Print Week Cover

A few weeks ago, a cover image commission came through from the good people at Print Week. The brief was quite specific requiring a character to be depicted receiving a huge amount of information in one go. So the Art Director and I came up with the approach of using one of my (simplified) stylised portraits and intertwining with an almost Info-Graphics approach as to how the information is presented to the figure. Two colour ways were rendered, one for the cover and a 'blue sky' variant for the double page spread in the magazine. I really enjoyed this image as it allowed my to branch out a little with a more graphic and simplified answer to the problem.

Radio Times Easter Livery

I recently completed a really interesting commission for the Radio Times to design the livery pages for Good Friday, Easter Day and Easter Monday. Also required were three decorative Easter eggs to be used for an Easter Egg hunt within the magazine itself. The format set for these images make it a unique proposition when planning the artwork. The illustration has to work within a landscape strip format which will be tightly cropped when printed, it has to sit in-between the typography present and have a starting point of the RT colour coded background. So before pencil is even applied to paper there are set of constraints to adhere to which add to the challenge.

A theme of 'family' was discussed, possibly the idea of 'returning home' - so I set about combining the idea of a pair of birds (roughly based on green woodpeckers) traveling through the first two images, to arrive at a nest in the third, combined with references for the relative subject of each day. After the overall concept was approved, I set about sketching out rough after rough until the designs took shape.

Good Friday was the first image sketched out - working around a strong sunrise in the centre and gathering storm clouds above the crosses on the lhs, balanced with the birds in silhouette crossing the scene on the rhs.

Easter Day shows the birds closer up, flying to their nest and passing over a bright spring landscape with a selection of spring flowers to their nest.

Easter Monday shows the birds closer still with the chicks in the nest having recently hatched. 

Although the three images look relatively simple in composition, the number of roughs to get to this stage were many - re-draw after re-draw playing with the character scale and placement, and how the negative space envelopes around each item in the composition. Once roughs were approved, the finished images were rendered in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, most of the construction work initially completed in Illustrator, with mood and atmosphere added in PS.

Despite the challenge of the format and the many hours spent refining the designs, this was a cracking commission from start to finish - love the challenge of the tight format! If you want to check out the printed images, the Radio Times Easter edition is out today.

Shown are close ups of the three original images as rendered with the full bleed. At least 8mm off the top and bottom will be lost when cropped for print as can be seen in the two proofs, so a very tight design is required to fit the space.

Radio Times: Terry Pratchett's Eric

A challenging commission came through for the Radio Times last week. Terry Pratchett's "Eric". An interesting story with lots of references to the Classics (from Faust to the Odyssey) + ancient civilisations, and a humorous take on the be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale!

Entering into Terry Pratchett's world is always a rich visual challenge, especially with the strong covers designed by Josh Kirby and Paul Kidby. I wanted to be as far removed from their work as possible so I tried to keep my design graphically simple but still retain a strong brooding atmosphere, with key references to the main elements of the book. Great fun depicting the Trojan Horse, pyramid and the talking parrot! Again as in the last RT piece, for speed and efficiency the image was almost entirely created in Adobe Illustrator with a tiny bit of tweaking in Photoshop. Out on newsstands today.

From the BBC synopsis: "BBC Radio 4 returns to Discworld, where Mark Heap stars as Junior Wizard Rincewind, who is attempting to escape the Dungeon Dimensions. And the Demon King of Hell. Oh, and a parrot. Terry Pratchett's many Discworld novels combine a technicolour imagination with a razor sharp wit. Also featuring Will Howard as Eric, Geoffrey Whitehead as Death, Robert Blythe as Archchancellor and Rick Warden as the Narrator. Director/Jonquil Panting for the BBC"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r0zb9

Radio Times Christmas Edition: Barber of Seville

A lovely job came through for the Radio Times last week. Stimulating subject matter in the name of the opera The Barber of Seville. I concentrated on the theme of the barber (Figaro) guiding Rosini and The Count to eventual happiness, having fun playing with the glasses and scissors to represent the barbers profession and the divide between the two leads. As the deadline was quite tight, for speed and efficiency the image was almost entirely created in Adobe Illustrator, with final tweaking completed in Photoshop. This seems to be my increasingly employed working practice where APS simply becomes a finishing tool and AI is used to build the skeleton of the image. A really enjoyable project from start to finish.

"Tony Award-Winning Broadway Director Bartlett Sher scored a hit with his first opera-this Met production of Rossini's Barber of Seville. His Looney Tunes-inspired staging was to prove as sharp as barber Figaro's razor. Russian baritone Rodion Pogossov is the wily Mr Fix-it here and the hilarious pre-marital upheavals of Count Almaviva and his bride to be Rossina are explored with vocal freshness by tenor Alek Shrader and contralto Isabel Leonard."

