who comics and a Transformers story, both for IDW. The Who comics are “Cold Blooded War” and “Room With A Deja View” – I was originally going to do one, then the other, but scheduling went awry, and I ended up overlapping them – quite different art, and quite different colouring styles as a result, and juggling both stories has been challenging and fun! “Room” was handed in last week, and “War” will be done in another day or two. I’m definitely loving the Doctor Who work though – I hope I can get to do some more! And speaking of Who, my first psot-Forgotten work, “Autopia”, is out this week. A fun little tale, I urge anyone to check it out! John Ostrander on the words and Kelly Yates on the art, it’s very good indeed!

Personal high point of the month so far is the chance to slap the Crayola’s over Nick Roche’s Kup-sequel for All Hail Megatron 15! I love the guys art. It’s just wicked to look at, so dynamic, full of energy. I’ve approached the colouring for this in a slightly different way this time, trying to be a little slicker, a little more retrained… I like it so far, I hope it goes down well. Of course the best part is Nick’s story – stitching together his own prior Kup spotlight with Shane McArthy’s All Hail Megatron story. What impressed me most is just how well it works, I was just grinning ear to ear by the end of it – and although it’s both a sequel and a prequel, it’s not short on character… and lovers and haters of Prowl are in for an absolute treat either way. I can’t wait to see THIS sucker in print! I’ll try and see if I can post up some preview colours closer to publication.

Also, a comic I did some fill in colours on (Transformers: Alliance) got on the New York Times Best Sellers list this week. Now, I know it’s not ‘cos of me, but it just sounds impressive…

Some health issues this month, with a bad asthma outbreak (again). No changes there.

Also been flexing the writing muscles – co-wrote a Red Dwarf comic script with Ben Paddon (Jump Leads), which I’m hoping to illustrate later this year, when I have the time.

I’m also recording a voice in a radio sitcom pilot on July 18th, an episode I also contributed some material to. Dunno if it’ll get picked up, but it’ll be fun if it does!

Also started working up a brief web series with some friends that we’re looking to produce in August. I’m very excited by it, there’s some cracking ideas flying around for it, so I’m hoping to update with more of that soon!

Enough ramble. Go read something interesting!

Right, finished Dr Who: Autopia colours for IDW, and I was very happy with it. First comic I’ve ever worked on where I’ve done colours for the whole interior AND the cover. Yay! I also received a copy of Dr Who: The Forgotten TPB this month (I coloured just under half of it) and what a cracking tale! Tony Lee just nailed it completely. Fantastic stuff!

Speaking of Brit science fiction, Red Dwarf returned this month, and was a massive let-down for me personally, but I still love the show to bits, and decided to start my own little Red Dwarf tale in comic book form… shame my artwork is so bleurgh, but oh well. Anyways, have a look, see what you think…

Upcoming stuff has included some small commission based stuff, and hopefully some further Who work, and a return to IDW’s Transformers, working on an upcoming part of All Hail Megatron: Coda. Should be good!

Well, earlier this month I received my complimentary copies of All Hail Megtatron 8, for whcih I contributed 3 full pages and a bunch of flats to help regular colourist Josh Burcham. Thankfully, my colours meshed pretty well with Josh’s. not perfect, but it’s not jarring. Most of my colour projects tend to start with me picking up the slack from another colourist, and it’s always a task to make your own style match someone else’s.

I finished Revenge Of The Fallen! Phew! Issue 3 was given to Alex Milne and Josh Perez, but for issues 1 (19 pages), 2 & 4 I got to scribble my crayons over Jon Davis-Hunt’s lines. Hasbro have asked for very few changes thank goodness (although some of the changes they’ve asked for have been stuff that I wouldn’t have expected, randomly). I’d love to post up some previews, but hey… I can’t. Not allowed to. Sorry! I will say, having now seen most of the story in some shape or form, that it certainly seems like a much bigger, broader, more satisfying tale compared to the first film. It’s got much more action, more robots, it seems like there’s more dialogue for the robots too… all in all, it should be a blast in theatres! The single issues are released weekly over the ass-end of May, beginning of June, so prepare to be spoiled!

At the moment, I’m just beginning work on Dr Who: Autopia from IDW. Written by John Ostrander, it features art from fellow ‘Forgotten’ alumni Kelly Yates. It’s out in June, and is shaping up to be a great little stand-alone tale! It’s got Donna Noble in it, and she’s my favourite companion, so I’m sold anyways… here’s the cover art. Mmmmm, purple.

Art by Kelly Yates, colours by Kris Carter

Beyond that, I’m still progressing on the writing side of things with the sit com projects. More on that as it gets closer to being finished. I’m also totally psyched about the prospect of new Red Dwarf on Dave TV on April 10th! Here’s hoping it’s great, and not even remotely poo.

