The Gigantic Job Collection!

Okay so let's face it, I think I begin pretty much each blog with an apology about my tardiness in posting something here, because of a hectic work schedule... well i'll not do that again, but I think this past month it is fair to say that all previous busy spells have been blown out of the water, by the sheer volume of work to come my way since the release of Kaleidoscope.

So what we have here is a bumper scale post of recent work.

I'll start with one of the most recent images to see print, a cover for the renowned Guardian Guide.

This was an odd one, in that Sara Ramsbottom the AD of the Guide actually hadn't received a copy of the book yet (I was biding my time) an email just came somewhat out of the blue to ask whether i'd be interested in a cover.

Now I am of the opinion that the Guide often has some of the best illustrated covers out there, and I found myself in the regrettable position of having to turn down this job as I was booked in with about 5 different jobs.

It can be somewhat heart-breaking for me to be in this position, especially when you hear the brief, and let's face it who wants to turn down Sara and the Guide.

Anyway somehow Sara was able to talk me around, even though I simply didn't have time... luckily some of my more regular clients were able to push back a few deadlines, and were very accommodating (thanks Dan, Peter, & Ped) so I was able to squeeze this in.

The illustration is of the stars of ITV2 Roman era set comedy Plebs.

Ha, I'll not go through how stressful it was to bring this cover to fruition over the space of a weekend while juggling other jobs.

One of the reasons I had not yet sent Sara one of my books (It's on it's way to you next week Sara!) was perhaps a feeling I had blown my chances with the magazine, after I had produced what I felt was a lackluster effort on my previous cover, some two years ago (btw, not art directed by Sara) fortunately this opinion was not shared by Sara.

Despite the speedy turnaround of the job (I would have made the arrows better, and walls more crumbly with more time) I was actually really, really pleased with this in print... in fact i've shown this to everyone, and it's an image i'm really proud of... thanks Sara, for thinking of me for this, and hopefully i'll produce more work for the title under slightly less stressful circumstances.

 

Wouldn't be a proper post without some work for the gang at TopGear magazine, here's a bunch from the monthly Ask Uncle TopGear column.

I'm very grateful to the team there for allowing me the regular opportunity to doodle for the title, and recently for Peter the designer there giving me a bit more freedom in composing these pieces more to my liking.

As previously stated I work in a more realistic "tight" style for the title, without the time used on these assignments to fine tune the technique, images like that drawn for The Guide above would simply not be possible.

A selection of covers for my long-time friends at Incisive.

Above is a cover for Insurance Age, a magazine i've just produced another cover for this week, this one was actually completed a while back, before things went a bit crazy.

Illustration was for a feature about building insurance, brief was simple, drawn an insurance fella in front of a disaster building... like this image, would draw the guy's shadow better if I had the time back ... apart from that, always a pleasure to work with Iain at the title, he's one of those people I'm fortunate to work with who y'know "get's it", he knows how to use me, gives me decent briefs, and enough time to produce the final drawing.

This is a rare cover for Financial Director magazine, this was actually drawn ages ago... i'm not sure why I have delayed in putting this up, I think maybe the idea was that I would do a Financial Director special post, with all the spots I draw for the title.

I draw 4 regular spot illos for the title, so I've produced a large number of images for the title over the past few years, some I would argue are conceptually (at least) my best images... anyway enough about the spots, i'll do a feature on just them next post.

So the cover was..er..about floods (well d'uh!) this image is a lot more simpler than what I usually do, and for me this recalls the work of the American conceptual illustrator Guy Billout (exceptional artist!) the waves were used as a framing device for a headline placed on by the designer, I can't remember seeing the final layout, but I imagine this would work beautifully.

This is the first of a planned series of 3 images for Legal Week, and a Legal Week promotional series of conferences.

I was given headshots of a group of leading Legal heavyweights that would be attending a conference in Lake Como, Italy and asked to compose an image.

I did something similar last year albeit not as well as above.

