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.

Lidoverse Merit

Chuffed to pick up a Merit Award in the Uncommissioned category at the Hiii Illustration 23 competition for my ongoing personal project Lidoverse. Always nice to get recognition, especially for creative work close to your heart, so thank you to the jury. Here's my bit of bumph about the project.

Lidoverse - A series of personal illustrations and animations that are based on a local landmark called the Cliftonville Lido in coastal Margate, UK. The work re-imagines the modestly proportioned Lido in epic and miniature scale in an alternative seaside universe. One populated by abstracted takes on Margate’s architecture, signage, concrete promenades, coastal hazard markers and sea wall escape ladders.

The Spy In Your Car

Here's a juicy Reader's Digest commission for a feature called 'The Spy In Your Car' about the ease with which your automobile's technology could be hacked and potentially misused by abusive partners. The brief required four illustrations based on the, quite terrifying, case studies in the article and covered the themes of vehicular location tracking, virtual stalking and data privacy. The illustrations were created with 3d models that were digitally collaged with textures and photo reference then rendered with an eye-scorching orange/blue palette. Thanks to Karen Matthes for a really satisfying commission to work on. See more work for Reader's Digest on the site here. 

Goin' Hollywood South

A new cover illustration for Atlanta Magazine on the current state of 'Hollywood South' and will it rise again? Atlanta's movie and TV industry has struggled recently so the brief called for a dilapidated Hollywood sign approach for the title with an identifiable Atlanta skyline behind it. I set about building a Hollywood sign in Cinema 4d, see the clean model shot above, as a starting point with the plan to add the levels of distress in Photoshop. For the roughs I proposed two approaches with different framing devices for the central sign/city scene, one featuring a cinema audience and the other a bustling studio set. The studio direction was chosen so I worked up the digital collage and created elements to interact with the Atlanta strap line. Had a lot of fun with this one and am happy with how it came out. See it on the main site here also.

Are We Special?

New work for BBC Science Focus' current issue on the theme of 'Are We Special?' and the origins of Earth and life itself. The brief was to create a cover that could be adapted for a spread illustration featuring Professor Brian Cox. I've done quite a few space-themed illustrations for Focus by now and wanted to try something a little different so had some fun with an eye-popping colour treatment that could be applied to the supplied Cox photography. The main elements of the cover illustration were created in Cinema 4d such as the planets and explosive line design with the stylistic work achieved in Photoshop. Thanks again to long-time collaborator Joe Eden at Focus for the commission. See more work for Focus here.

Stellar Competition

Here's a commission for Al Majalla on the international race to conquer space and whether it could become the next major conflict zone. I love a cosmic illustration so really enjoyed modelling the various rockets in Cinema 4d and experimenting with dynamic camera angles and compositions. For the spot illustrations I designed a key-shaped space station, opening the door to militaristic opportunities, and an unusual shaped composition looking at the importance of satellite control in the potential war zone. The illustrations were also beautifully animated by Ayoub Hadir for Al Majalla. Thanks again to Sara Loane for the commission. See more work for Al Majalla on the site here.

Smash And Grab

Here's a recent cover and feature illustration for The Journalist magazine on the theme of the 'Smash and Grab' tactics of picture agency copyright enforcers. An interesting subject matter to be sure and one that I found challenging to conceptualise. The brief called for me to visually represent the receiving of unexpected and hefty fee demands many years after posting a copyrighted stock photo, often unawarely. I tried out a few initial visuals, some playing with the theme of the all-seeing AI bots that scour the internet for image usage, which I've included here. The fist holding a demand seemed to convey the intimidating nature of the copyright enforcement and was chosen to develop further for the final. I'm pleased with how it turned out. You can see more work for The Journalist on my site here.

AI Goodies And Baddies

Here's a fun commission for Scholastic Action magazine, aimed at young teens, on the theme of AI and how it might change the world for good or ill. The brief called for a central robot figure to present the ideas so I turned to Cinema 4d to build a friendly-looking android character that could turn nasty on a dime - mostly achieved with lighting, palette and turning the semicircular mouth upside down. I've included my first Redshift render tests here that looked slick but not quite the right fit stylistically for the illustrations. I created a cover and two inside illustrations with a digital collage style around the central robot and cloned an intimidating army of them for the 'dark' side of AI piece. You can see the work on the main site here also.