Merry Xmas!!

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Xmas before I forgot!! Have a great time, eat lots and relax as much as you can - 2011 is just around the corner, scary! :-S

And in case anyone was worried (haha - unlikely), I have finally been able to dig myself out of the snow to be part of civilization again...I wasn't missing that much after all - but long may it continue.

Anyway, thanks to anyone who has come and looked at my blog this year, hopefully the work will continue to improve in the year that follows.

So, until next year - Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year :-D

I'm Snowing a Bit Crazy!

As you are all very aware of by now, it's snowing outside. And not just a little bit - it's snowing ALOT outside!! So much so, that I've been unable to leave my place for the last 3 days (and counting) - which is driving me a bit crazy to be honest! So, this poor little trapped snowman in the globe is pretty much how I'm feeling at the moment - so, "Snow, Snow - Go Away, Come Back Another Day!". Don't think that will work, but anything is worth a try :-)

Right, I will stop these ramblings of a mad man and go and get some more work done, but I will be popping another Xmas image on here in a few days - just in time to wish all you lovely people a Merry Xmas!

Until then - wrap up warm and drive safely!!

Early Xmas Present

Hi everyone, hope all is well? I received an early Xmas present in the post the other day from The Beat Royale member Mark Hanna (yes, we have the same name - weird eh!). I produced some images earlier in the year for them (which you can read in this previous blog). I opened up the parcel and found a lovely framed cd inside - which was such a nice gift and a real surprise too... just got to find somewhere to hang it now!

Myself and (the other) Mark Hanna have become good friends this past year and are working on another collaboration at the moment - things just take time though, but will be well worth it in the end!

Snowball Fight!!

In recognition of the early winter we are having in Britain, I have done my first snow based image of the year! Poor little Penguin... he never stood a chance against that big ol' Yeti :-S

I'm sure I will be doing some more snowy pictures as the big freeze here continues!

Wrap up warm everyone and go out and throw some snowballs :-D

Flying Cow

Hi, just thought I would pop on an image I've been playing around with. Trying bits and bobs with colour at the moment. Not sure what sort of outcome I'm looking for, but I'm sure I'll know it when I see it!

Will put more images up soon.

Bye for now.

The Sleepless Phoenix

I received my copy of The Sleepless Phoenix: Survival Stories the other day, and was very impressed indeed. With a collection of comic book artists coming together to create work on the theme of Survival Stories, it has a various styles as you would imagine, which gives it a very unique feel.

I was asked to contribute an image that would appear in the final section of the book, and although I'm more of a Children's Illustrator than a Comic Book Artist, hopefully it doesn't look too out of place.

So, here are some photos of it, and this is the blog to follow the progress of this book and the next installment that seems to be in the works - www.thesleeplessphoenix.blogspot.com

Farewell Weekend Random Selector!

Hi all. If anyone had popped on here to see the latest installment of my Weekend Random Selector, then I'm afraid you will be disappointed. I have decided to give it a break for the foreseeable future so I can concentrate fully on other projects I have on the go!

I was using it to get me blogging on a more regular basis, which served it purpose. But fear not, I will still be uploading various images that I'm working on, so come back regularly to see what's going on. :-D

Bear Hug

I noticed recently that a lot of my work has started to become less 'powerful' than what I used to do...mostly with the outlines and colours. Not necessarily a bad thing, just slightly different to how I prefer to work. So I decided to do this image with thicker outlines and a stronger, but limited, colour palette and see what the outcome would look like.

Hopefully it looks ok - I like that it stands out and can catch someone's eye! ;-)

So, this is a Big, Squeezy Bear Hug for whoever wants or needs one.

Until next time...

Weekend Random Selector

Hope everyone has had a great week and an enjoyable weekend. The words for this weeks Weekend Random Selector are:-

Dinosaur + Astronaut + Sandwich = Random Selection

I hope to be working on some new character designs this week as well as some other ideas I have been thinking about, so if any turn out successful then I will pop some stuff on here then!

Bye for now :-D

Weekend Random Selector

Hi, hope everyone is having a good weekend. This weeks Weekend Random Selector is:-

Bee + Umbrella + Bowler Hat = Random Selection

Thought I would mix photo and illustration again for this weeks image, hope you like!