"Images 36: The Best of British Illustration 2012"

The latest copy of Images 36 has been sat on my drawing board for a few weeks now and I've just not got around to posting a photo of the image in this years annual. This illustration completed for the Radio Times was selected to go to print out of three other pieces and here it is on the page. The full write up and a little background info on the commission can be seen here in an older post.

Finishing Report Cover

Here's an interesting job I did a couple of months ago and have been meaning post on here and I've only just got around to it. A commission for a printing magazine where they wanted to show the key different finishing processes used in print binding. As a theme the client requested the following anthropomorphic figures: Stitch, Glue, Cut and Fold Figures to be depicted simply, but ascending a staircase. A really interesting challenge in having to design the figures and how they fit in with each on the staircase. A couple of different colourways and the printed image shown. 

Radio Times: Old Harry's Game

Delighted to have recently worked on a Radio Times commission for the Radio 4 series "Old Harry's Game". Written by Andy Hamilton. 


"This two-part special inspired by the unavoidable and almost upon-us Olympic Games. Satan (the devilishly good Andy Hamilton) has seen it all before, ever since 776BC to be precise. Fellow inmate Edith (Annette Crosbie) the historian who who apparently committed suicide while watching Midsummer Murders, is delighted by the prospect. Satan has no choice but to correct her rose tinted view and carts her off to meet the Ancient Greek Olympics committee. They are all in hell, and we soon understand why. (lets hope the same same fate does not await Sebastian Coe). Next week's edition returns the wretched underworld losers to 2012. Satan agrees to take Edith to the London Olympics, but its more a case of going for Gehenna than Gold."


Great fun to revisit this character again for Old Harry's Game. To be broadcast Thursday 12th July. Can be seen in the current edition of the Radio Times, out on newsstands today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/oldharrysgame/

Also featured on the LCS News section: Little Chimp Society Illustration News....

Happy 350th Birthday Mr Punch

A blast from my past with Punch and cohorts coming to news attention again as he celebrates a big birthday.

Its a few years since I worked on a Mr Punch image, but seeing the article on the BBC website (by Tim Masters) made me want to revisit the character again. Will see what time allows for a little playful reworking perhaps. Fascinating to read up about Punch on the BBC site and amazing to think that the character has been around for 350 years.

I remember visiting the British Toy and Model Museum at the time of this job and having a good look at some of the vintage props they had from various puppet shows. They were really helpful when I outlined why I was researching Punch and by appointment I was able to see and handle the puppets. I remember them being a little fragile, tired and a little passed their best due to heavy use and wear - exactly how they should be. When I designed the image for the stamps I leant away from the sinister side of Punch, making him softer in character and thought what would he look like when fresh out of the box.

Once all of the sketches were approved I remember painting this image on a tiny A4 watercolour artboard on my Grandad's kitchen table as that was temporary studio at the time - I was staying with him before I moved to London. Not only was this commission one of my all time favourites, it also remains one of my fondest memories too, as my Grandfather and I discussed the creative process when I was going through the ups and downs of the job. He witnessed the progress from initial rough sketches, revised detailed drawings and of course through the finished artwork stages. That memory means everything to me now.

BBC Entertainment & Arts

Apple Mac G5 Update

Apologies in advance for this indulgent post - incorporating high levels of Mac tech info! But, If you are a creative bod who runs an old Mac day in day out for work, the following may be of use to eek out as much performance as possible from your old box of sparks.

I have two Macs: An old 2005 G5 (Non Intel, Power PC 2.5 Quad Core) for rendering images and an Intel MacBook for email comms, net surfing and general family use. Both are synced with Apple's MobileMe. With the imminent closure of MobileMe and the move to iCloud this June signals the end of Apple sync support for older Macs. What to do?

New Mac Pro / iMac updates were expected at WWDC this June, I had planned to replace the Mac G5 with the latest Mac Pro when announced. Very disappointed with Apple's derisory upgrade. After a direct email to Tim Cook from a disgruntled Mac Pro user (not me!), Apple's new CEO replied publicly and made the unprecedented announcement (for Apple) that they are working on a Pro machine for 2013. Faith restored for Apple's long term users, but no new Mac Pro for me just yet, I'll wait. Time to refresh the G5 while keeping to a modest budget and explore alternative syncing approaches, so buying a bit of time to see what Apple do next…

http://www.macworld.com/article/1167247/cook_apple_planning_professional_mac_for_2013.html

At launch the 2.5 Quad Core G5 was a potent bit of kit, but things have moved on in the last seven years:

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP37

Current Spec: 8 GB RAM. Two internal HDD Drives. First for OSX, Apps and Work Files. Second partitioned, one section as a Photoshop Scratch Disc, the second for back up. Both drives almost full with only a couple of GB to spare, so performance of the G5 was slow to say the least, and crashed pretty regularly. Decided to rebuild from the ground up, and after much net trawling a plan materialised...