These kinds of images (advertorials) are often difficult, and fraught with possible minefields, as there's a hell of a lot of people involved.. all with differing opinions, i've done my fair share of this work, and it can prove troublesome.

This one was art directed by Dan Parker, someone I trust, and knows what he is doing, sometimes us illustrators need to be protected a bit, otherwise an image like this would get crushed under the deluge of alterations and nit-picking.

Luckily with Dan on board this one proved pretty smooth sailing, the second one in the series got signed off yesterday, after being on the project for a month and a half... Ha, that was a far more tricky affair, arguably less successful, and didn't have Dan art directing, 'nuff said!

Sometimes it's not what  you know, but who! This job came courtesy of Nuts alumni, Nitish Mandalia who was freelancing for Britain's biggest tabloid The Sun, for their Sunday supplement Fabulous and a football special called OFFSIDE.

The above job seemed easy on paper... proved far more difficult in execution, usually when I do these kind of jobs, i'm given a very specific set of instructions and often photo reference (to interpret as I see fit) there was little of that here, and I made the mistake of following the designer's instruction as opposed to the 'copy' text... took a long time to get them right.

I think most artists will tell you, the more times you ahve to re-draw an image, the more labored the process becomes, this happened here.

These were exercise illos done for OFFSIDE, art directed by Laura Cunningham, I was on far more comfortable ground with these, these printed great in the magazine.

This was another one for OFFSIDE, i'd long wanted to draw Harry Redknapp, his hangdog expression is calling out to be illustrated, so I was happy to finally get my shot.

This was about the phone ringing off the hook on transfer deadline day, the issue with this one was that one of my most popular images (a portrait of Bill Murray) proved a little too popular with the art team, and I was essentially asked to re-create it with Harry Redknapp.

I am relatively happy with the piece, but perhaps there was a missed opportunity with this one.. i've certainly got a better Redknapp illustration in my locker.

This image has a Warhol-like Pop Art feel to it, several weeks later The Sun brought out a "Reality Show Rich List" supplement with all the major players illustrated in pretty much the exact same way as above, albeit without me on board.

I can't complain too much, the illustrator did a cracking job, but make no mistake this work sowed the seed... still it was a pleasure to work with Nitish again, to work with such a big publication like The Sun, and also to work with Laura and Mark at the magazine, who i'd work with again in a heartbeat

'Nother one for The Sun, this time for Fabulous magazine. Art directed by Laura Cunningham, these were enjoyable, pain-free and I rarely just do B&W line work.

Okay now onto some spots for my friends at Empire magazine.. everyone knows I am a devoted reader, so i'll not bore everyone with the fanboy type glee that comes with a commission for the title.

Above is a set of images from a feature about Sin City 2, these were for a box out in the main feature, which asked for some funny drawings of Robert Rodriguez inspired pet drawn in Sin City grey scale.

Above are Deperadog (El Mari Chihuahua) Spy Kids (as in Baby Goats, get it?) From Duck 'Til Dawn
and Planet Terrapin... I really loved these in print, I remember stressing about the terrapin one.. now I think it's the best of the bunch! Yep, doesn't matter how small a drawing prints.. I can still stress about it!

More spots for this Month's Empire, this time the new faces of horror. I'm a big horror nut, and I like the new breed of horror films currently being made like Insidious, so this was one of those that was made for me.

Above is the woman from Woman in Black (sorry forgot name!) Annabelle from The Conjuring/Annabelle, Mr Boogie (doesn't look like much of a mover!) from Sinister, Red Face from Insidious and just for fun a Minion from Despicable Me.

Love these jobs, so much fun, and Chris and Adam are just the best to work with. When I draw things like this, I realise what a lucky so and so I am!

Above is the first job I did for new client Men's Fitness.

This came about not unlike the job for The Sun, Ha, in that I had a friend on the inside.

An art director called Camille Neilson who I had previously worked with at PC Pro and who had very kindly written a feature on me for Mac User had recently left her desk as a full-time AD and gone freelance, we'd kept in touch in that period.

