Plain Vectors

Ok, bit tenuous I know, but there's no chance of me doing anything cleverer for Illustration Friday this week.

This piece can be loosely linked to housing market stuff but was really done as a portfolio booster as I will be hitting the mean streets again fairly soon (as soon as I've been away on holiday and stopped procrastinating... early 2012 then!) as I need some more colourful, slick stuff. Hopefully this fits the bill!

Weather crappy again in London today which seems to fit the sad news about Heath Ledger. I was just reading about his new role as The Joker over breakfast. My condolences to his family. Strange how I feel compelled to write about a guy who I never knew. Funny how movie stars can provoke that feeling in people. We invite them into our living rooms so I suppose there's no reason why they shouldn't therefore become part of our lives. I guess it's also the "before his time" deal. Plenty of that going around too. All very sad.

Sketchbook

I've finished my latest sketchbook! 6 months of being dragged around by me coupled with having 6 months of my personal angst scratched into its pages... well, you almost feel sorry for the poor old moleskine!

I've put the whole thing up on my website, in page order, for your viewing pleasure. Follow this link and enjoy!

A Slightly Fishy Stitched Together Concept

Does anyone else, after they've sweated and strained to complete their image for IF, quickly check before they post that they've done the right damn theme?

Well I do because, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, I am a bit of a doofus.

Now as those who suffer from a similar affliction will know one's personal doofusness will manifest itself most commonly in public, always when one is trying to be suave, slick and sophisticated and most often when a member of the service industry is trying to serve me something.

There I am, sitting outside at one of Athens' (Greece) most popular cafes (This is not unusual for me, as the missus is a local) drinking Frappe and enjoying the perfect temperatures of a late Easter afternoon. I decide my upper body is a couple degrees above a comfortable level and so decide to remove my sweater. Knowing that in a crowded area there are many pitfalls for the doofus, so I decide (oh so stupidly) that speed is the ticket! So I quickly whip the shirt off... smashing the tray of the passing waitress and the two milky drinks over her... chest... area!

Benny Hill could not have planned it better! The situation was not helped by my automatic reaction of jumping up and trying to help by beginning to motion towards the area with my hands and then thinking better of it so essentially making groping motions towards her to the merriment of around 200 hysterically laughing Greek bikers.

Like I said, doofus. She did get a big tip though! Not like that... ;)

What the image about? Oh, er... Stitching, collage... fish obviously... er... Mermaids because they are Humans and Fish stitched together... so I cunningly reversed them and... All right, leave it out! Tough one this week!

When Brain Is Empty Lies Will Come From Mouth

So, I been a hustling.

I been walking those mean streets (this is a lie) and shaking down contacts (not eye contacts and also a lie). I been talking my way in and out of some big contracts (also a lie) and making the deals of my life (great stinking whopper of a fib)!

"So you like, handed out a couple biz cards and shock a hand or two. Pretended to like Arsenal."

No man, you got it all wrong! I could never side with the Scummers!

Truth be told I'm coming to the end of a long period of employment and will be back out in the cut throat world of full time freelancing. Can't wait really, but my position does mean I've been doing some of the old schmoooooze...

See there comes a point when one is talking out of one's behind to impress some dull commissioning monkey (not you, all the others!) when one's brain begins to implode and you realise you've created some whopping giant fib out of complete desperation and boredom. One memorable instance, not actually to a client but a group of super bland people, I just lost it and preceded to rub my future wife's belly screaming "Good for boys!".

Now, I'm not proud of my actions and in my defense I was a young stupid man. I still am young and stupid but I'm no longer... ha ha! Made you look! See! There I go again! I run out of ideas and my mouth just flaps away like a headless chicken with no communication whatsoever with mister b-r-a-i-n...

If I was a computer someone could write a little script or application that as soon as it detected "Desperation Huge Giant Show Off Lies Syndrome" would insert the phrase "Really nice to meet you! Lets go for a drink soon!" and propel me towards the bar or nearest exit.

Since I can't upgrade my operating system I'll just have to learn. How 20th century...

Mr 100%

So, heard of a Mr 10%?

This is my Mr 100%. He takes everything!

"Please, please Mr Robber! Don't steal my stuff!"

The image was sculpted in Flash. I don't think you draw in Flash, you just push shapes around. To me that feels more like sculpture than anything else.

Happy Sunday everyone! It's sunny in London! First time in forever...

Hoodie Devil

He has a hoodie... he is the the Devil... he is the Hoodie Devil!

What? You want something well thought out and plithy? Wrong place mister!

Finished my sketchbook yesterday. Wasn't gonna tell ya until I'd batch processed them all and added them to me website but I ran out of things to say!

