Heres a quick editorial opener & spot for triathletes world. Unfortunately the time and budget to do this one was pretty tight which made it a nice challenge.

The editorial is about drafting and I pictured it with the lead rider doing more work and carving/creating the way for the following riders. Originally I wanted to do a ‘paint coming off’ the lead rider kinda effect but time didn’t allow so I hinted it as much as I could. Heres the two spreads -

Followed by my linework which didn’t really change from start to finish except for minor fixes to anatomy (click to enlarge) -

And a larger of the final (click to enlarge) -

I always find it tough with jobs like this where the potential is high but time, budget or other priorities overtake the job. In fact the biggest lesson I have probably taken in over the years is to swallow your pride & expectations sometimes and move on.

Happy new years ^.^

My bad with the lack of posts.. I’ve been locked down on a couple of big big jobs and will probably won’t post again until early jan but thought I’d throw this DVD cover up.

Here’s a quick pic (click to enlarge) of the final DVD to start it off - McLaren ‘Trio at the top’ DVD series; Also thanks to Andrew B White and McLaren for the job. The DVD, booklet and disc all were designed and art directed by Andrew B White Design Associates - nice job guys!

This illo’s art direction was a tad off my normal more natural style. I was requested to ‘solid’ it up - black black’s, sharp contrasts and a general ‘hard racing style’.

As much as jobs like this often feel threatening to me as its not so natural to me style wise, I really wanted to try out some new techniques and alike. With all this in mind, a good composition goes along way and in this case I think made it a lot better from the get go.

Here’s my original mid-revisions linework:

As you can see its nothing that complex, but holds a lot of the key elements required for the topic at hand. At this point I started trying to work out how to develop the illo colour wise, and decided some hard acrylic brushwork would pull off the style pretty well. I printed this out larger and roughly painted the entire illo with acrylics on a heavy paper, scanned and filled.

Colour with something like this is what I struggle at the most I believe. My palette is and has always been quite an ‘off-beat candy spend hours trying to find an unusual colour’, but in this case I awkwardly selected quite ‘normal’ colours. Some photoshop solids, post fx and numerous hours of tweaking the faces with the client and we arrived here:

I’m really not sure how it arrived here as I felt lost within the illo for all the colour process but thankfully as mentioned earlier I believe the composition brought the illo through. Even funnier was receiving the DVD in person…. I’m sure most creatives can relate with the feeling of something at its final stage after hours of work, feels average, detached and almost not yours…. only until you look at it months later does the relation of making it and its usage sink in.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable xmas/new years/holiday. I’ll be back with some really nice long-term work early next year. A

Here is a recent illustration I did for OUT about an interesting new book called ‘Single Man’. Nick Vogelson who was art directing the job was interested in doing something similar the small personal book I made here. This approach was perfect for the article and feel of the book itself which revolved around a mans struggle with his art due to the complexity of life and relationships.

After reading the editorial I settled on a good scene which Nick originally suggested of an older man with one of his students skinny dipping nude after a drunken encounter.
I did a quick sketch and just went straight into painting it with no real colour preference. I actually painted it in a near opposite palette to that of the final and achieved the final colours by using photoshops channels and colour controls. Also I ‘filled out’ alot of the paint to get it a little more stronger.

(Click to enlarge)

Also it’s always a treat to be given the spread with all the bits and pieces in place. Nick supplied this before even starting a sketch which made the composition/layout of the illustration a smoother process.

On a side note, wow its great to use paints again. Over the last few months I haven’t had to many opportunities to paint even in small scale with the jobs at hand and it was extremely refreshing/inspiring.

The monthly Q illustration arrives again.This month John Nivens plays live with his band The Whoredogs along with Glastonbury superstars James Dean Bradfield (Manic Street Preachers) and Guy Garvey (Elbow). The live performance is for Emily Eavis (bride and organizer of Glastonbury festival) and her wedding reception at Glastonbury itself.

Heres my linework:

A rather busy illustration with quite a few requirements but I was rather happy with the composition for the time and moved onto producing the final below (click to enlarge):

Also I recently completed these super quick portraits for a pitch and thought I’d throw them up as they are quite fun.

Raged:

Joy:

Raged:

15-30mins each using some crayons possibly from my kindergarten days.

A