One of her many jobs (she's a very busy lady nowadays!) was a period working for the gang at Men's Fitness, where she promptly showed my work around (who needs an agent with friends like this!) an introduction was made with the AD of the title Ped Millichamp... We also have Camille to thank for giving me the much needed kick up the backside in updating my website (new pictures on there soon!)

I was promptly offered the set of Action Man exercises above, which were great fun to do.

Now what I should say here, is that I was actually biding my time before actually sending my book Kaleidoscope out to Men's Fitness and Ped... because he was at the top of the tree amongst art directors  I wanted to work with, but as of yet, had not had the pleasure.

I am the biggest illustration geek... possibly in the world, my knowledge is straight out encyclopedic, if I was on Mastermind, that would be my specialist subject, and I would probably win!

Anyway, I not only follow work of illustrators, but the art directors that commission the best illustrators, to use a football analogy, if us illustrators consider ourselves the players, then the Art Director's are the managers. Top players want to work with the top managers, simple as that! And Ped's one of the Best.

Thanks to Camille's introduction, I've had the pleasure of working with Ped over the past few months, above are a set of exercise illos of MMA fighter Luke Rockhold, once you work with someone like Ped, you realize why their reputation and standing is so high in the illustration community.

More exercises for MF, this time of muscle-bound funny man Terry Crews (arguably the best thing about any film he's in!) lots of fun to do.

This is the first of (hopefully!) a series of illustrations for a column called Top Tweets, published each month in the back of the Men's Fitness, clever idea, and very suited to my likeness/celebrity culture driven work.

Each month the feature highlight tweets by the famous that relate to exercise, this first one of ("World's Fittest Man"tm) Richard Fronning I remember being a bit disappointed with, I felt I could do better, but with the amount of work I had on, I felt a bit compromised... I shouldn't have worried so much, came out great in print.. best bit, body-building gnome!

Okay final one! this is again for the Top Tweets section in MF, with Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard (in the new Peter Pan film due next year) putting his back into a bit of exercise.

Felt far more at ease with this one, and it looked lovely in the copy I picked up yesterday... best bit, weightlifting monkey!

Right, now that was epic! Believe it or not, this is still only a selection of everything i've done, as a lot of it has yet to see print as it was completed in the past two weeks or so, which means due to contractual obligation I cannot show them here yet... of course, that means expect to see yet another gigantic sized posting here in the next few months!

Brand New Website!!!!

Just a quick post here, after years of having a rather outdated website, i've finally got around to giving it a complete overhaul.

At the moment, it's only got a small selection of my very best images produced over the past five years, i'll be adding further pictures over the coming weeks.

As I am now in the driver's seat on this one with regards to both the design and upkeep, expect this one to be far more up to date, with me adding new stuff on a very regular basis.

Good thing about the current site is that it is also built with I-Pads, tablets and phones in mind, and it works a dream on these.

Check it out by clicking on this link: http://www.billmcconkey.co.uk/ or alternatively by hitting the "My Website" link at the top of this page.

Big thanks to Dean Hubert, the guy responsible for putting up the first site, for all his help with the technical stuff on this new site.

Take a look, you won't be disappointed!

Kaleidoscope-The Book!

So here it is finally! My long in gestation book Kaleidoscope: The Rise of an Illustration Supergeek, the picture above kind of doesn't do them justice.

It's taken me maybe 6 months to put this thing together, then it's been with my printer a further month in order to knock it into shape, proofread (over and over again!) then there's the the small matter of getting this thing printed and bound.

At the moment of writing this, 50 have been printed and are now on their way out to clients, we are printing these in batches, and I expect another batch of 75-100 to be ready next week, and so on until we meet my order of close to 300 books in total.

It's been a tiring and slightly epic experience, but I am really happy with the final product, here's the vital stats; the book is on silk paper with silk card cover, it weighs in with a hefty 140 pages and is perfect bound.

This book showcases the drawing work i've been producing for many of the UK's biggest magazines over the past 5 years, these include pretty much everything that's on this blog and a lot more besides.

