Men's Health Spots!

Here's a round up of just a few of the spot illustrations I've been fortunate to produce for Men's Health UK throughout the latter part of 2010, I've been very slow in putting these up (no surprises there!)

The image above is the most recent from the 'Snack Off' series (*see older posts for more!) and unfortunately probably last, as I think the section has been killed, which is a shame 'cos i've had a ball producing these images for Rob and Graeme at the mag.

Still I think we went out on a high; they wanted something for Oats vs Eggs, and asked me if I had any ideas kicking around; so I suggested Oats Ghostbuster vs Ghost Egg.. I think the fellas there trust me now and so let me roll with it.

Strangely enough the Oaty Ghostbuster, which i'd have assumed would be difficult proved in fact to come very smoothly, the Eggy Ghost however proved tricky; originally it was just a random Ghost with two yolks for eyes; but was given the thumbs down for being too cartoony.

"How about an Eggy Slimer?" suggested AD Rob Milton. Genius!, D'oh why didn't I think of that.. so I drew a yellow/yolky slimer at the request of Rob, however this got turned down on the basis of it not looking "eggy" enough, this was replaced with a fried egg version, which while not being turned down had to be tweaked, I moved the yolk further up into the centre of the body and then had to give it a more subtle yolk, more poachy (that's a word!) than yellow fried.

Still while I may prefer the original yellow yolky Slimer, I can't fault the alterations we made as I was very happy when I saw the printed result!

Here's the second to last of the 'Snack Off' illos; Venison vs Beef in the shape of Mods vs Rockers, Rob's idea this one and a great one too! I decided to put them on bikes, really enjoyable an smooth one this.

Brocolli vs Cabbage, in the form of McEnro vs Bjorn Borg, I had trouble with my Cabbage Borg, I was a little unfamiliar with the Cabbage texture and trying to marry that to Bjorn's angular features, the orignal head was scrapped for not looking Cabbagey enough... I came up with this replacement very quickly, which I like, but had I more time then I would have slightly resized his proportions to match Brocolli McEnroe and gave him a cabbage beard to finish him off.

Here are some military style badges I came up with for a army fitness training supplement for the magazine, these are only small, but were really enjoyable to do. I think people see some of the more complex and intricate images I produce, and then forget about me for these smaller icon based images, but the reality is I'd love to do more icon and infographic stuff to run alongside my other work.

Coming up soon, so watch this space over the next few days are some of that more detailed stuff I was talking about, in fact they're quite epic!