Of Bodies & Brains

Time for an overdue post on some recent illustrations for BBC Science Focus mag. Here's a cover for the spin-off Collection Volume 17: A Scientific Guide to the Human Body and a feature illustration in the main mag posing the question Should You Upgrade Your Brain? Think I might need to. You can see these and other Science Focus work on the main site here.

Chrome Blab: Danger of Death

Here's a short bit of experimental daftness featuring a dollop of 3d twisting gloop and oddball found signage from the coast. Creepy fun? Surewhynot.

Witch Doctoring

Here are a couple of concept illustrations I recently unearthed from the digital archive. They were early test visuals for a witch doctor character that would feature in a Childish Gambino VR concert experience called 'Pharos' that was performed in California's Joshua Tree National Park in 2017. I was commissioned by Radio Design and you can read about the making of the incredible concert over on their website here. The overall production design went in another direction but it was hella fun to work on briefly.

#Metoo and the Jewish World

Here's a new commission for Hadassah Magazine in New York illustrating the cover and a few feature articles for their '#Metoo and the Jewish World' issue. It was a slightly intimidating brief to tackle as a non-Jewish middle aged bloke but I approached the sensitively written and enlightening articles as I would any project and settled on a visual language I was happy with to interpret the themes. The illustrations cover a wide spectrum of #Metoo issues from the experiences of female rabbi's to an update on the movement in Israel. You can see the work on the site and previous work for Hadasshah here.

Space 2069

Here's a brand new cover illustration for the latest BBC Science Focus magazine celebrating past achievements in space exploration and looking at what to expect in the next 50 years. This was a fun illustration to work on with its combination of 3d elements, the astronaut's helmet and spaceships, and good old 2d digital collage. You can see this with all my previous BBC Focus work on the site here.

Jason Lives

Here's a new illustration for Science magazine in the US on the slightly shady scientific advisory group Jason. Recently under threat of extinction the group has evolved from its Cold War defence strategy origins into a more diverse health, biology and agriculture focused agency. The brief was to somehow reference the iconic Dr. Strangelove round table set design and show the group and their projects diversifying over time. I created the central light, table and chairs in 3d then developed the illustration around those elements in Photoshop using colour gradients and collage to show progression over the decades. You can see this and previous Science work on the site here.

Lion On Our Streets

Here's a new illustration for Car and Driver magazine on the re-emergence of Peugeot in America after a 30 year absence. The 'Lion on our Streets' headline was already in place and heavily influenced the illustration as you can probably tell. I really enjoyed working on it, especially getting to sneak the Peugeot logo shadow in there. You can see this and other illustrations for Car and Driver on the site here.

Archival Congress

While trawling the archives recently I came across some illustrations for a music project from a couple of years ago that I hadn't shared yet. These are a selection of unreleased album/single covers and concepts for the band First Congress who I collaborated with for a while on a number of illustrations and animated videos, the already released of which you can see here. These were the first visuals I worked on for the band while I developed the stylised graphic approach that would set the template for the later single covers. You can also see these on the site with related work here.

Play With Fire

Here's a cover jacket illustration for a new book by Nick Francis of Casual Films called 'The New Fire'. It's a guide to successfully using video to promote businesses so a blazing play icon seemed an appropriate way to visualise the theme. You can see this and related work on the site here.

Black Holes and Ancient Life

Some new cover illustrations for the rebranded BBC Science Focus Magazine and Collection Vol. 13. The Supermassive Black Hole illustration was a quick turnaround commission to coincide with the recent first ever image of the cosmic phenomenon from the Event Horizon telescope. That image was understandably a touch blurry so I took visual guidance from the Event Horizon simulations gallery. I also created an animation in After Effects for the iPad cover edition using the 3d model I'd created for the illustration. The second illustration shows a cross-section of the development of Ancient Life on Earth up to early man traipsing up a 3d spiral. See further BBC Focus work here.

American Illustration 38 Winner

Very happy to have been selected this year as an American Illustration 38 Chosen Online Winner with this illustration for Hadassah Magazine based on an extract from the book 'Barren Island' by Carol Zoref.

Commence Au Festival!

I recently illustrated the classical music Festival Guide 2019 for BBC Music magazine. The guide covers a number of UK and international festivals across the globe so a colourful burst of a collage was required to give a flavour of all that was on offer. Bit of a throwback to my Promming days! You can see this and related work on the site here.

MAN-AGE

Here's some personal work for a great online project called MAN-AGE that aims to publish creative stories and artwork that deal with male mental health struggles in an attempt to 'challenge unnecessary societal pressures, create a community of voices and combat isolation'. I found this a challenge at the outset as I’m quite a private person so decided to tackle the general themes of masculinity and mental health head on rather than get overly personal. Once I took that approach I couldn't be stopped and ended up creating four illustrations and a couple of animations using the man-age colour palette. The first 3D animation and accompanying artwork is called 'Fragmentation' and is an abstract take on a depressive episode. The third and fourth artwork, 'Bust' and 'Mars Attacks' deal with notions of broken masculinity and associated anxieties. The site is full of really interesting writing, photography and illustration and well worth a look at man-age.com. You can also see the work on the site with related work here.

Healthy Systems

Catch up time on the latest cover illustrations for BBC Focus Collection Volumes 11 and 12 with guides to a Healthy Body & Brain and the Solar System, respectively. These were both mostly created with 3d software then finessed with some Photoshoppery. I've included some of the initial cover ideas for both that were almost finished pieces themselves. Lots more illustration and animation work to see for BBC Focus up at the main site here and on this blog of course.

Supercomputing

New technology illustration for IBM Systems Magazine on their latest supercomputers Summit and Sierra. See this and previous illustration work for IBM on the site here.

ABRSM Movement

Time for a hefty catchup on my music exam book cover illustration work with the lovely folk at ABRSM and equally lovely designer Kate Benjamin. Here are two of the more recent designs for Piano and Guitar Exam Pieces 2019/20 that have some new 3d elements woven into the gradually evolving style and texture to keep it fresh. I've also included a whole slew of colourful Woodwind Syllabus covers from the previous year that I've yet to add to the blog. A real pleasure to work on all of these and happy to say there's more to come. You can see all the of the ABRSM work over on the site and here on the blog.