New Personal Illustration

I have the Flu at the moment, or Bronchitus... im not sure which, but anyway it seemed like an apt time to put out some new personal illustration

This new piece goes with this older piece from the summer on a similar theme:

Slideshow Illustrations

This is the first of a series of illustrations im putting together for a presentation.
The subjects covered will be: Music (above), Video and Web/Podcasting.

New Job

I havent been working on Illustration very much recently, had quite a bit of Graphic Design stuff but its commercial or conceptual so I havent been able to blog it,



did a new piece for fun a while ago and havent got round to blogging it yet, I just got a new job with a fruit-themed computer company where I work 9-5 (!) so my time for freelancing is limited but Im still hoping to get some more commissions!

Fortean Times Work in Print

There was a delay in me getting a preview copy of the Fortean Times with my work in..but i have finally got it and uploaded it...



so here are the illustrations in context

In Print!

My cover for Piano ... in Print!

Green Personal Work

This is a personal work/doodle thing I did to celebrate turning my blog green!

Piano Magazine

This is the new cover for Piano magazine I illustrated

Fortean Times Illustrations

I recently did 4 spot illustrations for the Fortean Times Magazine on a scientific theme

Digital Arts Page

I got a Page in Digital Arts for the October Issue





Im now currently writing a tutorial on the Fidel Castro piece seen below for the magazine.

Graphic Design for Consultancy

This is some Graphic Design work completed for a consultancy

Garlic

This piece is about how Garlic plants apparently grow very well on minefields and soil saturated with explosive residue/TNT

Back in The Zone

After a few days lost in an artisic block I have managed to get something out, Im sure this sort of Illustration (the gritty cityscape) has been done to death but I thought id try it out...

Castro and Cuba

Does anyone else think its weird that the Americans still have sanctions against Cuba?
I mean what are they afraid of? the spread of Communism, at this late stage?!

Anyway...i did an Illustration of Cuba and Fiedel Castro at the height of his power....



After using photos in some professional design work,Im toying with the idea of using it in my editorial.

Design Treatments

This is some of the concept work I have been doing freelance for a design company, the context is a corporate leaflet exploring the ideas behind the company.





I refer to them as treatments as they work around or into stock photos supplied by my employer.

Sports Car Tuning

I have not had much work on this last week so I got round to doing another Editorial. This one is for an article in the Financial Times's "How to Spend It" supplement about precision tuning for performance sports cars.
Buying a Sports Car, especially a customized one is usually a method of defining identity amongst those who can afford them so I worked in some fingerprints into the design along with the billowing money and robot arms.

Chinese Robot Builder

Had quite a lot of work on these last few weeks, phoning publications and doing a bit of freelance design work, so I have been a bit crap about doing any new editorial work
I managed to get this done on sunday



The piece is based on something I saw in "Paul Merton in China" about an uneducated chinese farm labourer who inexplicably taught himself how to build robots out of everyday objects and trash... I saw him as person who could work out how things worked just by looking at them, almost like an exploded view of the world.

China's changing economy

I finished this piece the other day but im looking for work now so time is a bit constricted, the idea is about how china is dividing into a financial upperclass and underclass while still maintaining the pretense of communism.

First Published Work

My work is in a digital arts magazine, which is very exciting! so i thought i would share it with you all:


This is the magazine


and this is my work (from earlier in my blog no less...)

The article is about the best (digital?!) work from this years D&AD "New Blood" show
needless to say im very happy to see my work in print.

Conflict Diamonds

This Illustration came about from reading about the violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia (funded by illegal diamond trafficking. I thought the phrase "Getting blood from a stone" was somehow appropriate to this continuing problem of weapons finding there way into the hands of child soldiers via illicit arms sales.

FT Article Illustration

I chose an article from a recent FT Magazine about the life of an FBI agent for my latest practice exercise. The agent specialized in recovering stolen art by going undercover so i played with concealing identity to represent him.

Old Drawing

Inspired by Adams recent drawing post I decided to post some old drawing I did in my first year with Quink ink and instant coffee, the technique is a bit like watercolour but it smells weird (because of the coffee!)

Sample Sheet Work

This is a piece I am putting together for some sample sheets to send off to editors
the idea is about how children are put in a "lottery" to decide what school they go to

Home Project

This was the final project I did for my 3rd Year, I toyed with the idea of investigating journeys and travel but ended up working on the Ego project first.
After finishing that I took a public brief on "home" for a local exhibiton.
I examined many ideas of home and became fixated on a social commentary piece on the desolation of slum living and poverty in suburban london.




I also looked at the idea of "neighborhood watch" in a reversd way, with people watching each other inside the community ,rather than being wary of strangers.....



All this work was interesting but I needed something more personal, so I looked into my attitudes about home, I used to have a rather distorted life, somewhat like a person with two lives, one with my now ex-girlfirend In Totnes, Devon and the other in Banbury, studying for my degree, on top of that I lived in Buckinghamshire. Needless to say I travelled a lot and spent a large proportion of my time in non-places, train stations and roadsides, places that exist only in the transitory.

I sought out to illustrate how I felt about it and when I had designs for both places
i wrote my girlfriend a letter describing the work. This became these Final pieces:

Rogue Trooper

I was asked (through Myspace)to do an illustration for Litmsuphere magazine in march this year, unfortunatley I was really busy with two other briefs for uni and couldn't apply all my time to it, I produced two bits of work for the deadline but remained unhappy with the final result, for my own piece of mind I created a new piece later whi ch i have posted here today. When I get my sketchbooks back from assessment I will post the sketches and submitted work.

Orange Competion

YCN Orange Brief





[the text for this post has been removed because these pieces are popular with art directors and I want to get more work]

Ego Project

The Final for my Ego Project at Uni



I tried to design a character who i felt inspired feelings of hostility, the pink polo shirt suggesting a softness (in touch with his feminine side?!) countered by the hair and sneering face making him look like a cocky idiot.

Postcard Art

For a brief set by D&AD this year

Two finals and some sketches:







An enjoyable project based on the idea of "A Postcard from the Edge" I chose to look at mental illness through the "right brain" or creative side of the mind.
I read Oliver Sacks book: "The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat" and used the narrative to create my designs around some of the bizarre case histories.

The final images are intended to portray the gulf between the mentally ill and the medical establishment, the intertwined trees representing autistic twins who communicate through numbers as similarly inseperable despite the intervention of the medical authority.

The other image look's at the overmedication of the mentally ill (somewhat clumsily)