The Sick Bed of Cú Chulainn

The Sick Bed of Cú Chulainn. The legendary Irish Celtic warrior king. The title is also a great song by The Pogues.

Here's my process or method or whatever you want to call it. First (obviously) the line-art.

Next, some flat colours, patterns and shadows.

A wee bit of T.L.C and that's it done. Look up the legend ofCú Chulainn, its pretty cool.

Jock and the Beanstalk

                   Jack and the beanstalk gets an aggressive Scottish twist.

"Duality"

This is an illustration I recently completed for a new book of short stories titled "Duality".

Materials Used; Ink, Graphite pencil, Photoshop.

Fashionista

This wee beauty is the new resident Fashionista at Noir magazine, a new British style magazine. The good people there needed a character to accompany their fashion police column. I decided to go with something a wee bit different from my usual style whatever that is!

Kate Moss

This was a job for the new British fashion magazine "Noir" to accompany an editorial focusing on British style icon Kate Moss. The brief was quiet simple, Kate Moss, british fashion, rock n roll. I used about four reference photos ( to avoid the horrors of copyright law.) graphite, ink and Photoshop.

The Illustrious Client

This is the second piece based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's great Detective, Sherlock Holmes. This scene is from the short story "The Illustrious Client". In the original stories Holmes got into plenty of action, here he is attacked in the street by two thugs. Fortunately Holmes is a practiced stick fighter and has no qualms about going ahead. Get into them Sherlock.

A Study In Scarlet

This is the first of two Sherlock Holmes illustration ideas I had for an illustrated collection of Holmes stories. This is a scene from "A Study In Scarlet" were Holmes plays ( with great skill, contrary to the myth that he plays badly) when mulling over his new case.

The Saint issue 4

The final cover to my imagined Vertigo series based on The Saint. The Budapest Gambit comes to its bloody conclusion. I really enjoyed working on this wee project.

The Saint issue 3

My take on a Vertigo series featuring Simon Templar, The Saint. The story centers on the oncoming assault on Nazi occupied Budapest by Russian forces and a mysterious chess game between an autistic Bulgarian teenager and a high ranking Nazi officer with the future of the war hanging in the balance. The Saint takes matters into his own hands to end the chess game to his satisfaction and escape Budapest in one piece.

The Saint issue 2

Set myself a project for a Vertigo series featuring The Saint. Here's the cover to issue 2. Inspired partly by my 1980's Action Man ( or if your American, G.I. Joe).

The Saint issue 1

The Saint ( Simon Templar) the adventurer from the stories of Leslie Charteris is among my favorite fictional characters. This is the first of four covers for an imaginary Vertigo series featuring The Saint in an adventure set against the backdrop of the storming of Nazi occupied Budapest by Russian forces and a nail biting chess game that may sway the outcome of the war.

The Batman circa 1946

In 2003 Mark Millar (writer of The Ultimates, Kick Ass etc) wrote in his column on CBR that in 1944 Orson Welles had shown great interest in directing and starring in a Batman movie. With a cast and director that are amongst the greatest icons hollywood has ever produced, the movie could have changed how comics are percieved by the masses.
The movie as you know was never made, infact the whole thing was just a wishfull hoax by Mr Millar.
Anyhoo, in an alternate universe this is how the movie poster could have looked.

Breaking Bad

This is an editorial illustration to accompany a DVD review of the T.V series Breaking Bad, season 2. This show is amazing. The show is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico and focuses on a chemistry teacher who when discovering he has aggressive lung cancer becomes a Meth cook in order to make enough money to leave to his family when he's gone. With his partner (an ex pupil) he embarks on a second life as "Heisenberg" the biggest Meth dealer in the state. I wanted this piece to have a rough, dirty feel to it, with hot colours.

Pinocchio - The Black Rabbits

This is the last piece in my series of Pinocchio Illustrations. In this chapter of the book Pinocchio is pretending to be sick and is sent to bed to rest. The Blue Fairy tries to give Pinocchio his medicine and when he wont take it things get truly bizarre. Four Black Rabbits enter the room carrying a small ( Pinocchio size) coffin. Pinocchio quickly gulps down his medicine and the rabbits leave the room in disappointment.

