tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68922700874283268592024-03-05T05:12:57.042-08:00Bill McConkeyBill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-56692143454771937682016-02-24T08:29:00.000-08:002016-02-24T08:29:26.408-08:00Illustrations 2015-2016 Part1Been a year since I posted anything on here, been busy with work (as you'll see) & I actually share my work on Twitter now far more... i'll also be joining Instagram in 2016 at some point... & maybe raplace this with a Tumblr blog.<br />
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Tough year 2015, lot of magazines folding & I had the small matter of losing the sight in my right eye to contend with, regardless here's a fraction of the best stuff I drew in 2015/early 2016... I can say I am truly indebted to the art directors that continue to keep faith with me & my work!<br />
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I'll not waffle on, this blog is about pictures after all, this is just Part 1, i'll post second selection later in week! Like I say busy year....<br />
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Caveman Lifestyle, Men's Fitness.</div>
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Men's Fitness Guide to commuting, Men's Fitness.</div>
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Daredevil Exercise, Men's Fitness.</div>
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Louise Hazel Exercise Guide, Men's Fitness.</div>
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Jon Snow Exercises, Men's Fitness.</div>
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Thor's Guide to Fitness, Mens Fitness.</div>
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Rick Grimes Walking Dead Fitness, Men's Fitness.</div>
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Selection of Tweet Science Illustrations Series, Men's Fitness.</div>
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Mad Science, Men's Fitness</div>
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Jeremy Corbyn Paper Doll, Heat magazine.</div>
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Keep up with the Kardashians Boardgame, Heat magazine.</div>
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Movie Guide to Shrinking, Empire magazine.</div>
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Empire Man & Woman of 2015, Empire magazine.</div>
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Empire Red Carpet Drinking Game, Empire magazine.</div>
<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-28262245887842621862015-02-20T10:13:00.000-08:002015-02-20T10:13:17.156-08:00Jobs, Jobs & More Jobs Pt1!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So this blog has been ridiculously neglected of recent, really just a combination of lots of work and life in general getting in the way.<br />
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Right less talking, let's get into it, most of these are pre-Christmas, it was such a busy period, that this is a fraction of work produced, i'll put more up in pt2, sometime next week.. to catch us up to more present day.<br />
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Those lovely red drawings above are for a new mag called Eat Fit, published by the makers of Men's Fitness, these were art directed by Rob Lavery, I've rarely been asked to do single colour illos, if anything I go overboard with the colours, so these were something different for me.<br />
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Enjoyed them, the magazine is a great read, and Rob is a joy to work with, let's you crack on, and try to do your best. Just drawn something else with Rob, and I think it'll come out a treat...more on that another time!<br />
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Just two from my regular "Ask Uncle TopGear" column for TopGear, art directed by Peter Barnes. I say just two, as there's more I could have put here, but these were my faves out of recent ones. Love working with Peter, i've been in a good bit of form at the start of this new year, the next months illo is perhaps the best we've done, i'll post that up when it sees print.<br />
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Some workout stuff for the legend that is Ped Millichamp over at Mens Fitness, top one is ex wrestler Diamond Dallas Page, below is Team GB's gorgeous Louise Hazel, shame I don't get to draw more of the female form in exercise, enjoyed those!<br />
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Three from the regular Tweet Science column over at Mens Fitness, again art directed by Ped... I think i've found my form on these a bit more now, in fact been v.happy with how the series has progressed, the one i've just completed was great fun (more on that another time..such a tease!)<br />
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So the Rock as King Kong, wanted to go full on toxic with the colouring, which I think kind of adds to the extremeness of the drawing.<br />
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Ronda Rousey chopping limes Samurai style, apart from last minute changes to clothes, a god 'un, like the viewpoint.<br />
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Rory Mcilroy, lot of fun this, managed to squeeze Nick Hutchings the mag ED, Ped and myself into the background crowd.<br />
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Like I say lots of fun these, and great to work with Ped... what more can you ask for from work, great brief, great art director... hopefully leads to not half bad work from yours truly.<br />
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Some small spot illos for Empire, art directed by Chris Lupton.. everyone knows how much of a film geek I am, so i'm as happy as anything when drawing this stuff... Just couldn't speak more highly of Chris and the whole Empire team, they've been very welcoming to this illustration nerd.<br />
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I actually designed Empire's Christmas card, I just remembered! I'll post that up on the next posting...actually I was v.happy with how that turned out, one of my fave jobs in past few months.<br />
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I've completed another couple of illos for the title, one of which was again me in fine fettle, it may be one of the best things i've done in past 6 months, i'll put that here and get it on the website once it sees print.<br />
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Okay cover for new client Public Finance over at RedActive, apparently the art director Gene had been recommended my work (big thanks to whoever that was!)<br />
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When the brief came in and I learned that i'd be drawing a still life of a breakfast table with economy style products, and that i'd be handling typography... er ... I was a little worried, I mainly draw figures, and typography isn't always a strong point of mine.<br />
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Needn't have worried, I really enjoyed the job, and I think we got a good cover out of it.<br />
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I'd known of Gene's work for years when he used to art direct at a magazine called Management Today, a title that regularly used great illustration... So it was a real pleasure to finally get to work with him, it's nice when these things work out in the end, and hopefully i'll work with him again soon.<br />
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Right that's it for now, Pt2 coming next week, or certainly not long after.Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-5933984840880838532015-02-03T07:56:00.000-08:002015-02-03T07:56:34.742-08:00Bill Joins TWITTER!First of all a huge catch up series of posts will be coming here shortly, fact is i've always preferred or I am just busy in the act of making pictures that I sometimes neglect this blog.<br />
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I thought maybe a quicker way of showcasing my recently completed work may be to get involved with some form of social media, so i've been on Twitter for about 5 days now.<br />
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I have been skeptical of the whole Twitter revolution, there's a hell of a lot of voices on there, still 'in for a penny in for a pound' as they say, and I will give it a go.<br />
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If you want to catch up with me on Twitter click here <a href="https://twitter.com/bill_mcconkey">https://twitter.com/bill_mcconkey</a>Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-71038468451423279762014-11-22T09:05:00.000-08:002014-11-22T09:05:07.737-08:00Yet Another Collection of Jobs!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here we go again! Another giant-sized bundle of jobs...<br />
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At various points this year I have been busier than I have ever been in my decade long career in doodling... in fact at times I have bitten off more than I can chew, this became apparent over the space of a couple of weeks when I was drawing many of the illustrations seen on this post.<br />
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Above is a double-page spread for the football (Soccer to my American friends) magazine Four Four Two, now I am a big footie fan, and a real fan of the publication too, originally I was offered a spot illustration for the title, which I had to turn down due to a ridiculously busy schedule.<br />
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I hate turning down jobs, particularly if it's for a title you really want to work with, but I only have one set of hands and if I am committed elsewhere, then there is not a lot I can do.<br />
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Luckily the Art Ed Tom Chase wasn't deterred too much and offered me this much bigger job a few weeks down the line... unfortunately I was still kind of over-committed with other clients, but I just didn't want to turn such a great mag down again...so I kind of made a bit of a mistake and took the job, and tried to crowbar it into my schedule... which proved tricky!<br />
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The article I was illustrating for the mag was about fans missing important goals, which was great fun, but I probably did not realize how much work was going to be involved with these.<br />
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I'm kind of happy with how they came out, the image above looking nice on the double page, but it proved quite stressful for everyone involved I think.<br />
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I'm very thankful to Tom for keeping a level-head and putting up with my whining about how busy I was.<br />
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Here are two more from the article (I think there may have been 7 drawings in total, including the double page!) there was a lot of back of head shots with these, generally I am not keen on drawing backs of heads, all artists have one or two bugbears when it comes to drawing, I don't think i've ever said it here before, but backs of heads is one of mine... it's hard to emote things when all you can see is ears and hair.<br />
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Regardless I think these came out okay, only thing I would change is the red head on right on the bottom drawing, however to put it in perspective, both of the stewards in the bottom illo were originally both men, and had to be replaced in super-quick time.<br />
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Like I said earlier big thanks to Tom, and hopefully i'll get to work with the title again under less stressful conditions... y'know that's if I haven't put them off by my bellyaching!<br />
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So as I have already stated I was pretty busy for a period there, I was working from 6 in the morn while 6 in the afternoon for two/three weeks solid (no weekends off)<br />
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Above is an illo I was working on at the same time as the Four Four Two drawings, this was for the cover of Insurance Age.<br />
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The idea was a beauty, a conveyor belt of different kinds of self-employed careers, with the "butcher, baker, candlestick maker" standing at the front of the queue.<br />
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I think under less stressful times, I would have packed this drawing out further with more people and details, but generally speaking I though this came out well, this was art directed by long-time client Dan Parker over at Incisive... Dan's always great to work with.. Ha, even when i'm a complete stress-head!<br />
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This is the second cover I did for Legal Week, which was used for a various promotional purposes across a variety of platforms.<br />
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I spoke a little about this on a past posting, the first one we did was great, I suppose this one was more of the same, but by not working with the same experienced art director that I had on the first job (hello Dan again!) it resulted in leaving me in some pretty sticky circumstances and resulted in this final drawing being completed in two days, despite, having a month to run through roughs and ideas, etc... Looking at the image with fresh eyes having not viewed it for a couple of months, it's pretty good I think.<br />
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Some at work exercises for Fabulous magazine, quick turnaround, I like the AD there Laura Cunningham, she's lovely to work with. 'Nuff said!<br />
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A job for regular letters column at Top Gear mag, this came at the end of my busy spell, under a tight deadline (I was working on other jobs) and this was drawn in one day, in fact it was a Sunday I drew this in between tucking into my Sunday roast.<br />
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This was for an article about a Hyundai virtual salesroom, complete with naff salesman hologram... I quite enjoyed this, a bit more simpler than some of my stuff. Art directed again by the great Peter Barnes!<br />
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Above are a series of spot illos for Empire magazine, obviously doesn't even need to be said for any regular readers of this blog, but it's a thrill for me whenever I get an Empire brief.<br />
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These illustrations went with a sidebar to a feature about the Hunger Games, the article was about the death toll, and variety of deaths in popular YA (Young Adult) films, like Maze Runner, Divergent, etc<br />
See if you can name the films.<br />
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This would have been a dream job, but I was already drawing those illustrations for Four Four Two and Top Gear at the same time, I got this at exactly the same time as the Top Gear job with the same deadline... which meant that I drew these, the TG job and finished up the FFT images all over the same weekend... it was shattering!<br />
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I have one rule... never turn down a job for Empire! Simple as that... They are the one client, because I have been reading the magazine for most of my adult life, and one day aspired to work with that i'll move mountains in order to work with them, regardless of what work I have on, or if my arms fallen off, i'm in hospital in a coma, whatever, there's always time for Empire.<br />
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This one was art directed by the always ace Adam Gerrard.<br />
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Finish up with some lovely (but gruesome!) jobs for his awesom'ness, the one and only Ped Millichamp at Men's Fitness.<br />
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First up to celebrate Walking Dead returning to our TV screens, here's how to evade a zombie exercises by Rick (Andrew Lincoln) from the series.<br />
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I am a massive fan of the show, and it is right up there with Game of Thrones as being the best thing on Telly, so I was honored to get the brief for this one... again other jobs to contend with, probably would have liked more time to draw the zombies, but what the hey I can live with it.<br />
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Bottom and final illo is for the regular MF feature Top Tweets, this time about Simon Pegg getting into shape.<br />
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We did a Shaun of the Dead style gym scene.. I remember struggling with the perspective on this, because Pegg is so low down, and our viewpoint, etc. Also an issue was trying to get the body shape for Nick Frost correct, i've spent too much time I think drawing so many people that are superhuman physical specimens that when I draw a regular body shape I now struggle.<br />
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I think we got there in the end on this.. at the time I though I hadn't perhaps done my best work, but seeing this one in print, it just really worked on the page.<br />
