Mac Format- Steve Jobs

So here's another illustration for Mac Format that hit the stands last week, again this was yet another great brief by the Art Editor of the title Alex Thomas.

The article is about whether Apple has sold out, the brief asked for a depiction of Steve Jobs; one half being the young idealistic computer nerd that grew up in California, the other side showing a more hard nosed, money driven version of the Jobs of today.

On one side I was going for a psychadelic poster style, hence all the halftone stuff and on the other side I wanted to give it an ever so gentle feel of the US Dollar to suggest that corporate materialistic side.

This is one of those that really comes alive in print as it is bold composition..how many times do you see a headshot like that take up a full page?! And also there is some quite subtle line work on the corporate half that really comes through in the printed version.

I'd like to point out that an illustrator's work can often defined by the person/people he works with as much as any brief, or deadline and luckily working with Alex is a joy, he's one of those really good AD's; (a) Because he gives great briefs (b) He always sets a reasonable timescale, and (c) Alex is one of the most visually aware AD's I've met, if I say that I've been looking at this artist/movement/film/comic/TV series as reference or influence, then he totally gets what I'm talking about... it just makes things so much smoother when the guy you work with knows his stuff!

I've done two images for this magazine so far and they've been pretty solid illustrations, but I know if I'm given the opportunity and with these kinds of briefs I'm going to produce something pretty special soon.

Wired!!

Here's a job that I did for the UK edition of Wired magazine, I actually did this quite a while ago.. in fact the World Cup may very well have still been on! however it didn't see print until the end of last week, each magazine has a different schedule; some images see print literally the next day and others take a while like this one.

Wired like the Mojo gig earlier in the year are one of those clients on the list of every illustrator in the land... not only that but I'd tried on numerous occasions over the years to work with the art directing duo of Andrew Diprose and Gary Cadogan on another title, each time my approaches were spurned.

Luckily i'm patient, and as the saying goes; "Good things come to those who wait" so Gary get's in touch having received one of my 'World Cup Wonder' trading card sets with a really lovely brief about Zombies; which is fast becoming a bit of a specialty subject for me, and of course I take it without hesitation.. if truth be be known I'd have drawn anything they told me to!

Tricky job this, in that there were a lot of characters to draw, and they had to be grouped in a particular way, and to take into account the gutter, but I was given a decent deadline so I got to work.

The thing is with this; after years of waiting and now having finally got the commission from Gary, it turned out that Gary was going on to pastures new, so I would be working with Andrew for the completion of the image... I like to think it's like Dragon's Den where you get two for the price of one!

Luckily the reason these Art Director's have such a great reputation was completely justified and I found working with Andrew to be very smooth and professional, which is just as I would have expected.

To be fair I thought if I ever worked with Wired it would be on some of their spot illustrations, in the end I got a big one running over two pages, which was lovely! I still however have my eye on doing some spots for them, check out the magazine as I think they are one of the few magazines on this side of the Atlantic that really know and value the use of the humble 'spot'.

Above are the rough, which is again detailed (there was a lot to work out!) the pinks on this are telling the AD where i'll be putting other stuff, and the other two images are the final and final in print.... Oh yeah, and the Zombie bottom right is me sporting the hairline i'll have in about twelves months from now...

Accountancy Age Cover 2!

Sorry haven't had time to post up anything in a while, but if i'm not putting things up that means I'm too busy actually making the images to post up, after a hectic couple of weeks you can expect an update-a-rama, just as soon as the various things i've been working on see print!

Above is the latest cover for Accountancy Age which I completed it over the weekend and sent it in on Monday, having got the brief on the Thursday afternoon and it was in print as of yesterday (Wednesday)

This one was ably art directed by Dan Parker.

Strange one this in that it should have been a simple one, the brief was: "Can we have two versions of the same fella outside the Royal Courts of Justice; One looking smug and pleased with himslf and the other looking glum and downbeat"

Easy, right? Well I struggled with it... it took me ages re-drawing the glum fella on the right, messing about with different positions and faces, in the end I went for something far more simpler, which is exactly what I should have done in the first place.. in fact the fella on the right was completely drawn from scratch and added a couple of hours before I sent the final! But i'm glad I re-drew him as he wasn't working at all in the original..maybe a case of me trying to be too clever!