While it concentrates on my drawing work, there is also a pretty comprehensive biography that tells my tale from childhood illustration fanboy to practicing professional, and all the trials and tribulations of trying to earn a crust in this profession for over a decade.

Any Art Directors that reads this blog (and I know there are quite a few) who would like a complimentary copy should get in touch, for any fans of my artwork, copies may be made available in future for a small fee (covering shipping, etc) on request (email me)

This book has almost got the better of me at times, with me being really quite ill and stressed throughout periods of getting this thing together, but now we are I think on the home stretch with it (I hope!)

Special mention should go here to my printer, Darren at Carter & Jackson printing that have worked extremely hard to create an item that I think we can both be proud of... check out the link for the best printers in Yorkshire, if not the north of England!

Ha, I think it's been a learning experience for the both of us, what with collating and binding this mammoth tome!

Okay onto some pictures, that's why people check out this blog in the first place! I thought one of the things I could do in my book, is along with all the published stuff is to put a special section in, where i've experimented with different techniques and processes.

When I look on the newsstands today there seems to be an inordinate amount of people that.. well i'm not going to say copy me... but stylistically speaking have kind of jumped on the bandwagon.

Now imitation is one of those things that is part of the profession, when I started out my own work was a poor man's version of that slightly ethereal dark photoshop stuff that Dave Mckean was producing mid 90's to early Noughties.

Even the drawing stuff I do now, came about from trying to capture that comic book influence from my childhood, and when traveling the US coming across illustrators that use line like Tomer Hanuka, etc

When I started drawing my work instead of collaging/digitally painting like I had in the past, I know for a fact that at least two illustrators in this country were already creating work along the same lines, and could creditably lay claim like myself to being originators of this style of work, both are great artists that work on various top titles.

Still the whole thing reminds me of super design/illustration outfit Vault 49, who mid noughties almost single-handedly created an entirely new more decorative aesthetic to illustration, which for a couple of years kind of swamped the market, and this happened because everyone jumped on board that "look".

My agents at the time, must have hired about 30 other people that imitated their work. Of course fashions are a fad, and slowly that work became less and less popular, leaving many of the imitators scratching around for work, but not Vault 49 with them kind of being the original source, they were always in the position to innovate and adapt.

Their work takes on all kinds of aesthetics and continues to be amazing.

So over the years I expect my work to adapt and change; the images below perhaps showcase the direction my work may take... also for me, this is playtime, an artist should always experiment and play with materials, technique and subject matter in order to grow.

The three images above combine drawing with collage, it's something i've been intrigued with exploring for a long time, these are early efforts, but I think there is the start of something here, and it's not something I think i've seen anyone do before.

I've collected paper ephemera for years with a mind to start producing collages, these are the first few images that look to utilize this material.

At the top Sherlock Holmes, middle an illustration of Dustin Hoffman from the TV show Luck (you can tell i've been practicing a while, as that show is no longer on!) and the bottom one is a portrait of the late, great Stanley Kubrick.

I feel I'm just at the precipice with this work, and providing I proceed (they are fun to make!) that I could make some extraordinary images.

A case of stripping back with these three images, there's one side of me that wants to make the most ridiculously detailed images ever (like the He-Man print) and the other side, that wants to make images that simplify and essentially be distillations of a subject, to be more direct.

The three portraits above, of William H Macy, Jack Nicholson and Johnny Depp were created with charcoal pencil and lino block ink, scanned, cleaned and put together in Photoshop.

I'd love to do a series of these portraits or images for a lovely high-end magazine, utilizing this technique, with them maybe running full page.

These next two portraits use many of the techniques above, but concentrate perhaps further on line, the desired effect was to make these slightly more quirky than the above three to represent these actors indie credentials (a lot can be said with the line you use)

Portraits are of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ryan Gosling, I think Maggie's been high up on my list of people I want to draw for a long time, I think she has a beautiful face, but not one that's overly "Hollywood".

Same technique as with the Ryan and Maggie drawings on these two, but again used to illicit a different result, stripping back to just black and grey, these actors exude gravitas, there's no need for "fireworks" with these drawings, no fancy line weight, colors. Just honesty.