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Best two bits for me are the twitter bird eating zombie brain, and the female zombie who's hands fallen due to the weight of a dumbbell.<br />
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Right that's me done for now, expect another big jobs haul here before the New Year... and I suppose the other bit of news is that I am looking to join the Twittersphere (quick as ever with these things!) either sometime before Christmas or just after, I think me and Twitter will do extraordinary, but terrible things together... just you wait and see!<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-57393382685939733162014-10-29T08:47:00.000-07:002014-10-29T08:47:01.628-07:00 Harry & the Hendersons Print Now for Sale!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So another super busy month with magazine illustrations, rather than jump straight into another great big job round up post (that'll come in the next couple of week!) I thought I would post this up, one of my personal pieces produced not just for me, but I suppose for the fans of my other 80's themed images.<br />
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Above is my painting of Harry, from classic 80's Ambin movie Harry and the Hendersons, sometimes known as Bigfoot & the Hendersons.<br />
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I've had many forays into digital painting, but it's something that has taken a backseat, because it's drawing rather than paintings that my commercial clients want, I thought Harry would make a good choice for the first of a planned series of oversized 80's themed painted portraits.... that is if I every get around to doing the others! Things have been hectic here at McConkey Studios!<br />
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The top image is the original, and the bottom two are photos of the giclee print made from the original file (they came out very faithful to the top one, you'll have to forgive the quick snaps)<br />
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This print is now available for purchase on request.<br />
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The images comes in these ways:<br />
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Giant sized A2 Giclee (best print money can buy!) on archival fine art paper that's a width of 420mm by 594mm height, which is 16.53 inches by 23.39 inches, this is the largest and most expensive print, the price is £50 to the UK market and £65 overseas.<br />
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Second print is the A3 Giclee on archival fine art paper, same quality as above, but smaller and measures 297mm (width) by 420mm (height), which is 11.69 by 16.53 inches, the prices are £40 to the UK and £50 overseas.<br />
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There are also two poster prints available:<br />
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A2 Vinyl banner print (see A2 giclee for sizes) at £20 in UK and £30 overseas.<br />
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A3 (see A3 Giclee for sizes) at £8 in the UK and £20 for overseas, this comes with another poster print thrown in.<br />
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If you'd like to own a print, then drop me an email, my address is at the top of this page in the banner, or alternatively click on the website link, which also lists my contact details.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">* Just a note here, if you are going to repost this image elsewhere, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, Pinterest or whatever, I have no issue with that, but if you could kindly attribute and acknowledge me as the creator and this site as the original source, that way should anyone see the image and want a print, they know where to come.</span><br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-27172007535624236922014-09-26T09:08:00.000-07:002014-09-26T09:08:16.318-07:00The Gigantic Job Collection!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay so let's face it, I think I begin pretty much each blog with an apology about my tardiness in posting something here, because of a hectic work schedule... well i'll not do that again, but I think this past month it is fair to say that all previous busy spells have been blown out of the water, by the sheer volume of work to come my way since the release of Kaleidoscope.<br />
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So what we have here is a bumper scale post of recent work.<br />
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I'll start with one of the most recent images to see print, a cover for the renowned Guardian Guide.<br />
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This was an odd one, in that Sara Ramsbottom the AD of the Guide actually hadn't received a copy of the book yet (I was biding my time) an email just came somewhat out of the blue to ask whether i'd be interested in a cover.<br />
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Now I am of the opinion that the Guide often has some of the best illustrated covers out there, and I found myself in the regrettable position of having to turn down this job as I was booked in with about 5 different jobs.<br />
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It can be somewhat heart-breaking for me to be in this position, especially when you hear the brief, and let's face it who wants to turn down Sara and the Guide.<br />
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Anyway somehow Sara was able to talk me around, even though I simply didn't have time... luckily some of my more regular clients were able to push back a few deadlines, and were very accommodating (thanks Dan, Peter, & Ped) so I was able to squeeze this in.<br />
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The illustration is of the stars of ITV2 Roman era set comedy Plebs.<br />
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Ha, I'll not go through how stressful it was to bring this cover to fruition over the space of a weekend while juggling other jobs.<br />
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One of the reasons I had not yet sent Sara one of my books (It's on it's way to you next week Sara!) was perhaps a feeling I had blown my chances with the magazine, after I had produced what I felt was a lackluster effort on my previous cover, some two years ago (btw, not art directed by Sara) fortunately this opinion was not shared by Sara.<br />
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Despite the speedy turnaround of the job (I would have made the arrows better, and walls more crumbly with more time) I was actually really, really pleased with this in print... in fact i've shown this to everyone, and it's an image i'm really proud of... thanks Sara, for thinking of me for this, and hopefully i'll produce more work for the title under slightly less stressful circumstances.<br />
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Wouldn't be a proper post without some work for the gang at TopGear magazine, here's a bunch from the monthly Ask Uncle TopGear column.<br />
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I'm very grateful to the team there for allowing me the regular opportunity to doodle for the title, and recently for Peter the designer there giving me a bit more freedom in composing these pieces more to my liking.<br />
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As previously stated I work in a more realistic "tight" style for the title, without the time used on these assignments to fine tune the technique, images like that drawn for The Guide above would simply not be possible.<br />
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A selection of covers for my long-time friends at Incisive.<br />
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Above is a cover for Insurance Age, a magazine i've just produced another cover for this week, this one was actually completed a while back, before things went a bit crazy.<br />
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Illustration was for a feature about building insurance, brief was simple, drawn an insurance fella in front of a disaster building... like this image, would draw the guy's shadow better if I had the time back ... apart from that, always a pleasure to work with Iain at the title, he's one of those people I'm fortunate to work with who y'know "get's it", he knows how to use me, gives me decent briefs, and enough time to produce the final drawing.<br />
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This is a rare cover for Financial Director magazine, this was actually drawn ages ago... i'm not sure why I have delayed in putting this up, I think maybe the idea was that I would do a Financial Director special post, with all the spots I draw for the title.<br />
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I draw 4 regular spot illos for the title, so I've produced a large number of images for the title over the past few years, some I would argue are conceptually (at least) my best images... anyway enough about the spots, i'll do a feature on just them next post.<br />
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So the cover was..er..about floods (well d'uh!) this image is a lot more simpler than what I usually do, and for me this recalls the work of the American conceptual illustrator Guy Billout (exceptional artist!) the waves were used as a framing device for a headline placed on by the designer, I can't remember seeing the final layout, but I imagine this would work beautifully.<br />
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This is the first of a planned series of 3 images for Legal Week, and a Legal Week promotional series of conferences.<br />
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I was given headshots of a group of leading Legal heavyweights that would be attending a conference in Lake Como, Italy and asked to compose an image.<br />
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I did something similar last year albeit not as well as above.<br />
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These kinds of images (advertorials) are often difficult, and fraught with possible minefields, as there's a hell of a lot of people involved.. all with differing opinions, i've done my fair share of this work, and it can prove troublesome.<br />
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This one was art directed by Dan Parker, someone I trust, and knows what he is doing, sometimes us illustrators need to be protected a bit, otherwise an image like this would get crushed under the deluge of alterations and nit-picking.<br />
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Luckily with Dan on board this one proved pretty smooth sailing, the second one in the series got signed off yesterday, after being on the project for a month and a half... Ha, that was a far more tricky affair, arguably less successful, and didn't have Dan art directing, 'nuff said!<br />
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Sometimes it's not what you know, but who! This job came courtesy of Nuts alumni, Nitish Mandalia who was freelancing for Britain's biggest tabloid The Sun, for their Sunday supplement Fabulous and a football special called OFFSIDE.<br />
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The above job seemed easy on paper... proved far more difficult in execution, usually when I do these kind of jobs, i'm given a very specific set of instructions and often photo reference (to interpret as I see fit) there was little of that here, and I made the mistake of following the designer's instruction as opposed to the 'copy' text... took a long time to get them right.<br />
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I think most artists will tell you, the more times you ahve to re-draw an image, the more labored the process becomes, this happened here.<br />
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These were exercise illos done for OFFSIDE, art directed by Laura Cunningham, I was on far more comfortable ground with these, these printed great in the magazine.<br />
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This was another one for OFFSIDE, i'd long wanted to draw Harry Redknapp, his hangdog expression is calling out to be illustrated, so I was happy to finally get my shot.<br />
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This was about the phone ringing off the hook on transfer deadline day, the issue with this one was that one of my most popular images (a portrait of Bill Murray) proved a little too popular with the art team, and I was essentially asked to re-create it with Harry Redknapp.<br />
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I am relatively happy with the piece, but perhaps there was a missed opportunity with this one.. i've certainly got a better Redknapp illustration in my locker.<br />
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This image has a Warhol-like Pop Art feel to it, several weeks later The Sun brought out a "Reality Show Rich List" supplement with all the major players illustrated in pretty much the exact same way as above, albeit without me on board.<br />
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I can't complain too much, the illustrator did a cracking job, but make no mistake this work sowed the seed... still it was a pleasure to work with Nitish again, to work with such a big publication like The Sun, and also to work with Laura and Mark at the magazine, who i'd work with again in a heartbeat<br />
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'Nother one for The Sun, this time for Fabulous magazine. Art directed by Laura Cunningham, these were enjoyable, pain-free and I rarely just do B&W line work.<br />
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Okay now onto some spots for my friends at Empire magazine.. everyone knows I am a devoted reader, so i'll not bore everyone with the fanboy type glee that comes with a commission for the title.<br />
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Above is a set of images from a feature about Sin City 2, these were for a box out in the main feature, which asked for some funny drawings of Robert Rodriguez inspired pet drawn in Sin City grey scale.<br />
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Above are Deperadog (El Mari Chihuahua) Spy Kids (as in Baby Goats, get it?) From Duck 'Til Dawn<br />
and Planet Terrapin... I really loved these in print, I remember stressing about the terrapin one.. now I think it's the best of the bunch! Yep, doesn't matter how small a drawing prints.. I can still stress about it!<br />
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More spots for this Month's Empire, this time the new faces of horror. I'm a big horror nut, and I like the new breed of horror films currently being made like Insidious, so this was one of those that was made for me.<br />
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Above is the woman from Woman in Black (sorry forgot name!) Annabelle from The Conjuring/Annabelle, Mr Boogie (doesn't look like much of a mover!) from Sinister, Red Face from Insidious and just for fun a Minion from Despicable Me.<br />
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Love these jobs, so much fun, and Chris and Adam are just the best to work with. When I draw things like this, I realise what a lucky so and so I am!<br />
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Above is the first job I did for new client Men's Fitness.<br />
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This came about not unlike the job for The Sun, Ha, in that I had a friend on the inside.<br />
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An art director called Camille Neilson who I had previously worked with at PC Pro and who had very kindly written a feature on me for Mac User had recently left her desk as a full-time AD and gone freelance, we'd kept in touch in that period.<br />
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One of her many jobs (she's a very busy lady nowadays!) was a period working for the gang at Men's Fitness, where she promptly showed my work around (who needs an agent with friends like this!) an introduction was made with the AD of the title Ped Millichamp... We also have Camille to thank for giving me the much needed kick up the backside in updating my website (new pictures on there soon!)<br />
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I was promptly offered the set of Action Man exercises above, which were great fun to do.<br />
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Now what I should say here, is that I was actually biding my time before actually sending my book Kaleidoscope out to Men's Fitness and Ped... because he was at the top of the tree amongst art directors I wanted to work with, but as of yet, had not had the pleasure.<br />
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I am the biggest illustration geek... possibly in the world, my knowledge is straight out encyclopedic, if I was on Mastermind, that would be my specialist subject, and I would probably win!<br />
