EMPIRE- Build Your Own Johnny Depp!

My two favorite published jobs of the year (thus far!) happened to come to me at the same time, the first being the E.T busking illo as seen in the last post, and my other fave commission is this Johnny Depp illo for the world's number one film mag Empire.

When the Art Ed at the mag Adam sent over the brief I was thrilled, as this is the kind of image i'd draw as a personal piece anyways, so one of those rare dream jobs I get but once or twice a year, felt kind of like the stars aligned for this one.

Brief was simple enough: Draw a Johnny Depp cut out figure, with all manner of weird and wonderful costumery from some of Johnny's movie back catalogue created to fit said figure.

So got to work pretty quick smart... well not as quick as i'd have liked as I was busy on other jobs (E.T and others) but as soon as the time became available I was straight on this.

At the bottom is the grey scale rough, this you'll see is a more finished rough than I sometimes muster.

The middle illo, is how I sent it to Adam, I gave him a layered version, so he could move things where necessary to fit his layout.

At the top is how the illo looked in print, complete with a wild west paper texture to bring the whole layout together, which I think was a lovely accompaniment provided by Adam and really sets things off  on the the printed page.

Click on the illos, to see in more detail.... if nothing else that is probably the finest fur coat i've ever drawn!

This drawing can be seen in the current copy of Empire which is on the newsstands now!

I've been saying for a while that an epic personal piece will be coming to this blog soon, but i've been super busy with my regular magazine jobs that it's difficult to fit in my own work... the reality is I've only been showing a relatively small portion of everything that is published on this blog for the past few months, because i've been drawing a lot of stuff! What I can say is, that i'm about 90% there with one of my epic personal images, which is just one of a series and that i'll be attempting to post it here in the next few weeks... I can't say anymore than that, it's top secret! But a warning: People's eyes may explode upon seeing it... particularly if you are an 80's geek like myself... Whoops, said too much!

Nice New Illustrations!

So i've been a busy boy of recent, and i've been very fortunate these past few weeks to have got some of my best briefs of the year in through my inbox. Great briefs usually lead to the making of strong images in my case, and I think i've probably made my two best published illustrations of the year thus far in the past week.

Above is one of those illustrations, the AD at Nuts magazine just casually emailed me to see whether i'd ever drawn E.T as a hobo-like busker looking up in a rather sad way to a cancelled E.T 2 poster, first of all my answer was 'No I haven't drawn that before" secondly given my well-acknowledged love of films and particularly 80's films, it was a case of please let me draw this!

The illustration was to accompany a feature about blockbusters that never got made (E.T 2: Nocturnal Fears being the reference here) At the time I  got this brief I was already tied up with various other illustration jobs, including my other "best brief of the year" illo for another mag (more about that next month!) and I was concerned that I wouldn't have time to take this job.

As it turned out I was given a few more days than I usually get from Nuts, which has a tight weekly schedule, and I was able to work on this and four more jobs over the Bank Holiday period.

I left the sign bare, for the designers to fit the headline "22 Blockbusters that never were!" I've just seen this in print, and the illustration came out great... it's also a really good feature for any movie fan to read.

Big thanks to Barney, Nitish & Simon at the mag.... it's these kinds of jobs I live for!

Here's another one for Nuts, a full page illustration to run alongside an interview on British boxer Amir Khan.
This image is a homage to the Rocky 3 movie poster, again great for a film nut, and a Rocky fan like myself... i'm a big fan of the Rocky series, with Rocky 4 being one of my all-time fave films... in fact I think you can live your life by the teachings of that film!

I was asked to digitally paint this image, I dip my toe into the field of digital painting every now and then for the magazine, some images work better than others, this one came out great in print, because it allowed me to just concentrate on painting the flesh correctly. I enjoyed myself with this one!

Above is an illustration on the stands in the current issue of Top Gear magazine for an article about appropriate headwear while driving.

