More Nuts!

It's been a busy old time these last few weeks, in fact so much so that when I have a day off like today I don't know what to do with myself, however the fruits of my labour will be showing up on the news stands up and down the country over the next weeks, in fact here's a job that came out in print on Tuesday.

Here's the story; so Simon the art director at Nuts magazine drops me an email at about 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, asking me whether I'd be interested in taking a job, now I should point out at this stage I was already busy with a couple of other peices for other clients, the job is for seven images for a double page spread, and you get to illustrate a feature about some of the maddest April Fool's jokes ever, well how could I resist?

Brief arrives in my inbox at around 6:30 that evening, and it's a beauty!

The downside on this job (as I'm sure other illustrators can appreciate) was that I had 4/5 days to produce the illos add to that the other couple of jobs I was working on had deadlines that overlapped with this, it meant I was doing around 9 images in this short space of time, simple maths tell you that meant I was doing around 2 illustrations a day, along with any alterations and changes, so it's fair to say it was hectic there for a while.

Of course the real issue is that when you get a brief as good as this, you really want to savour it, however you simply don't get chanse to enjoy it, and add all those little details as your far too concerned with trying to get it in on time.

Above are my two favourite images from the article and all seven images in the printed double page layout, again I think Simon did a great job, there's a rarity; an art director not afraid to let a illustration take centre stage!

Hopefully i'll get another excellent brief from the guys at Nuts soon, these are the kinds of things us illustrators live for... and this time crossed fingers i'll not be swamped with other jobs..still can't complain too much about being busy!

Also while i'm here, thanks to any art directors I've been working with in the last month or so for not only a series of great briefs, but also being patient while I've got my stress head on.

Snack Off!

Here are just a few of some spot illustrations I've been producing for a section called 'Snack Off' in Men's Health UK.

The idea is simple (but the best ones always are!) each month two different items of food are compared on a nutritional level to see which is best for, this is illustrated in the food going head to head Rocky style as seen above.

These are some of images I think work best out of the early boxing one in the series; Chicken vs Beef, Pork vs Chicken & Pasta vs Potato.

The last few I've been working on have gone on to embrace things like Martial Arts and Wrestling, so expect to see Kung Fu Fish and various other wacky things posted here in the future.

Just a quick note here about spot illustrations; a spot illustration is something I would describe as being not much more than 100mm by 100mm, and personally I love them! The reasons being that they generally don't take up too much time, but mainly because the drawing and in particular the concept really have to work on a more immediate level, of course the downside is that a fee for a one off spot illo is a lot lower than for a half-page and above sized image, but I for one could quite happily fill my days doing lots of these small conceptual pieces.

Bill Goes Nuts!

Here's a recent job I did for the nice people at Nuts magazine, this issue is in the shops 5-11 Mar.

Really cool job this, they had seen my booklet Kaleidoscope and really liked a pic I'd done called Game Zombie and asked me whether I'd be available to do something similar for them, needless to say I almost bit their hands off.

Brief was for a double page spread called 21 Mad Body Facts, the art director Simon Freeborough then gave me a itemised list of things he wanted on the Zombie, these included, a detached thumb up the guy's nose, a sweaty foot, nails hammered into a knee and many more outlandish things, note to art directors; illustrators love this kind of thing.

Rough (bottom image) which again was more worked up than I usually do was completed in a day, and the final was pretty much complete over a weekend, a few alterations here and there as asked for by Simon and then it was complete (middle image)

A week later it was in the shops, and as you can see from the top image it printed really quite well, I thought the art director did a great job with the type on this, really let the artwork do the talking.

Hopefully this will be the first of many images i'll do for the fellas at Nuts, it really was a joy to do this image... more jobs like this please any art directors out there!