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Anyway, I not only follow work of illustrators, but the art directors that commission the best illustrators, to use a football analogy, if us illustrators consider ourselves the players, then the Art Director's are the managers. Top players want to work with the top managers, simple as that! And Ped's one of the Best.<br />
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Thanks to Camille's introduction, I've had the pleasure of working with Ped over the past few months, above are a set of exercise illos of MMA fighter Luke Rockhold, once you work with someone like Ped, you realize why their reputation and standing is so high in the illustration community.<br />
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More exercises for MF, this time of muscle-bound funny man Terry Crews (arguably the best thing about any film he's in!) lots of fun to do.<br />
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This is the first of (hopefully!) a series of illustrations for a column called Top Tweets, published each month in the back of the Men's Fitness, clever idea, and very suited to my likeness/celebrity culture driven work.<br />
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Each month the feature highlight tweets by the famous that relate to exercise, this first one of ("World's Fittest Man"tm) Richard Fronning I remember being a bit disappointed with, I felt I could do better, but with the amount of work I had on, I felt a bit compromised... I shouldn't have worried so much, came out great in print.. best bit, body-building gnome!<br />
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Okay final one! this is again for the Top Tweets section in MF, with Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard (in the new Peter Pan film due next year) putting his back into a bit of exercise.<br />
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Felt far more at ease with this one, and it looked lovely in the copy I picked up yesterday... best bit, weightlifting monkey!<br />
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Right, now that was epic! Believe it or not, this is still only a selection of everything i've done, as a lot of it has yet to see print as it was completed in the past two weeks or so, which means due to contractual obligation I cannot show them here yet... of course, that means expect to see yet another gigantic sized posting here in the next few months!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-65740030063340657752014-08-21T09:18:00.002-07:002014-08-21T09:18:36.044-07:00Brand New Website!!!!Just a quick post here, after years of having a rather outdated website, i've finally got around to giving it a complete overhaul.<br />
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At the moment, it's only got a small selection of my very best images produced over the past five years, i'll be adding further pictures over the coming weeks.<br />
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As I am now in the driver's seat on this one with regards to both the design and upkeep, expect this one to be far more up to date, with me adding new stuff on a very regular basis.<br />
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Good thing about the current site is that it is also built with I-Pads, tablets and phones in mind, and it works a dream on these.<br />
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Check it out by clicking on this link: <a href="http://www.billmcconkey.co.uk/">http://www.billmcconkey.co.uk/</a> or alternatively by hitting the "My Website" link at the top of this page.<br />
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Big thanks to Dean Hubert, the guy responsible for putting up the first site, for all his help with the technical stuff on this new site.<br />
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Take a look, you won't be disappointed!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-20695741999540954232014-07-11T03:27:00.001-07:002014-07-11T03:46:37.064-07:00Kaleidoscope-The Book!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So here it is finally! My long in gestation book Kaleidoscope: The Rise of an Illustration Supergeek, the picture above kind of doesn't do them justice.<br />
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It's taken me maybe 6 months to put this thing together, then it's been with my printer a further month in order to knock it into shape, proofread (over and over again!) then there's the the small matter of getting this thing printed and bound.<br />
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At the moment of writing this, 50 have been printed and are now on their way out to clients, we are printing these in batches, and I expect another batch of 75-100 to be ready next week, and so on until we meet my order of close to 300 books in total.<br />
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It's been a tiring and slightly epic experience, but I am really happy with the final product, here's the vital stats; the book is on silk paper with silk card cover, it weighs in with a hefty 140 pages and is perfect bound.<br />
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This book showcases the drawing work i've been producing for many of the UK's biggest magazines over the past 5 years, these include pretty much everything that's on this blog and a lot more besides.<br />
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While it concentrates on my drawing work, there is also a pretty comprehensive biography that tells my tale from childhood illustration fanboy to practicing professional, and all the trials and tribulations of trying to earn a crust in this profession for over a decade.<br />
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Any Art Directors that reads this blog (and I know there are quite a few) who would like a complimentary copy should get in touch, for any fans of my artwork, copies may be made available in future for a small fee (covering shipping, etc) on request (email me)<br />
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This book has almost got the better of me at times, with me being really quite ill and stressed throughout periods of getting this thing together, but now we are I think on the home stretch with it (I hope!)<br />
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Special mention should go here to my printer, Darren at <a href="http://www.carterandjackson.com/">Carter & Jackson</a> printing that have worked extremely hard to create an item that I think we can both be proud of... check out the link for the best printers in Yorkshire, if not the north of England!<br />
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Ha, I think it's been a learning experience for the both of us, what with collating and binding this mammoth tome!<br />
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Okay onto some pictures, that's why people check out this blog in the first place! I thought one of the things I could do in my book, is along with all the published stuff is to put a special section in, where i've experimented with different techniques and processes.<br />
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When I look on the newsstands today there seems to be an inordinate amount of people that.. well i'm not going to say copy me... but stylistically speaking have kind of jumped on the bandwagon.<br />
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Now imitation is one of those things that is part of the profession, when I started out my own work was a poor man's version of that slightly ethereal dark photoshop stuff that Dave Mckean was producing mid 90's to early Noughties.<br />
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Even the drawing stuff I do now, came about from trying to capture that comic book influence from my childhood, and when traveling the US coming across illustrators that use line like Tomer Hanuka, etc<br />
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When I started drawing my work instead of collaging/digitally painting like I had in the past, I know for a fact that at least two illustrators in this country were already creating work along the same lines, and could creditably lay claim like myself to being originators of this style of work, both are great artists that work on various top titles.<br />
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Still the whole thing reminds me of super design/illustration outfit Vault 49, who mid noughties almost single-handedly created an entirely new more decorative aesthetic to illustration, which for a couple of years kind of swamped the market, and this happened because everyone jumped on board that "look".<br />
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My agents at the time, must have hired about 30 other people that imitated their work. Of course fashions are a fad, and slowly that work became less and less popular, leaving many of the imitators scratching around for work, but not Vault 49 with them kind of being the original source, they were always in the position to innovate and adapt.<br />
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Their work takes on all kinds of aesthetics and continues to be amazing.<br />
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So over the years I expect my work to adapt and change; the images below perhaps showcase the direction my work may take... also for me, this is playtime, an artist should always experiment and play with materials, technique and subject matter in order to grow.<br />
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The three images above combine drawing with collage, it's something i've been intrigued with exploring for a long time, these are early efforts, but I think there is the start of something here, and it's not something I think i've seen anyone do before.<br />
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I've collected paper ephemera for years with a mind to start producing collages, these are the first few images that look to utilize this material.<br />
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At the top Sherlock Holmes, middle an illustration of Dustin Hoffman from the TV show Luck (you can tell i've been practicing a while, as that show is no longer on!) and the bottom one is a portrait of the late, great Stanley Kubrick.<br />
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I feel I'm just at the precipice with this work, and providing I proceed (they are fun to make!) that I could make some extraordinary images.<br />
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A case of stripping back with these three images, there's one side of me that wants to make the most ridiculously detailed images ever (like the He-Man print) and the other side, that wants to make images that simplify and essentially be distillations of a subject, to be more direct.<br />
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The three portraits above, of William H Macy, Jack Nicholson and Johnny Depp were created with charcoal pencil and lino block ink, scanned, cleaned and put together in Photoshop.<br />
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I'd love to do a series of these portraits or images for a lovely high-end magazine, utilizing this technique, with them maybe running full page.<br />
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These next two portraits use many of the techniques above, but concentrate perhaps further on line, the desired effect was to make these slightly more quirky than the above three to represent these actors indie credentials (a lot can be said with the line you use)<br />
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Portraits are of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ryan Gosling, I think Maggie's been high up on my list of people I want to draw for a long time, I think she has a beautiful face, but not one that's overly "Hollywood".<br />
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Same technique as with the Ryan and Maggie drawings on these two, but again used to illicit a different result, stripping back to just black and grey, these actors exude gravitas, there's no need for "fireworks" with these drawings, no fancy line weight, colors. Just honesty.<br />
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Think something like these would look stunning in something like GQ, Esquire, Vogue, Intelligent Life, The Guardian, etc<br />
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Okay final two, blimey this blog's been pretty grande, These are two of a planned series of miniature GoT miniature prints.<br />
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On a previous blog posting with a Breaking Bad image I started playing with a technique that kind of had an etched feel to it, along with collecting old ephemera for collage for years, I have really fallen in love with the look of old money, engravings, stamps, match boxes and generally old printing techniques.<br />
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The above two images of Tyrion and Daenarys look to recreate something of an engraved look, with a bit of luck and if they prove popular I may look to create a huge series of these based on the main show characters in this style, creating something of a huge tapestry of miniature etchings.<br />
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This style is just a sideline, that I dare say may come in useful for commercial purposes should a client ever want an oldie world look, like a map of Middle Earth, or portraits from a fantasy series LOTR, for instance... Ha, Chris and Adam at Empire i'm looking in your direction as I write this!<br />
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So that's it for now!<br />
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Just a quick mention here, one of my regular print buyers from across the pond in America, who has been a real champion of my work for a while now, has very kindly set up a facebook fanpage in my honor, which is lovely.. especially as I haven't got a clue about FB,Twitter and all that stuff.<br />
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Here's the link, check it out: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thebillmcconkeyfanpage">https://www.facebook.com/thebillmcconkeyfanpage</a>Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-62456323666672366962014-06-04T07:41:00.000-07:002014-06-04T07:41:07.660-07:00New-ish Drawings!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am really behind on updating this blog with drawings, some jobs going back as far as last year are still yet to make an appearance!<br />
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I'll jump straight in first with a recently published piece and work backwards from there, above are some spot illustrations for the World's Greatest Movie Magazine EMPIRE. Lovely job, simple brief too, I was given a list of movie characters to draw, doesn't get easier than that, right? Er.. apparently it even this I struggle with, as I thought i'd drawn all the characters and was kicking back and relaxing when Empire AD Chris emailed me to tell me I had missed a character off the list!<br />
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I re-read the list and he was right of course , for some unknown reason I did not write the character.s name (bottom right) in my sketchbook... Y'see, I no longer print off briefs like I used to, a case of me doing my bit for the environment, and of course with having email on my phone, the brief is always at my fingertips if need be.. I rewrite the main parts of a brief on paper, and go from there to sketching... a rare example of me here not concentrating, alas all was well and good and I got the drawing to Chris the following morning.<br />
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See if you can name the films these characters appear in, most are obvious.<br />
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Above is another set of spots drawn for EMPIRE last year no less... Not sure what the delay has been in posting these up.<br />
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Lovely brief again, the fellas at the magazine spoil me sometimes... these were printed tiny, crossed fingers they'll let me draw something full page for them one day!<br />
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These were for a section about Movie Cryogenics, again see if you can name the movies.<br />
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Above are a few drawings from the final issue of Nuts magazine. As written on my last post, Nuts has been one of my most ardent supporters and a regular commissioner of my work for a number of years now.<br />
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I was very sad to hear that the title would be closing it's doors, and not just for the obvious reason that my income will undoubtedly have been dented somewhat (although i've not felt it yet, busier than ever!) but actually there are many reason why I will mourn the passing of the title.<br />
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I will first of all miss the interaction with the Art team there, which consisted of 4 members; Simon Freeborough, Barney Hammond, Nitish Mandalia, and James Jarman, and they were to a man all great to work with, giving me great briefs, paying fairly and really made me feel like I was contributing to the the title... but more than that, I do think of them as friends, rather than just clients.<br />
