Project 365: Jan 8th - 14th 2013

Been extremely busy this week so these are all just sketches. I'm gonna have a lot of free time though over the next month, so I should be able to share some finished work with you lovely people.

So, the week of January 8th - 14th.

Jan 8th: Iron Man

Jan 9th: Random Chick.

Jan 10th: Son Of Da Bitch!

Jan 11th: Sally.

Jan 12th: Weeping Angel.

Jan 13th: Steampunk Spidey.

Jan 14th: Random Chick 2

More to come next week peeps, so stay tuned!

Project 365: Jan 1st - 7th 2013

People close to me know I do a 'Project 365', which is basically taking a photo everyday that sums it up. My mate Izzy is doing a similar project, but with illustrations. So inspired by her I have decided to start one as well.. 

Using the 'at least one illustration a day' rule, I will be uploading an illustration for each new day in the year 2013. An illustration counts as a sketch or a fully coloured masterpiece!

So here's January 1st - 7th.

Jan 1st: BRING ON 2013!

Jan 2nd: Random Rock Chick.

Jan 3rd: Scarlet Spider Chibi.

Jan 4th: Feathers.

Jan 5th: Cute or Hot?

Jan 6th: Lord Zedd.

Jan 7th: Green Candy.

Open Doors SW9 at the Brick Box

I was fortunate to be involved with the latest Open Doors located in at The Brick Box in Brixton. It was special for me personally for a couple of reasons. It was my first exhibition and it also featured my old mate buddy pal Fuad as well, so it was also our first exhibition we did together.

The art exhibition was themed around a game of consequences. Open Doors had collected words written by local residents about the area. The words have been passed onto artists who will be exhibiting original art directly inspired by the words.

 

Friendly Spidey Rivalry: Sweeney Tom's Ammunition

As I mentioned in a previous post, me and my good old buddy Tom have been having a competition seeing who can out do each other in terms of a Spider-Man costume design. I thought I'd take this time just to show you guys what this talented young man is capable of.

Armoured Spidey

Grinch Spidey?

OAP Spidey

WWI Spidey

Spider-Hulk

'I love to draw, that's how I do it.'

Why the title? Allow me to explain. The other day I was talking to a close friend of mine, who is an illustrator, about the amount of drawing we both been doing as of late. Now at the moment we're both in simular situations as the illustration field isn't our main source of income, so we both work at jobs doing shift work for ridiculously low pay. Now anyone who has ever done any kind of shift work (retail, fastfood, etc.) knows that it leaves you utterly exhausted by the end of the day, both physically and mentally.

Dispite that I always end up doing some kind of drawing everyday, be it a complete work that I post on 'Ant Can't Draw' and 'The Prophets of Illustration' or just a quick doodle in my sketchbook. I'm pointing this out because my friend ask me how I do it? Because of our situations we both feel like death when we get home and he said he never has the energy to to do anything, let alone draw and couldn't get how I manage to knock out a new drawing every couple of days. So he asks me, "How the hell do I keep drawing?"

My answer was pretty simple. "I love to draw, that's how I do it."

And I do love it. I been drawing for as long as I can remember and it's one of the few things I will brag about as far as my skills go. I went to college and university to do creative courses because I wanted a career doing something I love doing and not once have I considered it a chore. It is a great field to get into as you're always doing something different and seeing a piece you created either on display, printed, in a magazine, etc. is one of the most gratifying feelings you'll ever get. On a person level it keeps me sane as I use it as a way of escaping if I've had a rotten day at work or if I've had an argument and immerse myself in what ever I'm putting on the paper (which these days is a lot of Spider-Man drawings). 

Someone once said if you do a job doing something you love then you'll never work a day in your life and I believe that. I mean when ever I get a comission I never see it as work and I enjoy doing. Drawing, illustration, animation, graphic design and whatever else you can put under this field is my passion.

It's what I love to do.

Friendly Spidey Rivalry

As some of you are aware (and if you're not shame on you) I'm apart of a little collective called The Prophets of Illustration. It consists of me, Fuad Ali, Tom Dryland, Lois Dryland and Hannah MacDouall. Now Tom and I have started a little game of one-upsmanship based around 'Spiderman' in which we trying to see who can come up with a better costume. So far I have done two, a black and red alternative and a steampunk version while Tom has done an armoured spider suit. As it stands now I'm waiting for Tom's comeback to my steampunk, so watch this space.

My first attempt at designing a spider suit.

Tom's spider armour in a very cool pose.

My steampunk Spiderman.

Tom's Grinch Spidey (for lack of a better term).

New: Death Metal

My 'Death and Me' series has become something of a trademark for amoungst people who know my work, but I ran out of ideas a few months ago and haven't done. Thankfully, I had a new one the other day, now I have a flood of ideas. So here it is, the first in a new series of 'Death and Me'.

Using Instagram A Bit Too Much

Instagram is an app you can download for the iPhone and I've only got into using it recently. Most of the people I know use it and I can see why. It is a quick and easy way to spice up a bland picture a little bit (like most of the examples below) and makes it incredibly easy to share on various social media sites, as well as their own site. Thing is it's so easy that I find myself using it more then playing about with pictures on Photoshop, which can't really be good.  

I mean one of the great things about doing creative stuff in any media is that satisfied feeling you get when you look at the finished product and know your blood, sweat and tears (in my case a lot of swearing) went into it. Learning and practicing the craft then putting the skills into action is one of the most gratifying things you can experience in my opinion, be it drawing, writing, music, photography and so on. Instagram and other apps like it diminish that somewhat as not only is it easy to use, but easy to finish a picture in under a minute, so you're banging out picture after picture after picture. Back in the day making pictures look better then they actually are took real skill, but now it just takes two clicks and you're done. 

Do you think I'm being too harsh? Incidently I'm not saying Intagram is an awful program, after all I am using it. I just think that I would of appreciated stuff like this a lot more 4 years ago as it took a lot of time and effort to create these effects.

Love Is Suicide

'Love Is Suicide' is a novel written by Nik Dendera, and I've designed the cover for it. I met this quite talented writer on Myspace years ago and she is one of the few people I met on there that I kept in contact with. She told me a little while ago her story was getting published and asked me if I could design the cover for her. Now how could I say no to that?

'Love Is Suicide' Front

Complete cover.

Edit: 'Love Is Suicide' is now out and availiable on Amazon so go check it out. And yes I'm fully aware this is shameless advertising but it's my blog and I like the book. This lady is very talented so go read you won't regret it.