Roboheads

Over the Summer I've been dabbling with a 3d 'robo-head' I modelled in Cinema 4d/Redshift for a personal animation project I posted recently 'Degeneratif'. I've had some fun experimenting with compositions, textures/lighting and some typographical elements and have compiled all the results here. If you're into robo-head bonanzas then you have come to the right place.

Degeneratif

Now, how about a little Degeneratif? Here's some more light and digestible Cinema 4d/Redshift/After Effects 3d animation experimentation to the Acid delights of Mobile Mother's Drift (Oh No Acid Version). Whilst creating this digital ditty I had in mind the, personally comforting, notion of Degenerative AI which refers to 'the gradual decline, decay, or self-degrading patterns in AI systems where models lose fidelity, forget rare real-world data, or produce lower-quality outputs over time' or in this case are degraded in to a cyber chicken of some form. For this latest addition to my humanoid head period I experimented with deforming fx to achieve the degeneration look on my 3d model and applied some fun VHS filters to enhance the sense of a copy of a copy. You can see the work on the main site here also.

Acid 2 Time

Here's a fun experimental animation project created with Cinema 4D/Redshit and After Effects. It's a music video for the track Acid 2 Time taken from the album Drift by friend and collaborator Graeme Swinton's latest Acid House incarnation Mobile Mother.

Crafted with high-end 3d graphics, gritty moving textures and vfx, the video is a series of animated loops of swirling 3d sculptures that progressively deteriorate and overlap as the soundscape intensifies. It's also a cracking excuse to indulge in a fetish for late 90s techno aesthetics, see Autechre's Incunabula cover. You can watch the video on the main site here also and get Mobile Mother's Drift from Bandcamp here.

AI-wakening

I've been having a bit of 3d experimentation fun this week with Cinema 4d/Redshift, After Effects and a dusted-off 3d android bust I modelled for an AI themed BBC Science Focus cover concept in 2023. That job eventually went in a different direction but I always fancied revisiting this idea to get it out of my system. Initially, I created the third blue-tinged visual as a Redshift render test that I took into Photoshop for further treatment to get the kind of look I was after. I then developed the lighting, textures and illuminated tech interior to bring a little life to the humanoid and finalised the orange and yellow iterations. When I was happy with the visuals I decided to render out an animated version featuring the AI emerging from a primordial tech-soup and giving us a little spin - then presumably overwhelming us all. Hey ho. You can see the work on the main site also here.

Merry Xmas 2025

Submissions

Over the course of the year I love to enter competitions with a creative brief. They come with a ready-made theme, the similar artistic freedom of a personal project and the potential bonus upside of some nice exposure if your submission does well. If they get nowhere then you've had fun making it and spread your creative wings a little at the same time. Here are a few of my recent submissions that fit firmly into that category.

I really enjoy tackling The Folio Society Book Illustration Awards literary briefs every year if I can. The subject matter is usually something I wouldn't typically get commissioned to do and the stories are always imaginative and worth exploring creatively. This year it was the classic Grimm Brothers dark fairy tale Rapunzel and I found the immortal 'Let Down Your Hair' passage irresistible. The previous year was Neil Gaiman's similarly dark and strange The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains and I depicted a climactic scene within the titular cave 'From Out Of The Shadows It Came'. Both of these stories coincidentally featured red-haired characters prominently and I seem to have gravitated towards that for some reason. I really enjoyed exploring more painterly atmospheric digital techniques with these. You can see other Folio Society submissions here and an entry for Sherlock that made it to the shortlist in 2018 here.

Another project with a great creative brief, and a good cause to boot, is Secret 7" . People are invited to submit a 7" cover artwork for a choice of a track from seven musical artists with the final selected 700 submissions sold to auction for charity. I didn't make the cut this time but I've been lucky enough to get selected for the show a few times in the past and love giving it a go at each opportunity. For 2025 I created covers for Scissor Sisters 'Return To Oz' and The Cure's 'Warsong'. For the former I focussed on a druggy depiction of Emerald City and the latter an out of left field response to vague lyrics and a sudden obsession with a tech-militaristic portrayal of a Portugeuse man o'war. I experimented with a 3d style for these, creating and lighting the models in Cinema 4d with digital comping and finishing in Photoshop. There's a couple of rougher alternative takes added here also. See all previous work for Secret 7" 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.

Hiii Illustration 23 Finalists

Happy to report that two of my projects have been chosen as Finalists at the Hiii Illustration Awards 2023. First up is The Dark Universe illustrated and animated cover for BBC Science Focus in the Publishing category. You can vote on that by clicking 'Like' on its page on the Hiiibrand site here if you're inclined. Secondly, my personal project Lidoverse is selected in the Uncommissioned category and can be 'Liked' here. 