The Puppet Master

This is the third of four illustrations for my Pinocchio project. One of the most dramatic parts of Collodi's book has to be Pinocchio's experience in " The Grand Marionette Theatre". It is here we meet Mangiafuoco (Stromboli, in the Disney Movie), The Puppet Master and the marionette's Pulcinella and Harlequin. Mangiafuoco strikes fear into the wooden heart's of the puppets with his fierce temper and bullwhip.
Mangiafuoco's appearance  is very descriptive " He has red eye's and a black beard which reaches to the floor, and his mouth is as wide as an oven with teeth like yellow fangs." However, The Puppet Master reveals a heart of gold when upon hearing Pinocchio's sad tale he gives the little puppet four gold coins and sends him home to Geppetto.
Here are the finished pencils.

The Puppet Master has a furious temper and I wanted to convey that anger in his expression and colour as well as show the fear and awkwardness of the puppets.

After working more shades and textures into the characters I decided that a flourish of red around Mangiafuoco's head would highlight his violent rage.

Finito!

Pinocchio - The Green Fisherman.

Okay, here's the second of four illustrations for a Pinocchio project. There are many interesting and bizarre scenes in the book so I was spoiled for choice when I was picking four to illustrate. There is one particular scene featuring a character that is omitted from almost all adaptations. Pinocchio finds himself  floating around in the ocean and is caught in a fishing net. The fishing net belongs to a huge green ogre, The Green Fisherman.

The Fisherman only appears for a few pages and his description is minimal which was a fantastic opportunity to do my own interpretation . Here's the finished pencils.

 

As the borders are a representation of the characters surroundings in this case I used nets, waves and shells to symbolize the ocean . The flat colours and shades are damp and swampy, I didn't want any warmth, it had to be cold, and damp.

 

The dried brush strokes and scratches I used in the first piece have added a nice dark quality to the feel of the Fox and Cat piece so I used them again, deciding they would give all the illustrations the same murky, mysterious quality.

Pinocchio - The Fox and Cat

I was working on some storybook ideas for my portfolio and decided to produce a series of illustrations based on Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. I've never read the book before but I've seen the Disney movie a couple of times and I always thought it was one of the best children's stories, mainly because it was so creepy. Well if Disney had faithfully adapted the original book most kid's would be suffering from nightmares from the bizarre imagery and adult themes like death, violence, greed and power.

Each illustration was to stand alone but I wanted a recurring theme to run through them. I decided to dismiss the backgrounds and focus on the characters with a border around the edges that represents their surroundings.

The Fox and Cat.
In Collodi's book The Fox and Cat are con-artists posing as infirm beggars. However unlike the all singing all dancing Disney versions this Fox and Cat are not above robbery and ultimately murder.

I tightened up the rough pencils with some ink to lend some weight to the outline. After adding the flat colours, shades and shadows I started the framing border. The Fox and Cat abduct Pinocchio and take him into the forrest ( to ultimately hang him), so the border had to symbolise the wild nature of the forrest.

I scanned some dried brush strokes and scratched card textures and added them. Then after playing with the hues and colour balance it's got that dark decayed look to represent that all is not quite right with Pinocchio's new friends.

The Danger's of The Internet

This is an editorial piece to accompany an article titled " The Danger's of The Internet". The peril's of surfing the web are many and varied, Pornography, Credit Theft, Propaganda, Retail Crime, Gambling, Sexual Predator's etc. Each of these dangers are embodied as ghostly figures escaping from a computer.

I used the pink to anchor the guy into the real world while the luminous greens of the internet invade his surroundings.

The House of Secrets.

This is a commision for a friend. The piece is a very dark, macabre take on The Adams Family, a bunch of ghoulish character's posed in a creepy old drawing room.

For inspiration I referenced the old Universal Dracula and Frankenstein film's as well as silent movie's and old faded photographs.

I decided to scan in the initial rough pencils instead of inking it so as to keep that dirty scratchy  feel.

The characters clothing was very important. I wanted to create a timeless feel with clothing from different era's, Victorian, Napoleonic up to early 20th century and contemporary.

When laying the flats, shades and shadows I thought that this particular  group of people would have a major love of black leather and p.v.c.

The piece needed to have the final  look of an old fashioned scene painting you might walk by in a haunted house, you know the one's were the eyes follow you!

 Finito!