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As it was weekly the deadlines came thick and fast (how I like it!) and I don't think i've worked with a harder working team in my life.<br />
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I also think something is now missing from the world of magazines since its demise, Nuts was in it's way kind of fearless, they pushed the envelope on many occasions, in fact my drawings often pushed the boundaries, there are images that are in my portfolio that simply no other magazine would of had the bottle to publish (Ha, some may say good taste!) and regardless of some of the negative press the publication has garnered over the years, I am extremely proud to have my work associated with the title.<br />
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These drawings were for a feature about the many stars that Nuts writer Rich Pelley had managed to aggravate over the years (told you they had some bottle!) Amongst a rather large list of celebs, who'd acted in a some kind of diva-ish way were Gordon Ramsay, the late Steve Irwin and Dizzy Rascal.<br />
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These were just the best three I drew for the feature, there was also drawings of James Corden, Jason Statham and a variety of others.<br />
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All of these images were animated in some small way for the IPad edition, below is an example of how this may have looked.<br />
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Just want to say a big thank you here to Simon, Barney, Nitish, James and the whole Nuts team for giving me such great things to draw over the years, it was an honor and a privilege.<br />
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Next up: Kaleidoscope, the Book!<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-73345042360660789372014-05-02T08:57:00.002-07:002014-05-02T08:57:55.412-07:00Breaking Bad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hi there, so this is the first of what will be a few catch up posts over the next few weeks... i've even got work dating back from late last year that needs posting up!<br />
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Above and below was one of my last jobs for Nuts magazine. The magazine which has been a real champion of my work over the past few years printed it's final issue this week... i'll be writing further about the magazine in a later post.<br />
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Anyway they were able to give me this real beauty of a job before the magazine closed it's doors.<br />
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In between putting together my book, and producing drawings for a variety of magazines, I have been creating some very basic GIF animations.<br />
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A lot of my work is animated by designers or utilized in some other way for digital editions.. I think I am fortunate that I work in such a way in layers that it allows for this kind of thing to work very well... the above is the first of what will probably be many!<br />
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So the illustration was for a feature titled 'The Greatest TV Shows Ever', Nitish the Art Editor at the magazine simply told me what he wanted; Walter White on the GOT throne watching a TV with Brian from Family Guy... Dream brief really, does exactly what is says on the tin! I should point out i'm a relatively new fan to the show, ive been slowly making my way through the boxsets, currently on series 4 at the time of writing.<br />
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I think the image has some of my best inking in many a year... probably because there's so much dark ink on display, also the muted color scheme helps show it off. The image above is without the TV and Brian, which I think works well as it's own image.<br />
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<span id="goog_1817086154"></span><span id="goog_1817086155"></span>Drawing Walt/Heisenberg isn't new ground for me, I did these as little tester images before the New Year for a technique that imitates an old etched feel.<br />
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I was just practicing with certain effects, and these were the results, in a moment of synchronicity I got an email from an owner of one of my prints asking me if I had anything Breaking Bad related and I sent her these to take a look at... She immediately ordered one!<br />
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These can be bought on the UK Ebay site, my printer did a little batch that he is selling through his online shop, they come in a really rather large A2 size in both the red and blue... just punch my name into the Ebay search engine, and it should come up with a hit for these.<br />
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I'll dig out the link, and put it here later.<br />
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That is it for now, another post to follow soon!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-67759115436892500292014-03-24T07:06:00.000-07:002014-03-24T07:06:21.429-07:00Celebrity Kama Sutra, The Greatest Hits!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
First of all apologies to long time followers of this blog, it has been completely neglected this year thus far, I promise it was never my intention, I have had an abundance of jobs and personal works taking up<br />
all my time.<br />
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The big project being my third volume of Kaleidoscope, which I can say with huge relief is nearly ready to take to the printers, it's been perhaps the largest thing I have ever undertaken, as this time around it will be in book format and collects together my best stuff over the past 5 years... it's also full of my views and is part biography too!<br />
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I have been threatening to post up a bumper collection of the Celebrity Kama Sutra series I have been drawing these past few years for the great Nuts magazine, so here you go, the wait is over!<br />
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These are actually pages from Kaleidoscope, I have organized the celebs into categories; Football Stars, British Television, Music, Hollywood, Repeat Offenders, and a few sub categories: standing up, politicians and sitting down.<br />
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Ha, no need to go into any great explanations here, they are what they are, really fun drawings, but I do recommend clicking on each pic to see them more close up.<br />
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Now I have not drawn a Kama Sutra for the mag for a number of weeks, and my once weekly slot has dwindled to sporadic appearances, as such the series may in fact be finished, if so this post and my book will be one hell of a send off (these take up about 8 pages in the book!)<br />
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I'd like to thank the whole team at Nuts for giving me the opportunity to produce such a large and always fun body of work, above are only my faves, we actually reached the landmark of over a 100 drawings a few months ago!<br />
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To think when the AD Simon Freeborough suggested the whole concept to me years ago about a regular sex position drawing, I was somewhat apprehensive, for a start I had never drawn anything vaguely naughty in my career, also on a logistical front I imagined we'd be stuck for positions after the first three illustrations...Ha, prior to drawing these I believed there to be only three positions! Turned out to a real eye-opener! Also, maybe not surprisingly in the times we live in we were rarely short of tabloid fodder to draw too.<br />
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If the series has now come to an end; big thanks must go to Simon, Barney, Nitish and James at the mag for giving me such great things to draw, and giving me a great deal of freedom it has to be said on who and how we would draw these.<br />
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I've already witnessed a certain amount of snobbery and snootiness with regards to these pics, as though they are somehow lesser than the work I would draw for other clients like The Guardian, etc, personally I am as proud of these as anything I have ever done.<br />
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Next post will be a round up of some of the many drawings I have done since New Year, this will be followed up by a giant posting on Kaleidoscope: The Book!<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-54443317336804637762013-12-12T04:39:00.000-08:002013-12-12T04:39:30.712-08:00Busy, Busy! Giant-sized Jobs Round up.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This blog has been a bit neglected of recent, when things go quiet here, it's generally because I am up to<br />
my neck in jobs, and that has definitely been the case this past couple of months.<br />
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I'm struggling to think of a time when i've been more busy, which is saying something in itself!<br />
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I did say my next post would be dedicated to my Karma Sutra drawings, but I think that can wait a little while longer, so that I can do this giant sized catch up on recent jobs.<br />
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This isn't everything i've done in the past 2 months, just a slice of jobs that are currently on the newsstands as we speak.<br />
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Above is a very cool job that came my way via PC Pro, a magazine I'd created my first illo for earlier in the year. This illustration accompanied a feature about what would happen if the world's internet went down, and given the modern dependency how we'd kind of basically return to the dark ages, not before being treated to scenes of sheer pandemonium ... great brief, I must have been drawing about 4 other jobs at the time, so it was a matter of trying to wrangle enough time to add all the detail I wanted.<br />
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I was happy with how it came out in print, not least because they use a much pulpier paper in the mag than the glossy stuff my images usually run on. Big thanks to designer Andrew Bunce for thinking of me when this brief came up, with a bit of luck i'll get to work with PC Pro again in the New Year, and hopefully I won't be quite as busy with other jobs, so I can really go to town on the detail!<br />
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Above are a set of number based illos that have just seen print in the UK edition of Women's Health (gorgeous looking mag, check it out!) These I found to be one of my toughest jobs in many a year, the brief was to make celebs fit a series of numbers that relate to health based topics, eg; 2 units of alcohol a day, etc.<br />
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I felt that in order to make them fit the shape of a number, that I would have to draw celebs in a variety of outlandish positions, which is how they came to be doing exercises, and it came apparent early on that in order to make them numbers, that i'd maybe need at least two figures per number.<br />
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Somewhere down the line (probably because of the Hairy Bikers illo I did first) that we would make the list of characters into celebrity chefs, and that we would draw them doing some kind of activity that pertained to what the number related to.<br />
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I don't know if it was being overworked at the time, trying to get figures to contort in ways that weren't natural etc... but I really struggled with these, probably more so than any other job I can think of in the past 5 years!<br />
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Anyway, luckily these were under the safe stewardship of the WH team with me working predominantly with numero uno safe pair of hands Kerem Shefik and Editor Farrah Storr, I bought the magazine yesterday, and now I don't know what all the fuss was about now.<br />
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Sure I may have done them in a completely different way, if given the brief today, but having seen them in print, and how they were matched on the paper with a lovely watercolour paper texture, apart from a changing some small things on the Gordon Ramsey drawing (arguably the best one) i'm actually happy with how they came out.<br />
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Big thanks to Kerem, Farrah, Ade & Emily at WH for putting up with my madness!<br />
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Now here's some spot illustrations that I really got my teeth into for my good friends at Empire magazine, brief was simple; draw JJ Abrams as a Jedi Knight, Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight and Walter White/Heisenberg from Breaking Bad.<br />
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These were great fun, and I was in a relaxed mood drawing these, so much that I ended up drawing 3 versions of the JJ Jedi Knight, the final one as a bit of fun was a Yoda version. I sent them to the Art Ed of the title Adam expecting him to chuckle, and then pick one of the other two, then when I picked up a copy of magazine I was surprised to find out he'd run the Yoda drawing.<br />
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It was a nice surprise as it looked great on the page too, goes to show you, that an artist is not always the best judge of their own work sometimes.<br />
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These ran tiny on the page, and some other illustrators would think I am mad for how much effort I put in with spot illustrations, but I can honestly say I am as happy with these drawings as anything I have drawn all year, regardless of size.<br />
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Big thanks to Adam at the mag for sending another great brief my way, and it's always a thrill to work for Empire, which i've already stated here is a magazine, that I read cover to cover every month and have done so for a decade now.<br />
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Synchronicity sometimes comes into play when you are an illustrator, so I ended up drawing two Jedi/Yoda images at the same time!<br />
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I got a surprise email from Mark Wagstaff at the great music title Mojo, who asked me if I'd like to draw their album of the month feature, the idea for the piece was exactly my cup of tea; Eminem as a Jedi Knight with music producer Rick Reubin as Yoda on his back, I was in from the get go!<br />
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The idea stems from Eminem being quoted as comparing Rick to Yoda, like in the movie Empire Strikes Back.<br />
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This one should have been perfect for me, but I struggled with the drawing... it was the placement of the arms which gave me concern, if we are talking about drawing anatomy I rarely have any problems, but this one gave me issues.. in fact it still seems off to me.<br />
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Regardless what I do like is how I digitally painted the colour for a more realistic moulded look on this illo, it's something that i'll be employing on future jobs!<br />
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Mojo jobs are rare thing, my last one prior to this was probably 3 years ago... I do hope I don't have to wait so long for the next one, it's these kind of briefs why I became an illustrator in the first place!<br />
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Above are some of my favorite drawings from the regular feature 'Ask Uncle Top Gear' I illustrate each month for Top Gear magazine, really great fun these.<br />
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I go for a more realistic look with these than some of my other stuff, and it's nice rendering these cars in the slickest ways I can muster.<br />
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The one second from bottom has lots of innuendos in the sponsors, click on the image to see if you can make them all out.<br />
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These illustrations have come my way courtesy of Elliott Webb and Peter Barnes at the mag, cheers fellas! Collectively these illustrations are shaping up as some of the strongest in my entire cannon of work.<br />
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Above is another set of illustrations for TG, albeit not one of the 'Uncle TopGear' series, I was charged with drawing 40 figures that represent the main people that make up an F1 team, great brief, lovely to draw, can't ask for more than that, again these came my way via Elliott at the magazine, always fun!</div>
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So yet another automotive drawing, this time for Insurance Age. I've been working with Iain at the title for a number of years now, and I can always trust him to pitch up every now and then with a great brief.<br />