Preparation

1.First step was to ruthlessly delete space hogging files - reference for old commissions, alternative illustration versions, scanned sketches etc. Literally, GB's of data deleted. A cracking little app for the purpose: 

http://www.daisydiskapp.com/

2. All of the applications that I'd tried as a demo, and never bothered deleting were trashed. Again, GB's of space reclaimed. Another handy app: 

http://appzapper.com/

3. The next stage was to pinpoint the work files regularly used (textures, backgrounds etc etc) and which little used files could be archived.This gave me an idea as to how much hard disc space I had to play with for when setting up the drives.
4. Before any further changes were implemented everything was backed up to three external drives. Two drives mirrored and bootable, one just another copy of work files.

The Kit

5. Matched pair 4 GB new RAM bought, giving a total of 12 GB.

http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/product_info.php?products_id=330

http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/powermac_g5/

6. A Solid State Drive (SSD) ordered. A low-ish capacity 120GB unit, to be used as the OSX boot drive. Not the fastest 6G available as it has to be back compatible with SATA1 transfer speeds. So a 3G SSD it was. Still a significant improvement over a mechanical drive!

http://www.macsales.com/

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce/Solid_State_Pro/

7. Internal Drives configured: Drive 1 SSD 120GB (smallest capacity) now only holds OSX Leopard 10.5.8, accompanied by essential Apps, and the current working illustration file. Drive 2 HDD 500 GB (largest capacity) partitioned into two: 75GB for a Photoshop Scratch Disc. The remainder 425GB for work files alone. No internal backup this time round. 

8. An eSATA PCI Express card added to one of the spare PCI Express slots to speed up data transfer / write speed to the two external backup LaCie D2 Quadra Drives. The third LaCie connected via a Firewire 800 port.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e2p.html

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10330

9. Then, both internal drives were backed up to the LaCie's. I tend not to use Apple's Time Machine as it does not support a bootable backup.Two helpful backup apps...

http://www.bombich.com/

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

10. I Installed Dropbox, Evernote and Syncmate. Three superb pieces of software that help with the communication between both Macs and overcome the syncing chasm left by the closure of MobilMe...

https://www.dropbox.com/

http://evernote.com/

http://mac.eltima.com/sync-mac.html

And there we have it. The outlay? Around £235 / $350 (inc tax & courier delivery). A relatively modest sum compared to a new Mac, which bought me a significantly snappier, refreshed box of G5 tricks. The result - Is it a new Mac? No, but its enough of an improvement to wish I'd employed these upgrades much much sooner.

The results by breakdown, not benchmark figures I hasten to add, just an everyday working perception as to how the workhorse Mac feels in use…

1. RAM: Noticeable difference, quicker application switching and less spinning beach ball of doom when waiting for rendering effects in Photoshop. Machine now much happier with multiple apps open at the same time.

2. eSATA PCI Express Card: Significantly improved write speeds to the external LaCie drives. Makes using them for storing often used resources (textures etc) viable, rather than just archive backup.

3. Drive Configuration: Using two separate drives for OSX and working files helped make the launch of apps snappier and sharper. 

4. SSD Drive: The best till last. Would I go back to HDD? No ! Some run times…

	HDD	SSD
Bootup	1.05 min / sec	0.45 min / sec
Photoshop Launch	0.15 min / sec	0.5 min / sec
Photoshop Open 1.85GB File	2.55 min / sec	2.10 min / sec

Overall I'd say that the Mac feels about 20% sharper than before. Well worth the outlay and buys me some thinking time while Apple sorts out the next Mac Pro.

Hope you find the post interesting - and congratulations if you have got this far without the use of smelling salts :-)  

Little Chimp Society News Featured

EDIT: A twenty stage step by step process showing how the Radio Times image was rendered is now availalbe on the Beehance Network.


I'm very pleased to report that the guys over at The Little Chimp Society have kindly featured one of my latest projects on their excellent Illustration website. LCS is one of the best websites on the net to receive the latest news about Illustrators and their work. Well worth visiting the site. Similarly to Illustration Age, they tirelessly showcase work from artists across the planet.

The image was completed recently for the Radio Times and is published in this weeks Jubilee edition. You can see the article here at LCS: Radio Times Illustration: People Don't Do Such Things. 

A further, more detailed write up including a step by step guide as to how the image was rendered will be published at a later date on my Behance Folio.