Shutting up now.

This week's gone quick, hasn't it?!

January

Happy New Year all!

Here's to a fun, safe, healthy and prosperous 2008!

I have a new plan. Every month I'm going to produce an image based on the month (as above) and next year I will sell a calendar based on the results! I had the idea last year, but producing 12 quality images around other work proved too much of a daunting task so I've decided to try it this way. Chip slowly away at the block...

So, fancy some January facts?

First up the 1st of Jan is happy/sad anniversary of both the BBC's first broadcast and the first traffic policemen.

Oooh, ooh, which way did your cake fall? "A flat cake was put on one of the horns of a cow in every farmyard. The farmer and his workers would then sing a song and dance around the cow until the cake was thrown to the ground. If it fell in front of the cow that signified good luck; to fall behind indicated the opposite." I'm so doing that next year. Now where to find a cow in central London...

Also, If you're unmarried don't forget "that if you look through a silk handkerchief at the new moon, which has never been washed, the number of moons you see will be the number of years which will pass until you're married. But it is unlucky to see the new moon through a window." So all you singletons board up your windows on the night of the first January moon (22nd)...

And last but not least, raise a glass on the 9th for the anniversary of the introduction of Income tax...

Soar

Quick scribble for this week's IF, created in Flash and Illustrator so no dirty hands! Shame really, I like the feeling of ink on my fingers...

So, I wondered idly about how big an Angel's wings would actually have to be to be able to fly and came across a fun little thread of silly people here. The gem of the comments is this lovely quote from a guy called "Ramon Valentin" (Can that be real? Sounds like he should be in a Jack Black movie);

"I have prepared a model that would fit any human and is still in tests, but i tried it at the beach with a lot of wind, and just opening both 3 ft. long wings( 3 ft. each )I was able to float for like two minutes. My arms got tired and the wind was inpredictible and I was like 7 1/2 feet lifted up in the air, so I fell on the sand. With a little more excersice, and a better phisycal condition, I think that we can just lift off and actually fly...Hope to hear from someone really interested. We could really do this and earn money at the same time."

This is just an assumption, but a guy who spells "physical" "phisycal" ain't going to be all that great at "phisicks" which is kind of what you need to be good at to be able to "fly".

Expect to see this guy on the Darwin awards anytime soon.

Oh, yeah, and if you are out there Ramon, and you do actually fly, awesome dude!

Justice & Favourite Shows to Draw to

Finished image...

Sketch... and now for the whinge!

I've been wanting to write a post about how my first year blogging's been going but I think I'll wait for the year anniversary of this weblog rather than the calendar year because... well... we've got 4 months left and who knows what could happen!

Ok, this image started out as a sketch that I drew whilst watching the popular BBC programme "Dragon's Den".

Now, I don't know about you but I have favourite shows to draw to. I've had a little think about the one's I usually draw to and I don't think it's got anything particularly to do with how "wordy" the show is. Having said that, I just spent 2+ hours drawing to "Pulp Fiction" last night, a particularly wordy movie and sat there gawping at the screen, sketchbook untouched, whilst flinching at the dreadfullness of "Jurassic Park III". There are some surprisingly good actors in that movie... but it just sucked! Oh the Christmas schedule...

To the image! I messed around with it for ages, scanned it 3 different ways and generally messed around and procrastinated while avoiding the big image that I keep talking about! I put colour all over it, took it off, put it on again, vectorised it and... here it is!

Right, back to work...

Will It Be Too Much?

Good Christmas? Mine was awesome thanks for asking!

So, this is a small part of the large image I was working on when I gave up and did the "Girlfriend backpack" image for Illustration Friday (see the post below for the protracted dumb and boring explanation.)

I need some help. I've been a doofus.

I like to work fast. Real fast. 5 images a day fast. This image is killing me. I've been at it for 4 or 5 hours now and I ain't even half done. This is really testing me as this isn't for money or nuthin', this is just something I've started doing and so I must finish or the whole thing will be a big fat waste...

The crop above is part of a street scene I've started. It all began with the I.F. theme "backwards". I had this idea to do a guy talking on his phone crashing into another car "backwards". I had this plan to write a whole thing on how much talking on your phone and driving annoys me blah blah blah blah blah.

But then I got ideas.

I started drawing the bus to go behind the car (this is all in Flash) as I thought it would be fun to create all these little characters to go in all the windows and stuff... damn it, I drew a bunch of windows! Now I'm putting in pedestrians and... I need a break! So I'm going for a run. Relax me down so I can concentrate. I need to finish this so I can get on with updating my website! Oh the freelance fun...