Imagine FX 69...

The latest issue of the fantasy and sci-fi digital art mag Imagine FX is now on sale and in this issue theres some great articles on painting fantasy landscapes along with the usual tips and tricks from some great artists. I was asked to the artist Q&A section with some advice on creating wavy / natural hair and also giving a character ghostly translucency. Im pretty bad at expressing myself through writing (which you can probably tell if youve spent any time on this blog) so hopefully the tips are reasonably easy to understand! Heres a few quick shots of the mag, if you see it on the stands make sure you check it out.

Kate Middleton...

I was recently approached by the guys at the Daily Telegraph Magazine with the possibility of doing a portrait of Kate Middleton for an upcoming feature. Everything was a little shaky as it needed to not only get approval from the nice chaps at the magazine but also by the big guys on the Telegraph itself, as this was the first attempt at having an illustrated cover (and to my mind- also of impending royalty) i wasnt holding out much hope that it would get in.

I really had no brief, just to produce a good likeness / portrait of Kate and to bear in mind the usual constraints of editorial work- room for copy!



My first piece came out really well (i thought), i wanted to try and get her hair up off her shoulders- shes always photographed with her hair down and i wanted to move away from any preconceived views. Although (minus a couple of small edits) this was sounding pretty good- when it came to the big meeting the fact her hair wasnt down- was actually a problem and she needed to be more identifiable! So back in with long hair! Fortunately the rest of the image was good so i was able to salvage the facial portrait and edit everything else. When i got a quick mockup of the cover it became evident that it needed something else in the background, a right to left diagonal which darkened the top left for the type to appear as knockout fitted the bill nicely!

Many thanks to Gary Cochran at the Telegraph for commissioning this piece via CIA and for pushing to get an illustration onto the cover of the Telegraph Magazine, with any luck this will get some good feedback and allow a few more through!

Heres the final portrait, closeup details and a quick shot of the cover (she got scaled up a bit on the cover!)

Design Week...

Just picked up this weeks Design Week magazine, theres an interesting article on the 'hopefully' better 2011- with consultancies getting work in and starting to hire again, together with some figures for salary comparison between 2009-2010 (drawn from a recruitment agency questionnaire). Theres also a great piece by Garrick Webster that looks at illustration and the realm of technology. I got to throw in my 2 cents worth in 'talking tech'. Its funny that while everyone gives a valid comment about the subject- im the only one who mentions the costs involved in using tech to create! I often think its an overlooked area when people are talking about digital art, but maybe its just something that people are willing to accept mainly because traditional art materials are so expensive... at least with digital software your paint doesnt run out i suppose!

Anyway, if you get a chance to have a flick through it on the news stand or buy it, check out the article.

Vices show for London Miles...

In between bits and pieces i have been able to fit in this piece for a forthcoming show at London Miles Gallery. The show was originally slated for the end of March but has been put back a bit to May. As soon as the show details become available i will get them up here. In the meantime- heres my piece, the show is about modern vices and artists have been given a particular vice or guilty pleasure to run with. Mine was gambling and i really wanted to do something along the theme of the traditional tattoo pin-up of 'Mans Ruin' and this is what that evolved into.

Titled 'Mans Ruin', the final work is mounted on board and varnished, approx 44x60cm / 24x17" (minus frame) and will be on sale via London Miles Gallery. Below is the full image and a few details.

Daily Telegraph 70s Hair...

Heres another recent piece done for the Daily Telegraph fashion supplement. The article was about the big frizzy hair seen on the catwalk. It needed a fair amount of space for the typography / copy etc and to make it easier to shift i bled out to white on the right. I was trying to get this done at the same time as moving house so im not 100% happy with it, but i still think its a nice image. Not having seen the actual article yet i dont know whether they went for my original design or the alternate- after a request from the AD i removed some of the extra accent details. Below is the original artwork, a side by side of the two versions and a few detail shots.





Edit: weirdly enough i got a copy of the article page in the post today so heres a quick Instagram snap, bit of a shame the alt version got used...