Patrick Moore

About a month or so ago Steve Sayers, the Art Editor on BBC focus Magazine asked me to produce a full page Illustration introducing a feature on a crash course in astronomy from UK TV legend Patrick Moore. I had done a feature for Focus a month or so earlier and there's no better compliment than being commissioned again so quickly.

The initial verbal brief Steve gave me was "Patrick Moore as a Mekon" which had me grinning like an idiot with the thought of spending time researching Dan Dare, one of my Sci Fi heroes. I dived straight in, gathering inspiration maniacally.

A few of the reference images I gathered.

Steve had supplied me with a rough page layout to draw over and, with a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do, I sketched up a rough straight over the top in Manga Studio using the pencil tool. He had also requested that I do the monster movie type treatment, which I was more than happy to do.



I bought the sketch into Photoshop and quickly splashed some colours over the top, adding in some background options, the one here being spaceships and colliding planets.



The roughs came back with the comments (paraphrased), "Wow! Loose the spaceships and green head colour. He looks like Frankenstein."

I opened the first rough in Manga Studio and inked back over the first sketch. I went for a heavier, pulp style of linework, pushing up the shadows to reflect the Eagle Comics/Pulp magazine/Monster Movie style I was going for.

I flipped the pose of the arms and sorted out the dodgy binoculars from the rough. I also decided to draw in all the mountains under the type. Now, strictly speaking this was unnecessary, but as the rough Steve supplied contained placeholder text I wanted to help the designer out (having done layout myself) and produce a completed image. This allows the text box to be set to whatever size is needed. Also, it felt better to be working on a full image, rather than with a huge lump of dead space in the centre of the illustration.



I exported the image into Photoshop and began to airbush. I always slap a gradient over the whole image, much like a watercolour wash and then add definition with a transparent toning layer on top. I also add little additional areas of colour blending down. I like to work with as minimal a palette as I can get away with and this technique allows me to keep everything together.

Colour with the ink layer down to 30% underneath.

For the type I tried a bunch of different options, setting in Illustrator, adjusting existing typefaces, tracing and overlaying... In the end I just sketched it out by hand (in Manga Studio again, using a dip pen tool), using movie poster references for style.

Type artwork. This was then coloured corrected and tweaked in Photoshop.

Final image. Published in the October issue of BBC Focus.

Athens

So, if you know me in the "real world" or have been following my twitter, you'll know I have moved to Athens, Greece. For how long it will be depends on how it works out. Service is now resumed and will be exactly as before, except I will be sitting in front of computer in Athens rather than London. Oh, and it's hot here. But it has rained too. To be honest I'm a bit confused about the whole thing.

(Pssssst. I've started a little journal about my experiences emigrating here. Don't tell anyone though, yeah?)

25/9/09 UPDATE: I've deleted it. I wasn't keeping up with it. Greatest plans of mice and men and all that.

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.

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.

Watching the rain

Kind of appropriate in the middle of an English "summer". A replacement spread for the book... maybe!

Office Stress

So, I screwed up with my book.

I got very confused with the online service and whether or not I should include blanks on the inside front and back of the cover.

Whatever I did, I was wrong. All the text printed one page out so all all my rectos and versos were up the swanny. A disaster! Luckily for me it turned out to be a happy one.

I had designed the book with large double spread images separated by black spreads with the text. Seeing the left hand portion of the image first created a great lead in to the image and improved the context of each image vastly. I have therefore decided to redesign the book with this in mind, adding some extra artwork on those pages.

I also decided to change a couple of spreads that weren't working. Below is one of the new images.



Onwards and upwards!

Look Magazine and Kleenex

One of my images was featured in this Look magazine advertorial about creating a drawing to go on a Kleenex box. It was out at some point in July.

What Happens When

I was contacted by Steve Sayers, Art Editor on BBC Focus Magazine, to produce 15 Illustrations for a feature on "What Happens When...", answering questions about what the body is doing when itching or blushing etc. This project was very enjoyable and I even got to sneak in a vaguely-Heath-Robinson-inspired creation along the way too! Should be out now in the August issue.

Above image: "Blushing"

"Cramp"

"Farting"

"Itching"

"Cracking Knuckles"

"Heartburn"

"Seeing Stars"

"Sensitive Teeth"

"Twitchy Eyelid"

The End

Final spread for the book. Going to finalise the layout and organise a proof print.

In the Doghouse