Radio Times: Hamlet

An interesting challenge recently came from Radio Times Magazines to create an illustration to accompany a new 

dramatisation

 of Shakespeare's Hamlet. This was for the radio pages, so the usual small repro scale applies - therein lies the challenge! I concentrated on Yorick the Jester's skull, the crown 

overlapping into the skull lower jaw 

and the poisoned dagger that finally despatches Hamlet. Depicting them in a symbolic macabre way with them situated in a surreal dark brooding landscape. I was originally intending to have swathes of mist enveloping the skull and figure but somehow they reduced the impact so it was left with a much starker high contrast between the skull and background. Great fun to render and a huge thanks for the bods at the RT for a cracking commission. Out on newsstands this week.

Radio Times: Christmas Edition

A lovely commission for the Radio Times Christmas edition of the magazine, with the Illustration needed to accompany a BBC Radio 4 drama featuring a victorian gentleman inventor who creates a machine so that he can hear the voices of the dead. The brief suggested a 'Steampunk' reference could be used given the era, but still keeping my usual working method / style. So I set about creating a fantastical head piece that when worn looks like a hybrid man machine. A superb theme to work on and explore. The deadline was quite tight - render time being a day and a half only. Three colour version

s were created and eventually the blue background variant was chosen as it simply worked a little better on the smaller print scale, the colour contrast pushing the figure forward. A gift in terms of subject matter and big thanks to the good people at the Radio Times for the commission. A more detailed write up over on

Behance

Abel Xavier: Kampion Card Game

A lovely project recently completed for Kampion Football Cards. I always enjoy the challenge of working on a formal portrait, especially with a visually flamboyant character such as Abel Xavier, the footballer I chose to depict for this project. I wanted to avoid using the obvious football icons. Instead I incorporated aspects of 'the beautiful game' in a subtle way, using decorative references including white line patterns, abstract shapes taken from the football stadium, the cut direction of the football pitch etc - all combined with varying 

tones of green colour, extending into browns, yellows and orange. Great fun and a pleasure to work on. A full description of the project from start to finish including is over on my

Behance folio

Here be Demons

Wow - quite a while since my last entry ! Anyway, here are a few images that I've been working on in the background, a case of a little here and there when the opportunity allows...A new series of lighthearted images playing with the theme of 'Demonic Possession' ! Exploring a few alternative ideas about a mischievous / malevolent demon or

 spirit taking over random animals, plants or objects. All executed in-between commissions as a fun project. I also used the project as an exercise in playing with symmetry and illustrating / designing to a square format, rather than the usually more forgiving traditional rectangle. I'm sure there will be more images to follow on the same theme as I enjoyed playing with this idea - the more surreal the possession the better - my fav so far has to be possessed cactus ! So here we have a possessed cactus, cat, fish, skeleton and Minotaur...

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.