Men's Health Illos!

As ever i've been slow in putting up new images, anyway to make amends here are a collection of jobs that have been commissioned by the top people at Men's Health magazine over the last couple of months.

Above is another "Rise of the Machines" illos, they are really enjoyable to do these... I do hope that this will become a bona fide genuine series, as i'd like to do a T800 Endoskeleton, or a T1000 working out... this one shows the Arnie T800 using a bit of gym equipment called the Power Rack, this was again art directed by the ace Kerem Shefik at the mag.

Art Editor Rob Milton got in touch to ask whether I fancied this job of coming up with a series of headshots/character designs, these as you can see were placed into the above photographs of the "Guess Who?" board game.

"Great, i'll do it!" I said without hesitation, the characters I had to illustrate should personify particular work identities in the office environment said the brief, these being; 'The safe pair of hands', 'The office light relief', 'The networker' & 'Ambition personified'

At this point I thought how do I make someone look like a reliable 'safe pair of hands' from a headshot?! I ended up basing this character partly on my brother Mick, the others came surprisingly smoothly. Another enjoyable job this, big thanks to Rob for sending this my way.

Above is another advertorial job for Promotions AD David Godfrey, this time for Nicorette.. this one proved tricky, for a couple of reasons; i'd just come off a series of jobs that asked for a more realistic drawing style, when it came to this job my drawing had become stiff and too realistic, and secondly I rarely just work in black and white, this is usually only at the start of the process in rough stage, then I colour and iron out any problem.. so in my head, when i'm working in B&W it still feels like i'm at the rough stages.

It ended up taking a while to get these anywhere near right, but we got their eventually, luckily David was very patient with me on these, and I think the one with the girls in particular works very well, believe it or not I was struggling to make my girls hot enough! I know criminal, this isn't an area that usually causes me any problems, I should maybe work on a series of pin ups to get a bit more practice.

That's it for now, another post will be coming up shortly that collects together another series of images i've been doing for various magazines.

Royal College of Physicians!!

I've felt terrible over the weekend just gone, I thought I had a bout of hay fever, but now I think i've come down with a Summer cold or some kind of flu... anyway enough of my woes.

Above is some work I produced recently for the RCP; that's Royal College of Physicians for the uninitiated, the two images above are just fragments of an A3 poster I created for the RCP's magazine called Commentary, the artwork will also be used on their websites, and various other printed material in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.

As the poster won't be printed in it's entirety until a later date, I've stayed away from posting the entire thing here.

The commissioner of this artwork, is a rather lovely person called Emma Tennant, who is now Editor of the RCP's in-house material, now me and Emma go way back, are you sitting comfortably? As I can feel a story coming on...

Okay, so when I set out on this journey of becoming an illustrator many years ago now, in fact 2013 will officially mark a decade in the business, anyway when I started out I was lucky or unlucky (depends how you look at it!) to be signed to one of the UK's leading illustration agencies.

At that time my work was a very layered collage/photoshoppy approach to making images, very much in the mould of my illustration hero of the time Dave McKean, this style of work had been popular from around late 90's to 2001/2002.. although arguably stylistically it was already on it's way out by the time I became pro.

I suppose when you start out, you think you've made it just by getting a top agent, this isn't really the case, but in my first year i'd managed to bag a couple of top name clients via the agents, these being New Scientist and a book jacket for Egmont Books.

The reality is for the most part an agent won't be getting you work week in, week out... and as I found out in my first year often won't get you enough work to eek out any kind of living, luckily i'd bagged a series of jobs with a horoscopes magazine.. strangely enough doing horoscopes, by sending out mailouts, this helped me earn something which looked vaguely like an income for the first year.

Come my second year, and having already paid tax on the pitiful amount that I had earned, I had the task of trying to get new clients and finally try and make a living from this thing.. this proved to be at the time an uphill task.. i'm putting this mildly actually, as month after month went by without hardly any work.

I maybe had done about two paying jobs by the time August/September had come around.. two flaming jobs and there's me represented by the supposed top dog agents in the UK, i'd done an interview with Digital Photographer with them labeling me the new superstar of the field, and here was I with not a pot to pi$$ in! I simply couldn't get work.

Anyway, now i'd been told some months previous by another artist that I should get in touch with a subscription based partwork magazine, that had been heavily using photoshop artists, most of which were represented by my agents.. I'd stupidly thought that work was going through the agency, which is why I delayed getting in touch with the company publishing the magazine, thinking that it was only a matter of time before I got some work through.. this never happened.

Anyway just as I was thinking about jacking the whole profession in, and looking at least to get a part-time job to make ends meet, as a last ditch thing I emailed the company that published the title, this was a relatively small company called Summertime who produced the magazine Mind, Body, Spirit which was in published in partnership with the mega company in this field Diagostini.

