Lovely Faces

Thought I'd show everyone the last thing I worked on, seeing as now it's had its great unveiling:



A commission I did for an old school friend for her younger sister's 21st birthday (the birthday girl is featured in the front holding the family cat, Vinnie) - I'm told she liked it a lot, which makes me feel very happy indeed!

It represents my first forays into the world of 'Vector' art (used for the background/ luggage) and is probably the most detailed piece of work I have ever done! Great fun though. Hopefully there will be many more like this to come as I hone my portraiture skills - commissions taken ;)

Thank You Geniuses!

Ahoy-hoy!

Some of you may have missed me over recent weeks and been disappointed at my lamentable lack of posting. This was due to my laptop finally deciding to give up altogether and frying my hard-drive (hence deleting all recent work. Damn.) I took it to the Mac store in Covent Garden, expecting the worst, but came away jovial! Not only did the helpful chap replace my hard-drive with a new one twice the size, he gave me a brand new charger and a new casing as well! It was like a particularly gleeful episode of Animal Hospital. My 'little fella' had, indeed, made it.
Well, I'm back now and on track! Never fear! And I have some exciting things on the go which you no doubt can't wait to see...

On second thoughts, most of you probably didn't even notice I was gone.

Oh well, here is a piece I did a little while ago for Capture:Cure, a fundraising organisation who raise money for the fight against breast cancer. I entered this illustration into the 'Support' category - think it raised about £70 in the end!

'Phone a Friend'

Unfortunately, I did lose most of the make-up box design I had been working on, but I might put the linework up for you soon...

Now that's the cat's meow...

Today I've been designing some more make-up packaging, this time for a range of blushers. I've gone for a 1920's feel, and have had some great fun researching illustrators and fashions of the period. Looking at Marjorie Miller's work is like being fed melted chocolate:







Mmmmmmm, so delicious...

As I've also been reading some Agatha Christie recently (probably where the initial inspiration came from) I thought I'd also share with you these rather lovely book covers:





There are lots more lovely ones that I couldn't seem to find - I think this may be the illustration for another without the title/ author:

Jolly good stuff!

Mais Oui!

So, no blogging in a little while. This is because I have been swanning off again, as I am want to do - this time to the wonderful city of Paris... There was much coffee drinking, oohing and aahing at beautiful structures, and wistful humming of 'La Vie en Rose' to be had by all.

Attempts were made not to be a 'tourist', but walking around everywhere with your nose in a 'Time Out: Paris' guide book doesn't really give off the best impression. Yes, we did go up the Eiffel Tower (which is well worth the 7 euro fee) and after a probable 90 minute wait, some lovely man took this picture for us and it turned out quite well:



If anyone is planning to visit Paris in the near future, I would highly recommend the comic book store 'Album' which is located in the Latin Quarter on Boulevard Saint-Germain; there are 3 stores on the same junction, selling French graphic novels and art books, classic super-hero comics, figurines, posters and 'sketchbooks' full of character designs and roughs from famous graphic artists. I'd set aside a good amount of time to explore - there are plenty of other independent shops just like it in the same area and you'd be surprised how fast time can fly when you're in paradise!

www.album.fr

Check it out!

Also, note this scary face:

I Am Iron Man

Housewives favourite, Robert Downey Jr sketchdump. I like the bottom right one the best. How about you?

Who Hair? You Hair.

I woke up one morning and my hair looked like this. That is all.

Alright Darlin'?

Dizzee Rascal asks:

I know you're really busy and I know you've got plans,
But are you really too busy for a sun tan?

Thought I'd try my hand at portraiture - this is only my first one, so give me a chance tho' innit?

Why, Hello There!

So, you may not have seen me for a while. I would put this down to 'being very busy', which is in part true and in a more oh-lets-just-be-honest part, a bit of a fib!

Lots of news to report, as follows:

- I returned from a trip to The Big Apple inspired, informed and more than a little exhausted! (And plus one felted friend, pics to come...)

