IF: Winter

This is a pen sketch I did last week whilst visiting some friends in Breda, Netherlands. This is a view from a little bar in the main town square - drawn as a fresh layer of snow just starts to fall. I've added a bit of colour and shade in Photoshop.

Winter Woods

A seasonal illustration... Merry Christmas!

IF: Mail

I've been experimenting with the brushes in Photoshop recently and trying to create a painted effect digitally. This is the first in a series of Saltaire inspired pictures.

BAF 2010 Ident Animation

The final animated ident for the Bradford Animation Festival 2010 is now online. Check it out. Amazing animation and sound effects by Hexjibber, working from illustrations and storyboards by yours truely. Really fun project to work on and glad to see it released into the wild.

You can see the original sketchy storyboards in an earlier post.

IF: Transportation

A new entry for Illustration Friday under the theme 'Transportation'.

IF: Dessert

A smorgasbord of regional desserts. And if any naysayers argue that Yorkshire Pudding is a savoury dish, think again! Yorkshire pud with a dollop of strawberry jam is a treat you should try!

BAF 2010 Ident Update

Well, the BAF2010 ident is now complete thanks to Andy Syke's phenomenal animation skills. Loads of great transformations, whizzy backgrounds and crunchy sound fx - all down to Mr Hexjibber. This image is a sneak preview but to see the finished article you'll have to come to BAF in November to see the world premiere!

IF: Immovable

Favourite Food Friends

I made this picture as a present for a couple of friends to mark their baby daughter's naming ceremony. I got it printed through The Print Space and was really chuffed with how it turned out.


I went with the Hahnemuhle Photorag Giclee option - great, deep colours and a nice matt finish on watercolour paper. I'll definitely be using them again.

Pen Sketch

Went up to the Lakes this week for a short break. Here's a quick pen drawing of the view from the B&B.

IF: Caged

Hey, here's a new quick entry for Illustration Friday - an attempt at mimicking the screen print effect through Photoshop. Hmm... don't think it's quite there just yet. Apologies for the total lack of blogging recently - I've been busy on a few little illustration projects that I'll update you with in my next post.

Cycling in London entry

Here's a poster design I did last month for a London Transport Museum/AOI competition that promoted cycling in London. It didn't make the final cut to go in the exhibition but I'm quite pleased with it. Ah well, another piece for the portfolio.

BAF 2010 Ident - Transformation

More keyframes from the BAF ident animation. After drinking the potion the BAF Man transforms into a giant lizard monster and smashes through the ceiling. Andy's animation is looking brilliant so far... more coming soon!

Give & Keep holding page

I did a quick bit of illustration work for my friend Pete and his web design company Panoetic last week. They're designing the new website for mail order gifts company, Give & Keep and needed more icons in the same style as their logo. Here's my first effort responding to the brief:

And here's the final version after a few tweaks.


Panoetic then sliced it up and transformed it into a website. This isn't my usual style but was good practice doing something a bit different in Illustrator.

Sketches from Dubrovnik

Had a lovely break in the delightful Croatian city of Dubrovnik a few weeks ago. Lots of sun, seafood and island exploring. I also took my sketchbook. You can see my photos over on Flickr.

The sketch on the left is outside the City Walls. Done whilst waiting to meet our landlady. The sketch on the right is of the main street, Stradun.

Inside the apartment.Waiting for the ferry at Lokrum.

View from the apartment.

On the beach at Lopud.


Two quick sketches from above the harbour.

BAF 2010 Ident - Drinking the potion

Some more scenes from the BAF ident animation. Here the BAF man is dissecting a lizard and adding one its organs to a special potion. He drinks the potion and starts to transform...

BAF 2010 Ident

I've been busy the past few weeks working on the new ident for this year's Bradford Animation Festival (www.baf.org.uk). I've helped programme events for the festival in the past and a few months ago the Festival Director, Deb Singleton asked me if I'd like to design the poster. This is the first bit of print for the festival - a postcard to tell people they are now open for entries.

I'm also working with the award winning animator Andy Sykes (aka Hexjibber) to produce a snappy, 20 second animated festival ident. Here's the rough storyboard:

The BAF man is working in his lab on a new experiment. He drinks one of his potions and transforms into a giant lizard monster, before being attacked by fighter jets and rampaging through the city, in true Godzilla style. I've found a piece of library music that's big and orchestral with lots of stabby strings to build the tension. I'm now working on the keyframe illustrations before passing them to Andy to work his animated magic on them. Here's the first scene inside the lab, without colour:

And with colour:
Will post the other illustrations when they're finished. In the meantime, check out Andy's fabulous showreel:

Hand-drawn Trainers

I had an unusual request last week - a friend bought some plain white pumps and asked me to doodle on them. I used a black Sharpie marker on the white canvas - fingers crossed the ink won't run when they get wet.

IF: Dip

More tinkering with Illustrator... I love nachos and dip!

Monster Monster

A little more experimenting in Illustrator.

IF: Rescue

This shirt and tie wearing kitty works in an office and needs to be rescued from the daily 9 till 5 routine, otherwise he's gonna flip out!

I've been playing around with vectors and Adobe Illustrator and had a stab at following this excellent tutorial on how to turn a quick sketch into a nice piece of vector art. I normally scan and colour my illustrations in Photoshop so thought it was about time I dipped my toe into the world of Illustrator. The pen tool can be pretty frustrating but with a bit of practice I'm pleased with the results. As you can see, I've made my cat a bit friendlier and not quite so evil as the one in the tutorial. Oh, and here's my original sketch for comparison:

IF: Subterranean

Jeff, the subterranean homesick alien.

Museum Poster

The illustration for this poster was created for the National Media Museum in Bradford. They asked for bold text surrounded by lots of TV and video game characters. In the end the Museum decided to go with a different campaign but hey ho... it's something else for the portfolio.

People I've Never Met and Conversations I've Never Had

A submission for Nobrow's Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1185256@N25/

IF: Focused

Zen bunny.

Pirates of Penzance poster

Well, 2010's been a busy year so far... had a couple of new commissions including this poster for Bradford University's Society for Operettas and Musicals forthcoming production of Pirates of Penzance. And here's the first sketch without any colour that I send to the producers to get their feedback on the design.

Why are pirates called pirates? Because they arrrrrrrrrrr! Classic.