This is my second image for the title, I did a "blink and you'll miss it" spot illo in the previous magazine, it was such a thrill and honor to be asked to contribute to the mag, as i'm a fan of the show and had admired the mag from afar for it's use of illustration down the years.

The new Art Editor at the title Elliot is someone who i'd already had the pleasure of working with when he was at Empire mag, so it was lovely to get the opportunity to work with him again... he's one of those who knows his job inside out, also he knows how to commission illustrators; as he gives a good brief, enough time to let you draw it, and leaves you to get on with the job at hand. Can't ask for more than that! Really enjoy working with him... one day I'm hoping for a super detailed double page feature for the title....

This one is also very nice on the printed page!

That's it for now, more big jobs to come, and if I ever get around to finishing them, some epic personal works to put up here soon... you'll need to see them to believe 'em!

Satisfied Customers!

I've been threatening to put up snaps of some of the prints that have been sold over the last 12 months and their owners for a while, so here we go just a handful to get started.

The whole business of selling prints is not something I ever really entertained until last year, and it all came about after the 80's Last Supper kind of went crazy on the ol' interwebs, and I was getting several emails a day to ask if there was a print available.

Since then the selling of prints of has become a huge new avenue for my work, which has completely taken me by surprise!... and what a lovely surprise too, it's very flattering that people think enough of my images that they want to put them up in their homes and live with them.

Above is a snap of the lady that started it all off (my first customer I think..could be wrong!) this is Sara Miller from the US with the poster edition of the Last Supper print, below is her hubby with a Bill Murray print.

My biggest seller is the Last Supper giclee print, followed by the poster edition of that image, then it's the Bill Murray image, but I am now getting requests for other images like Robots and Aliens, which makes a sensational giclee print (see another post with that image!)

Above is fellow Brit Pete Robertshaw with a freshly unwrapped Last Supper giclee, as you can see he's given it the thumbs up.

Finally a framed image, here's a cute Bill Murray print which found a new home with David Ludwig of the good ol' United States. Lovely framing too, don't you think?!... very nice!

Here's a snap of the lovely Samantha Alondra Ortiz of California, who is now a proud new owner of an 80's Last Supper giclee print, here's a snap she took with her complimentary goody bag, which is something I send out to all giclee owners.

There's actually quite a growing number of people around the world now that own various prints... although the majority of my prints thus far it has to be said have been sold to California (they've got great taste!) I ask two things of these print owners, the first is to give the artwork a lovely new home secondly if they have time to send me a snap of either the artwork in it's new surroundings or themselves with the print.... so if you are an owner then please send me a snap, and i'll put it up here!

If you'd like to own your own print, then get in touch, my email can be found on my website under the new/about me section.

Stressful Times! Another Set of Recent Illos

So i've just come off another exhausting busy spell, which is why it's been quiet on this blog for a while, and hence this bumper posting of recent-ish illos.

I don't want to start on a negative, but this past couple of months i've been in the wars a bit with various clients and publishers. The worst job of which will not get an airing on this blog, as I was stitched up like a kipper with a client trying to do a complete u-turn on the brief once final artwork had been started... this is to say nothing of near non-existent deadlines, endless changes, i'll be honest at times even my cool composure has been tested.

Okay on with more positive stuff above is a job that I completed the other month for PC Pro magazine, the brief was for a full-page lead image of a slacker Microsoft Engineer and two small spot illustrations to go with (I haven't bothered posting these, they are pretty cool though) for an article about what if Apple and Steve Jobs hadn't been around to push Microsoft onwards.

This is the first time i'd worked for the magazine, the gig came about from the lovely Camille Neilson who you may remember from a previous post interviewed me for MacUser who phoned me up to see whether i'd be interested.

Now here's the thing I actually originally turned down this job, because I was in a particularly hectic period and had deadlines coming out of my ears with all manner of jobs, somehow and I haven't worked it out quite yet (Jedi mind trick maybe?!) but by the time i'd got off the phone Camille had me signed for these drawings.

