February 2012
1 post
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January 2012
1 post
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November 2011
1 post
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April 2011
8 posts
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Asia Travel - Lets eat & draw!
As I mentioned earlier I’m going away mid May to Asia for a 5/6 month holiday and have finally confirmed all my dates! I’d love to meet up with some people along the way, eat some meals, play some basketball or just scribble over a coffee! So, if your in any of these places or simply just know of any cool things, places, hotels, eats and so on to do in these places please let me...
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Twisties City
I actually completed this work in November 09 and I normally blog when I’m archiving my work but I never got around to archiving this due to it being such a daunting task with over 150 versions. Its a tough one to cover from start to finish but I’ve picked out some wip files from the start, midway and the finish. I was asked by Oktobor to work with them to develop a city and set of...
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New Tickler Ad
I previously create three illustrations for Ticklers new campaign and have recently completed a fourth to add to the collection. Marrow (click to enlarge):
Art director: Lizz Moss
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Petter Northug / Red Bull
I worked together with Red Bull Creative early this year to create this promo card for Red Bull’s Cross-country skier Petter Northug. With the initial brief I had to include Petter in a ‘winning’ situation or moment along with references of the Vancouver winter Olympics and the 2nd and 3rd place German and Swiss athletes. I drew up the sketch below and they were happy with the...
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March 2011
1 post
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Book Cover & Card
Major lack of updates here but I’m doing my best to pile up some posts to publish in the future. In my recent archiving session I found a couple of quick jobs I did late last year. First up a book cover for Mary Lavens, Mission to China - Published by Faber & Faber. Art director: Miriam Rosenbloom. (Click to view the full wraparound):
And a quick X-mas card for AUT University. Art...
February 2011
1 post
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Crossfit How-To
Illustration for the How-To section of WIRED about crossfit. Art director: Ben Fraser.
January 2011
1 post
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Zombies of Wall Street
Happy new year - I hope everyone had a great holiday! Thanks so much to all my clients and all the people I had the opportunity to work with over 2010, it was a great year and alot of fun. Mid way through November I was lucky to be asked by Ivy Simones of the New Year Observer to illustrate the cover of the paper . There was tight timing on the deadline for this as there is in all newspapers and I...
December 2010
1 post
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Firewall Fighters
Recently I completed this double page spread for WIRED US about China’s system for controlling digital communication which authorities and opponents call ‘the Great Firewall’. The editorial also focuses on a specific group of public individuals who are now within the US (GIFC) who have taken matters into their own hands and made public releases of software to get people through...
November 2010
3 posts
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The Surfing Shoe
I was approached by Amsterdam Worldwide a few months ago to work on the re-release of Onitsuka Tiger’s well known California 78 shoe. I had a fair bit of freedom on this as long as it incorporated elements of Japan and California. Instantly I though of one of my favorite artists - Katsushika Hokusai and the great originality of his waves. Being that I needed to incorporate some Californian...
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Tickler Cheese
I was approached by Albion earlier this year to work on a few illustrations for the re-branding of Tickler Cheese. Tickler cheese makes a mighty cheddar and I was set to work on and develop some stories that Tim Bateman of Albion had already started on. The basic script was already in place for the three stories, Duke, Dragon and Jump (or at least these were the names I gave my working files) so...
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October 2010
4 posts
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Jazeera cover
I did this cover a couple of months back for Jazeera airways of the middle east. The editor and client both knew what they wanted so I tried to focus more on the spacing/composition of it all. The issue was focused on food and the basic brief was to illustrate a large business man looking excited/thrilled about the food which was about to arrive. Emphasis on his size and eagerness was important so...
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Noises
I recently completed these illustrations for an editorial about different noises and what is acceptable/avoidable and what is not. Along with this there was a few extra illos which were based on being acceptable at certain times of the day. A big thanks to the art director Doris Oberneder for letting me do my thing. Here’s my roughs/linework (click to enlarge)
And the finals (click to...