Only been a-hitting the one major project this month, which is IDW’s Revenge Of The Fallen adaptation, written by Simon Furman and drawn by Jon Davis-Hunt. It’s rip-roaring stuff, and after seeing the new trailer toward the end of the schedule, I realise how a) awesome these things look when moving, b) how hard it is to capture it in comics and c) how many damned colouring mistakes have been made from working from the non-finalised concept art! It’s an equal mix of excitement and doh! Revenge Of The Fallen is the first proper colour stuff I’ve done with a graphics tablet (although i still use a mouse to flat, it’s quicker right now). I can honestly say that no, I’m not 100% happy with the results, but I’m definitely getting the hang of it, and I am very self-critical of my own work anyway.

I don’t do a lot of cover work, but I did manage to do a cover colour job for a stand alone Doctor Who comic from IDW, art by Kelly Yates and words by Tony Lee… a brief but fun Forgotten reunion there!

Oo, oo, and Transformers: Revelations is out now in trade paperback, and I love it! I worked on the Cyclonus and Hardhead stories (and one page of Doubledealer’s!), and I am chuffed as fuck with the results. And then EJ Su’s glorious artwork on Sideswipe is worth the bucks alone. Extras were a bit light, which is a shame, but it’s still a fab (if short) wrap up of over two years worth of ker-razy plotting by villainous ‘tache twirling scribemeister Simon Furman.

Outside of the funny books, I’m continuing to develop a comedy-drama (which has been a project I’ve been ploughing away at since 2003, and has developed well in 2008), and a more basic sit-com, both of which I’m hoping to submit for multiple rejections throughout 2009. I’ve also got a Spotlight idea for IDW which I may pitch soon, see how it goes down.

And in real life news, I continue to work in the call centre, sapping time away from colouring, but paying for the mortgage, so it’s a necessary evil. Ceri’s dad has now emigrated to Australia, so we’ve taken possession of his car and his cats. Our two cats are terrified of the new arrival, but thankfully the cars are getting on famously. Phew.

Been a busy start to 2009! I got to help out with All Hail Megatron issue 8 for IDW Publishing. It was good fun to help out on the title, I contributed 3 full pages and helped flat out 4 more for regular colourist Josh Burcham. The art on the title is fantastic, and having had the chance to read issues 7 & 8, and with some decent ties to past continuity I hope they’ll go someway to stemming the bad reactions a good number of TF fans are having to the title in some forums.

I also dipped my toe into the IDW Transformers Movie-verse for the first time this month (having previously coloured some Movie stuff for Titan UK). I got to help out regular colourist Josh Perez on Transformers: Alliance 4, contributing 7 pages in total (and managing to match Josh’s style a teeny bit better than I did previously on Spotlight Arcee.)

Finally, the biggie for me personally, I got to colour 19 pages of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen’s movie adaptation, written by Simon Furman with art by fellow UK movie art geezah Jon Davies-Hunt. So I’ve got  a gander at some of the movie concept art and all I’ll say is… it’s going to be action packed! Roll on summer!

But fuck me, the past two weeks have slayed me colouring-wise… my wodnerful wife has been helping me prepare and flat up pages, but on top of an almost full time call centre job, it’s knackering sometimes.

Yep, it’s nearly the end of 2008, so I thought I’d look back over my first year as a professional colourist. It’s gone fairly well I think. I’ve not been able to quit ‘real’ work yet, but I’m making in-roads. even if I end up burning the candle at both ends now and again. This year, I’ve coloured over two hundred pages-worth of artwork, so here’s hoping I can build upon that next year!

I’ve managed to work on Transformers, Dr Who, Torchwood, TMNT, Zombie Hunters and Shrek, and gotten to work with a raft of fantastic artists and writers including Nick Roche, Simon Furman, Paul Grist, EJ Su, Don Figeuroa, Tony Lee, SL Gallant, Pia Guerrera, Staz Johnson & Kelly Yates too name a few… I feel lucky to have worked with such talent!

Not that it’s always been easy going sometimes. Some of the deadlines I’ve had to meet have been crippling. Putting in a Torchwwod 11-pager in about 5 days, turning in a Dr Who 22- pager in under a week… hard going, but I got ‘em done. Also, corrections and alterations to finished pages are always an occupational hazard, and I’ve had to make a few fixes over the year at the last minute too… reformatting almost all of Spotlight Hardhead so the pages stayed within borders.. changes to the Doctor’s costumes, other stuff like that… all good fun! And it’s with some regret on projects I missed out on…. Spotlight Doubledealer, Dracula, Reign of Starscream (although in retrospect, I could never have done a better job than Josh Perez did on Starscream, so that one was for the best). But as hard as it’s been sometimes, with the pressure and lack of sleep, it’s still what I want to do, and I love it. And it beats the shit out of just taking endless complaint calls on the telephone in my call centre job.

It’s been a pretty good year for achieving some personal goals too. Get professionally published? Check. Contribute in an official capacity to Transformers? Check. Get to see Matchbox Twenty live? Check. Need to get some new goals!

Also, Ceri and I finally tied the knot in September, opening the next chapter of our relationship, and things are going great. That’s not to say we haven’t faced some trying times of late, with bereavements, job losses and such (which I’m not going to detail here), but we’ll pull through it and be all the stronger for it.

So here’s hoping that 2009 is a good ‘un. Merry Christmas everyone, and thanks for all the support and comments on the blog so far!

