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!
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.
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..
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!!
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.
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.
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!
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..
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?
Btw, I think Prince Harry is a good sport and would have a good chuckle at these if he saw them.
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