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September 2010
2 posts
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August 2010
0 posts
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Spot & Poster
First up sorry about the lack of posts, I’ve been ever too busy with some ongoing work and was out of action again in at the hospo again. Here’s a poster I did for the Royal Court Theatre in London. For some odd reason I’ve lost my sketch and linework of it but the illustration is for a play called ‘Tribes’. Here’s the rundown of the play: Billy’s fiercely...
June 2010
1 post
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The dream skatepark
I recently finished up this super fun illo for ESPN magazine showcasing some of the worlds top skaters favorite skate spots all wrapped into one epic skate park. It featured 9 spots from 9 of the worlds top skaters including some of my favorite skaters of all time Steve Rodriguez, Bucky Lasek and Andy Mac Donald to name a few. The spots within the illo/editorial include: Venice beach snake run,...
May 2010
1 post
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April 2010
1 post
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Q, Dublin map, GIF & Website update
I’ve updated my site with some old and new work. The new work being a style board for Underpants/Saatchi for Telecoms re branding. I originally did a sketch for the cricket frame within the TV spot which then got cut for live footage with some nifty fx based of my sketch. Anyhow Underpants asked me to develop the idea some more into a final. Unfortunately the job took a long time due to me...
March 2010
1 post
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Work of recent
I haven’t done much work over the last couple of months since I’ve been in hospo due to my lung being on strike but I do have a few things to throw down as follows: The ever so famous Q John Nivens column: John visits a Celtic FC football match and is overwhelmed by wild raging fans. I approached this pretty much how it is described and from the start was very clear as to how I’d...
January 2010
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Quick editorial
Heres a quick editorial opener & spot for triathletes world. Unfortunately the time and budget to do this one was pretty tight which made it a nice challenge. The editorial is about drafting and I pictured it with the lead rider doing more work and carving/creating the way for the following riders. Originally I wanted to do a ‘paint coming off’ the lead rider kinda effect but time...
November 2009
1 post
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Cooleo cars DVD
My bad with the lack of posts.. I’ve been locked down on a couple of big big jobs and will probably won’t post again until early jan but thought I’d throw this DVD cover up. Here’s a quick pic (click to enlarge) of the final DVD to start it off - McLaren ‘Trio at the top’ DVD series; Also thanks to Andrew B White and McLaren for the job. The DVD, booklet and...
October 2009
2 posts
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Book review Illustration
Here is a recent illustration I did for OUT about an interesting new book called ‘Single Man’. Nick Vogelson who was art directing the job was interested in doing something similar the small personal book I made here. This approach was perfect for the article and feel of the book itself which revolved around a mans struggle with his art due to the complexity of life and relationships....
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Spot & Portraits
The monthly Q illustration arrives again.This month John Nivens plays live with his band The Whoredogs along with Glastonbury superstars James Dean Bradfield (Manic Street Preachers) and Guy Garvey (Elbow). The live performance is for Emily Eavis (bride and organizer of Glastonbury festival) and her wedding reception at Glastonbury itself. Heres my linework:
A rather busy illustration with quite...
September 2009
5 posts
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Two Ads
Two overnight story/style boards I did for two TV ads. The first I believe was not done by the film company that I originally did it for, but the similarity of the ad to the board is amazing. The V ad well is too funny, and the publicity stunt of the cone on the skytower great also. I unfortunately missed the jetpack in action as I was away, but would to have loved to have seen it when they made...
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Going with the lovely Lola Leon, one of my...
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10th 24 Hour Movie Marathon
Ant Timpson contacted me back in June to do something for this years marathon and back then we both decided something ‘X’ (10) related would be cool and appropriate for the event. I threw down some quick roughs back then of an X packed full with characters exploding, leaking and basically just super action packed along with a rough of a X robot shooting it up. These originals are...
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Shelter from the chit
This is a quick promo poster for bFM about how bFM is different from other radio stations and filters out all the chit which you would find on other stations. This was my first and only idea for the poster which is an A0 one colour. Halfway through my initial sketch they decided to pull the plug to do an array of umbrellas with the type. I then sent through the sketch for fun and they decided to...
August 2009
2 posts
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Small Editorial Work
I’ve picked out some recent small editorial jobs before archiving them to share which I’ll quickly run through.