A few days later I got an email through from the Editor, a Canadian lady called Jane Burgess, who said she was always interested in seeing new work and that I should email her some samples... which I promptly did.

And then I waited and waited, and nothing; this was despite my work predominantly at that time having been in the whole genre of horoscopes and spirituality.

I was a bit green at the time, and if I spoke to someone via email and had sent them samples, then I didn't necessarily feel inclined to send them printed samples also as a follow up.. in this case I was both desperate and I knew I was right for the title, so I sent Jane some tearsheets, postcard and CD by post.

Maybe a week later I got an email from Emma Tennant, who I think was then Assistant Editor, who asked me if I fancied doing half page images for her on the topic of witchcraft from around the world; I'd be paid I think about £200 for the image, and if it was good this would develop into a series of 12.

At the time I was into my last £100 of my graduate overdraft... I obviously jumped at the chance!

My fortunes flipped 180 degress in a matter of weeks, the other three Editors there; Jane Burgess, Sarah Burnside and Anthony Weaver all got in touch to offer me work... this was for a weekly title, which meant I was often doing three/four jobs a week; all on top pay at the time £4oo for a full page, £800 for a double etc... that series of 12 witchcraft ended up being a series of well over 20, if not 30 images!

Instead of earning probably less than a grand that year, I posted a profit of over 30k all of which, I earned in the last six months of the financial year!

At the time I couldn't tell you how big an impact these jobs had on me, not only the financial thing, but as a person, I got my self-worth back, and helped make me the illustrator and fella I am today.

It was such a amazing period for me, as I got to work with absolutely great people everyday out, also I don't think I could have got schooled better in this profession, working to that amount of deadlines and having to produce to such a calibre day in day out..

I worked with MBS magazine until it's demise some 18 months/2 years after that initial job.. baring in mind partworks generally don't even run past the year mark... it goes to show you how strong a title it was, may even be some kind of record, it ran for I think 3/4 years in total!

So there you have it, a bit of my history and you understand why I owe Emma and the Summertime team a great deal of gratitude.

When Emma came to me with this recent job for RCP, it seemed obvious that a different approach was needed rather than the linework style I now work in for this image to work.. I don't think I'd change my style for anyone else, but I made an exception in Emma's case, and came up with a more print based style of working, that I'd been working on in my spare time, with ink and rollers.

While i'm here i'll also give a shout out to Sarah Pridgeon, formerly Sarah Burnside who I previously mentioned as one of the Editors I worked with at Summertime... we still keep in touch, after all these years, she recently married her fella and moved all the way to Wyoming, USA to be with him, from London to Cowboy country... she's a great writer, I think she should write a book on this, it'd make a very good rom-com!

Next post, less writing..just lots of great illos!

The Pressures of Print!!

If you've entered my Last Supper competition, then you should have got a prize pack by now... I say "should" have, but.. er.. you haven't! Very sorry, but there's been loads of technical delays!

The deal is that most of said items in the prize pack are printed material, very much like the original postcard, however as I stated in the last post I was unhappy with the print quality of the last supper postcard, all my big print jobs are now handled by a printers in town.

I was hoping this was a one off blip with my printer's machines, as they've generally been brilliant over the past 18 month or so i've been using them, alas it seems they are having a few technical problems, and this has meant that yesterday I was out seeking a new printer in my neck of the woods.

It turns out that finding a great printers, ie; someone that knows what they're doing, someone that is easy to work with, and most importantly can deliver a perfect (or close to) print are as rare as hen's teeth!

Too many of the proofs I did yesterday, were just not right.. and y'know it's not the artwork this is the same artwork that has already seen print before, so I know how it should print.. it's just a case of everyone's machines printing different... and literally everyone's print of the same artworks is different.

My original printer, who still arguably does the best colour correct print, is in the process of getting a new machine, which should be in his hands over the next two week (I'm told mine is first job scheduled for it!) then it'll no doubt be a case of trying to get this one to print perfectly..although i'm told there will be teething problems initially... Gulp!

This whole thing with printing has driven me a bit loopy, I don't like things being taken out of my hands, also it's hard to get my head around as I know without fail when I give my artwork over to a client, and it sees print it 99% matches the work on screen.. Aaarghh, it's so frustrating!

I could go on, and on at this stage, but well after yesterday's debacle i'd be ranting like a mad man.. or of you know me, even madder man.

I do apologize to anyone waiting on a goodybag, but hopefully they will be with you shortly.. if not i'll formulate a new idea for a different set of prizes.

On the positive side, if you haven't entered (and i'm still sending out postcards) then you've still got plenty of time!

Mac Format- Gestures Ganesh!

Here's an image that has just seen print in the latest issue of Mac Format, which came out last week.

