The Future Is Electric

A further electric car illustration to add to the growing collection. This one's for a Daimler/Mercedes-Benz Next article The Future Is Electric on how e-mobility will become mass market and eventually replace the combustion engine. Great fun using the brand colours to maximum eye-popping effect. You can see the Daimler/Mercedes-Benz portfolio and related work on the main site here.

AGIA Christmas Coaster Promo

The annual Anna Goodson Illustration Agency coaster promo is out just in time for Christmas and this year's theme is the power of love and art, no less. I went with a global warming theme for my illustration and animated gif. Mother Earth could do with a little more love in light of a certain large country withdrawing from international climate agreements. You can read about the promo here and check out illustrations on social media tagged with the #Loveisloveisart.

The Twang On Tour

Blast from the past time. It's ten years since The Twang's debut album 'Love It When I Feel Like This' was released and the band are performing it live on a special UK tour at the moment. That means my foxy artwork for the album cover is out there doing the rounds again so thought it'd be a good time to revisit the Twang archives. Creating all of the artwork for the album and it's singles was one of the most enjoyable commissions I've ever had. I was allowed a lot of freedom to experiment with the illustration style and had fun running amok with the surreal, psychedelic, council estate aesthetic. Hopefully they still hold up today. You can see the entire Twang artwork archive on my site here.

Scorch / Fi

The 3d experimentation continues apace with two different approaches using the same floaty head model and scene. The first is called Scorch and employs some crispy texture work for that hot 'leatherman' sunburnt look. The second, Fi, cools it down with glass textures reflecting luminous objects in the void. I made a little animated gif and short of Fi to get to grips with some 3d camera movement. You can see it on the site here with related works.

E-Car Club

This year I have mostly been illustrating electric cars it seems, well, two commissions so far anyway. Here are some recent illos for UK magazine Boundless for an article entitled 'An Electrifying Prospect?' and another from earlier in the year for Canadian magazine L'actualité on the impact of Nemaska lithium mining for batteries in Shawinigan. Both commissions play with similar electric green/blue palettes and dynamic compositions. You can see them on the site with related vehicular work here.

Trick Or Trump

Here's an illustrated response to my agent Anna Goodson's call for Halloween images recently. I was away from the studio last week so missed posting it on the 31st October myself but here it is anyway in all it's belated glory. Still very much a scary prospect.

The Cresswell Plot

I've always enjoyed illustrating for book covers so I was really pleased to work on this recent publishing commission for the paperback edition of Eliza Wass' The Cresswell Plot from Hyperion. Starting with the initial client sketch of a young female next to a tree I worked through various colour schemes and tree sizes before landing on the final combination seen above before the lovely type treatment was added by the designer. See this and related publishing works on the site here.

Smart Home

Here's a welcome commission for the Washington Post for the cover of their Real Estate section on the future of our homes entitled To Innovation And Beyond. Really enjoyed creating this one using suggestive cool tech colour and texture areas with a little 3d sprucing work on the friendly neighbourhood drone. See it on the site here with related works.

Heartonaut

More 3d mayhem this week as I experiment at will. Been working on this heart-themed helmeted psychedelic figure and it just so happens to be World Heart Day today! Coincidence? You bet. I've pushed the camera around a bit to get some nice angles and also included some screen grabs of the 3d work scene-in-progress that I think look quite interesting and lo-fi. As you were.

Zane 3D

Strange new happenings to report at Potts HQ. I've been dabbling in the dark arts of 3D over the last few weeks learning a bunch of exciting new tricks. Here are my first attempts to explore the extra dimension with a suitably abstract illustration and cheeky gif animation that I'll call Zane, no relation to Billy. These three scenes are the same texture and object experiment with different lighting to suit your mood. It's been a creative eye-opener so will keep the new stuff coming as I navigate the massive 3D learning curve.

The Great British Postcard

I've entered these two illustrations into a competition to design The Great British Postcard based on personal viewpoints of the country in 2017. The first entry, Brex the Lionheart, is a take on the current condition of the nation's pride and how an Elizabethan collar might help to curb any further self harm. The second, Keep Calm!, is a more playful interpretation of a nation acting out like a nostalgia crazed toy robot on the blink.

ABRSM Piano & Practice Notebook

I've recently been busy creating lots of cover artwork for ABRSM's music exam books that I've yet to put out there in the web-o-sphere. I'll start with these two from the last year for the latest Piano Exam Pieces and the colourful Practice Notebook. I've been working with ABRSM for 5 years now and am really pleased to still be illustrating the new editions for each instrument. The style has gradually evolved over the years and become a little more refined and elegant perhaps since the first Piano incarnation here. Also good to still be working closely with designer Kate Benjamin who puts together the best brief around and co-ordinates the complicated and varied colour schemes for each instrument. Bravo innit.

The Ultimate Driving Simulator

Here's a new illustration for Mercedes-Benz / Daimler on the latest driving simulator technology based in Sindelfingen, Germany. The article is about peering into the future and how the simulator can provide critical insights for car production based on the streams of data gathered from virtual conditions. You can also see the illustration on the site here with related works.

Mozartistic

Here's some new illustration work for the 'Best Children's Album' Grammy Award-winning Secret Agent 23 Skidoo. Cactus Skidoo has collaborated with Asheville Symphony on a 5 song EP called Mozartistic that mixes the world of Symphonic music, specifically Mozart's works, with the world of hip hop. I rendered a piano-tinkling, deck-spinning Amadeus for the cover along with designs for the full CD artwork packaging. As a bonus it was really nice surprise to receive a cool little statuette of DJ Mozart based on the cover illustration. You can read more and listen to the tracks here. See the work on the main site here.

Qirex

Bit of personal work splicing a moustachio dude with a Wipeout HD obsession. As you were.

Explore

Here's a series of illustrations for two features in Explore, the official magazine of Med-el, manufacturers of cochlear implants for hearing loss. The theme of the issue is Time with the first feature, Time it Right!, looking at the factors informing the decision on when to have implants. The second, Living in the Moment, is about appreciating the present rather than being stuck in the past or dreaming of the future. You can see all the spreads on the site here with related work.