First up an overload of illo’s for John Niven’s column in Q UK, these three are June, July and August I believe (issue #278/279/280). 200mm x 150mm, AD : Salman Naqvi of Q. Below - John shopping in a discount clothing store picking up an array of cheap...
July 2009
3 posts
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Storyboarding
I guess storyboarding is not considered that interesting but somehow I find it quite refreshing. Over the last month I’ve done a huge amount of storyboards/style boards for a short film (240odd frames), four tele spots and more recently a small 10 frame storyboard/comic mix editorial. I thought I’d throw up the latest being the editorial strip. This job was from a basic one line...
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The Cribs
I’ve recently finished up this full page illo based upon The Smiths ‘Meat is Murder’. The great idea which was put forward by Mark Wagstaff is based around The Cribs apparently going all vegetarian. Along with this the recent addition of ex Smiths guitarist band member Johnny Marr added to the strength of the idea. When approaching the job I first felt inclined to do quite a...
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Some Packaging
Along with Birdbrain, I thought I’d keep in the trend of more interesting jobs rather than editorials and post a rundown of this packaging illustration work. An epic job of creating packaging artwork for 9 products for a new skincare range which is launching at the moment. I was lucky enough to have full freedom with the direction and ideas for this job thanks to Karen Murrell. I’ve...
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Bird Brain
I was archiving this quick job and checked if a site was up by the guys at Cactuslab and found they have made this cool little site to showcase this super cool twitter app. Karl of Cactuslab is pretty much a coding genius accompanied by Matthew who is a great designer in his own right, put this together and you get cool little gems like Birdbrain. I did this icon for the iPhone and other misc...
June 2009
2 posts
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A stand
So I’ve been following Gary Taxali’s blog for a while and theres been a couple of really good posts regarding fees/stock and general BS from clients. I thought I’d relink these purely for the fact that they should be made as public as possible. This is about google the 1.42 billion dollar 8% profit spec work giant Also this great article about 10 years of stock And parts of...
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Little Large Tokyo
Just finished up this illi for an editorial piece covering sushi’s popularity around the globe. The brief was quite narrow in the beginning and initially I was going and asked to drop something quite mainstream and flat down for the editorial. I drew down some pretty average ideas of basically just sushi in mass on a globe as the art director first suggested. It felt way too boring for what...
May 2009
2 posts
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Quick Spot
Twenty days later and I make a post… my blogging skills are not so superior! Heres a quick spot I did late this week about the writer of the column having a beer in a swanky new york club/bar in his scruffy/old clothing compared to the fashion conscious locals who sip their cocktails. Basically old generation vs new, elegance vs grunge etc.
Heres my linework:
This was my first and only...
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Some small recent jobs
Here’s a couple of small jobs I’ve recently completed in between some larger jobs I’ll be posting within the next couple of weeks. First up a quick job for New Fancy Band, a bFM thing going on later this month. Originally this was a rough I did for this years NZ Music Month but was denied as seen in my earlier post here.
This was completed in quite a rush, and from the original...
April 2009
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Something in the meantime
So sorry about the lack of updates, I’ve been busy with some long-term jobs which unfortunately i can’t post just yet due to some agreements.. but I’ll be posting them as soon as I can! I thought to fill in some space here I’d post some insight into logo illustrations I’ve done. Over the years I’ve worked on quite a few illustrations for logotypes and though it...
March 2009
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Q/A
Thought id answer/show a couple of questions i had via email and no i wasn’t being rude i am sick First up in regards to what resolution i work in & colour management - Depends on the size of the final but i never work under 450 dpi, normally if a job is A3+ i work 450dpi, A4-A3 600dpi, anything smaller than A4 800dpi and all scanning is done at 600dpi minimum. I’m not...
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NZ Music Month
Been a while since a post as I’ve been sick with glandular fever which is the biggest pain in the butt ever. Although I’ve been slowly working through this which is a follow on from the animal band which got rejected for NZ Music Month 09 Below from left to right top to bottom is the original logo, my initial sketch followed by my revised sketch and my final linework with some charcoal...