Right... super sleepy, so I'm outta here!!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Fat Chick

Hi all....just a random image upload as a friend was getting scared of the clown one!

That's it really, so until the weekend - bye bye!!

Weekend Random Selector - Halloween Special

Hi all. As it's Halloween this weekend it seemed only fitting to make this weekends Random Selector a Halloween themed one. I enjoyed working on this one and quite happy with how it turned out.

Zombie + Clown + Space Hopper = Random Selection!

That's all for this week and looking forward to a bit of Halloween fun this weekend myself. Hope you all have a Ghoulishly Great weekend too!!

The Party Is Here!!

I was asked to do a design for a birthday invitation and this is what I have come up with. I started working on this yesterday afternoon and did final little touches today, hope it looks ok? I have left out the name, age and venue of this persons birthday event.

That's it for now, but will upload my Halloween themed piece on Friday. :-)

Weekend Random Selector

This week when I was working on my Weekend Random Selector, I decided to mix it up and add a Halloween twist to it. Now, as you can tell from the image above, this isn't it!! As Halloween isn't until next weekend, that left me one week in advance, but also one image short for this week!

So this weeks one was a tad last minute to be honest!

Queen + Pants + Skates = Random Selection

The good news is that I'm really happy with how next weeks Halloween themed Random Selector has turned out - so make sure you pop over for a little peek then :-)

Thanks for looking and enjoy your week ahead!

Bye for now.

*Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental

Weekend Random Selector

Hi, hope you have all had a nice weekend. This is my first official Weekend Random Selector - hope you like.

Parrot + Fireman + High Heels = Random Selection

I will be working on more stuff in the next couple of days, so will pop more work on here soon.

Thats all for now!

Midweek Random Selector

Hi everyone! I've been finding myself drawing lots of crocs and chicks recently as you can see by the images below, and also a project on working on at the moment too. So to stop myself going too stir-crazy with them, I will be doing some random images that make no sense at all.

I haven't done images like this for a while since I stopped taking part in Illustration Friday (which I still think is a good idea), but I have devised my own way of generating a topic to draw from. Drum roll please..... It will be my Weekend Random Selector!!

I know what you're thinking...but no, I haven't built myself a big machine like the Lottery use to spit out topics for me!! Similar, but maybe a tad less technical. It will be picking 3 bits of paper, each with a word on and then using that as a starting point.

So here we are, the first image...a warm up I would say for the Weekend Random Selector.

Shark + Rocker +Toilet = Random Selection- hope you like.

Will have the official one up this weekend.

Bye for now. :-)

Hot Chick!

Hello again Cactus fans... hope you are all keeping well. Just thought i'd post this random image for your amusement. I haven't mixed illustration and photography for quite a while now, but have always enjoyed the process when doing it, so will most likely be doing plenty more of this in the near future. Hopefully you like the end result?

Think that's about it for the time being - will have a new image on here soon!

Bye for now :-)

Baby Croc

Hello all. Since my last crocodile themed image I did, I have been sorting out all my sketchbooks and came across another crocodile one I've been meaning to work on for a while, so thought i'd follow on from Survival Stories with this one!

I've gone for a slightly different look with this one, hopefully looks ok... comments always welcome.

Still got another half of the day remaining, so back to the drawing board with me!

Survival Stories

Hello all, finally managed time to blog again - what a busy summer! Just a quick update here, and more images to follow soon.

I have produced the above illustration for a new comic anthology, called Survival Stories, and is being produced to raise money for the Comic Book Alliance—an organization that fights for the rights of comic creators everywhere.

The book is 192 pages long, black and white, and features all-new content. Creators include Martin Conaghan (Burke & Hare), Ben Bates (Sonic the Hedgehog), Jim Boswell (KiCk!), Peter Forbes (Oz: Fall of the Scarecrow King), and more. It will be released in October, 2010. www.kickstarter.com/projects/910305588/the-sleepless-phoenix-comics-anthology

The original image is in colour, but as the book will be printed in black and white, the 2nd image is how it will look when printed. You will be able to pick up the book online (to order now, follow the link above) and also at various conventions, so keep your eyes peeled!

Thats enough for now, more soon :-)

Balloon Bear

Right....I'm techically late with this blog post (according to my half-year resolution of blogging every week), but what's a few days between friends!! And I have also been a bit traumatised with the way the England team played during their short Wold Cup campaign - so I think I deserve to be let off this once!

