Jumpers for Goalposts

Moving into different subject matter as requested by the agency. I should be posting quite a few different things over the next week or so... depending on moving home busyness.

Hoddie

Just a bit of sketchbook fun. I'm playing with keeping more white in the image.

Trick or Treat

Ever been treated by a friend to a drink? Ever been taken out for a meal? Ever been offered money when times are tough?

Pay them back.

I had a boss once who was always giving out little gifts and loans to his employees. Nice guy right?

Wrong. Who do you think he called in to work weekends?

Money is a treat but it's also pretty damn tricky.

By the way...

We don't really do Halloween this side of the pond, plus the fact I don't agree with it, so I just wanted to illustrate the theme of "trick or treat" rather than Halloween. Only if that's ok? It isn't? oh well..

Early Bird

Just started work on an album cover in collaboration with the missus and I wanted to send in some textural treatments with the sketches. Not amazingly happy with this but it's a start.

Test Three

My favourite (or most successful) parts of this experiment are the bright colours with the white-out car line work and the fence. I'm really pleased with the way the angle of the interlocking "rope" creates depth and perspective.

Test Two

Continuing my experiments (see the post below for explanation of what I'm up to) I started with the tree and decided to add something in the ground below it. I know the whole point of this is to soften my work and completely defeating the point I go and put a skeleton below the tree. At least he's a cute skeleton!

Experimenting with Paint - Test One

I may have mentioned this in previous posts but I'm kind of relaunching myself at the moment. I started illustrating commercially in 2004, got disillusioned and unhappy with my work, had a year off (working a "real" job) in 2006 and have been rebuilding my style for the last 3 or 4 months.

I've been thinking I should work on softening one end of my work to increase my commercial potential. It's a bit cynical, but come on! I got bills to pay and I want to do this full time! So to that end I've been looking at a lot of more painterly illustrators and have started with this image to play in Photoshop to create some softer, more ethereal work.

The real trick will be to make it still look like like my work and a progression of style than a distinct different direction. This is test image one. Let's see where this goes.