Miliband and Cameron for The Week

This cover has just hit the shelves, here are a few pics of the process. First off, I get the call with the idea for the picture, which is to have Ed Miliband and David Cameron as sad clowns (a reference to what the Tories mainly have been saying about UKIP). Sounded right up my street so I quickly drew up a rough sketch. They hadn't specified a particular background, so I was thinking I'd probably do a circus curtain and have the two figures in spotlight, so I could have a nice circular shape behind them which would make a nice composition:

I also added a banner floating to the floor behind them with a reference to the local government elections which was the core of the story. That all went down well, so I carried on with a colour rough:

I tried a few colour ideas, none of which a liked much, then I hit on the idea of using purple (UKIP's colour) as the main background. I blocked it in very roughly (there's no suggestion of the circus curtain which would have gone in). That didn't go down well! They didn't like the purple at all, and now wanted a circus ring background instead. Which I was excited to do, but I still wanted to keep the spotlight idea in it, so I did that - but the circle composition got lost pretty much. Still, the final illustration looks OK I think:

You'll notice that Cameron's mouth and chin have changed a lot - I used a reference photo that had him literally frowning, but that hurt the likeness as he has a distinctive chin shape and wide cheeks. I was asked to make him more 'Cameron like', so I adjusted the lower face and toned down the make up just to be safe. I think I really need to spend a bit longer getting the caricatures themselves much stronger at the sketch stage as I think both could be a lot better. That's the pressure though, as you really want to get a sketch back to the magazine team fast so you can get the A-OK to carry on. It's a learning experience for me that's for sure, and I'm loving it :)

A few recent gift jobs - spot the celebs..!

Here are a few more recent gift jobs - a couple of which had a famous person squeezed into the background :)

2 Broke Girls

Quick colour sketch of Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs of 2 Broke Girls fame - great show :)

Digital drawings and sketchings...

Sir Patrick Moore for The Skeptic Magazine

The Week cover illustration

To say I'm happy to have had the chance to do this job would be an understatement! Front cover of a magazine like The Week was something I thought I may have a chance to do, in the future, maybe... but here we are and here it is. It was a lot of fun and I really hope I get the chance to do more.

Here are the stages of the job, rough sketch, colour sketch and final - at each stage I got great direction to improve the picture and to make it work as a cover which was a really great learning experience.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock

I've made a few feeble attempts to caricature this guy before, this is the first time I'm happy with the result! Planning to paint this traditionally, but I couldn't stop myself doing a fully finished digital painting first!

Here's a close up look:

A couple of illustrations for the WSJ

Here are a couple of pieces done for The Wall Street Journal, the first one of the pianist was tough as I had a day to do it and the reference photos I could find were pretty poor quality. They wanted the guy playing the piano expressively. Did my best!

The second one was less pressured for time and had much better reference photos - the building (it's a museum in Massachusetts, USA) was a bit of a nightmare but ended up looking ok.

New Four Horsemen t-shirt design for 2013

Here's a new t-shirt design of the group of vocal atheists dubbed the 'Four Horsemen', this time in the style of the famous Julian Opie Blur illustration. The last one I did which was based on The Beatles Abbey Road album cover was a big success, so I thought I'd think of some more ideas along the same lines!

Click here to buy the t-shirt!

The Skeptic Magazine - Jane Goldman

Very pleased to be able to illustration a woman for the cover of The Skeptic Magazine this time, hopefully there will be many more to follow in the future. Had a blast doing this, doesn't hurt that (as anyone who knows me will tell you) I have a big thing for redheads :P

I know Jane Goldman for her film writing and producing (and for being the wife of Jonathan Ross), but wasn't aware of her links with the skeptical side of things. The interview in the magazine is really interesting.

The items she is levitating are all related to her career in some way.

Happy New Year!

Well, time to get back to work after a brilliant Xmas break - as well as eating and drinking too much I've been doing a lot of work on the house, so there haven't been any posts for a while! Here is a selection of recent gift caricature commissions just to kick of 2013 ;)

"I'm not f**king Justin Beiber you motherf**kers!" - Billie Joe painting finished!

All done finally with this painting now, very happy with how it turned out. First off, this is entirely inspired by Sebastian Kruger, unashamedly so - the guy always has been an inspiration to my work, and always sets the standard that (in my dreams) I want to achieve. In doing this, I've roughly followed the steps he takes in the hope of learning something. I think I have, and I started to get an idea of techniques I might want to pursue in searching for my own style.

Here is a sequence of pics showing pretty much the whole thing start to finish:

This one show a couple of detail areas at the early block in stage and at the finished stage:

And here's a couple of me with the painting - it's a good size!

Oh, and the post title - Google it and you'll find Billie Joe doing a proper rockstar rant on stage and I just had to use that line for the title of the painting ;)

Black & white illustration

Here's a couple of pen & ink style caricature illustrations I did recently for a job, it was nice to do some work in this style for a change.

Working on a new large canvas...

This one is a subject I've done a large painting of before - Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day! A couple of days of painting and this is where it is:

There's a ton of work to do yet of course, but I'm really happy with how it looks so far and I'm really enjoying it which is nice. I'm trying out a Kruger-style look and process to see how it works for me and so far so good. I'll post photos of the stages once it's done :)

Prof. Daniel C. Dennett for The Skeptic Magazine

This is the latest cover I've done for The Skeptic Magazine - a simpler idea than some of my previous covers! It's of Prof. Daniel C. Dennett - he's written some really excellent books, check 'em out if you can :)

Step by step painting: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I haven't done a large acrylic painting for ages and as I have a bit of space now in my office/studio room I thought it was about time I did one! I've wanted to do a picture of Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander for a while (since seeing the David Fincher version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and so I got a canvas (150cm x 100cm) and planned what I was going to do. Here's the scary big white canvas:

There was a shot in the film I wanted to paint that had her sat in profile, similar to the image used for many of the film's posters - once I'd collected the reference I was ready to start:

After painting a solid light blue/grey background I painted on the design freehand (in the past I've used tracings and projections of small sketches, so this was a challenge and it came out much better than I expected). Then I painted the background and began working through the stages of the figure. I repainted the sky about three times I think as it became clear it was way too dark and the painting didn't have enough contrast. The hair and jacket were fun, the face was not and I don't think I did a great job on the skin textures and tones. Here's a closer view:

Sorry for the poor phone photos, at some point I will take a decent shot of it :)

So there it is, if anyone likes it and wants to buy it, make me an offer (I'll probably take it as I don't have room to keep it!) - e-mail me ;)

Now though I have a new big scary white canvas looking at me and a new painting planned - this one is going to ROCK! Stayed tuned ;)