Mind The Creative

I pop up in this months Digital Arts magazine wearing my guru cap offering advice on how to be more creative when the inspiration well has dried up. You know, insider tricks like drinking rivers of coffee, escaping on your bike, watching daytime TV, doodling aimlessly til dawn. Essentially anything that resets your noggin and saves you headbutting the monitor out of sheer frustration. Arhhh, too late.

Six Chunks Of Road Warrior

Had some fun condensing one of my favourite B-movies Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior into a six panel comic strip for a recent Little White Lies competition. The brief was to keep it black and white, no greyscale, and to stick to the panel system they provided. If only Tina Turner had been in this sequel too. Click to enlarge

Still Feeling Minnesota

Revisited the cover of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Twin Cities Visitor Guide for another illustration this year. Would be cool to actually physically visit the twins in the flesh one day without my lasso tool. For sure.

CSI: Crime Scene Illustration

Here's a recent spread illustration for Canada's Readers Digest. It's about the elaborate forensic investigation behind the capture of an elusive hit & run perp. Nasty business.

Pencilled Out

I had a great time last Thursday at the ICA's Heavy Pencil event shootin' hot lead (and ink) with John Slade. We had a couple of hours to put some imagery to our sounds, the playlist loosely revolving around film themes and general inspiration, with the results being projected live on the bar wall . Here's a selection of snaps from the night courtesy of Tom Bunning and Rich Sinclair and some of the creations, more of which can be seen on John's blog. Thanks to all the people that came and a big cheers to John for getting me involved and to Gemma Tortella for putting on a great night.

Some of the tunes for these drawings included...

Queen - The Hero (Flash Gordon OST)

Company Flow - Population Control

John Carpenter - Escape From New York theme

Johnny Greenwood - Prospector's Arrive (There Will Be Blood OST)

Beck - Broken Drum (Boards Of Canada Remix)

Elsie Mae - Do You Really Want To Rescue Me?

Vangelis - Salome's Dance (Blade Runner Esper Edition OST)

Goodbye Horses - Q Lazzarus

The Sad Skinhead - Faust

Memories Project

I've been invited to contribute some artwork to the Memories Project which looks at the thoughts and experiences of individuals who have survived cancer. The project is launched in the Summer by DAHRA (Designers Against Human Rights Abuse), Subism, OneTenEleven Media and Garrick Webster. There's some fantastic artists on board and I'm proud to be a part of it, will keep you posted.

Puritanical

It's a grey Monday morning and a window has opened for a timely re-entry into the blogosphere to catch up on recent happenings. I wanted to mention a great gig I went to a couple of weeks ago, These New Puritans at Bush Hall in Shepherds Bush, London. Their new album 'Hidden' is an innovative beast, a rousing soundscape of electronic rhythms, massive drums, children's choirs and woodwind/brass instrumentation which is at once futuristic and ancient. It was reproduced to wonderful effect live on the night with the woodwind/brass section, huge drum and chains all present and correct. It was unlike anything I've seen or heard for quite some time. Inspiring stuff.