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.