V&A Highlight

I visited the V&A on Saturday and checked out the 2018 Illustration Awards, as well as the excellent Ocean Liner exhibition that's currently on. I was very pleasantly surprised to see one of my editorial entries pop up on the gallery telly as one of the show's selected highlights, I had no idea! The illustration in question, Life After Man, was for a BBC Focus cover last year. Kudos to the winner's this year, some great work on display and well worth a visit.

Figures And Football

Here's a bit of a catch-up on a couple of sporty commissions for Qatar Airways Oryx magazine I've worked on in the past year. The most recent 'Perfect Figures' looks at the trend of collecting health data through smartphones and wearables and the second 'Countdown To Kick-Off' is a look a the stadium and infrastructure construction underway in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup.  You can see them on the site with related work here.

Rough Diamonds

Here's a recent double page illustration for MS Amlin Chart Magazine on the most audacious and ingenious airport-based diamond heists in history. You can see see this and other related bling on the site here.

Genes And Planets

Work continues on the BBC Focus Magazine Collection cover illustrations and here are the most recent volumes, a Guide To Your Genes and How Science Can Fix The Planet. These were both created with 3d software then composited and tweaked in Photoshop. I'm getting a kick out of playing with the 3d camera and finding unusual angles to work with. The spiral 'gene-tunnel' effect was achieved by looking down though the length of the double helix model. I've included some of the colourful initial work-in-progress visuals for these two covers also. See this and further work for Focus Collection on the site here.

Blockchain Buster

Here's a recent cover illustration for Canadian Lawyer magazine on the impending technological threat that blockchain presents to the legal industry. To visualise blockchain I turned to 3d software to create a formidable looking wheel-of-tech and cranked up the ominous Hammer Horror lighting for effect. I was also asked to illustrate the typography which I rendered disintegrating into the gears of the machine. Thanks to Blockbuster Video for the accidental typographic inspiration. I've included a few alternative attempts along with the final cover and you can see the this and related work on the site here.

Skylarking About

Here's a change of pace from the slicker 3d approach with a painterly publishing illustration for the paperback cover of Karen Gregory's Skylarks released tomorrow by Bloomsbury. The brief was to loosely capture the feel of two skylarks playing freely in the sky symbolising the relationship at the heart of the young adult novel. A really enjoyable commission, experimenting with textures and good ol' fashioned scanned-in mark making, and great cover design by Andrea Kearney. You can see it on the site with similar work here.

Unknown Worlds

Here's the latest from my ongoing commission to illustrate the covers of BBC Focus Magazine Collection. 'Unknown Worlds' is the theme here and I went with a 3d helmeted glass head visual, probably inspired by the glass skull on the old tv show Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World...man, I'm old. My original helmetless first rough can be seen above. See the rest of the collection on the site here.

Techno Techno Files!

Here are a couple of recent editorials for Exhibitor Magazine's Techno Files section on the latest innovations in the exhibition industry. The first spread and spots take on VR, biometrics and chatbots while the second set, adapted from the first, deals with drones, geofencing and conductive ink. A fun commission using lots of colour and familiar territory for me style-wise. See the work and related technology commissions on the site here.

Atomic Timekeeper

Here's a recent illustration for 5280, Denver's Mile High Magazine, on the local atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder. It's the most accurate in the US but still manages to lose a whopping one second every 300 million years. Sloppy. This was created with some 3d modelling composited with 2d textures in Photoshop. I've included some of the roughs developed en route to the final piece, also visible on my site with related work here.

Prism Break

Here's a new cover illustration for IBM Systems Magazine on optimising your 'AI Journey'. The abstract brief required a visual that somehow showed important information being identified and channelled from multiple data sources. The first works-in-progress show the initial classic prism idea and multi-sided object visual that were combined for the cover concept. The finished illustration was put together with 3d and 2d techniques. See this and other work for IBM publications on the site here.

The Science Of Health And Happiness

An exciting commission came through earlier this year to illustrate 12 upcoming covers for the BBC Focus Magazine Collection. Each volume (or bookazine, if you will) has a particular theme and these first two issues concentrated on the science of Health and Happiness respectively. I saw it as a good opportunity to flex my, still puny, 3d skills and create some relatively bold and simple illustrations that convey the themes clearly. More to come on this series as the year progresses. You can see them on the site with further BBC Focus work here.

Head Games

I'm playing catch-up on the blog after a busy old month of work and travel. Here's a recent cover illustration for Wall Street Journal's Review section for an article entitled 'Head Games: The Mental Tricks Of Athletic Endurance'. Unlike this delayed post the illustration was created in time for the, then, upcoming Winter Olympics. I created an alternative dark version that was used on the website. You can see it on the site with previous Wall Street Journal work here.

Folio Society BIC2018

I finally got around to entering the  Folio Society Book Illustration Competition, something I've wanted to do for quite a while, and am really pleased to say I've made it on to this year's longlist. The chosen book to illustrate was The Selected Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and the brief required illustrations for three short stories and a cover binding design rendered in a simpler graphic style.

It was great to soak up the atmosphere of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories (A Scandal In Bohemia, The Man With The Twisted Lip and The Musgrave Ritual) and select scenes I felt would lend themselves to interesting interpretations. Stylistically I tried to go for a modern and atmospheric painterly approach creating a digital collage of scanned-in-textures, photography and even a touch of 3D with subtle patterning effects. Really enjoyed the process of working on these and I might post some of the visuals that didn't make the cut at a later date.

In the meantime you can see all the excellent and varied entries on the longlist here and even vote your favourite ... ahem! The winner is announced at the Awards Night on February 20th. #BIC2018

Norwegian Neon

Here's a new illustration for Daimler/Mercedes-Benz Next innovation magazine. The article looks at the prevalence of e-mobility across Norway and posits that the 'country is all-electric'. The national flag rendered in neon seemed to sum up the theme nicely. I built the sign in 3d then took it into Photoshop for a little tinkering. I've included some of the process work here from initial client sketch to the 3D model and a few rendered variations. You can see it on the site with related work here.

Portrait Of A Memory

Nature Journal recently commissioned me to tackle an illustration on memory and how it works. The brief required an image featuring disparate elements, including Cumberbatch's Sherlock, connected in intricate ways so I thought I look to 3D software for assistance. I created an atom array of spheres for the complex memory structure then worked in the colour and photo-collaging for the final image. You can see further work for Nature on the site here.