This one I took from a random sketch I had done recently - which wasn't originally a bear, but turned that way when doing the final image. May re-do at some point with 'proper' bear hands, will see how I feel.

Anyway, better pop off, but hope to have more work on here soon - including more sneak peek images too. Bye for now!

Sneak Peek 3

Hi, here is another quick sneak peek at something i'm working on. Hopefully will be able to reveal more as things progress. I'm having a nice weekend off, but will post more next week....enjoy the sunshine!!

ENGLAND!!!

Just a quick post to mark the start of the Fifa World Cup 2010! Im hoping for a brilliant 4 weeks of football, and fingers crossed England go far - starting with USA tomorrow...can we dream that they will be lifting the trophy high in the sky once it's all said and done?

Hope you all enjoy some great games too! :-)

New Character

This is a new character i've been working on and plan to use in a series of images. It's still in the early stage of ideas and development, but plan to have more images up soon!

Have a nice weekend ♥

The Beat Royale

I got commissioned to produce a cd cover for the band The Beat Royale for their single Heartbreaker featuring Kezi Silverstone on vocals, which will be released this summer.

I did a few different designs for them and they have chosen one of the graphic style images for the cd cover - and i will upload a photo of the final thing once it's all been finally printed etc.

In the meantime, here is one of the other images i did (my personal fave), which i thought would give the cd a slightly different look from the norm... let me know what you think.

Thats all for now :-)

Sneak Peek 2!

The first upload to my new half-year resolution is a sneak peek at one of the images to a project i'm working on at the mo. Lots more to be completed before i can start showing the full images, so will keep uploading them in this form as things progresses.

Sneak peek 3 on its way. Bye for now!

Half-Year Resolution!

Ok, yes i admit it... i've been rubbish at blogging so far this year, which is why i'm going to make a half-year resolution right now!

"I will henceforth upload some form of image every week, regardless of time restrictions or amount of ice cream in my freezer that needs eating."

I have an idea for a little series of images that i will aim to upload as well as sneak peaks at other projects i'm working on, so hopefully will be using this blog a lot more frequently from now on!

Hope you like what you see and come back to check up on how my half-year resolution goes....wish me luck!! :-)

Kids with Crayons!

Last week I went to visit a local primary school to help with the after school Create Club. I took some of my work to show them what sort of stuff I do, then we cracked on with lots of drawing and colouring fun!! I've previously written essays on children's drawings and find the images, composition and ideas they produce to be really interesting and inspiring. It was great to be able to sit back and observe while they created funny, yet sometimes weird and disturbing pictures!! We decided to have more of an 'unstructured' drawing time, so there was no specific theme or aim, just for them to create freely and do as many images as they could, then we would collect them all together to see what we had. It was a fun couple of hours and hopefully I will be able to fit in another visit soon, maybe with a specific theme for them to design to.

Oh, and don't worry - the faces in the pictures have been altered, kids don't actually look like this in the south!! :-P

All Hail the Cactus King of Cardboard City

Ok, I'm finally back online after a very busy (and at times) stressful few months! I have now moved into my new pad, so lots of time has been spent packing and moving all my belongings, only to create my own 'Cardboard City' in every room! Once I track down my art supplies I will hope to have more stuff created and uploaded on here asap. :-)

WINNER!!

I just had to post the fact that I am a winner!! I don't think of myself as a very lucky person or someone who often wins competitions (not ever won a penny on the lottery.....should start entering I guess!), but today - at the start of 2010 (which I plan to be the best year ever), I have won the Super Happy Fun Giveaway!

Now, for people who don't know what this is, well....it was a competition set the other day by illustrator Jess Bradley, and all you had to do was leave a comment on her Squid Bits blog...and I won, go me!! Look at all the great stuff I won ->->->-> Prizes :-)

Thanks again Jess, you rock!!

Sneak Peek!

Happy Belated New Year!!! I hope to make this a great year work-wise, with plenty of things planned (some already started, others in the pipeline). I am working on some images at the mo but don't want to reveal anything until things are more sorted, so here is a sneak peak at one of them at the moment! Hope to bring some more sneaky peeks as things progress!

Hope everyone has a great 2010 :-D