Book Preview!

I am currently illustrating a book for Mr Shaan Sharma a client in LA, the book is called "A Session Director's Guide to Commercial Acting in LA." It will be available fairly soon, but in the meantime I have some cropped preview images right here...

 Guaranteed to be a clucking good read.

 You'll need some sweet profile shots if you 

want to succeed in the commercial world.

 It's pretty much the best book ever written.

We Got Death Star!

I was commissioned by Scott Jensen of Texas to create this: his family portrait transformed into Star Wars characters. Here's what happened:

1) He emailed me a photo and told me which Star Wars character each family member will become.

2) I did the rest.

 Here's the original photo

Here's what I did

So, from right to left: Darth Vader, a Storm Trooper, Princess Leia, Wicket, C3P0, R2D2, Queen Amidala, Yoda and The Emperor.

Wreck It Rock

I was asked by Starburst magazine (The UK's longest running Sci-Fi, fantasy and Horror magazine), to come up with a poster featuring one or more characters from Guardians of the Galaxy. I opted for Rocket Raccoon.

Here's the blurb from the official page.

To celebrate the release of our new Movie/TV Preview issue, we're pleased to unveil a set of free Limited Edition Collectors Prints, each dedicated to one of our specially selected Icons of 2014!

There are 3 to choose from, and they’re available exclusively from TESCO stores when you purchase Starburst #395. Pick your favourite below and get down to your local TESCO while stocks last!

Here's the original line drawing:

For those not in the know Rocket Raccoon is a Marvel character and will feature in next year's Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I won't pretend that I knew much about this particular Marvel strain until recently, however funnily enough I was reading "The Thanos Imperative" when I got this commission. That particular book features not only the Guardians of the Galaxy but an overwhelming ton of Marvel characters so start there at your own risk.

Here's the colour version:

Big thanks to "Starburst Shauna" for finally getting me into the magazine and to the others for agreeing. As Stan Lee would say "Excelsior!!"

Inglorious Bastard

A couple of months ago, a commission arrived in my inbox which was so baffling in concept that it made me think that a friend was playing a trick, just to see what the most outlandish thing I would ever draw for the promise money could be. However, soon I found myself getting stuck in, getting down with the synopsis presented before me and treating this job the same as I would with any other; by employing a high degree of professionalism (what? I can be all self-promoty sometimes.) ...I can't wait to read it.

I'm rambling. The project was an E-book cover image for a story titled "The Adventures of Bastard." The Author is Sam Gwillim and it is unleashed upon the world in December this year.

I won't say any more about the project, rather I will leave it to the official website which acts as a virtual  companion to the book; containing extra features, diary excepts from the characters and fun facts. Go there: http://adventuresofbastard.com/

Dangerous Games!

Remember school books? Usually they were boring and occasionally stank of fish for some reason. The ones I was involved with, not so much. Back in 2009 I co-illustrated a series of books-for-schools entitled "Dangerous Games."

The concept behind the book is best illustrated by quoting from Rising Stars UK (those who hired me): 

"This exciting range of adventure stories features a trio of computer games 

designers testing out their work for real, entering new virtual worlds and 

encountering exciting and sometimes deadly situations."

Essentially it was my job to illustrate those scenes which take place in the real world, whilst another artist, Rob Lenihan provided the artwork for the more colourful virtual world.

Kojo gets busy making the ultimate video game...

The idea behind the series is to get "reluctant readers" into books via the approach of both video games as a subject matter and a comic book stylistic approach. Probably would have worked for me when I was at school and all I could think about was going home to play on my ZX Spectrum or Sega Megadrive (depending on what year it was).

Skip forward to 2012 and the prospect of illustrating a second series was thrown my way. Of course I said yes! By 2012, I was into using brushes rather than pens to create my lines. See if you can see a difference between the image above and those below. Just for the record, I used (and continue to use) a "Pentel Color Brush." Larger black areas were usually filled in with a black marker, whilst for straight lines I opted for a the classic, cheap Berol Fine. Backgrounds were achieved by scanning in some painted sheets of paper (the same two or three repeated throughout the books.) Compiled in Photoshop.

 Who needs a TV when you've got T-Rex?

The plucky trio go to a museum to inspire a video game.

 Fun and frolics in the office with Tom, Sima and Kojo.

 Just goggle it.

Making video games is no picnic, oh wait, it is!

I massively enjoyed the project. I was given clear instruction and yet, the freedom to employ my preferred style, which I would later go on to employ for the Long Division With Remainders project. If you are in education go and order these books today!! ...Tell 'em I sent ya.

This Is Not a Love Song

This is a guest post.

Call me a friend, a helper, pain in the arse...whatever. I've tried for ages to let Paul allow me to blog and well, now I have full reign *mwwaaahahahaha*. I'm not allowed to post 'as' him though.

I've known Paul on and off for some years now. Look, I have proof...yeah, check that one out. We were doing some filming for a friend's rendition of Doctor Who. I look really impressed on that pic. BTW, I'm not the one in the combat gear.

Anyways, enough of this nonsense. 

I am here to try and help Paul achieve world domination as an illustrator. I think it can definitely happen, after all, he is like one of the most talented species of illustrator that I've ever seen. I'm also here to fill in with bloggy stuff when he is taken away from us by unforeseen circumstances. Y'know, like a job. I on the other hand, cannot draw, nor can I paint, although I'm pretty damn killer at painting my nails.

But that's not why I'm writing.

The other day I was watching a show called Cowboy Builders. It's one of those shows where they come over and fix the work of someone who did a botch job on someone's house and then some dude goes off and makes a big fool out of the 'cowboy' in question. In this particular show, they hired a muralist to paint an image on one of the bedroom walls.

A muralist! I immediately contacted Paul and told him he needed to become a muralist. He thought I'd gone mad, but I reminded him of the times he had done some wall paintings of his own.

I seriously think Paul needs to consider expanding his career and add muralist to his repertoire. What do you think?

Unused Article Illustrations

The following illustrations were designated for an online article about not getting into a fight with your best friend. For various reasons I decided not to hand them over, but those of you who know me may spot two characters from my long overdue graphic novel idea "Bust-Up."