Work In Progress

Crop from a competition entry for "The Outsider", artwork in Manga Studio

I've started a "Work in Progress" blog on Tumblr. The address is www.jamesreekie.tumblr.com and the aim is to post a crop or section of whatever I'm working on that day. I've been posting similar images via twitter from time to time but I felt I should give the images a proper home. I'll hopefully be posting daily, but many of my projects are often taken on under the terms of pesky non disclosure agreements so I obviously it won't always be possible.

I'll put up a proper link on this blog later, if you want to make sure you don't miss any updates from me please do follow me on twitter, everything get's a link there.

Have a great week!

Food Glorious Food

I was asked by the agency to create some food imagery for some potential projects. It's been years since I've concentrated on drawing a sheet of real stuff. Probably since my foundation tutor asked me to work up a whole sketchbook of drawings from life. It's been a fun challenge, but I am a little concerned I've gone a bit "dark" with the drawings... Oh well. Might have another go later in the week.

Promo Card Inside – Scrapped

So, I've been working on this promotional card around other projects. As is traditional with me on my own promotional stuff, mainly due to the nature of the wonderful rarity of not having a client, I tend to change my mind a lot. This card being no exception, I had a better idea the second I finished the artwork.

Oh well, at least I got two new nice pieces out of it! Here's the inside of the now scrapped card.


And the outside.


For the graphic designers in the audience it was to be a 6 page roll fold DL card, so tall and thin and folded into itself, like a menu, to go into a standard envelope. I still might do it, just not now.

Reason why I scrapped it? Not really very "Christmasy" is it?! I'll post the art for the new one tomorrow.

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...

Bird in Progress

So, I'm busy doing this memory heavy giant digital collage. I keep having new ideas as I'm going along, switching layers, playing with proportion. I think to myself "This bird needs an eye. How can we identify with this bird if it doesn't have an eye?" So I grab one, stick it in.

I hit apple-zero, the image zips back to show me the whole picture. I think to myself "Hey, I like that, that looks good! That looks like... Sara Fanelli's work".

Balls. Copying people from my sub-conscious. Again. Oh well. Start again...