The Seagull

A quick job for The Radio Times to Illustrate a dramatization of Chekov’s drama The Seagull on BBC Radio 3. The play is a tragedy about four characters that never achieve happiness and all end up living unfulfilled lives.

The seagull of the title is shot to be given as a love gift.. that isn’t appreciated.

Breaking the Law

For Readers Digest. A article about unusual and outdated laws

Sketch knocking into the right hand page

Final line drawing. I later rescaled several things to make the main character bigger. I kicked the football around too.

Final colour

Accompanying spots. It's illegal to hail a moving taxi, beg, and fly a kite in London so just you watch it.

Don't make me angry

For the Times Magazine a review of Roka restaurant by Giles Coren. Apparently he went into a crazy tantrum when the restaurant lost his reservation and all the waitresses could do was smile inanely. It turned out he'd turned up at the wrong place so is very embarrassed about the whole thing.

Sketches

Original drawing.

Final version

Modern Day Saints

A bit of 'catch up' for the New Year before I get back into the swing.
First of all here's a recent job for Fortean Times about modern day celebrity Saints.

Sketch

Final line

Final colour

Scooterman

A small drawing I did as a friends Christmas gift. Have a great one everybody.

One handed press ups

For The Times Magazine restaurant review Giles Coren got himself into an unusual situation at The Beckford Arms.

Sketch

Final Line

Final Colour

Also my website has had a little makeover plus I've been very busy on another book for The Folio Society which I'll be posting about in the future.

Autumn Books

After the Summer books illustration it's now the turn of Autumn books for Nature Magazine.

Final

First character sketches

Finished sketch

Detail

Accompanying spot illustrations

Gibbons

Lightning sketches of gibbons at my local zoo. Lightning because they barely stay still though it's great when they rest for a few seconds with their arms splayed out in front of them. I'm in awe of their agility and I could watch them for hours....

Modern day Suffragettes

A short deadline for The Times Weekend Review which was briefed, roughed and completed in the space of a day. I love these quick turnarounds, keeps me on my toes.

The Stasis

Illustration for Nature Magazine about how the Stasi stole scientific secrets from companies in West Germany. The scene is set in the 1970's hence the dodgy moustache and clunky computers.

Autumn

New intro image for my portfolio website.

Interview

Caustic Cover Critic is a great blog that celebrates good book design and entertainingly lambasts the bad ones. The blogs' author asked if I'd like to be interviewed and I was happy to oblige. To read the interview please click here.

Pan's Trotters

For The Times Magazine. A restaurant review of La Tante Claire at Selfridges in London where the chef is famous for his Pigs Trotters. The reviewer Giles Coren wrote about J.M Barrie in the piece so this was a nice way to link the ideas together.

Sketch. We decided that the pig face was too distracting.

Final line drawing

Final. Tinkerbell is helped along by some photoshop brushes which I usually avoid but in this case I needed some sparkling kitsch.

Secret text life

A small look into the process of a piece for The Times 'Body & Soul' section. It's about a guy who, after many of marriage, has started to flirt online and via texts with an unknown woman. The hand going into white helps to emphasize his breaking of the bond with his wife.

Sketch

Final line

Final

PD James Novel

Here's a little more background behind the inside illustrations for the Folio Society book Cover Her Face by PD James.

The project was so involving and rewarding particularly when piecing together all the scene and character descriptions that needed to be referenced in order to stay true to the story.

Two ideas presented with descriptions

Descriptions of proposed illustrations (click to enlarge)


Seeing the sequence together helped me establish the whole look

Drawing out the seating arrangement for the 'Whodunit' final image and trying to solve the problem of showing eight people together in one room all facing each other.

Final