Fruit and Football Wizards

I always make a point to use the word "diverse" in describing the range of projects I have worked on. Well, this one come straight out of left field. That being said, I had worked with famous footballers before ...and by "with" I mean as an unknown entity, on the same project, for vastly different salaries. Sad face (not really sad, I'm always happy to be employed).

Back in January, I worked on a commercial starring several Manchester United football players. The ad was for international fruit juice brand Chivita and the post-production company I worked with were Bark & Bite (Manchester). In the advert, the players (Wayne Rooney, Juan Mata, Marcus Rashford and Eric Bertrand Bailly), drink some juice before gathering round a Chivita themed pinball machine "Chivita, 100% Pinball" as the illuminated backboard says. See the video here...

As you can see the scenario is like an analogue version of Disney's Tron; the players are miniaturised and play football-pinball against the machine. My role was to create the artwork for the sides of the main body of the machine as well as the "backbox" sides and "backglass" where the score is displayed.

 Combining fruit, football to make it look hopefully interesting and pinbally:

The sides of the main body of the machine.

 Kaboom! The sides of the backbox.

Aside from a supermarket-load of fruit, that backglass is where my illustration of the players comes in. First drawn separately, they were composited together like the reflections of the players themselves, frozen in time. ...Just watch the bloody thing, it's hard to explain!

Wayne Rooney

Eric Bertrand Bailly

This is the final post-transition backbox with the 

players in their frozen reflections. Some of the above

elements were created entirely for mock-up and some 

were in the final commercial...

...Such as the fruit corners. Thanks for reading!!!

BBC Heaven!

Vizii? Mixital? ...Internet? ...What do these words even mean? Well, the BBC have a thing online called Mixital, which has in turn a sub-thing called Vizii.

"Mixital's a BBC site that turns players and viewers into creators.
We've designed easy-to-use tools for young people over 13 years old to make and share things like visuals and stories."

"Vizii is a new tool aimed at kids and teens, allowing them to 'visualise' music and the spoken word and available on the mixital platform"

So Mixital is the platform and Vizii is the tool. It has taken me a while to get my head around this. Basically kids can make music videos by dragging a load of pre-set elements into a video maker to accompany a music track. I created some of those elements.

The tracks include such artists and bands as The Staycations, Asylums, Blooms, Monogram, Rukhsana Merrise, Rawschac, Alex Vargas, Jayelldee and Lorelai (presumably not to be confused with the Alan Tam song from Armour Of God starring Jackie Chan). If none of this makes sense, just go to the bloody site: BBC MIXITAL and VIZII

I created images of people playing guitars, banging drums, jumping around, texting (as kids are want to do). I put some of those elements together for my own sites like thus:

 That is "sick."

 Gnarly! ...That's still a word right? She bangs the drum
whilst wearing a dinosaur onesie. A DINOSAUR ONESIE.

 Wicked! (That means the opposite of wicked.) The Texting Astronaut.

Video Killed the "Illustratar"

I made a youtube video. It has most of my best work on it, though annoyingly there are a few things I forgot to add. Ah well, gives me scope for a sequel. I'd be interested to know from other illustrators and arty types if they've made portfolio videos. ...Leave comments below.