Ha, like I say I'm not sure how she did it, as a flat "no" usually remains a "no" regardless of what title.

Still it was good to work with Camille who has a justifiably great reputation amongst illustrators, my only concern with the job was deadline, which was certainly long enough, however because of my roster of other jobs it meant that I only had 2 days to actually complete these illustrations... if i'd of had a day or two longer free, then the top image would have been super detailed with clutter.

Hopefully i'll get to make amends on future articles for the title!

Ahh, a tricky one! I got the brief to draw Steve Carrell as a magician sawing model Lucy Pinder in half for Nuts magazine, they sent me reference and I had a day and a half to draw it... As anyone who's read this blog will know, I've drawn a lot of things for the magazine over the past couple of years, and even though it's a weekly theses deadlines don't phase me.... this one however was a real tough one!

The reality is I kind of got this one wrong, they wanted something incredibly specific, a near black and white image, with deep shadows and light.. they'd sent me a photo of pretty much exactly what they wanted, but I believed this was purely reference and a jumping off point for my image.

What I originally sent them was the image above, but far, far more colourful and fanciful... now bearing in mind as previously stated i'd had scrape after scrape with designers and art directors just prior to this job all of them asking for ridiculous things in impossible timeframes, the reality was going into this job I wasn't in the best of moods or places.

So when I heard that the image i'd done would have to be completely stripped back to the image above, it's fair to say I wasn't in the best of moods.. in fact I all but exploded... I made the alterations, but admittedly had a rant, and spoke out of turn.

I was in the wrong to a certain extent in this case, i'd probably dragged over the baggage of other jobs into this one, the reality is the guys at Nuts have consistently given me great jobs and opportunities at the magazine, to say nothing of great art direction... these fellas 'cos they work on a weekly where the deadlines are the most hectic are as good as it comes in this field.

Okay some sex and fitness stuff for the recent issue of Women's Health magazine, Ha, I think i've got myself a reputation for this kind of stuff 'cos of the kama sutra stuff I do for Nuts.

This is another job that had it's ups and downs (so to to speak) there were two areas that caused problems; if you do info based work I think the AD or Editor then expects you to be an expert in whatever you are drawing... er.. No is the answer to that. One image that caused issue here was showing a step by step drawing of how to tie a person up.. i'll be honest with you not my field of expertise.

Another issue with this gig, was that they use a regular illustrator for the majority of their stuff, so have a defined look, it meant that I had to adjust my linework to essentially imitate another artist, something I would never usually do (and would never recommend doing!) but the other illustrator was away on maternity and I stepped up to help out.

I saw the illos in print yesterday and they came out great, and Emily who I worked with at the magazine despite being a real tough cookie when she needed to be was really nice to work with... a lesson can be learned by AD's from this young lady, if you are going to crack the whip with me, at least do it while being pleasant... given the stuff I drew for the magazine, pun was intended.

Finally one that was smooth sailing, a recent cover for Insurance Age, Iain at the magazine "gets" my work, and tries to give me enough time to operate within... can't ask for more than that!

This was an insurance sellers assault course, really fun job and a great client. 'Nuff said.

That's it for now, more coming soon!

Bill McConkey: The Man from Another Place!

Thought i'd do a quick round up of some of the jobs that have been published recently, above are some illustrations that have just been published by Empire magazine, they were actually drawn last year, but they got moved along to another date.

Originally these were going to be just a small inset of illustrations for a feature on the new Jack the Giant Slayer film, as you can see the idea was to draw film's most famous giants and put them in order of scale.

I've drawn a couple of these scale things before, and they've been relatively straightforward, however the problem with this one was that the differences in scale weren't gradual, they were huge, with Fezzik and Hagrid just being slightly bigger than a regular man and the very biggest giant being the one from Time Bandits measuring 200ft (so over 20 times bigger than the smallest giant!).. so we really did have an issue with scale on this!

