Paul Draws Pets

Check the facebook page for details: HERE

Basically, you send me pics, I send you original art. With a little bit of money in-between.

 Dogs...

 cats...

 all the animals...

even more dogs! 

Comic Madness!!

I was commissioned by, let's say, an office worker to create a couple of comic pages for a colleague who was leaving. The details don't matter.

 Featuring flying monkeys, a robotic hive-mind

Angela Merkel, The Queen, Brussels and stuff that 

doesn't make a load of sense unless you're one of those pictured.

If I can blow my own trumpet for a second; I'm pleased with how I interpreted the script and how much I was able to cram into single A3 sheets of paper. ...Yep, it was all drawn by hand just as you see it. colouring and text was done in Photoshop though, I'm not a total Luddite.  

Fancy the Queen!

I doodled over a fiver as part of a project called "fiversforartistic". Why? Not entirely sure, but I was approached to do so and some really famous artists were also in on this.

In their own words... (LINK)

"The aim of “FIVERSFORARTISTIC” is to collect 200 old fivers and convince important contemporary artists to sign and then decorate the fiver in any way they wish making the note completely original. Artistic will then auction the collection of fivers to raise enough money to launch Artistic as a CIO charity. We have had a great response so far  from some amazing artists ranging from Peter Blake to Mason Storm and the wonderful duos of Gilbert and George and the Chapman Brothers. We have now collected 57 completed fivers but we desperately need more . Where is the BANKSY fiver ? We have a wonderful note from the incredibly lovely Damien Hirst. Come on let’s make this happen in 2018 ? We know it can be done!"

Here's my effort:

On the £5 note I received, I noticed the letters "MD" - if you look closely you can see MD circled on the note itself. Now consider the following: I'm a fan of the Sega Megadrive (or Genesis if you're in the US) often, particularly in Japan, abbreviated to "MD". I am also a fan of thrash band Megadeth. 

So I decided to aim for an early 90s "radical" queen. There is something deeper here though: the reduction and distillation of the 60s counter cultural rebellion into marketing tools geared solely towards making money. Hence rebellion as "illusion" rather than as reality. 

Umm, the end.

Many Mel Smiths

Author and film nut Jon Spira hired me to create 36 portraits of late comedian and actor Mel Smith. The images were created to go alongside the launch of Book #1 of the Forgotten Film Club Series, which focuses on Smith's "unremembered" classic Morons From Outer Space.

Go and order it TODAY!!!

A great little project, for which I am thankful. HERE is a link to Jon's Kickstarter.

 Smith of course is the legand from 

Not The Nine O'clock News, Alas Smith and Jones...

...directed The Tall Guy, rocked around the

Christmas tree with Kim Wilde...

The BBC and the World Cup

Good news! I was lucky enough to create several 2018 FIFA World Cup images for BBC Sport. These pics get posted online when they become relevant (sort of).

On the downside, the two images posted so far are tragic reminders that you can't always predict the winners.

The first one is "King Salah"; a depiction of Mohammed Salah taking his place as one of the world's top three football players currently, much to the annoyance of the other two: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Of course the image may still hold true, however neither Salah nor Lionel Messi have had a great tournament to say the least, with Egypt most definitely out and Argentina on the brink.

 Salah takes centre stage, Messi trying to reach a golden ball

from under Salah's boot. Made sense when I drew it. 

Here's a link to the BBC Sport post on Instagram: MO SALAH

 Salah has been given the "Egyptian King" moniker by 

Liverpool fans (Salah plays for Liverpool). ...Hence the crown.

At least he scored a penalty against hosts Russia.

Moving on to the second image, which depicts Lionel Messi carrying the squad through the tournament. This could still be a thing if Argentina can beat Nigeria and if Iceland can win against Croatia. I hope I've got that right.

We know it's in Russia because of St Basil's Cathdral 

Here's a link to the BBC Sport Instagram IMAGE

Here's a close-up! Perhaps I'll end up making one 

of these for England and Harry Kane 

Eat Drink, Man Woman

I created the above for "Heretic Xenobiotics" which I gather is a sports supplement for people who workout and want to reduce estrogen levels. I don't know much more about it, because I have no links. However, the brief was to create a witch character in the vein of a Hong Kong fantasy movie... something like A Chinese Ghost Story or Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain.

Fans will know what I'm talking about, and non-fans? Shame on you, now get on the internet and order yourself some HK cinema right now, you uncultured swines! 

Updating a Classic

About 14 years ago I created an image of perhaps THE two quintessential muscle-bound 80's cartoon heroes locked in mortal arm-wrestle. He-Man and Lion-O from Masters of the Universe and Thundercats respectively, the two other characters are of course Mumm-Ra and Skeletor.

Last week I updated it with a new version. This update was created for a client, his version is coloured by hand. However I did a sneaky black and white scan pre-colour.

 The original.

The remake.

Between the creation of these two images I adopted a different style (in approx 2010); I am now all about the brushes and ink, whereas the first one was all pens and Photoshop. The first one was carefully compiled digitally from at least three different drawings, whilst the second was created all in one go. This change really reflects my current ethos too; just get it on paper and don't faff around with it too much. 

Immediacy over tediacy? (Okay tediacy is not a word). Post-haste rather than fix it "in post".

Incidentally I'm not really a big Mumm-Ra fan. He functions as the "straight" villain next to the tomfoolery of the Mutants, but that's about it; functional. Skeletor on the other hand is just great; always entertaining, always a laugh. Just try watching the Filmation series, Alan Oppenheimer deserves a star in Hollywood. Donald Trump has one for Christ's sake.