From the control room

Well, my eyes are stretched completely out of shape and my hand is squinched up into a little claw, but I've done it - I've finished the roughs for Hamlet! The roughs come to 347 pages (all pencilled and inked!). The final work will be a bit longer, as there are a few parts I need to rework, but for the moment, I can end the year knowing that the roughs are sorted!

The last 13 pages were a killer - literally. This is where the Queen, the King, Laertes and Hamlet (in that order) all kick the bucket in tragic style. Hamlet took me more than five hours to die... it's no wonder I'm wrung out!

So, for a bit of recreation, here are a few photos of my drawing room (no, not a place for English ladies to take tea - I mean my little studio). I'm always fascinated to peek into other scribblers' workspaces, so I hope that if I post mine here, I might receive a few links to pictures of other people's messy desks, decorated walls and overflowing shelves...

Here goes:
Desk #1, where I draw. As you can see, no angled drawing board or ergonomic chair. I like a hard wooden chair to sit on. This is actually my first ever desk, which I must have got at age 6 or 7. Dad stuck a larger top on it when it became apparent that, even as a kid, I needed plenty of space to strew my mess over.

The enormous folder in the front is the Hamlet roughs. And at eye level on the wall is that lovely picture of Ginevra King.


Much-needed shelf space for all the odds and ends that don't fit into the bookcase.

The mysterious newspaper-pasted thing at the bottom is a work in progress, which I hope to complete before Squidmas. It's a large papier mache armadillo - I'm planning to give it to the Big Squid as a present. It was supposed to be a surprise, but you just try hiding a great big armadillo from your beloved... Actually, when Big Squid accidentally saw it he thought it was a pig - so there is still a small element of surprise involved.

And a couple of things from the walls...

Daisy with a lot of "test" nib strokes... and coffee! I love looking at roughs, tests and scribble pages, and try to hang onto as many as I can.

Here's part of my collection of saints, martyrs and other iconic-looking types. Bernini's Saint Teresa in Ecstasy (top left) is my favourite. In the middle and just to the left you can see that great tragic character, Withnail, as played by Richard E Grant. Sigh... Is it possible to watch him do Hamlet's "what a piece of work is a man" speech and not get a tear in the eye?