- I am now an official graduate of University College Falmouth

- My work is being exhibited right now at New Designers 2010 at the Business Design Centre in Islington. You can find out how to get tickets here:

http://www.newdesigners.com/page.cfm/Link=7/t=m/goSection=3

It really is worth going as there's some lovely work on show, both in Visual Communication and in the Product/ 3D Design fields. It's amazing, truly innovative stuff. If you get a chance, I would recommend you go and see this guy in the 'Multimedia' section :

http://gsinnott.kaen.org

Play around on the 'Idiron AV', a program that combines music and animation with an amazingly complex level of interaction. Both the PC program, and development as an ipod 'App', allow the user to manipulate different layers of the music which in turn cause the synced animation to 'react' appropriately. Watching Gilbert operate the Idiron AV at the private view last night was not dissimilar to watching the 'mad scientist' in a 1940s sci-fi film demonstrate his latest, unnecessarily complicated invention. I wondered whether your 'Average Joe' might spend more time working out how to use the damn thing than the creator spent developing the software in the first place! Still, the effect is both mesmerizing and also soul-destroying, as you soon realise you will never be this bloody clever.

Achilles and Ajax

As the title suggests, Achilles and Ajax sitting down to a nice refreshing Frappuccino whilst discussing their new business venture. Or looking at Youtube videos, it's your choice really...



A play on the traditional image of Achilles and Ajax playing chess under the walls of Troy.

If volcanic ash or car bombs weren't going to stop us, you could bet BA strikes would! Yep, we were supposed to be jetting off to New York this week, but it looks like trip 13 just wasn't meant to be... Instead, for your optical delights (and to maintain my sanity), here are some pictures what I did.



Number One: Odysseus tied to the mast, being tempted by three sirens - green tea, pomegranate and tangerine frappuccinos...

Aargh Chaos!!

This is what my desk looks like at the moment:

Note the many coffee cups. Ringing New York publishers is going well - haven't really had any success per say, but I'd say being physically coherent is a start!

In other news, this website has a lot of lovely designs on it:

http://www.typejockeys.com/

'Beverage of the Gods'

So, I wanted to draw some greek gods and godesses but unsure of how I could shoe-horn it into a project... My clever friend suggested I use these characters to advertise for Starbucks - point of display posters, coffee packaging, the Starbucks card etc. So below is a little tryout of the idea. Yes, I know she only has one earring and yes, I know her right arm looks a little bit weird.

Hermes with takeaway cups to come! Possibly...

Actually, I think I prefer the original lineart.

Quote!

'The Devil makes work for idle hands'.

Quite ironic, when I think about how long I've been working on this. But finally it is finished! Well, maybe not... Any comments would be greatly appreciated, especially about the colour/ contrast, and provided they are made within the next few hours! Note the painstakingly designed wallpaper, which despite driving me nuts was in fact very satisfying. Probably more to come...

Lets get Conceptual ;)

Here are some editorial solutions on various subjects. I tried to keep them all to a similar style, focussing on shape and colour. I'm quite proud of them, especially my dolls house which ended up being more difficult to construct than I'd first expected... in the future I may once again foray into the exciting territory of line!



Illustration for the Guardian article 'How many Facebook friends is too many?' Apparently the answer is 151.



This article ('Homeward Bound' - also from the Guardian) centered around a particular womans worries and doubts about moving with her new family into the house she grew up in.



This image is an attempt to represent 'Phantom Limb Syndrome', whereby a an individual who has suffered the amputation of a limb still feels pain in that area. The New Scientist article 'The Phantom Promise' alluded to a new technique for treating this problem, by psychologically 'rewiring' the brain. I had quite a lot of trouble with this one, but hopefully it gets the main point across.

Mmmmm sushi...

A little idea for those of us that don't have unlimited back balances which allow us to regularly dine at posh London Sushi restaurants - DIY sushi! In the real world the tray at the bottom of this box would contain some rather small chopsticks, a cloth napkin and a ceramic wasabi dish.









Each recipe card takes you through how to make a particular type of roll (Uramaki, California etc) and and would be printed with a wipe-clean coating; to complete this project I had to take reference photos and things got rather messy...

Well, hello.

It's a shame that Boots own products don't have lovely boxes like Too Faced and Benefit. I love boxes.

For my first trick, I will be creating some speculative make-up packaging for Boots '17' range. The colour schemes are 'Metallic Toffee', 'Mermaid's Tale' and 'Purple Heart' (my personal favourite, of course). As you can see, the sleeves can be removed to reveal some lovely little cut-outs so that one may view the sumptuous product hidden inside...

This was a bit of a photoshop fumble which luckily didn't end too badly. I have yet to master the wonders of Illustrator which will hopefully result in lovely clean lines instead of slightly botched hand drawn ones.