All the best

Kris

PS… Tony Lee has already debuted this massive Dr Who spoiler-y image on the IDW forums, but I coloured it so I’m whoring it out… Kelly Yates drew it, so go see it… here… but it’s a HEEEEOOOGE spoiler. 

Well, it’s nearly 4am, and I’ve got to leave for work in a few hours. I’ll get two or three hours sleep in a while, but right now I feel like blogging.

I’ve just finished colouring Doctor Who: The Forgotten issue 6 for IDW Publishing. I’ve contributed colours to half of issue 2, a third of issue 3, and almost all of issue 4, so I’ve been utterly jazzed to get to work on Who. As soon as I heard about the story for issue 6 I hoped beyond hope that I’d get to colour it, and somehow it actually happened! I’m not a massive Who fan – I came on board with McGann, and I’ve no real interest in the old shows, but I’ve loved the 2005 + reboot, but The Forgotten has taught me a lot about old Who, what companions did what etc… I really hope the fans get a kick out of this comic. It’s no secret that throughout the series, the Tenth Doctor has to regain his memories of being the previous Doctors, and it culminates in such a neat way. Tony Lee’s written it and it’s brill (even “Barcelona” gets a mention!), and Kelly Yates pencils have been inked by Rick Ketcham. The deadline was punishing, luckily I had a few days off the 9-5 call centre job to get the lions share of the colouring in, but Christ… I managed four and a half pages in one day at one point, which for me was FAST. I’m no Liam Shalloo in terms of speed, I can normally do a maximum of two pages a day, so to double that was impressive.

Sleep has gone by the wayside though.

I’m now re-colouring a strip for Classic Who reprints from IDW, and it’s Dave Gibbons artwork! I mean, this is part of the creative team that did Watchmen!! I have to picnh myself sometimes when I think of some of the great artists I’ve gotten to colour. I’m quite a lucky bastard all told.

It’s been a harsh week for the family though. My wife’s grandmother passed away at the start of the week, which was very upsetting. Ceri was very close to her nan, so it’s been hard. Also, I was hoping to get the paid redundancy from my job to allow me to concentrate on getting colouring work full time, but it was denied, so I’m still in the call centre – but Ceri got made redundant instead. So that hasn’t helped her feel any better either, and right now we’re stuck on my income from the call centre, and the comic book work. Hence the lack of sleep!

November saw me colouring some more Transformers UK artwork for Titan, an 11 pager that concludes the Return To Cybertron story by Simon Furman, with art by Jon Davis Hunt. Issue 20, look out for it, it’s very… uh… magenta. Happy with it though! What else happened in November… I cant remember now. A couple of rugby matches we went to, that was pretty cool. Won a few film quizzes… talked to a lot of pissed off loan customers… it’s all good.

October was my birthday month! I’m officially thundering toward being 30! Crazy. October saw me colour all but 2 pages of Doctor Who Forgotten issue 4, which was great. Got to colour the Tenth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors in that one. Tres cool.

September was a good month, Ceri and I got married! Had a wonderful relaxing honeymoon (which cost me most of Forgotten issue 3, but hey, it was worth it!).  Did land a brief 6 page Transformers: Animated stint too.

Seen some good films lately, and trying to catch up with season six of 24.. also enjoying the new series of IT Crowd, the prospect of new Red Dwarf in 2009 (oh please, don’t let it be shit), and I’m also doing a creative writing course in sit-com development. The script is almost done, and will be recorded in January (it’s radio based) and pitched to a variety of companies, so who knows what’ll happen with that.

Also went to the Birmingham Comic Con, got in the running for some more comic book work, but no dice. Oh well.

Well, that’s enough blather for now. It’s winter, the house is effin’ freezing, and I need to iron a shirt for work in a few hours. More soon!

I’m not much of an artist, but I had to draw this up…

Doctor Who/Transformers Crossover

Into August we go! So what have I been up to?

I was privileged to get to colour part five of the Torchwood “Rift War” epic – another chance to lay me Crayola’s over Paul Grist’s art! I love his style. It’s deceptively simple, but it works so well. We had a punishing deadline on that issue, but got there in time – and during a page lull I managed to skive off to Birmingham for a few hours and attend the Transformers UK convention, Auto Assembly. I must admit to being a bit gutted to not get there as a guest (maybe next year, eh?), but it was a fun day. Got to meet most of the other Titan UK colourists, which was brill, and also got to meet some of the IDW boarders in person as well. Good bunch! Met Simon Furman and Andy Wildman again, and was officially chuffed as fuck to meet Staz and Geoff Senior as well! Ah, childhood heroes… especially weird meeting Staz as I coloured his recent TF UK strip! Glad he liked it. Had to leave earlier than I’d have liked to finish up “Rift War”, but still a good day. Bought myself a set of 2nd hadn Duo-cons, and a Masterpiece Starscream. Well cool!

As to the rest of August, I’m hoping to work up some fill-in work on Doctor Who, and then it’s into Septemeber – a hopefully relaxed month starting off with mine and Ceri’s wedding and honeymoon!