Alex Thomas the Art Editor of the title got in touch last month during that dreaded double Bank Holiday/ Three day week, which was an incredibly busy period for me, in fact i'm still recovering from it.. I became a little burnt out for a while there!

I was initially worried that I wouldn't have time to do this piece, but as soon as Alex told me he wanted a drawing of Ganesh.. well what can I say I was hooked.

The illustration is for a feature about using gestures on Apple's range of notebooks and desktops, 'gestures' are like little keyboard shortcuts using multi touch hand gestures, the kind of thing you would see using trackpads.

Alex gave me the brief, around midweek and I went on to do a pretty comprehensive drawing for him to take a look at the day after one of the Bank Holidays, I should point out that I couldn't start this image because of other commitments until the weekend, so this was turned around in about three days.

Luckily for me, Alex loved what i'd done on this and only asked for a minor change with regards to the head being made a little larger and a removal of a decorative border, however Alex decided that the image worked so well that it went from being a single page image to being extended out to a double page spread... which.. er.. as you can guess meant I had to do a bit more work than I expected... tricky when you have more jobs on than days in a week!

This is what I would say with regards to changes and alterations, i'm not one to cause too much of a fuss over these things although in certain instances perhaps I should, because these things need to be done for the right reasons, not because an Art Director wants his/her thumbprints on an illustration.

Changes should really only be made on a final for two reasons; the first one being to improve the readability of the image, or to tweak details, the second is to make alterations so that it fits the layout better.

This is why Alex is such a great Art Director, the alterations he asked for served one purpose and one purpose only and that's to tweak an already great illustration and make it better, and to make it more cohesive with the magazine's layout... I hope other AD's are taking note, because the best Art Director's like Alex make these things look easy, I'm not questioning his decisions because they make complete sense, and at the end of the day you know you're on the same side trying to make the image the best it can be.

I think this is one of the illos i'm most proud of this year thus far, I think it came out well, because it plays to my strong points, first of all the brief is a good fit, it's fantastical and imaginative which are areas I work best in.

Second of all the composition is simple, so it allows me to be my most direct and bold, this comes across in both the linework and use of vibrant colour, it also frees time up to add to those little details.

Ideally these are the kinds of briefs I would get all the time, and I'd hope to produce work that didn't drop below this standard everytime... one day maybe!

80's Movie Classics Last Supper

Usually in February/March/April i've already sent out my mail outs to existing and prospective clients, last year that was my 20 page booklet Kaleidoscope, and I had every intention of producing a second volume for this year, however since before Christmas up until now I've been too busy with actual jobs, in fact almost with a guarantee every time I've tried to start this booklet I've had an email or a phone call from a client.

Anyway here's a fun mail out postcard I've managed to fit in between jobs and over the last week or so when i've had my first real break... this should now be hitting the postboxes of Art Directors up and down the land.

This as you can hopefully see is an 80's movie themed tribute to Da Vinci's Last Supper, i'm inviting anyone who got hold of the card to tell me the films that each of the characters appear in and they'll get a prize... also bonus points for anyone who can name the film posters in the background, some of those are a bit tricky!

There's sixteen characters at the tables see if you can name all the films.

I must admit to being slightly disappointed with the quality of print on these when they came back from the printers, the card is a little more gaudier and grainier than I would have liked, above is how the artwork should have been printed... i'll be more vigilant in the future when it comes to printing matters... all things aside, they are adequate, just not the quality I demand.

You'll notice on the artwork above that I've put a little copyright stamp at the bottom, usually I don't feel a need to do this, but this is one of those images that goes walk-about online, and then it ends up on all manner of websites etc that I haven't given the thumbs up to; I don't mind if you're a client or you're writing something about my work, but i'm not cool with it just being used and abused randomly, which i've seen with one of my images.

Anyway not to dwell on negatives, the second volume of Kaleidoscope I have every intention of seeing in print either by the end of this year/early next; production values will be raised, the booklet will be bigger and I'll have 18 months of stuff to put in there.

In the meantime I have a lot more of these mailouts planned... keep your eyes on the mailbox!

Quick One's

I've been incredibly busy this past month, not that i'm complaining.. it's always the way for illustrator's, where either overworked or sat around twiddling our thumbs.

Above are some rather quick illos that have seen print over the past few weeks.

At the top is a cover for Accountancy Age, I'm not exactly sure what the article is about; the brief was to show a business type walking into a airport departure lounge, with his back to us and on his bag he has one of those airport label/stickers they put on your luggage with the words; 'Wish you weren't here'.

There are something's i'm generally not keen on drawing, one of those is the back of people's heads, in some cases you have no option, but I always try and give a 3/4 view , just so I catch some of the eyeline and cheekbone... reason I'm not keen is that by taking away the face, it's hard to invest the back of someone's head with any sense of character, alas because I wanted that perspective for this illo, just so it draws the eye in, I went for a flat back of head shot.

