American Illustration 44 Win

Super pleased to be selected as a Chosen Winner in the American Illustration 44 Children's Book Series category. Two illustrations from the second book in D. Zollicoffer's Game On, Zhuri series, Attack Of The Robo-Bugs, made it through the judging process and will appear as part of the online archive collection. You can see more illustrations from the book here.

Dance Dance Dance For The Win

Here's the latest Dance Dance Dance poster design for the regular Margate Arts Club event hosted by Katie & Joe. This one continues the atmospheric style refresh from the previous poster with illustrated type framing an amphibious character having a golden hour dip. I also tried out a short and simple animated version for social media posted here. 

Speaking of the previous poster I was very happy to hear it had picked up an Applied Arts award for Advertising Illustration and will appear in the Annual Awards issue and online here.

Irvine Innovation

Here's a recent commission for an Irvine Standard feature on the Californian city's top moments and leaders of innovation from past to present. The brief required two main collage illustrations, present day and historical, and a number of portraits of Irvine 'game changers'. Really enjoyed working with the science/tech themes and giving the whole set a consistent look and feel. Thanks to Mindy Benham for the commission. See the work on the site here also.

NARF Food Allergy Challenge

Here’s a fun and challenging job from last year working with longtime collaborators Feed Films for The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation. I was tasked with creating the bulk of the post-production motion graphics on The Food Allergy Challenge, a short film that was part of the recently launched Allergy School offering free, practical resources to help teachers create inclusive and safe environments for children with food allergies.

The brief and script called for the creation of a 3d character of some sort that a team of real children could interact with along with an interface that could house a fully designed and animated allergy-based quiz. The screen took priority so for the initial designs I played with the idea of a fun but bulky physical tablet display that could hover in front of the team. I created some virtual camera views for the shoot with 3d models of the tablet and team that soon ran up against issues such as the back of a large device obscuring the children in some camera angles. Almost as an aside I had designed a small flying robot character that could emerge from the large tablet. It soon made much more sense, logically and practically, for this small hovering robot host to be the focus and be able to project virtual transparent screens into a space in front of the children that they could interact with. Crucially, it was also easier to manipulate these screens to work for all the potential camera angles.

I set about designing the interactive screens while the short shoot was happening then it was full steam ahead on a rapid post-production schedule. The director, and old buddy, Mark Taplin did a terrific job with the shoot and edited together a great looking working cut of the film so I knew exactly which scenes required visual effects. All of the robot host scenes were then modelled, lit and animated in Cinema 4d and rendered with Redshift to composite with the 2d/3d screen layers and animations in After Effects. A number of sequences featured the children in ‘hype mode’ which had them dancing along with animated backgrounds made from 2d and 3d elements all roto-brushed and composited with After Effects also.

It was quite an intense but satisfying couple of weeks of post-production and I was happy with the results. I’ve included here a VFX reel compilation from the final film, some stills and a selection of initial development ideas and a quick tracking motion test animation featuring the robot and an early screen design.

I’m very pleased to say that The Food Allergy Challenge has been shortlisted at the Brand Film Awards for Best Post-Production Motion Graphics for Feed Films and Mark Taplin is up for a well-deserved Best Director nomination. Winners are announced at the end of April. You can see this on the main site along with other animation work here.

Virginia Tech

It's been a busy couple of months since my last post so playing catch-up with a few rat-a-tat updates. Here's an enjoyable return to the world of Virginia Tech after my first commission with them in 2020 for a magazine feature on The Future Of Work. This brief required a little reworking of existing illustrations and developing new compositions based on their 'Research Frontiers' in AI, Wireless, Security, Health and Quantum Computing. The Photoshop collages had to be quite flexible with composable layered elements able to fit a variety of digital and print ads sizes. Enjoyed the process of revisiting and expanding the visual language and colour palette of these illustrations working with Brand Creative Director Tiffany Pruden. You can also see these on the main site here.

Let's Dance

Here's the first new Dance Dance Dance poster illustration and design of 2025 with a bit of a stylistic tweaking. Continuing the 'Sci-chedelic' vibe and illustrated type of the series so far but with a more atmospheric/textural approach to the imagery. Also having me some fun playing with True Grit brushes and texture effects. I've included here the progress from basic black and white comp to colour test and developed rough below. See the poster series on the main site here.

World Cup 2034

Here's a commission for the Al Majalla print and online edition for a feature on Saudi Arabia hosting the 2034 World Cup. The brief was a great excuse to work on a fun double page spread digital collage of football and Saudi themed visuals along with a couple of smaller spots. Thanks to Sara Loane for the enjoyable commission. You can see further work for Al Majalla on the site here.

Biggest Breakthroughs

To start the year off here's a new cover illustration for the New Year 2025 issue of BBC Science Focus. This one was a quick turnaround with a brief based on the concept of the Biggest Breakthroughs of the Century and required an esoteric creative visual with some bold typography. I worked quickly on a series of first visuals, some included here, to find something that felt right for the abstract brief. After the first round the simpler monochrome visual of a sphere with light 'breaking through' was chosen to develop and I worked with art director Joe Eden on various type treatments and headlines - love how the yellow that Joe selected pops against the black and white. I also worked up a horizontal spread version with a more dynamic 3d type approach for the title. All of the visuals were finalised in Photoshop using 3d models, abstract patterns and particles created in Cinema 4d. You can see the work on the main site here and previous work for Focus here.

Merry Dancemas

Happy New Year to you all! I'll kick off 2025 by going back to Christmas '24 with this recent yule-flavoured poster design for the regular Dance Dance Dance night at Margate Arts Club. For a festive feel I wanted the suggestion of a tree with the stacked vinyl/discs and an angelic vibe from the floaty psyche-nauts. Adding a warm glow and a Xmas palette wrapped it up nicely. I've included the sketch to final rough sequence here and a horizontal formatted version. You can see the whole poster series on the site here.

The Crabingo

Happy to have my submission for the Crab Museum calendar be selected again this year with a piece that continues with the 'total crab-ification of nearby Margate locales' theme. After crabbing up the Lido and Arlington House in previous years I made a pincer move on the flamboyant sea front facade of The Flamingo arcade transforming it into 'The Crabingo' - do you see what I did there? I'd always thought the centre piece decorative canopy shape could make for a fetching moustachioed crab head on my almost daily walks past it and took on the challenge of building it in 3d. Using reference photography I drew around the tricky shapes in Illustrator and extruded them in Cinema 4d to carefully build the existing canopy sides. I then added dimension to the central head section before creating the essential crab pincer, eyes and leg elements. I'd selected the photo I wanted to use as the basis for the image and thought it easier to build the entire upper facade in Cinema 4d to place over the top of the existing one then edit window text and blend in with Photoshop as you can see above. Great fun to do and chuffed to be included with some awesome crab-tastic artwork in the coolest calendar around. The calendar is available to buy here and you can see this and previous crab museum work on the main site also here.

Above The Benchmark

Here's a commission for financial company Hantz Group's magazine Above The Benchmark. The brief included a cover, two spreads and four employee portrait illustrations for various features in the magazine. Aside from the cover I was supplied specific photo ref to work with and wanted to make the digital collages all feel part of the same set with a consistent colour palette and feel. The illustrations hopefully combine the sense of business with the personal touch that the company represents. Thanks to Kevin Martin for entrusting me with the enjoyable commission. You can see the work on the main site here also.