Think something like these would look stunning in something like GQ, Esquire, Vogue, Intelligent Life, The Guardian, etc

Okay final two, blimey this blog's been pretty grande, These are two of a planned series of miniature GoT miniature prints.

On a previous blog posting with a Breaking Bad image I started playing with a technique that kind of had an etched feel to it, along with collecting old ephemera for collage for years, I have really fallen in love with the look of old money, engravings, stamps, match boxes and generally old printing techniques.

The above two images of Tyrion and Daenarys look to recreate something of an engraved look, with a bit of luck and if they prove popular I may look to create a huge series of these based on the main show characters in this style, creating something of a huge tapestry of miniature etchings.

This style is just a sideline, that I dare say may come in useful for commercial purposes should a client ever want an oldie world look, like a map of Middle Earth, or portraits from a fantasy series LOTR, for instance... Ha, Chris and Adam at Empire i'm looking in your direction as I write this!

So that's it for now!

Just a quick mention here, one of my regular print buyers from across the pond in America, who has been a real champion of my work for a while now, has very kindly set up a facebook fanpage in my honor, which is lovely.. especially as I haven't got a clue about FB,Twitter and all that stuff.

Here's the link, check it out: https://www.facebook.com/thebillmcconkeyfanpage

New-ish Drawings!

I am really behind on updating this blog with drawings, some jobs going back as far as last year are still yet to make an appearance!

I'll jump straight in first with a recently published piece and work backwards from there, above are some spot illustrations for the World's Greatest Movie Magazine EMPIRE. Lovely job, simple brief too, I was given a list of movie characters to draw, doesn't get easier than that, right? Er.. apparently it even this I struggle with, as I thought i'd drawn all the characters and was kicking back and relaxing when Empire AD Chris emailed me to tell me I had missed a character off the list!

I re-read the list and he was right of course , for some unknown reason I did not write the character.s name (bottom right) in my sketchbook... Y'see, I no longer print off briefs like I used to, a case of me doing my bit for the environment, and of course with having email on my phone, the brief is always at my fingertips if need be.. I rewrite the main parts of a brief on paper, and go from there to sketching... a rare example of me here not concentrating, alas all was well and good and I got the drawing to Chris the following morning.

See if you can name the films these characters appear in, most are obvious.

Above is another set of spots drawn for EMPIRE last year no less... Not sure what the delay has been in posting these up.

Lovely brief again, the fellas at the magazine spoil me sometimes... these were printed tiny, crossed fingers they'll let me draw something full page for them one day!

These were for a section about Movie Cryogenics, again see if you can name the movies.

Above are a few drawings from the final issue of Nuts magazine. As written on my last post, Nuts has been one of my most ardent supporters and a regular commissioner of my work for a number of years now.

I was very sad to hear that the title would be closing it's doors, and not just for the obvious reason that my income will undoubtedly have been dented somewhat (although i've not felt it yet, busier than ever!) but actually there are many reason why I will mourn the passing of the title.

I will first of all miss the interaction with the Art team there, which consisted of 4 members; Simon Freeborough, Barney Hammond, Nitish Mandalia, and James Jarman, and they were to a man all great to work with, giving me great briefs, paying fairly and really made me feel like I was contributing to the the title... but more than that, I do think of them as friends, rather than just clients.

As it was weekly the deadlines came thick and fast (how I like it!) and I don't think i've worked with a harder working team in my life.

I also think something is now missing from the world of magazines since its demise, Nuts was in it's way kind of fearless, they pushed the envelope on many occasions, in fact my drawings often pushed the boundaries, there are images that are in my portfolio that simply no other magazine would of had the bottle to publish (Ha, some may say good taste!) and regardless of some of the negative press the publication has garnered over the years, I am extremely proud to have my work associated with the title.