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This was a goodbye to the gloom of 2013 and hello to rosier times ahead in 2014 piece, I think it really shows that I had fun with the perspective and viewpoint of this illustration, the best compositions are often the simplest, this being the case here.<br />
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Finally onto some jobs for the fellas at Nuts magazine, this time for the now annual Christmas TV guide (I've drawn the past 4 I think!) main illustration is at the bottom, the idea was simple, draw a list of Christmas TV celebs taking part a cheesy Nativity play.<br />
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Again this is one of those that got turned around super quick, as I had a stack of other jobs on top, with November and December now becoming my busiest times of year! Always enjoy these big celeb ensemble images!<br />
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The four spot drawings above the lead, show up on the various listings of the TV guide; those are drawings of Wreck-it Ralph as Santa, Peter Capaldi (new Dr Who) chewing on a Turkey leg, Alan Carr getting merry, and Sherlock Holme' Benedict Cumberbach nursing a hangover on New Years Eve.<br />
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As ever big thanks to Barney at the mag, and all the other fellas there too ; Simon, Nitish & James for throwing work my way throughout the year, and bearing with me, when I couldn't take jobs due to work other commitments...it's never fun turning down work, but I never like turning down their jobs as they are easily some of the best briefs an illustrator could ask for... pick up the magazine and take a look yourself!<br />
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Okay, that's about me done... need a lie down after writing all this!<br />
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Next post, will be a Celebrity Karma Sutra special, I promise!<br />
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That just leaves me with wishing all clients, readers of this blog a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!<br />
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Have some top secret plans in store for 2014, everyone has been warned! HaaaHaaa, Haaaa,HHaaaa, (breaks into evil maniacal laugh)<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-91582310342469480642013-09-24T08:52:00.004-07:002013-09-24T08:52:56.326-07:00Back to Illustrating!<br />
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After all the recent talk of fine art prints on this blog I thought it was about time for a catch up on my real job, which is of course the business of illustration.<br />
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Here we go a big round up of jobs, some of these go back months. I should point out this is a fraction of the stuff i've drawn these past few months (the last few weeks being particularly hectic!) but I thought i'd throw a mixture together.<br />
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Above are 8 drawings that were used for an advertorial for the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost film The World's End, this was for my chums at Nuts magazine.<br />
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Now i've spoke before about advertorials on this blog, and as i've previously stated they can be "tricky", especially these when you are dealing with film companies, something i've done a few times now, it is certainly not for the faint hearted that's for sure.<br />
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Weird one this in that I originally had a very tight deadline, so all of these were put together in a matter of days, when you have such a large number of things to do, compromises are made, quality dips etc... with this one the deadline got extended, just as i'd finished the actual drawings!! So after all that stress to finish them I actually got a further week despite having finished the work. I could have spent longer adding detail and making changes (I made a few changes) but I believe every job has it's time limit, and in this case I'd spent enough time with the illos.<br />
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Big thanks to Nick and Barney at Nuts for protecting me against the film suits and advertising people, who predictably decided to try and change the whole thing in the last few hours of deadline, there's a reason this kind of advertising stuff and the people in that industry have a bad reputation.. I could go on, but I won't.. suffice to say one of my favourite artists is the movie poster illustrator Drew Struzan, and anyone who's ever read one of his books will know how the people in that business treat artists.<br />
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This one's a double page spread for Nuts (done ages back!) for an article about the sinking ship that is QPR football club, I think if I remember correctly I had two days on this, again super stressful.<br />
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If you are not of an illustration/design background and wonder why on many of these illos there's plenty of dead space, well that's simply to fit the headline and all the text, of which there is often a lot.<br />
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When I did the illustration above I wasn't overly keen on it, it's hard to feel satisfied when you draw these things in such tight timeframes, you don't draw as you'd like, it's a case of what you can do in the permitted time, but y'know it's one of those that came together once it had all the page furniture on it and saw print.<br />
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Another double page spread for Nuts on an article about space facts, like what happens when you go to the toilet in space etc..<br />
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Great article, great subject to draw... but as is the running theme of my work at the moment, deadline was tight at just three days! Tough also in that the illustration had to be structured and composed in a particular way to fit the features writing on, but generally reasonably happy with this and how it printed.<br />
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Here's a cover for Insurance Age done a couple of month backs, the idea of an X Factor style show, with Insurance people being the main acts, really enjoyable to draw this, plus I had a nice long deadline for this (well certainly more than a couple of days, I think)<br />
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My favourite bit is the juggling pug in the centre, as ever I am indebted to Iain at the magazine, who continues to give me great jobs.<br />
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The above four are for a regular advice column in Top Gear magazine, which have been a real joy to draw.<br />
I think I decided early on that I wanted to tackle these Top Gear jobs in a slightly different way to my other stuff, in that I wanted them to be more rendered and realistic, less about line work and more about representing things in as realistic a way as possible through colour and texture.<br />
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I particularly like the giant cow and giant burger images, in fact the burger image is one of my favourite images of the past couple of months. What I should point out is that illustration is more often than not a collaboration, this is I would suggest even more so on these jobs for Top Gear, so I can only take partial credit for the outcome of these drawings, as I feel in this case these images belong just as much to Elliot Webb the Art Ed at the mag as they do to me.<br />
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Thought we'd finish with another for Nuts, i've posted these illos up in a kind of sequential order, this is the most recently published image (so it brings us up to date) this was for a feature titled 24 Maddest Movie Star Moments.<br />
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Now I decided to take a long weekend break, from Friday until Monday (one of only a few days off i've had all year!) and I made a point of emailing my more regular clients to tell them that I was going on holiday (kind of) now you'd think that would be a kind of cue for said Art Director's to leave me to my few days away.<br />
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Ha, Apparently Nitish at Nuts mag didn't get the hint, as he emailed me on the Friday to see if i'd be available to do some work, I didn't mind though, nice to feel wanted isn't it? So the brief was sent to me on the Monday, as I didn't get back until 2pm, and as I had to rush around sending a signed print over to the States, it meant that I had to start this on the Tuesday and had two and half days to turn this around.<br />
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Re-energized by the break, I got straight to work and produced the illo above. Which I must say I was very happy with (or as much as I can be with regards to my own work) as it especially looked nice in print.<br />
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Big thanks to James Jarman at Nuts, who gave me the great brief of movie stars in an asylum and a list of possible actors to include, and then just left me get on with drawing it... it's rare that I am given something so great a concept and then left to draw it how I see fit. I really did enjoy it!<br />
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Below is how the illo looked in context.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Next post: my regular spot illustrations for those boys at Nuts (yes them again!) has reached a landmark number, that's right: I've recently drawn the 100th Celebrity Karma Sutra illustration for the magazine!!! to celebrate i'll be dedicating the next post to those naughty drawings.... you've been warned!</span><br />
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Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-26723048960563913252013-09-05T05:05:00.000-07:002013-09-05T05:05:57.318-07:00Framed Prints for Sale!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKDmAj_kBqLmo6D0VuUOHSghfgN3SLbYG32x3jIXK6ph2KWxNVgXBu2gOuNDsNu34tBEofxxYDOt1Tn5_IsMGylfMi76xel6sbAKaSWwZXYfdZ71VvXI95hYYOZSPsc5Xu7MmQeLFJa5j2/s1600/print1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKDmAj_kBqLmo6D0VuUOHSghfgN3SLbYG32x3jIXK6ph2KWxNVgXBu2gOuNDsNu34tBEofxxYDOt1Tn5_IsMGylfMi76xel6sbAKaSWwZXYfdZ71VvXI95hYYOZSPsc5Xu7MmQeLFJa5j2/s400/print1.jpg" width="328" /></a></div>
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I am pleased to announce that I have recently struck a deal with a gallery, who are now selling signed and framed prints of some of my more in demand artworks... not only that, but these images are coming in previously unheard of large format sizes!<br />
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As has been previously stated on this blog, there's been a constant demand from people all over the world asking me about prints of my work (mainly for the 80's Last Supper!) So much so that it's been at times like an extra business on top of my usual day to day drawing for magazines tomfoolery!<br />
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I've always considered myself a dyed in the wool illustrator creating work for print purposes, so it's been a huge surprise to me that people think enough of my work that they want to live with it on their walls.<br />
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Anyways to cut a long story short, the firm that handles all the printing of my giclee's, a family run gallery/shop/framers called Pomfret Gallery recently asked me whether i'd considered selling framed editions... a deal was struck that they would create, what are in my view premier editions of some of my more popular works.<br />
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The images come in sizes bigger than previous prints, and they've been tastefully framed, in fact on the framing side of things they've done an exquisite job, a case of no expense spared!<br />
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Above are 'Robots & Aliens' and 'The 80's Last Supper', what doesn't come across is scale in these pics, the Last Supper is only a few cm's larger than the original print (see Last Supper Prints for Sale post) however this new Robots and Aliens is maybe double the size of the original, i'm not sure at this point what the measurements are but it's certainly larger than A2 (420mm x 594mm) it really is a substantial image now.<br />
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Along with the drawn stuff i've made my name with in the illustration racket these past few years, they've released prints of a couple of my older works, these were created back in the day, when I used to use paint, collage, photography to create my work... alas I was before my time, I think this way of image-making was seen as too "arty" for the commercial world of illustration, however they've aged particularly well, and in their way stand up as pieces of fine art... certainly look stunning up in the gallery space.<br />
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So if for example you want an already framed and mounted Last Supper on your wall as opposed to buying just the print from me, then Pomfret Gallery is where to get it from exclusively.<br />
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Check out their site <a href="http://www.pomfretgallery.co.uk/signed-giclee-prints/art-gallery/signed-giclee-prints">here</a> for a full price list and contact details, certainly if you are buying online be sure to ask about the sizes of these, and shipping costs... I should point out at this point that these really are the premier editions of these prints, and they've been priced accordingly with the money spent on framing etc.. in other words you spend extra for the quality!<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">NB: If you are wanting just prints of the artwork then it's business as usual, just contact me directly via the email listed in the header of this page, but if you want that pre-framed premier edition contact the team at Pomfret Gallery via the link above.</span>Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-20358691243349078652013-08-05T03:48:00.000-07:002013-08-05T03:48:00.217-07:00I♥ He-Man (I heart He-Man) prints for sale!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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full picture.<br />
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detail from main image.<br />
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detail from main image.<br />
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I've been saying for quite some time now that i've been working on some big personal pieces, and finally I have one to show the world, without further ado I present the 'I Heart He-man' giclee print.<br />
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I have a mantra when it comes to creating my personal works; "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!"... something that this illustration probably lives up to.<br />
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This image is the first in a planned set of prints I've been working on around my regular editorial work, which seeks to celebrate the action figure/toylines of my childhood, this series I have aptly monikered the 'toybox' series.<br />
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This first one as is evident is a celebration of Mattel's He-man & the Masters of the Universe action figure line that ran from 1981 to 1990.<br />
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My main goal was to show every one of the 6" figures along with I believe every weapon/accessory that came packaged with them... if i'm missing anything or anyone, i'm sure fans out there will let me know, although i've been pretty diligent and more than a little obsessive in my research and drawing.<br />
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I did have to set myself a few guidelines however, so unfortunately there was no room for creatures and the oversized stuff, the biggest omission was Battle Cat/Cringer, unfortunately if I added him, then i'd have to include all the others, such as Strider etc... which due to scale reasons would detract from the 6" figures which are the main focus.<br />
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A2 giclee print<br />
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This series is probably the largest scale i've ever drawn, which I mean not only in terms of detail and scope, but literally as each of these measures in at an exhausting A2 size (so that's 420mm width by 594mm height, or 16.5 inches by 23.4 inches) above is a photo of me holding the print.<br />
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If you are a massive He-man fan, a toy collector, have a man cave that needs something colorful on the wall, or are like myself and just loves nostalgic 80's things, and you'd like a copy of this print then get in touch.<br />
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The print comes in two sizes:<br />
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A2 (420mm w by 594mm h) £80 including delivery.<br />
