James Hackett

Simple does it keeping to just pencil sketches.

Took it back down simple, I liked the drawing as is in black and white so I left it like that. I asked some of the guys at WE DOES DRAW to give it a go we will see how it turns out. Think now I am all caught up again.

Doh haffi dread to like rasta. Had a few rasta women crushes in my time.

One Day behind so I will be posting the third and fourth ones close to each other.
Day 2 of my daily pieces, this is a collaboration with artist Anthony Edwards. This is his re-imagined folk character Papa Bois. Colours by me.

2 years ago I attempted to do a daily sketch or drawing or somethnig creative. For the most part it was successful. I did about 315 images. Here I go again with it.  These drawings serve as a means for me to exercise my hand as an artist.  I was really able to find some fun techniques last time I did this, now I am stepping the game up a bit more because it I am going to add everything from the core of my creativity, a great emptying of my mind and a series of fun explorations. I may not achieve it all, but I am going to try.

This is what my birthday is to me a creative wellspring.

Let’s Jam!

Lots of activities for me the past 4 months. Most of it I would say was unplanned but I still enjoyed every second of it. From We Does Draw outings and events to getting ready to do a comic with a bunch of gifted illustrators for our Donkey Eye Magazine initiative, the next year is going to be quite interesting.

I have my eyes on and almost ready for the new school year, my final school year. We miss our teacher and main administrator Carol Mongo. She steered and pioneered the programme for four years and now we are off.

The image here is part of a project I am working on with ZIGWA. More pics of it as that develops.

Fly Free

This year marks 10 years since my father passed. We were not close. I did not hate him but we never had a decent relationship. There are things that you learn over time as a man from other men in your life growing up as you discover this world around us. There are many things and movies and books and seminars and blogs and youtube videos and twitters and tumblrs all geared to educating women about womanhood. For men we have so many misguided and in my mind stupid examples of what men are and should be.

But there are some simple things I think young men should know and should hear in the midst of all the stupid noise out there.

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For the new book I thought I will bring a lot of my fashion ideas into the design of the characters, in fact I have slowed down a bit in my progression to think about how these people look. In my mind I am looking at the people and imagining us how we would dress with more assertion about our own local flavour and tastes as opposed to it being heavily influenced by specific dominant cultures.

With the douens, these were drawn some months back as I observed how a lot of  the younger people dress now. It started off with me kinda poking fun but then I thought how can I make it a cool fashion statement. I called them chicken heads with the mohawks and calf cut style jeans.

Every time I imagine douens I think of lost children, and I think in this time that is the look of a lot of these types. My designs are an attempt to put some edge to that look.

Long week. It was a bit emotional and somewhat torrid but this week is over. Had my garments walk the runway for the first time ( yaye for birth). I shared that experience with a lot of my other classmates.

Now I think I can fully rest ( even for a shot while) and continue with some other projects both personal and otherwise that I am excited about.

A few more photos after the jump.  Facebook galleries here and here. I am not a photographer so don’t expect anything too fancy.

Also Check out an interview I did for Runway Street Blog.

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Keisha will be one of the main characters you will come across in Maljo. She is the spirited adventurer in the group and the brave one. I like working with female characters. It is a sort of homage to my family.

In designing her, I wanted to create a non waif like girl, she is curvier and will appear a bit bigger in the hips.  Because I am from the Caribbean I felt I will try to work with characters that feel like someone you could pass on the streets here. So Keisha had to be representative of some of the women I know in my actual life.

I have here a sketch of her but I think I want to have another go at it. Perhaps some of you women reading might want to weigh in?

Adrian was a character that first appeared in Daaknite episode 7. His character went through some of the hardest changes throughout the series and is one of my personal favorites.  When I was writing that article I think I had a couple songs from the Soul Food soundtrack playing.

There was “Baby I” from Tenderoni and Total’s ” What about us“. I also played Tamia “Imagination” a lot something about the music I guess gave me the right kind of inspiration.

These days I find myself listening to Royksopp. Something about that slow build that hits you before you even realise it. That in a way is how Maljo works. Maljo is the power that Adrian will be weilding throughout these stories and whilst he is not the main character, there are some epic parts that he will be there for. No spoilers .

I started designing Adrian and trying to visualise how the powers his powers will look.

So I have started work on my new set of stories based on the same world as Tales from the Daaknite. I am calling it Maljo and will be developing it originally in sequential form. The plan is to do it as a Graphic Novel but I am still figuring out the best way to present the final story. As usual however I plan to do some collaborative work with Detnator mainly to add the dimension of music and I hope to have some other friends along.

There is no set date for it, I just want to work on it until I am done. Meanwhile I will be blogging about the process as it goes along. This is something I have been meaning to do a while. I have shied away from it a bit because it is a big project, but I feel confident that I can see it to the end this time. This should be fun.