These drawings were for a feature about the many stars that Nuts writer Rich Pelley had managed to aggravate over the years (told you they had some bottle!) Amongst a rather large list of celebs, who'd acted in a some kind of diva-ish way were Gordon Ramsay, the late Steve Irwin and Dizzy Rascal.

These were just the best three I drew for the feature, there was also drawings of James Corden, Jason Statham and a variety of others.

All of these images were animated in some small way for the IPad edition, below is an example of how this may have looked.

Just want to say a big thank you here to Simon, Barney, Nitish, James and the whole Nuts team for giving me such great things to draw over the years, it was an honor and a privilege.

Next up: Kaleidoscope, the Book!

Breaking Bad

Hi there, so this is the first of what will be a few catch up posts over the next few weeks... i've even got work dating back from late last year that needs posting up!

Above and below was one of my last jobs for Nuts magazine. The magazine which has been a real champion of my work over the past few years printed it's final issue this week... i'll be writing further about the magazine in a later post.

Anyway they were able to give me this real beauty of a job before the magazine closed it's doors.

In between putting together my book, and producing drawings for a variety of magazines, I have been creating some very basic GIF animations.

A lot of my work is animated by designers or utilized in some other way for digital editions.. I think I am fortunate that I work in such a way in layers that it allows for this kind of thing to work very well... the above is the first of what will probably be many!

So the illustration was for a feature titled 'The Greatest TV Shows Ever', Nitish the Art Editor at the magazine simply told me what he wanted; Walter White on the GOT throne watching a TV with Brian from Family Guy... Dream brief really, does exactly what is says on the tin! I should point out i'm a relatively new fan to the show, ive been slowly making my way through the boxsets, currently on series 4 at the time of writing.

I think the image has some of my best inking in many a year... probably because there's so much dark ink on display, also the muted color scheme helps show it off. The image above is without the TV and Brian, which I think works well as it's own image.

Drawing Walt/Heisenberg isn't new ground for me, I did these as little tester images before the New Year for a technique that imitates an old etched feel.

I was just practicing with certain effects, and these were the results, in a moment of synchronicity I got an email from an owner of one of my prints asking me if I had anything Breaking Bad related and I sent her these to take a look at... She immediately ordered one!

These can be bought on the UK Ebay site, my printer did a little batch that he is selling through his online shop, they come in a really rather large A2 size in both the red and blue... just punch my name into the Ebay search engine, and it should come up with a hit for these.

I'll dig out the link, and put it here later.

That is it for now, another post to follow soon!

Celebrity Kama Sutra, The Greatest Hits!

First of all apologies to long time followers of this blog, it has been completely neglected this year thus far, I promise it was never my intention, I have had an abundance of jobs and personal works taking up
all my time.

The big project being my third volume of Kaleidoscope, which I can say with huge relief is nearly ready to take to the printers, it's been perhaps the largest thing I have ever undertaken, as this time around it will be in book format and collects together my best stuff over the past 5 years... it's also full of my views and is part biography too!

I have been threatening to post up a bumper collection of the Celebrity Kama Sutra series I have been drawing these past few years for the great Nuts magazine, so here you go, the wait is over!

These are actually pages from Kaleidoscope, I have organized the celebs into categories; Football Stars, British Television, Music, Hollywood, Repeat Offenders, and a few sub categories: standing up, politicians and sitting down.

Ha, no need to go into any great explanations here, they are what they are, really fun drawings, but I do recommend clicking on each pic to see them more close up.

Now I have not drawn a Kama Sutra for the mag for a number of weeks, and my once weekly slot has dwindled to sporadic appearances, as such the series may in fact be finished, if so this post and my book will be one hell of a send off (these take up about 8 pages in the book!)

I'd like to thank the whole team at Nuts for giving me the opportunity to produce such a large and always fun body of work, above are only my faves, we actually reached the landmark of over a 100 drawings a few months ago!

To think when the AD Simon Freeborough suggested the whole concept to me years ago about a regular sex position drawing, I was somewhat apprehensive, for a start I had never drawn anything vaguely naughty in my career, also on a logistical front I imagined we'd be stuck for positions after the first three illustrations...Ha, prior to drawing these I believed there to be only three positions! Turned out to a real eye-opener! Also, maybe not surprisingly in the times we live in we were rarely short of tabloid fodder to draw too.