A3 (297mm w by 420mm h) £50 including delivery.<br />
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The print comes as a giclee print on thick fine art paper, in other words pretty much the best money can buy right now, all print enquiries can be made via email, see the address on the headline banner at the top of this page.<br />
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On the very top image you'll notice a copyright stamp that attributes the illustration to me, unfortunately i've had to do this, as has previously been stated on prior posts, some of my more popular works have a tendency to go walkabout online, it leads to images being misappropriated, and because of the orphaned works act that was brought in with regards to online imagery, people think they can use my work as and how they want... well you can't.<br />
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By all means put up this image up on facebook, pinterest, twitter and various other social media and websites, in fact I encourage online promotion of this blog and my work in general, but please always credit me and this blog as the the source point for this work, what I don't like is people passing the work off as something they created or own, also let's face it by crediting me, it allows other people to get in touch should they want to own a print of the image.<br />
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Anyway not to dwell on negatives, now as I was saying this is one of a series, so if people out there have their own ideas about what toy line they'd like to see immortalized then by all means feel free to leave a comment below with your suggestion, and if I like it, then maybe it will make the series.<br />
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Next up on the drawing board Star Wars & M.U.S.C.L.E!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-20224957949961433222013-07-04T08:45:00.000-07:002013-07-04T08:49:12.697-07:00EMPIRE- Build Your Own Johnny Depp!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My two favorite published jobs of the year (thus far!) happened to come to me at the same time, the first being the E.T busking illo as seen in the last post, and my other fave commission is this Johnny Depp illo for the world's number one film mag Empire.<br />
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When the Art Ed at the mag Adam sent over the brief I was thrilled, as this is the kind of image i'd draw as a personal piece anyways, so one of those rare dream jobs I get but once or twice a year, felt kind of like the stars aligned for this one.<br />
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Brief was simple enough: Draw a Johnny Depp cut out figure, with all manner of weird and wonderful costumery from some of Johnny's movie back catalogue created to fit said figure.<br />
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So got to work pretty quick smart... well not as quick as i'd have liked as I was busy on other jobs (E.T and others) but as soon as the time became available I was straight on this.<br />
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At the bottom is the grey scale rough, this you'll see is a more finished rough than I sometimes muster.<br />
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The middle illo, is how I sent it to Adam, I gave him a layered version, so he could move things where necessary to fit his layout.<br />
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At the top is how the illo looked in print, complete with a wild west paper texture to bring the whole layout together, which I think was a lovely accompaniment provided by Adam and really sets things off on the the printed page.<br />
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Click on the illos, to see in more detail.... if nothing else that is probably the finest fur coat i've ever drawn!<br />
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This drawing can be seen in the current copy of Empire which is on the newsstands now!<br />
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I've been saying for a while that an epic personal piece will be coming to this blog soon, but i've been super busy with my regular magazine jobs that it's difficult to fit in my own work... the reality is I've only been showing a relatively small portion of everything that is published on this blog for the past few months, because i've been drawing a lot of stuff! What I can say is, that i'm about 90% there with one of my epic personal images, which is just one of a series and that i'll be attempting to post it here in the next few weeks... I can't say anymore than that, it's top secret! But a warning: People's eyes may explode upon seeing it... particularly if you are an 80's geek like myself... Whoops, said too much!<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-34636110356734372762013-06-04T07:39:00.002-07:002013-06-04T07:39:10.089-07:00Nice New Illustrations!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So i've been a busy boy of recent, and i've been very fortunate these past few weeks to have got some of my best briefs of the year in through my inbox. Great briefs usually lead to the making of strong images in my case, and I think i've probably made my two best published illustrations of the year thus far in the past week.<br />
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Above is one of those illustrations, the AD at Nuts magazine just casually emailed me to see whether i'd ever drawn E.T as a hobo-like busker looking up in a rather sad way to a cancelled E.T 2 poster, first of all my answer was 'No I haven't drawn that before" secondly given my well-acknowledged love of films and particularly 80's films, it was a case of please let me draw this!<br />
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The illustration was to accompany a feature about blockbusters that never got made (E.T 2: Nocturnal Fears being the reference here) At the time I got this brief I was already tied up with various other illustration jobs, including my other "best brief of the year" illo for another mag (more about that next month!) and I was concerned that I wouldn't have time to take this job.<br />
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As it turned out I was given a few more days than I usually get from Nuts, which has a tight weekly schedule, and I was able to work on this and four more jobs over the Bank Holiday period.<br />
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I left the sign bare, for the designers to fit the headline "22 Blockbusters that never were!" I've just seen this in print, and the illustration came out great... it's also a really good feature for any movie fan to read.<br />
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Big thanks to Barney, Nitish & Simon at the mag.... it's these kinds of jobs I live for!<br />
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Here's another one for Nuts, a full page illustration to run alongside an interview on British boxer Amir Khan.<br />
This image is a homage to the Rocky 3 movie poster, again great for a film nut, and a Rocky fan like myself... i'm a big fan of the Rocky series, with Rocky 4 being one of my all-time fave films... in fact I think you can live your life by the teachings of that film!<br />
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I was asked to digitally paint this image, I dip my toe into the field of digital painting every now and then for the magazine, some images work better than others, this one came out great in print, because it allowed me to just concentrate on painting the flesh correctly. I enjoyed myself with this one!<br />
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Above is an illustration on the stands in the current issue of Top Gear magazine for an article about appropriate headwear while driving.<br />
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This is my second image for the title, I did a "blink and you'll miss it" spot illo in the previous magazine, it was such a thrill and honor to be asked to contribute to the mag, as i'm a fan of the show and had admired the mag from afar for it's use of illustration down the years.<br />
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The new Art Editor at the title Elliot is someone who i'd already had the pleasure of working with when he was at Empire mag, so it was lovely to get the opportunity to work with him again... he's one of those who knows his job inside out, also he knows how to commission illustrators; as he gives a good brief, enough time to let you draw it, and leaves you to get on with the job at hand. Can't ask for more than that! Really enjoy working with him... one day I'm hoping for a super detailed double page feature for the title....<br />
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This one is also very nice on the printed page!<br />
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That's it for now, more big jobs to come, and if I ever get around to finishing them, some epic personal works to put up here soon... you'll need to see them to believe 'em!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-68583211411097157042013-05-10T09:53:00.002-07:002013-05-10T09:53:45.165-07:00Satisfied Customers!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been threatening to put up snaps of some of the prints that have been sold over the last 12 months and their owners for a while, so here we go just a handful to get started.<br />
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The whole business of selling prints is not something I ever really entertained until last year, and it all came about after the 80's Last Supper kind of went crazy on the ol' interwebs, and I was getting several emails a day to ask if there was a print available.<br />
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Since then the selling of prints of has become a huge new avenue for my work, which has completely taken me by surprise!... and what a lovely surprise too, it's very flattering that people think enough of my images that they want to put them up in their homes and live with them.<br />
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Above is a snap of the lady that started it all off (my first customer I think..could be wrong!) this is Sara Miller from the US with the poster edition of the Last Supper print, below is her hubby with a Bill Murray print.<br />
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My biggest seller is the Last Supper giclee print, followed by the poster edition of that image, then it's the Bill Murray image, but I am now getting requests for other images like Robots and Aliens, which makes a sensational giclee print (see another post with that image!)<br />
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Above is fellow Brit Pete Robertshaw with a freshly unwrapped Last Supper giclee, as you can see he's given it the thumbs up.<br />
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Finally a framed image, here's a cute Bill Murray print which found a new home with David Ludwig of the good ol' United States. Lovely framing too, don't you think?!... very nice!<br />
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Here's a snap of the lovely Samantha Alondra Ortiz of California, who is now a proud new owner of an 80's Last Supper giclee print, here's a snap she took with her complimentary goody bag, which is something I send out to all giclee owners.<br />
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There's actually quite a growing number of people around the world now that own various prints... although the majority of my prints thus far it has to be said have been sold to California (they've got great taste!) I ask two things of these print owners, the first is to give the artwork a lovely new home secondly if they have time to send me a snap of either the artwork in it's new surroundings or themselves with the print.... so if you are an owner then please send me a snap, and i'll put it up here!<br />
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If you'd like to own your own print, then get in touch, my email can be found on my website under the new/about me section.Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-29130920735012371652013-04-09T08:44:00.001-07:002013-04-09T08:44:16.653-07:00Stressful Times! Another Set of Recent Illos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So i've just come off another exhausting busy spell, which is why it's been quiet on this blog for a while, and hence this bumper posting of recent-ish illos.<br />
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I don't want to start on a negative, but this past couple of months i've been in the wars a bit with various clients and publishers. The worst job of which will not get an airing on this blog, as I was stitched up like a kipper with a client trying to do a complete u-turn on the brief once final artwork had been started... this is to say nothing of near non-existent deadlines, endless changes, i'll be honest at times even my cool composure has been tested.<br />
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Okay on with more positive stuff above is a job that I completed the other month for PC Pro magazine, the brief was for a full-page lead image of a slacker Microsoft Engineer and two small spot illustrations to go with (I haven't bothered posting these, they are pretty cool though) for an article about what if Apple and Steve Jobs hadn't been around to push Microsoft onwards.<br />
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This is the first time i'd worked for the magazine, the gig came about from the lovely Camille Neilson who you may remember from a previous post interviewed me for MacUser who phoned me up to see whether i'd be interested.<br />
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Now here's the thing I actually originally turned down this job, because I was in a particularly hectic period and had deadlines coming out of my ears with all manner of jobs, somehow and I haven't worked it out quite yet (Jedi mind trick maybe?!) but by the time i'd got off the phone Camille had me signed for these drawings.<br />
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Ha, like I say I'm not sure how she did it, as a flat "no" usually remains a "no" regardless of what title.<br />
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Still it was good to work with Camille who has a justifiably great reputation amongst illustrators, my only concern with the job was deadline, which was certainly long enough, however because of my roster of other jobs it meant that I only had 2 days to actually complete these illustrations... if i'd of had a day or two longer free, then the top image would have been super detailed with clutter.<br />
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Hopefully i'll get to make amends on future articles for the title!<br />
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Ahh, a tricky one! I got the brief to draw Steve Carrell as a magician sawing model Lucy Pinder in half for Nuts magazine, they sent me reference and I had a day and a half to draw it... As anyone who's read this blog will know, I've drawn a lot of things for the magazine over the past couple of years, and even though it's a weekly theses deadlines don't phase me.... this one however was a real tough one!<br />
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The reality is I kind of got this one wrong, they wanted something incredibly specific, a near black and white image, with deep shadows and light.. they'd sent me a photo of pretty much exactly what they wanted, but I believed this was purely reference and a jumping off point for my image.<br />
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What I originally sent them was the image above, but far, far more colourful and fanciful... now bearing in mind as previously stated i'd had scrape after scrape with designers and art directors just prior to this job all of them asking for ridiculous things in impossible timeframes, the reality was going into this job I wasn't in the best of moods or places.<br />
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So when I heard that the image i'd done would have to be completely stripped back to the image above, it's fair to say I wasn't in the best of moods.. in fact I all but exploded... I made the alterations, but admittedly had a rant, and spoke out of turn.<br />
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I was in the wrong to a certain extent in this case, i'd probably dragged over the baggage of other jobs into this one, the reality is the guys at Nuts have consistently given me great jobs and opportunities at the magazine, to say nothing of great art direction... these fellas 'cos they work on a weekly where the deadlines are the most hectic are as good as it comes in this field.<br />
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Okay some sex and fitness stuff for the recent issue of Women's Health magazine, Ha, I think i've got myself a reputation for this kind of stuff 'cos of the kama sutra stuff I do for Nuts.<br />
