Accountancy Age Cover

As I said in an earlier post, i've been a busy boy these last couple of weeks; here's the cover of last weeks Accountancy Age.

Iain Winfield from Accountancy Age got in touch to ask whether I'd be interested in doing this political cover peice which came out on the eve of the Elections, and I jumped at the chance; I mean who wouldn't?

I got to do something very current (about as current as it get's in the UK!) It's a political peice, this is my first published foray in this area, also it was a classic bit of portraiture (something you'd think I'd get more work for!) to say nothing of it being a cover!

When Iain told me the concept for the illo, I knew this was going to be a good fit, brief was: "Can we have Alistair Darling, Vince Cable and George Osbourne in a bed, the line underneath will run; How was it for you?"

I think my imagery works best when it plays close to my sense of humour (or if something a bit more 'out there' is needed!) and I've found over the last few months clients are coming to me as much for an ability to inject humour into an illustration than anything else, which I must say I find gratifying.

If there's a reason behind my work it's to raise not only a smile, but an eyebrow too, which hopefully this cheeky little number did!

The only issue with this illustration was the quick turnaround, which ordinarily wouldn't be a problem, I got the brief on noon Thursday and the final was due Tuesday morning , however we had a Bank Holiday Weekend breaking up that time! Bank Holiday Mondays always play havoc with my scheduling!

Rough was completed on Friday and luckily Iain was good enough to check in on his emails over the weekend (I don't like bothering AD's on day's off!) and the final was in on Monday.

Above are the rough, final and final as it saw print, really cool job and despite the Bank Holiday shennanigans, Iain and Gavin at AA made it a really smooth one...I think we were all happy with the result, and hopefully i'll be working with the fellas there again soon.

Men's Health Snack Off Pt2!

Here are the last 3 months 'Snack Off' spot illustrations for Men's Health UK, it's a pleasure to do these drawings, really fun!

Starting at the top we have Peanut vs Almond (latest issue) the brief was this; "Can we have the nuts as classic WWE style Wrestlers?" hence peanut Andre the Giant against almond Hulk Hogan.

In the middle we have Mackerel vs Sardines, brief was: "Hi Bill, have you seen Bruce Lee's Game of Death?" So we have sardines dressed in those cool yellow tracksuits of Bruce Lee and the Mackerel is the big fighting Basketball dude from the same movie. Both of these were art directed by Rob Milton.

The bottom one is Lentils vs Quinoa, brief was: "Hey Bill, can we have lentils making the form of a hippy and the quinoa into an Aztec monster, similar to your Pasta one earlier in the series?"

This one was art directed by Graeme Sapsed.

I've just completed another in this series, as you can see the briefs are becoming more and more off the beaten path (which let's face it, I like!) and I can honestly say that the next one I post up features some of the best drawing I've done over the past 12 months...it's one to look out for, but more on that another time!

Sci Fi Art Now Book

Apologies, haven't been able to find time to post up anything new of recent as I've been so busy with jobs and projects all over the place, which is good news! However now I seem to have some free time on my hands (well, for the time being!) expect a post-a-rama to show you some of the stuff I've been up to.

I was informed over a week ago that some of my images had been fortunate to be selected to appear in a lovely hardback book later in the year, this book is called Sci-Fi Art Now and as you've guessed it's a book about Science Fiction Art.

The book is written by a wonderfully talented fella called John Freeman and will be published by Ilex Books, this gorgeous tome collects together some of the finest talent of the genre and..er..me!

John has set up a blog to promote the upcoming title which I highly recommend you check out, I also suggest that if your a fan of this kind of work (aren't we all?!) then you get pre-ordering now via amazon

I've always fancied myself as a Fantasy/Sf illustrator and for years I've bought more books on this subject than any other, however my work is mainly found in the editorial market where such work is limited or in some cases I've shoe-horned my fantastical sensibilities into more mundane areas, so it's nice to finally show some stuff off that isn't affraid to be what it is, to say nothing of it appearing alongside the work of truly greats in the field...bit of a dream come true really!

I'll be putting more up about Sci-Fi Art Now over the next few months, as and when more info comes my way.

MOJO!

Here's a recent job I did for Mojo magazine that's now on the shelves of a good newsagents near you.

Now what I should tell you (if you're not already aware) is that a illo for Mojo magazine is one of the most coveted jobs on the UK scene, why I hear you ask! Well the magazine only runs one full page illustration a month, which is for the album of the month section, as such and down to the often great briefs of the art director Mark Wagstaff, it's the gig that every artist wants; in fact you only need to look at the talent that's worked for the magazine over the years and it's like a who's who in the illustration field and of course now little old me has joined this great list!

The image is of the musician John Grant who has a debut album released shortly called 'The Queen of Denmark' if you are not familiar with this guy's music, I can assure you, you soon will be, it is an absolutely stunning body of work...remember you heard it here first!

Mark came to me with this concept of a portrait of John in Black and White and with a monotone background; the only thing that would be in colour would be butterfly wings sprouting from his back; these wings would be a kind of gateway to his Wonka/Alice in Wonderland/70's inspired inner world, suffice to say while being a pretty damn tough job it was also one that fits in with my own imaginative leanings.

There were a few worries early on, what with the shape and size of the wings, and I wasn't that keen on the completely B&W background and figure, as I felt that the figure didn't connect with the wings he sat in the background a little too much; so there was a bit of compromise, in the end we got just a hint of colour in there and in the background which helped hold it together a bit more.

Really a great job though, one of the best things and certainly something of a rarity is that Mark was able to get a copy of the album sent over to me to listen to and inspire while I worked on the artwork, which certainly helped set the right tone for final image.

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!