If the series has now come to an end; big thanks must go to Simon, Barney, Nitish and James at the mag for giving me such great things to draw, and giving me a great deal of freedom it has to be said on who and how we would draw these.

I've already witnessed a certain amount of snobbery and snootiness with regards to these pics, as though they are somehow lesser than the work I would draw for other clients like The Guardian, etc, personally I am as proud of these as anything I have ever done.

Next post will be a round up of some of the many drawings I have done since New Year, this will be followed up by a giant posting on Kaleidoscope: The Book!

Busy, Busy! Giant-sized Jobs Round up.

This blog has been a bit neglected of recent, when things go quiet here, it's generally because I am up to
my neck in jobs, and that has definitely been the case this past couple of months.

I'm struggling to think of a time when i've been more busy, which is saying something in itself!

I did say my next post would be dedicated to my Karma Sutra drawings, but I think that can wait a little while longer, so that I can do this giant sized catch up on recent jobs.

This isn't everything i've done in the past 2 months, just a slice of jobs that are currently on the newsstands as we speak.

Above is a very cool job that came my way via PC Pro, a magazine I'd created my first illo for earlier in the year. This illustration accompanied a feature about what would happen if the world's internet went down, and given the modern dependency how we'd kind of basically return to the dark ages, not before being treated to scenes of sheer pandemonium ... great brief, I must have been drawing about 4 other jobs at the time, so it was a matter of trying to wrangle enough time to add all the detail I wanted.

I was happy with how it came out in print, not least because they use a much pulpier paper in the mag than the glossy stuff my images usually run on. Big thanks to designer Andrew Bunce for thinking of me when this brief came up, with a bit of luck i'll get to work with PC Pro again in the New Year, and hopefully I won't be quite as busy with other jobs, so I can really go to town on the detail!

Above are a set of number based illos that have just seen print in the UK edition of Women's Health (gorgeous looking mag, check it out!) These I found to be one of my toughest jobs in many a year, the brief was to make celebs fit a series of numbers that relate to health based topics, eg; 2 units of alcohol a day, etc.

I felt that in order to make them fit the shape of a number, that I would have to draw celebs in a variety of outlandish positions, which is how they came to be doing exercises, and it came apparent early on that in order to make them numbers, that i'd maybe need at least two figures per number.

Somewhere down the line (probably because of the Hairy Bikers illo I did first) that we would make the list of characters into celebrity chefs, and that we would draw them doing some kind of activity that pertained to what the number related to.

I don't know if it was being overworked at the time, trying to get figures to contort in ways that weren't natural etc... but I really struggled with these, probably more so than any other job I can think of in the past 5 years!

Anyway, luckily these were under the safe stewardship of the WH team with me working predominantly with numero uno safe pair of hands Kerem Shefik and Editor Farrah Storr, I bought the magazine yesterday, and now I don't know what all the fuss was about now.

Sure I may have done them in a completely different way, if given the brief today, but having seen them in print, and how they were matched on the paper with a lovely watercolour paper texture, apart from a changing some small things on the Gordon Ramsey drawing (arguably the best one) i'm actually  happy with how they came out.

Big thanks to Kerem, Farrah, Ade & Emily at WH for putting up with my madness!

Now here's some spot illustrations that I really got my teeth into for my good friends at Empire magazine, brief was simple; draw JJ Abrams as a Jedi Knight, Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight and Walter White/Heisenberg from Breaking Bad.

These were great fun, and I was in a relaxed mood drawing these, so much that I ended up drawing 3 versions of the JJ Jedi Knight, the final one as a bit of fun was a Yoda version. I sent them to the Art Ed of the title Adam expecting him to chuckle, and then pick one of the other two, then when I picked up a copy of magazine I was surprised to find out he'd run the Yoda drawing.