It meant that the smaller giants would look absolutely tiny in comparison, just dots, if they'd have been printed in the tiny space they were going to be originally published. In the end it was decided to run the feature full page and crop the Time Bandits Giant, above you can see the original drawings and how they were printed.

Empire were doing a special feature on David Lynch a couple of magazines back and asked if i'd like to draw a black and white version of the backwards dance steps of the little fella from Twin Peaks, so I went from drawing Giants to little people!

Usually when i'm credited in a magazine, it reads; illustration by Bill McConkey, on this feature this is how I was credited as; "The Man from Another Place: Bill McConkey" I would imagine this is a reference to the little man (I don't know the films of Lynch too well) but I think it's also a good summation of myself too... probably also the name of my future autobiography.

Above is a cover I completed for Insurance Age, the AD there asked if I fancied doing something akin to a Where's Wally picture, perhaps I took him too literally as when I sent them a rough from an isometric viewpoint with about 100 figures on it, er.. I think they were a bit surprised to say the least.

But as soon as Where's Wally was mentioned, Rod Hunt's Where's Stig and the recent Where's Meercat books also came to mind, and they generally work from an isometric view.

It proved a little tricky convincing the AD and Editor that this was the way to go... proved even harder work trying to draw in this way... i'll think i'll leave this stuff to Rod Hunt and Martin Handford in the future!

Still I think the drawing is quite nice, I suggest a click on it to see some of the detail.

This was a rare old school Photoshop job for a Financial Director cover. I happened to drop into conversation to the Deputy Ed that I was twiddling my thumbs that day and didn't have any work on for the rest of the week, he promptly offered me a cover. Result!

Richard who commissions me for the title asked if I could draw this fella Byron Grote and various other influential FD's on Bank notes, originally we talked about making this a line drawing like my usual stuff, but well there was a time when I used to do all this photoshop tomfoolery with photographs and I thought if we wanted a realistic result we should make it look like real money, rather than a drawing of money, luckily Richard agreed.

I thought this job would be easy, a case of getting a snap of Byron, running a few filters and pasting him on to a £20 note... er, I was wrong... you se it turns out later copies of Photoshop and scanners know when money is being scanned in.. and they don't like it!

Anyway to cut a long story short I ended up making the note completely digitally, every line and cross hatch has been made by my hand, along with the hologram strip and watermark.. you can see the results of my efforts at the top, and below is the cover artwork, the bottom and top where all that blue gradiant are where the magazine title and main headline would be sitting.

Okay, that's another batch of jobs.. keep an eye out for my next post, some big ol' drawings are coming.. some real epics in the making!

MacUser Interview!

So just come off another busy spell, and crossed fingers i've got a break today, which gives me just enough time to sneak this little post in!

So at the end of last year I was approached by MacUser magazine, to appear in the pratik/portfolio section of the title, this for those not familiar with the magazine, this is where they run a five page interview about a creative professional.

I was delighted and more than a little honored to be asked, knowing that i'd be in the company of many great illustrators that had appeared in the title down the years.

The issue that my interview appears hit the shops on the Friday and will be on sale probably for another fortnight, so if you like my work, and want to know what makes me tick, then have a wonder to your nearest shops, or alternatively there are digital editions to be downloaded.

I'll post up the interview in it's entirety no doubt, once the title has been taken off the shelves, although I do recommend buying the mag, as it does showcase some of my better works, some making their debuts in a printed magazine (Last Supper, Robots & Aliens, etc)

Anyway big thanks to the lovely Camille at the mag for inviting me to take part, and for later offering me some very nice commissions! Always nice to get to work with new people and Art Directors who's work you've admired for some time!

Lots of new stuff to post up, which i'll put here once they've all seen print, so until then maybe get buying that magazine!

Goodbye 2012.. Hello 2013!

Okay, Okay... really should have done more posts throughout 2012, it was by far one of my busiest years to date, so to make amends here's a giant sized posting of just a fraction of the work I produced throughout the latter half of the year.