Secret Swan

I was really happy to have my submission selected for this year's return of the Secret 7" exhibition and auction in aid of the charity Warchild. All artists involved were asked to choose from seven tracks to create a unique 7" vinyl single artwork and remained anonymous until close of the live auction. I chose Siouxsie and the Banshees' Lullaby to base my artwork on and found the evocative lyric 'The dream swan spins' as good an excuse as any to build that robot swan I've always wanted to! Using Cinema4D I designed and modelled the swan before taking it into Photoshop for some violet-hued cygnetpunk styling for the final piece. I've posted an unused alternate version here along with some of the untextured 3d model shots to see. Also included are a couple of photos of the final sleeve displayed in the exhibition at NOW Gallery in North Greenwich, courtesy of Clare Mallison and Al Heighton. You can see some of my previous Secret 7" submissions here.

Crablington House

I had so much fun last year creating Lido Crab for Margate's Crab Museum calendar 2023 that I couldn't resist submitting another local landmark/crab inspired artwork for the '24 edition. As I'd been developing some illustrations this year featuring the monolithic br-eauty Arlington House it seemed to be the ideal candidate for crab-ification. Working with a Cinema 4d model I'd already made of the building I added concrete pincers and legs along with some rooftop eyes before composting into a Margate Main Sands scene in Photoshop. Happy to say Crablington House was selected for the calendar along with some lovely entries and is available at the Crab Museum store here. Get your claws on one. 

Into The Lidoverse

Here are some recent experiments from my ongoing Lidoverse personal project inspired by Margate's iconic Cliftonville Lido sign and staring out to sea too much. The Lidoverse gallery has embraced the imposing brutal architecture of Arlington House this year and spliced it's DNA with the Lido for a few daunting appearances so far. The Lido sign itself is transformed into an end of Summer cocktail drinking vessel and makes an appearance on a flyer design for my wife and I's 50th birthday party, Margate Five-0, in July before congregating amongst itself out at a dusky sea. The Lidoverse continues to expand and is all 3d modelled with Cinema 4d and composited in Photoshop with my own photography. You can also see the work on the main site here.

Cyber Skullduggery

Here's a fun little personal animation project that began as an alternate concept for a recent BBC Science Focus' AI issue cover commission. The initial brief, before it altered, revolved around Art, Love and Death so I'd modelled the cyber skull to pose with a holographic rose and even storyboarded the animation for it (see above). I was keen to continue with the endeavour and set about animating a motion camera in Cinema 4d to move around the skull. The mini-concept grew to include a holographic paint brush and nuclear missile representing the AI skull's expanding education before culminating in a countdown to annihilation...naturally. All of these elements were composited together in After Effects using camera data exported from Cinema 4d then graded with film stock and noise filters. Really enjoyed adding the soundtrack and mixing in the sound effects for finishing touches. You can see this on the site with other personal work here.

For Escape Only

Here's a recent bit of personal work I've been playing with in between jobs, a mini-project offshoot of the ongoing Lidoverse project called For Escape Only. It's a series of illustrations and an animation that expands on my Cliftonville Lido obsession to include other local landmarks such as the perfectly 80s (and hideous) College Square sign in Margate town and an abstracted take on the area's concrete promenades, coastal hazard markers and seawall escape ladders. With everything built in Cinema 4d it seemed natural to turn the illustration series into a subtle 3d animation exercise with simple camera movements added through the scenes. I paired the animated visuals with an edit from the atmospheric track Kibo by Ashford based band Bossk.

Lido Crab and the Lidoverse

Since moving to Margate, just over a year ago now, I've had a bit of a creative crush on the Cliftonville Lido tower. So much so that I built a 3d model of it in Cinema 4d to tinker around with for an ongoing project I like to call the Lidoverse. Here are some of the illustrations created so far mostly envisaging the tower as an enormous monument out at sea that develops a Santa complex at Christmas and, for its latest incarnation, transforms into a crab. The Lido Crab was created as a submission for the 2023 calendar from the wonderful Crab Museum based in Margate. Happy to report the Lido Crab will appear in the calendar amongst some very fine crustacean-centric art and is available here. 

Monorail Memories

Here's a recent collaboration project with the talented Black Country Type, an old buddy from my home town of Kingswinford in the West Midlands. His ongoing Black Country based photographic project applies his unique aesthetic to the region's post-industrial landscapes, typography and ephemera. He approached me with the idea of creating a t-shirt design based on the Merry Hill Monorail, a short-lived vision of future transport from 1991 that shuttled consumers between department stores at walk-speed. The monorail eventually succumbed to technical difficulties but nostalgically lives forever in my electric dreams. I jumped at the chance to pay design homage and took inspiration from Black Country Type's visual mood board featuring 80s cool graphics from Epcot Center posters to JVC video cassette packaging. I've posted a few of the initial designs here before simplifying for the final three colour design. The excellent Provide Birmingham printed and launched the limited run of 50 t-shirts which I'm happy to say sold out pretty quickly with prints possibly available soon.