You'll notice i've stuck a plane in there, just so you know it's an Airport.. i'm subtle like that.

This image was art directed by the great Dan Parker at AA, I was saddened to hear that this would be my last cover for the title as this issue would be the last print edition, it's unfortunate also because i'd had to turn down two really cool covers prior on the grounds of my work schedule... they'll be remembered as the two that got away!

On a more positive note I was honored to be asked to provide the final cover, and hopefully i'll work with the AA fellas; Dan, Iain and Gavin on other things at Incisive Media... they've been great clients over the past 12 months or so!

That brief was sent on a Friday evening, and the final was sent in on the Monday, with some changes made for the following day.

The two illustrations below are for a feature that ran in Nuts magazine; about the tallest buildings in the world.

The top image, is the main feature artwork; Big Ben, Empire State Building, along with the new Skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi, The Shard in London etc.. and the biggest being 'The Mile High Tower' that is under development in Kuwait.

The bottom image is an insert for the feature.

Simon Freeborough AD at the magazine asked me on the Wednesday evening if I could fit this image in (deadline being Friday) at the time I was up to my eyeballs in other deadlines, luckily because he'd already set out the layout and scaling (final feature has a measurement guide on the right hand side) it was a case of me just providing a tidy drawing.

I got up early the next day and the artwork was created by that afternoon.

Now I actually like the simplicity of the drawing, in fact I have a leaning sometimes to my more info-based imagery, however my brother on seeing it said; "That can't have taken too much work".. The cheek! I can assure you while this image may be quite simple to look at, it proved tricky in areas (all those windows, making things readable etc) not helped because of the mountain of other work I was doing at the same time.

Luckily I think Simon and the fine folks at Nuts appreciated the work i'd put in on this, and in under 24 hours no less!

That's it for now, i'm waiting until other images see print before I post them up; one's a real beauty though, but more on that when it hits the shops.. right back to work!

New Men's Health Illustrations!

Again been slow in putting up new stuff; busy, busy at the mo, to make amends here's a batch of illos that have graced the pages of Men's Health over the last couple of months.

To kick things off I thought we'd start with the latest 'Snack Off' spot illustration, now I'd posted earlier that I thought this series had been cancelled, so imagine my surprise to get an email from MH Art Editor Extraordinaire Rob Milton, asking me to come up with an image for Broccoli vs Spinach, not only that but Rob gave me a bit of free reign to come up with possible ideas.

After some thought, the idea that Broccoli would probably work best as someone with a 'fro played a major part in choosing the concept for this; with this in mind my best ideas were 80's footballers, so Broccoli would have either been a German player of that period or perhaps our very own Kevin Keegan, which I think Rob was already to go for, until I suggested Tom Baker's Dr Who and a Dalek Spinach... which happily got the thumbs up, I drew it in between other jobs and luckily it all went smoothly.

I'm hoping that there's still more of these 'Snack Offs' to do for the magazine as they're great fun... we've covered most meats by now, but we still haven't done anything with Turkey.. and i'll not feel we've completed the series until we tackle Turkey!

Above is a great little image I was able to come up with for Deputy AD Kerem Shefik at the magazine, he wanted a spot illustration for a feature titled 'Rise of the Machines' in which he wanted Arnie's Terminator using a bit of gym equipment called the Roman Chair, this is another one that was quick and fun to do, in fact I offered two different versions of the scene, and he chose the one above (the better of the two!)

What I liked about this image was that it was printed absolutely tiny, maybe the size of a 50 pence piece in the magazine; I thought it looked kind of cool being such a dinky size, alas I was hoping this would become a series; either with different Terminators doing different exercises or maybe other 80's Movie characters using gym equipment; Robocop lifting weights, Rambo doing press ups, Gremlins doing squat thrusts?! Maybe that's a series I should do in my own time!

This is an advertorial image that ran in last issues Men's Health for Gillette, David Godfrey the promotions AD at MH got in touch to ask me if I fancied producing a spoof of the 'Your Country Needs You' poster artwork, the brief was simple; we want a drawn copy of the image, but want you to remove the 'tache. Easy! I thought... "You've got two hours to get it to us" said David... er...

I got my backside in gear and came up with the above, I actually provided a few versions and the above got selected. I never saw this in print, but it ran full page and I imagine running with the right text would have come out well in print.

This is yet another advertorial (I've had a lot of these of recent!) this was again commissioned by Promotions AD at MH David Godfrey, a very simple scene to draw for the hair restoration product Regaine, I came up with a series of roughs and the above one got chosen, I was expecting for David to get back to me with regards to producing a final, but they liked the rough above so much they actually ran it.

Okay, so that's a little catch up, what I can say is that some big illos are on the way soon, one is proving particularly epic, but more on that next time.