CD Artwork

Some pieces of artwork done for a series of customisable Nursery Rhyme CDs, minus the titles and credits and wotnot.

Random artwork

Thought it was about darn time I uploaded some more artwork, so here goes! The 'Psychic Guy' was done in Painter, as was the 'Judaism' image (trying some 'oils' there). The bloke with a coat of beards was drawn in Flash, and the bottom image was a combination of drawing in Painter and finishing touches done in Photoshop.

NY Bar

A chalk 'clone' (though hand painted) of a black and white photo taken by my friend and recent best man Gareth Coles, of a bar in Noo Yoik.

Horror Comic progress

I've been working up the rough for the comic cover - it's definitely getting there now that I've added colour to it, but I think I need to perhaps go back to the rough and clean it up properly, as I've just been 'adding' to it up 'til now. Either that or I might start on new cover idea - we'll see!

I roughed out the pose with 2B pencils, and have been adding colour using acrylics captured bristle in Painter X, though with the halftone effect being a bit too big, you can't really tell - and I liked the look of the brush strokes, so will have to experiment with that!

Butch Hairdresser

Quick sketch I had to do for a 'Top Trumps' type game, where one side of the card would just be a close up of the character's face, flip it over and you see the rest of the figure/the props too - the idea being that it fights your assumption about what kind of person you're looking at, what their job might be, etc based on their appearance alone.

It was fun!

There he is! Get 'im!!

Long time no post! Just a quick recent illo done in Painter. Again, deadlines were tight so I new going in I was gonna use a coloured canvas for this one - the rest of it is a subtle digital watercolour wash for the tones, and the main line art was done using a solid black 'scratchboard tool' pen.

The lines are quite varied in thickness, achieved by having the size of the brush be quite big, but using a light touch with the wacom where I could. There wasn't as much undoing and re-drawing as I thought there would be (my fingers are normally sitting on CTRL+Z) when doing the quick lines - I like to keep it looking fresh, but obviously taking advantage of the fact that I'm not drawing with real ink to keep redoing lines until I'm satisfied!

Ah, technology. At this rate I'll never learn the proper craft of inking...

Horror Comic 2

So, not a sequel or anything, just the next phase of my old-style horror comic cover!

As you can see, no further progress on the actual artwork as of yet, but the details surrounding the cover are now complete. Future cover art can be swiftly inserted 'underneath' the various rips, creases and titles adorning this fantabulous facade, so as soon as I get a wriggle on I'll be able to show you more 'issues'!

The layout of the comic was done in Photoshop, but the artwork will be created in Painter. If there are any effects to do, though, they'll be done in Photoshop too.

Loyalty Cards

I recently had to create some fake coffee house loyalty cards, which were to be printed out onto card and used in some live action filming by proper actors and everything! Designing stuff like this isn't what I usually do on a day to day basis, but it was fun to have some general guidelines about what was needed but still have free reign to come up with whatever I wanted!

I also had to make fake architectural design sketches, travel agent window posters, and yet another coffee house loyalty card (I called that one 'The Beanery').

A recommended book for some nice, general design principles is 'The Non-Designer's Design Book' by Robin Williams (no, not him) - really easy to read, and some solid principles that can only help with general artwork and design creation - check it out!

I Thor-t it was you

Well, 'Thunor', apparently is the Norse God of storms and thunder. Aka 'Thor', methinks. Anyway, same project as last time, this! Again, a pretty quick illo (say about 15 to 20 mins all told?), and a nice layout that I'm really happy with!

Doing these illos really took me back to drawing and sketching in a comic book style, which is pretty much all I did illustration-wise whilst I was in high school - 'How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way' was my bible back then! Though to give credit where it's due, this style of drawing, as well as being a dynamic 'Marvel-esque' pose, really owes a lot to a book called 'Action! Cartooning' by Ben Caldwell. It's improved my anatomy (my drawn anatomy, that is) and styling no end. Well worth adding to your shelf. Check it out!

Ye Gods!

A recent project had me 'illustrating the days of the week', most of which are derived from the names of various Norse Gods. Anyway, above is 'Woden', and, though it's quite a simple drawing, I really like the composition of it. It came pretty quickly, as a lot of satisfying illos often do!

Done in Flash 8 with a Wacom tablet.

(No prizes for guessing the day named after this guy.)

Painter Styles

There wasn't a lot of time to do 10 illustrations for this particular project, so before going in I had a rougher finish in mind using coloured paper (so I could add colour to what needed it and leave the rest without it looking unfinished).

I chose a tan colour as most of the action was going to take place in the desert. I also had to convey quite a lot of text with one image (not quite a thousand words, but close enough!) and found myself choosing quite cinematic angles. (A handy reference was 'Wally Wood's 22 panels That Always Work!!', which can be found here:

http://joeljohnson.com/archives/2006/08/wally_woods_22.html

These illos were done using the 2B pencil and Digital Watercolor brushes. Thinking about it I wish I'd given the paper some funky rough texture. Next time!

Horror Comic Cover

I love old EC horror comics - some fantastic stories and artwork, check them out if you haven't already! Anyway, I came across some Painter/Photoshop tutorials to illustrate and give an aged look to a comic cover, so I fancied giving it a whirl.

It's at the rough stage at the moment, and the aging effect isn't finished all the way round, but I like the way it's looking already, I hafta say! Some of the aged effects are painted on, some are scanned in from covers found on the net. Some nifty fonts really add some punch to the cover too, so I can't wait to see this finished.

I wasn't sure about the title 'Putrid Potboilers' at first, but it's grown on me now. It also needs other details like issue number, price, etc - anyway, more updates as it comes along! If it's successful there could be a whole series of them soon

Train Ride

An illustration for a History Books project - this particular page needed a train cab from the late 40s / early 50s.
There's some more detail in this one, as requested by the clients - but I've tried to strike a balance between suggesting everything and painstakingly depicting everything. I tried instead to give an overall feel of detail by including some in appropriate places, and hoping it all adds up to a satisfying image.

Pilate

The things you have to do, eh? I was working on a series of presentations involving 'hands' and needed to find a copyright-free image of Pilate washing his hands of responsibility - or something. Anyway, could I find one? Well, no. So I had to rustle up a quick illustration using Painter, and here it is!

I'm pretty pleased with it - I like the general tone and colours, though I think it needs some extra bits of detail here and there. I used oil pastels and the 2B pencil (and some graduated fills).

All in a day's work! (Well, about an hour or so).

First post!

Well here we go, my first post to my new blog! I've chosen a piece I'm currently working on in my day job as a designer and illustrator. It's for a series of books telling recent significant events in history (first car to the town, huge storms and snowfalls, that sort of thing). Anyway, I did it all in Corel Painter X on a Wacom tablet (as is most of my stuff these days), and is the first time I've illustrated anything like this - it's come out pretty well, methinks!

Any comments welcome, more stuff to follow soon!