Above is a really rather nice cover illustration for Insurance Age... enjoyed myself with the textures on the 'run down' half of the image with this one.

Here is another IA cover, when I got the brief through, it's one of those that seemed impossible to illustrate, and it gave me a real headache this one, what with the composition, scale changes etc, it's been a few months since I completed the job, and now looking back I actually quite like this one, only thing I would change is the main guy's face, a bit too superhero/comic book looking for my liking.

A rare job for Men's Health, my only one in 2012 in fact, hopefully i'll have the opportunity to do more this year. This is a 'Pumping Iron' era Arnie workout... always fun to draw Arnie, I think i've drawn him more times than almost any other celebrity!

 This one was an incredibly quick turnaround job for Women's Health Australia. WH Aussie got in touch as they were rerunning a feature I had drawn for the UK edition (see the post in 2012) in order for it to cater more for the Australian market, they wanted one of their homegrown stars to be illustrated as an action figure like I had done for their British/US counterparts.

So I was commissioned to draw Chris Hemsworth as a Thor action figure, now this proved to be a bit stressful, the actual illustration was the easy bit, and was created over a weekend. What proved stressful was that I would be away from the studio for a couple of days as I had a long standing engagement in London attending the AOI Images Awards ceremony... to add to the confusion, there was also an Australian public holiday, the person that commissioned me was also on leave, and of course their is a considerable time difference between the UK and Australia, if you are not aware; it means when I was starting working at between 7/8 in the morning, it was the end of their working day down under.

Having said all the above, I think the illustration came out well, and of course I would love to do more drawings for the mag in 2013.

Here  are some info based spots for my friends at Empire, the first set of images are for a piece about the most unconventional weapons in films of that year.

The second set was to illustrate the steps of the dance craze the Sambolo, as seen in the movie Damsels in Distress... I can't tell you how many times I watched the youtube clips, in order to get this right!

So the fellas at Nuts mag kept me incredibly busy throughout 2012, Ha, this may be an understatement!
Above is an illustration celebrating 10 years of Top Gear, which was drawn in 3 days... it was a toughie, as I had this main one, 3 spot illustrations and my regular Kama Sutra illo to draw also for the title!

Illustration dealing with the dodgy dealings of the Premier League, the Art Ed Barney, suggested I change things up and maybe digitally paint this one... it wasn't without it's problem's this, as i've been drawing in line for so long, that it's hard to not think in those ways... still came out okay I think!

Bit more infographic stuff, this is actually a re-do of an image I did in 2011 (I think!) which is a scale chart of the world's largest Buildings, really enjoyed myself with this, I was able to make a far more cleaner drawing this time around!

I think this goes down as one of my fave drawings of the past 12 months, the AD at the mag Simon had the genius idea of creating a rather gory table that showed how long manager's kept their head running Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovic being illustrated as the executioner, with each manager having his head on a bloody wooden stump, a table was overlaid over the drawing, and the length of each stump shows how many months they stayed in the job.

Such a fun job, great concept, and it printed like a dream!

My now annual Christmas TV drawing for the magazine, left plenty of room for test at the top, this also was a stunner in print!

Here are some Santa spots also created for the Nuts TV section, these were actually drawn in one morning, I was completely shattered, after these and all the other jobs I was drawing at the same time! Christmas was more hectic than usual for me!

This was my final published illustration of 2012.. this one was also tricky, I think in my mind, i'd already gone on holiday, and this one came out of nowhere. This was an image for a feature about the 50 greatest comedy movies as voted by Nuts readers.

I should point out this isn't every job I did in the latter half of the year , just a selection... as you can imagine I was very tired, and I hope this goes some way to explaining why illustrations hae not been so forthcoming of recent.

What I can say about the upcoming year is this; 2013 officially marks a decade in the business, to celebrate I will be creating 10 projects to send out to current and prospective clients over the coming 12 months... these are going to be very exciting indeed, i'll not say too much now, but the first one is due for completion at the end of this month!