It was a nice surprise as it looked great on the page too, goes to show you, that an artist is not always the best judge of their own work sometimes.

These ran tiny on the page, and some other illustrators would think I am mad for how much effort I put in with spot illustrations, but I can honestly say I am as happy with these drawings as anything I have drawn all year, regardless of size.

Big thanks to Adam at the mag for sending another great brief my way, and it's always a thrill to work for Empire, which i've already stated here is a magazine, that I read cover to cover every month and have done so for a decade now.

Synchronicity sometimes comes into play when you are an illustrator, so I ended up drawing two Jedi/Yoda images at the same time!

I got a surprise email from Mark Wagstaff at the great music title Mojo, who asked me if I'd like to draw their album of the month feature, the idea for the piece was exactly my cup of tea; Eminem as a Jedi Knight with music producer Rick Reubin as Yoda  on his back, I was in from the get go!

The idea stems from Eminem being quoted as comparing Rick to Yoda, like in the movie Empire Strikes Back.

This one should have been perfect for me, but I struggled with the drawing... it was the placement of the arms which gave me concern, if we are talking about drawing anatomy I rarely have any problems, but this one gave me issues.. in fact it still seems off to me.

Regardless what I do like is how I digitally painted the colour for a more realistic moulded look on this illo, it's something that i'll be employing on future jobs!

Mojo jobs are rare thing, my last one prior to this was probably 3 years ago... I do hope I don't have to wait so long for the next one, it's these kind of briefs why I became an illustrator in the first place!

Above are some of my favorite drawings from the regular feature 'Ask Uncle Top Gear' I illustrate each month for Top Gear magazine, really great fun these.

I go for a more realistic look with these than some of my other stuff, and it's nice rendering these cars in the slickest ways I can muster.

The one second from bottom has lots of innuendos in the sponsors, click on the image to see if you can make them all out.

These illustrations have come my way courtesy of Elliott Webb and Peter Barnes at the mag, cheers fellas! Collectively these illustrations are shaping up as some of the strongest in my entire cannon of work.

Above is another set of illustrations for TG, albeit not one of the 'Uncle TopGear' series, I was charged with drawing 40 figures that represent the main  people that make up an F1 team,  great brief, lovely to draw, can't ask for more than that, again these came my way via Elliott at the magazine, always fun!

So yet another automotive drawing, this time for Insurance Age. I've been working with Iain at the title for a number of years now, and I can always trust him to pitch up every now and then with a great brief.

This was a goodbye to the gloom of 2013 and hello to rosier times ahead in 2014 piece, I think it really shows that I had fun with the perspective and viewpoint of this illustration, the best compositions are often the simplest, this being the case here.

Finally onto some jobs for the fellas at Nuts magazine, this time for the now annual Christmas TV guide (I've drawn the past 4 I think!) main illustration is at the bottom, the idea was simple, draw a list of Christmas TV celebs taking part a cheesy Nativity play.

Again this is one of those that got turned around super quick, as I had a stack of other jobs on top, with November and December now becoming my busiest times of year! Always enjoy these big celeb ensemble images!

The four spot drawings above the lead, show up on the various listings of the TV guide; those are drawings of Wreck-it Ralph as Santa, Peter Capaldi (new Dr Who) chewing on a Turkey leg, Alan Carr getting merry, and Sherlock Holme' Benedict Cumberbach nursing a hangover on New Years Eve.

As ever big thanks to Barney at the mag, and all the other fellas there too ; Simon, Nitish & James for throwing work my way throughout the year, and bearing with me, when I couldn't take jobs due to work other commitments...it's never fun turning down work, but I never like turning down their jobs as they are easily some of the best briefs an illustrator could ask for... pick up the magazine and take a look yourself!

Okay, that's about me done... need a lie down after writing all this!

Next post, will be a Celebrity Karma Sutra special, I promise!

That just leaves me with wishing all clients, readers of this blog a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Have some top secret plans in store for 2014, everyone has been warned! HaaaHaaa, Haaaa,HHaaaa, (breaks into evil maniacal laugh)