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This is another job that had it's ups and downs (so to to speak) there were two areas that caused problems; if you do info based work I think the AD or Editor then expects you to be an expert in whatever you are drawing... er.. No is the answer to that. One image that caused issue here was showing a step by step drawing of how to tie a person up.. i'll be honest with you not my field of expertise.<br />
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Another issue with this gig, was that they use a regular illustrator for the majority of their stuff, so have a defined look, it meant that I had to adjust my linework to essentially imitate another artist, something I would never usually do (and would never recommend doing!) but the other illustrator was away on maternity and I stepped up to help out.<br />
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I saw the illos in print yesterday and they came out great, and Emily who I worked with at the magazine despite being a real tough cookie when she needed to be was really nice to work with... a lesson can be learned by AD's from this young lady, if you are going to crack the whip with me, at least do it while being pleasant... given the stuff I drew for the magazine, pun was intended.<br />
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Finally one that was smooth sailing, a recent cover for Insurance Age, Iain at the magazine "gets" my work, and tries to give me enough time to operate within... can't ask for more than that!<br />
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This was an insurance sellers assault course, really fun job and a great client. 'Nuff said.<br />
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That's it for now, more coming soon!<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-21632791687296061572013-03-04T09:23:00.001-08:002013-03-04T09:23:12.346-08:00Bill McConkey: The Man from Another Place!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Thought i'd do a quick round up of some of the jobs that have been published recently, above are some illustrations that have just been published by Empire magazine, they were actually drawn last year, but they got moved along to another date.<br />
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Originally these were going to be just a small inset of illustrations for a feature on the new Jack the Giant Slayer film, as you can see the idea was to draw film's most famous giants and put them in order of scale.<br />
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I've drawn a couple of these scale things before, and they've been relatively straightforward, however the problem with this one was that the differences in scale weren't gradual, they were huge, with Fezzik and Hagrid just being slightly bigger than a regular man and the very biggest giant being the one from Time Bandits measuring 200ft (so over 20 times bigger than the smallest giant!).. so we really did have an issue with scale on this!<br />
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It meant that the smaller giants would look absolutely tiny in comparison, just dots, if they'd have been printed in the tiny space they were going to be originally published. In the end it was decided to run the feature full page and crop the Time Bandits Giant, above you can see the original drawings and how they were printed.<br />
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Empire were doing a special feature on David Lynch a couple of magazines back and asked if i'd like to draw a black and white version of the backwards dance steps of the little fella from Twin Peaks, so I went from drawing Giants to little people!<br />
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Usually when i'm credited in a magazine, it reads; illustration by Bill McConkey, on this feature this is how I was credited as; "The Man from Another Place: Bill McConkey" I would imagine this is a reference to the little man (I don't know the films of Lynch too well) but I think it's also a good summation of myself too... probably also the name of my future autobiography.<br />
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Above is a cover I completed for Insurance Age, the AD there asked if I fancied doing something akin to a Where's Wally picture, perhaps I took him too literally as when I sent them a rough from an isometric viewpoint with about 100 figures on it, er.. I think they were a bit surprised to say the least.<br />
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But as soon as Where's Wally was mentioned, Rod Hunt's Where's Stig and the recent Where's Meercat books also came to mind, and they generally work from an isometric view.<br />
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It proved a little tricky convincing the AD and Editor that this was the way to go... proved even harder work trying to draw in this way... i'll think i'll leave this stuff to Rod Hunt and Martin Handford in the future!<br />
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Still I think the drawing is quite nice, I suggest a click on it to see some of the detail.<br />
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This was a rare old school Photoshop job for a Financial Director cover. I happened to drop into conversation to the Deputy Ed that I was twiddling my thumbs that day and didn't have any work on for the rest of the week, he promptly offered me a cover. Result!<br />
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Richard who commissions me for the title asked if I could draw this fella Byron Grote and various other influential FD's on Bank notes, originally we talked about making this a line drawing like my usual stuff, but well there was a time when I used to do all this photoshop tomfoolery with photographs and I thought if we wanted a realistic result we should make it look like real money, rather than a drawing of money, luckily Richard agreed.<br />
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I thought this job would be easy, a case of getting a snap of Byron, running a few filters and pasting him on to a £20 note... er, I was wrong... you se it turns out later copies of Photoshop and scanners know when money is being scanned in.. and they don't like it!<br />
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Anyway to cut a long story short I ended up making the note completely digitally, every line and cross hatch has been made by my hand, along with the hologram strip and watermark.. you can see the results of my efforts at the top, and below is the cover artwork, the bottom and top where all that blue gradiant are where the magazine title and main headline would be sitting.<br />
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Okay, that's another batch of jobs.. keep an eye out for my next post, some big ol' drawings are coming.. some real epics in the making!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-54583088675174475162013-01-29T04:18:00.000-08:002013-01-29T04:18:00.773-08:00MacUser Interview!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So just come off another busy spell, and crossed fingers i've got a break today, which gives me just enough time to sneak this little post in!<br />
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So at the end of last year I was approached by MacUser magazine, to appear in the pratik/portfolio section of the title, this for those not familiar with the magazine, this is where they run a five page interview about a creative professional.<br />
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I was delighted and more than a little honored to be asked, knowing that i'd be in the company of many great illustrators that had appeared in the title down the years.<br />
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The issue that my interview appears hit the shops on the Friday and will be on sale probably for another fortnight, so if you like my work, and want to know what makes me tick, then have a wonder to your nearest shops, or alternatively there are digital editions to be downloaded.<br />
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I'll post up the interview in it's entirety no doubt, once the title has been taken off the shelves, although I do recommend buying the mag, as it does showcase some of my better works, some making their debuts in a printed magazine (Last Supper, Robots & Aliens, etc)<br />
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Anyway big thanks to the lovely Camille at the mag for inviting me to take part, and for later offering me some very nice commissions! Always nice to get to work with new people and Art Directors who's work you've admired for some time!<br />
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Lots of new stuff to post up, which i'll put here once they've all seen print, so until then maybe get buying that magazine!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-78490669782695901492013-01-01T06:07:00.002-08:002013-01-01T06:07:39.160-08:00Goodbye 2012.. Hello 2013!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay, Okay... really should have done more posts throughout 2012, it was by far one of my busiest years to date, so to make amends here's a giant sized posting of just a fraction of the work I produced throughout the latter half of the year.<br />
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Above is a really rather nice cover illustration for Insurance Age... enjoyed myself with the textures on the 'run down' half of the image with this one.<br />
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Here is another IA cover, when I got the brief through, it's one of those that seemed impossible to illustrate, and it gave me a real headache this one, what with the composition, scale changes etc, it's been a few months since I completed the job, and now looking back I actually quite like this one, only thing I would change is the main guy's face, a bit too superhero/comic book looking for my liking.<br />
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A rare job for Men's Health, my only one in 2012 in fact, hopefully i'll have the opportunity to do more this year. This is a 'Pumping Iron' era Arnie workout... always fun to draw Arnie, I think i've drawn him more times than almost any other celebrity!<br />
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This one was an incredibly quick turnaround job for Women's Health Australia. WH Aussie got in touch as they were rerunning a feature I had drawn for the UK edition (see the post in 2012) in order for it to cater more for the Australian market, they wanted one of their homegrown stars to be illustrated as an action figure like I had done for their British/US counterparts.<br />
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So I was commissioned to draw Chris Hemsworth as a Thor action figure, now this proved to be a bit stressful, the actual illustration was the easy bit, and was created over a weekend. What proved stressful was that I would be away from the studio for a couple of days as I had a long standing engagement in London attending the AOI Images Awards ceremony... to add to the confusion, there was also an Australian public holiday, the person that commissioned me was also on leave, and of course their is a considerable time difference between the UK and Australia, if you are not aware; it means when I was starting working at between 7/8 in the morning, it was the end of their working day down under.<br />
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Having said all the above, I think the illustration came out well, and of course I would love to do more drawings for the mag in 2013.<br />
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Here are some info based spots for my friends at Empire, the first set of images are for a piece about the most unconventional weapons in films of that year.<br />
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The second set was to illustrate the steps of the dance craze the Sambolo, as seen in the movie Damsels in Distress... I can't tell you how many times I watched the youtube clips, in order to get this right!<br />
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So the fellas at Nuts mag kept me incredibly busy throughout 2012, Ha, this may be an understatement!<br />
Above is an illustration celebrating 10 years of Top Gear, which was drawn in 3 days... it was a toughie, as I had this main one, 3 spot illustrations and my regular Kama Sutra illo to draw also for the title!<br />
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Illustration dealing with the dodgy dealings of the Premier League, the Art Ed Barney, suggested I change things up and maybe digitally paint this one... it wasn't without it's problem's this, as i've been drawing in line for so long, that it's hard to not think in those ways... still came out okay I think!<br />
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Bit more infographic stuff, this is actually a re-do of an image I did in 2011 (I think!) which is a scale chart of the world's largest Buildings, really enjoyed myself with this, I was able to make a far more cleaner drawing this time around!<br />
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I think this goes down as one of my fave drawings of the past 12 months, the AD at the mag Simon had the genius idea of creating a rather gory table that showed how long manager's kept their head running Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovic being illustrated as the executioner, with each manager having his head on a bloody wooden stump, a table was overlaid over the drawing, and the length of each stump shows how many months they stayed in the job.<br />
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Such a fun job, great concept, and it printed like a dream!<br />
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My now annual Christmas TV drawing for the magazine, left plenty of room for test at the top, this also was a stunner in print!<br />
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Here are some Santa spots also created for the Nuts TV section, these were actually drawn in one morning, I was completely shattered, after these and all the other jobs I was drawing at the same time! Christmas was more hectic than usual for me!<br />
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This was my final published illustration of 2012.. this one was also tricky, I think in my mind, i'd already gone on holiday, and this one came out of nowhere. This was an image for a feature about the 50 greatest comedy movies as voted by Nuts readers.<br />
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I should point out this isn't every job I did in the latter half of the year , just a selection... as you can imagine I was very tired, and I hope this goes some way to explaining why illustrations hae not been so forthcoming of recent.<br />
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What I can say about the upcoming year is this; 2013 officially marks a decade in the business, to celebrate I will be creating 10 projects to send out to current and prospective clients over the coming 12 months... these are going to be very exciting indeed, i'll not say too much now, but the first one is due for completion at the end of this month!Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-44899568400114775212012-11-06T07:25:00.000-08:002012-11-06T07:25:08.528-08:00A Tale of Two Advertorials!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHOskeEWAYHz_45AFAImzrq0lOjRWOHxaYAZnE11TgcOcw5C4YQ8iF1RAUiYY14gAiVW9VyG17Fet70XB78tGSmdJKx1IkJcFDFHpTwhez9gmOKN4k5vijwQvEpImnqGBh2lSm8_GkYgR/s1600/empbeard1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHOskeEWAYHz_45AFAImzrq0lOjRWOHxaYAZnE11TgcOcw5C4YQ8iF1RAUiYY14gAiVW9VyG17Fet70XB78tGSmdJKx1IkJcFDFHpTwhez9gmOKN4k5vijwQvEpImnqGBh2lSm8_GkYgR/s320/empbeard1.jpg" width="233" /></a></div>
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Okay, so there's loads of illustrations to be posted up, all of which i'll get around to adding, whether that be individually or as a massive round up of jobs.. it's been hectic here at McConkey studios for well over a month now, in fact at times it's been bordering on the ridiculous, on the other hand it's obviously great to have your services in demand.<br />
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I thought i'd post up these two advertorials to start with, just a recap for those who are not in the know as to what an advertorial is; an advertorial is an advertisement/promotional piece that runs in a publication, which promotes a client/product but is in keeping with any editorial feature that may run in the title.<br />
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It's a clever way of advertising, as it's more befitting the magazine it sits in, in reality this is brought about because the brand and the editorial team at the magazine work in conjunction to create the feature.<br />
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Which brings us to the illustrations above, this was an advertorial for Gillette Fusion Proglide Styler for Empire magazine.<br />
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They came up with a clever way of advertising this beard trimmer, by creating a feature about beards in film, so I was given a list of film beard to draw; the General Zod, the Spartan, etc..<br />