Goes to show you; Ask me to draw a man sprouting ornate psychadelic butterfly wings or a Predator made out of bacon, and that's easy! This needed a far more restrained and subtle approach.. and I can tell you I was sweating a little bit there for a while... but we got there in the end!

Bacon Predator vs Alien Kipper

So here's another 'Snack Off' illustration for Men's Health UK, the Art Editor of the title Rob Milton came to me with possibly the most 'out there' concept of the series so far, email went something like this; "So we were thinking of Bacon Predator vs Alien Kipper?"

My initial response was "What the?! How am I going to draw a Predator made out of Bacon?!!"

As it turns out I now think Rob is perhaps a Genius! Both for coming up with the concept and believing that I could draw such a thing.

Above are both the Bacon vs Kipper illo and also just the Bacon Predator by itself in all it's greasy glory.

I happen to think that while only a small illustration, that the Bacon Predator features some of my finest drawing of the year and certainly the best in this series so far.

World Cup Wonders

The whole world's gone World Cup crazy and I thought i'd get in on the act too, so to celebrate I've created a limited edition set of football cards as a mail out to clients.

It's proved quite difficult to complete these, they were initially going to be sent out a week prior to the opening ceromonies, however more and more jobs cropped up and they didn't see print until the actual opening game, they were sent out the following day and should have found their way into the hands of art directors up and down the land on the Monday/Tuesday just gone.

Hopefully all the designs speak for themselves, at the top are a handful of the printed cards in their sleeves, the way they will have greeted any art director fortunate to receive a set.

These cards are very much a throwback to my own childhood, collecting footbal stickers and a particular influence of note being the Garbage Pail Kids cards of the 80's, if I'd have had more time I would have liked to have produced a lot more of these cards, perhaps with the backs combining together to make one big image..maybe next time!

If you're an art director and haven't received a pack of cards, then get in touch and let me know, although I should warn you that numbers are already dwindling!

Mac Format

Another day and here's another illustration that's out on the newstands; this double page spread was created for Mac Format for an article about the future of gaming on the Mac.

Alex Thomas the art director on this came to me with this Gaming Utopia/Lost World concept, and had a strong composition in mind; I wouldn't say I'm particularly known for either architectural based images or even landscapes for that matter, so this was a little daunting.

What I wanted was for the city to have very much a retro sci-fi feel and of course lots of gaming refferences, luckily Alex was on the same page and told me to run with it... really such a fun job this one! Hopefully it shows in the drawing.

Alex was then kind enough yesterday to forward this message from Mac Format reader Andi Vaughan, who'd written this message about said artwork, hope you don't mind me posting this Andi;

"Dear Macformat

I felt compelled to email you again after reading this months Macformat but not about the about the usual high quality literary content. This time it was the double page art work for Mac Gaming article - the chap on the hill looking at a Game city. It took me right back to my childhood and old classic magazines such as Crash and 2000AD.

I'm not sure what I liked most, the retro-futuristic look (does that make sense??) or the attention to detail for the genre and squeezing in so many classic games really, really well.

Anyhow, hats off the the artist(s) - cracking work which I felt was due recognition and my compliments."

It's nice to feel appreciated!

The Grocer

Here's an illustration I completed last week for The Grocer magazine, I got the call to do this on a Friday afternoon, the rough was sent in on the Monday and the final with a few alterations was completed for the Tueday and found print on the Saturday...one of those blink of the eye jobs this.

Nick Figgis art directed this, and the brief was a simple one (well kind of) They had a feature on salaries and the art team there had seen my work and thought that a financial pinball machine may be something I'd like to do, which as it turns out was something that I was keen to draw.

Few issues with this job, a couple of technology faults; first my phone and then the computer, and then there was the composition, the dimensions of this illo, basically made it a square, which isn't ideal for a pinball machine which are very much longer/taller in dimensions.

At the bottom is my initial thumbnail; you won't find beautiful sketchbooks in my house, just lots of writing pads with doodles on.

In the middle is my greyscale rough sent to Nick.

At the top is the colour final.

This was completely my own design as nothing was suggested thematically in the brief; so I decided on a space rocket bursting through a metaphorical salary ceiling/atmosphere and on either side we have a man and woman climbing the steps of sucess/pay, again really enjoyable job this, although perhaps in hindsight having seen it print over full page, perhaps I could have gone more detailed on this one.