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Now this should have been an extremely simple job for me, and for the most part it wasn't too much of a struggle, however there was a bit of a hurdle, in the sense that the portraits couldn't actually be of the actors who portrayed the characters, neither could they be 100% replicas of the characters from the films, so for instance our drawing of a Serpico style beard could not be a drawing of Al Pacino from Serpico... most of these ran smoothly apart from Gandalf/wizard beard.. you see every time I drew this it looked way, way too much like Sir Ian McKellan... which is probably down to how ingrained his performance is on my psyche, that I found it near impossible to shake off his representation of the character.<br />
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The middle set of illustrations shows my first drawing that moved away from looking too much like the actor, unfortunately to my eyes we lost some of the twinkly-eyed warmth that I associate with the character.. kind of looks like a hobo.. so I took another stab at it with the bottom set of drawings.. I think I got the warmth across, but unfortunately it's also on reflection a poorer drawing than the original, and it kind of breaks rank with the others in the series.<br />
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Not that there's any defense, but I think I was bit overworked at this point, so things didn't flow as naturally as they should have, anyway they ran the wizard from the middle set in the printed feature, which you can see with the top image... I just wish i'd have finished his hair on the right side, but as I didn't think this one was going to see print, It treated it as a rough.. still won't make that mistake again!<br />
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This was art directed by the lovely Jenna McRae, who was a treat to work with on this.<br />
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Now I've done my fair share of advertorials over the past few years, and I know from first hand experience they can on occasion be incredibly troublesome.<br />
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The main reasons being that not unlike a lot advertising work, there can be a lot of middlemen, also the suits at the top, haven't got a clue not only about what they want, but actually even about their brand.. to make things worse they expect you to yield to their every whim, regardless of how bloody stupid!<br />
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Which brings us to the drawings above, this was an advertorial feature for Nuts magazine for the DVD release of Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas.<br />
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Now I originally turned down this job, because I had too many jobs on and I also had a prior engagement for the weekend, however Si the Art Director of the mag talked me round, as he was able to move some of the deadlines around, so I could fit this in.<br />
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The original idea was that we'd draw a Christmas office party scene, with Harold and Kumar and Sean Patrick Harris (think that's his name, fella that played Doogie Howser MD!) and a robot that also appears in the film, the scene would also include some of the Nuts magazine's most well known models... brilliant I thought, sounds right up my street!<br />
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I was able to get my other commitments out of the way and sent off my rough (see top drawing) on a Tuesday or Wednesday, and awaited feedback.<br />
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On the Friday afternoon I got the all clear, at this point I did think things were running a little too smoothly, and I was proved correct, i've got a sixth sense when it comes to these things... actually that's a lie, in reality a lot of these advertising types are such a pain in the arse, that they've become predictable to me.<br />
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Last thing on Friday night I got an urgent email from the lovely Lizzie Hempshall who was overseeing this project on behalf of Nuts, and it turned out the suits at Warner Bros in the US had asked for some significant changes.<br />
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They wanted me to remove the likenesses of the actors who appear in the film, so with just the weekend to go (final artwork was due Monday) I was asked to draw generic men with the same ethnicity of the lead characters... I was also asked to remove the marijuana leaf from the tree.. despite there being references to the same thing in the DVD cover.. in effect we took away the very things that made this essentially Harold and Kumar!<br />
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Monday came around and I did just that (see second drawing) so that this was a kind of Harold and Kumar themed party drawing.<br />
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Then came more changes, now getting to the level of idiocy, I was to change the guy's hair bottom right to brown so he couldn't be confused with the Doogie Howser actor, which was an easy thing to do, then could I also change the person on the left to a blonde, at which point me, Lizzie and Barney the Art Editor are asking which person?<br />
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It transpires they want me to give the guy with the Oriental/Far Eastern features blonde hair (?!!) At this point, you've got to shrug your shoulders, as you get the feeling they are just asking for changes for the sake of it, the concept had moved away from the original brief almost completely, in fact it doesn't really make any sense.<br />
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I should point out this is not a reflection on Nuts, in fact far from it, as I believe everyone fought their corner on this, The Nuts team I believe wasn't too happy, because from an editorial point it had lost it's way, from my point of view I was sick of re-drawing and re-drawing for the sake of it, and poor Lizzie was stuck in the middle on this, as she had to deal with not only the magazine's concerns but with another two parties, one being a London based company (more middlemen!) and the suits at Warner Bros US, who let's face it have never probably seen a copy of Nuts magazine.<br />
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Wednesday came, and first thing in the morning I get an email from Lizzie asking me to phone her, it turns out the final alterations would be probably the stupidest; they wanted every male character's race/ethnicity swapping (see fourth drawing)<br />
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The guy with the Far Eastern features became a white man with brown hair, the Asian guy became a bearded ginger man (Scottish?!) and the white guy became a black man.... ridiculous, i'm not sure the suits at Warner Bros US could explain why or how they came to this decision.<br />
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Anyway, much to everyone's surprise they gave the greenlight to the final drawing and it went to print, see bottom picture.<br />
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I've actually seen this in print this morning, and I have mixed feelings about it, because I think it's actually a very nice clean drawing and it printed really well, it was just a case of it being compromised at every turn by "the suits"... Ha, I imagine these are the same kind of suits that are responsible for book jackets looking so bloody awful at the moment, you know what I mean they all use stock photography, and genre by genre they all look the same, hideous!<br />
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A lot of advertorials are super smooth (the Empire one for instance) but every so often you get one like this, anyway it's at this point I should use this space to thank Simon, Barney and Lizzie at Nuts who despite the involvement of the third parties, kept me sane and for the most part level-headed during this particularly tricky job.<br />
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Despite it not making too much sense, it's a nice drawing right?! (third one's best though methinks) plus I got to draw some of those gorgeous Nuts models... every cloud has a silver lining and all that!<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-12708208277659295582012-10-12T09:36:00.000-07:002012-10-12T09:36:00.636-07:00Courting Controversy- Prince Harry Illos!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay, so i'm not one to shy away from controversial themes or subjects, in fact as an illustrator I see it as part of the job, and if you aren't occasionally pushing and poking at what is deemed to be appropriate and in "good taste", then you're probably not doing this illustration malarkey properly!<br />
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As you may remember that young scamp Prince Harry was making the headlines a while back for some inspired tomfoolery around a hotel in Las Vegas, seeing an opening for some light-hearted ribbing Nuts magazine acted quickly, and emailed me to see whether i'd fancy doing some very, very last minute illustrations, the idea being that it would be a Prince Harry Kama Sutra special.<br />
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Well how do you turn a job like that down... only thing is, I got the briefs on Thursday afternoon and had to get finals in for Friday!!! Now even at this point I was slightly unfazed.. until I actually got the briefs in and it mentions also adding backgrounds like an Apache helicopter, a pool table etc..<br />
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This one was right to the wire, and man was I stressed... I worked on these right up until about 12:30/1-ish on the Friday afternoon.. I had blinkers on and wasn't checking my emails, just had to get the drawings done.. little did I realise the Art Director Simon, had sent me 3 or more important emails, basically saying that the legal department had been called in to check the appropriateness of these illos!!<br />
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Now this year, it'd be fair to say i've had my run-ins with legal departments, in fact Ha, it seems i've had them with pretty much every major publisher.. usually wanting small things altered, nothing drastic, and the Nuts legal team I know take this side of things more seriously and are far more adept than almost any other magazine at treading the fine lines, because it's a title that by it's very nature pushes boundaries.<br />
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Now you know there may be an issue, if the Nuts legal and top brass have to be called in about some saucy drawings, luckily we got away with most of them.<br />
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I was only concerned with attempting to make some half way decent images in a short space of time, I don't mind saying this one got me pretty close to breaking point, you can see there not quite as detailed as i'd have liked, if i'd have had a day more, the backgrounds would have been far less simple, and with the top illo he wouldn't be missing toes and the girl wouldn't be missing the ends of her shoes... still these were done extremely quickly, so I can't beat myself up too much.. they're still funny drawings!<br />
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There was one illustration that didn't make the cut, and that is the one above, now I suppose if it wasn't a case of me putting my head down and working my backside off, I would have realized that a Nazi saluting Prince Harry with a young lady in a compromising situation may have been a bit on the extreme side, having said that when I get deadlines through like that, I don't ask questions..I draw and I draw..<br />
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Strangely enough I think the Nazi one is actually the best drawing, I think with a bit of work it'd make a great poster for a student's bedroom, what do you think?<br />
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Btw, I think Prince Harry is a good sport and would have a good chuckle at these if he saw them.Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6892270087428326859.post-73679589343254787602012-09-24T09:22:00.000-07:002012-09-24T09:22:02.825-07:00The Prometheus Puzzle!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I should have posted up this job I did for Empire magazine a while back, but alas i've been a little inundated so it's only now getting an airing on this ol' bloggo!<br />
So Chris the AD at the mag got in touch around the time of the Olympics to see whether I fancied another job for Empire, my answer came very quickly; "Er, yeah.. whatever, whenever, however" As we've already established i'm a huge fan of the mag, to say I was keen was probably an understatement.<br />
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Chris explained they wanted to combine my stuff with an infographic based feature; "lovely" I thought, i've done bits in this area for both Nuts and to a lesser extent Men's Health, generally I get a list of things to draw and the Art Director put them in to tables, or puts on little arrows with type pointing to bits, that kind of thing.<br />
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Little did I know Chris had plans for me to get involved in the design of this thing, from typography, to arrows to... well the design of this feature, usually it's a case of me handing over illos for people to drop into a layout.<br />
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The feature was about the life cycle of xenomorphs from Prometheus to Alien, now I haven't seen the Ridley Scott's Prometheus, so initially it was a bit of a head scratcher trying to work out how many drawings would be needed to breakdown this who evolution of a species type diagram.<br />
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I was supplied with the main bits of info and went to work on a series of black and white illos of all the major bits, I would then colour these in and add more if necessary and send to Empire, job done easy, I think it was only after the B&W stage (see above) did it dawn on me that Chris wanted a larger involvement from me. Gulp!<br />
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It proved to be a very tricky affair for me, i'm hired purely to illustrate on most occasions, sure there may be design elements I have to think about, but generally I leave a lot of the designery/typsetting stuff to the people that do that best; designers and art directors.<br />
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So I endeavored to make sense of the whole Prometheus/Alien lifecycle, which in itself was a headache.. turns out that even if you've seen Prometheus, it's a bit of a headscratcher, the above two are early faltering attempts to make sense of it all, these are based on a early layout Chris sent me.. but well it became apparent that the plus and minus signs didn't help make the thing readable at all, on the positive side the blue background (created from a stamp book!) and type got the thumbs up.<br />
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I realised, even with me at this point pulling my hair out at this point at my lack of design skills that there had to be a cleaner flow through to the piece for it to be even readable, so above is one where I actually used any kind of design knowledge I have to make something that makes sense.. this took me probably two days to work out! This one would have had the blue background etc..<br />
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You see a lot goes into design, at this point your no longer thinking about pictures, but does the thing make sense, can you fit it all in the alotted space, this being a major issue, as it was only a smaller box on the page and with all that in mind, can you make the font readable at such a tiny size, to think nothing of which fonts to use!<br />
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At this point my head kind of exploded!<br />
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Luckily Chris was a knight in shining armour on this, and took over the design reigns for the final piece.. I think within a day he'd come up with the final layout, it follows my above version, but well brings not only more clarity, detail.. and well the whole thing is just a million times better than I was coming up with at that point..it'd probably have taken 3-5 days to finally have ended up with something akin to what Chris did! I'm just talking same ball-park too, not actually anywhere better.<br />
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The first illustration at this top of the post was the final printed version for everyone to compare and contrast Chris's final with my meagre efforts.. it's on jobs like that I scratch my head and am in awe of some of the designers and Art Directors I work with.<br />
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I'd like to think that the final is a real 50/50 creation between myself and Chris... and I actually really love the finished piece, but I think it'd be fair to say Chris should take all the credit for actually making it work as a whole.<br />
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<br />Bill McConkeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07130884651871191801noreply@blogger.com1