Team Spirit!

Team spirit! Woooooooo!

Twain?

I always really liked the Mark Twain (mis)quote 'rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated' and wanted to turn it around, into a more melancholic meaning, then pairing it with an elluring image so that the two could play off each other. Or maybe I just like drawing girls.

Complicated Man

I don't get how my mind works most of the time, but this concept just came to me while I was trying to get to sleep so I decided to run with it.

Boba Fett-ish

This is a little something I threw together the other night while I was bored. Was not intended to be quite as graphic as it turned out to be, but I still like it. Who doesn't like Star Wars?

Instrumental Deer

I like animals crossed with people. This ones playing a double bass. Or a cello, I always forget the difference.

GUSTO!

DO IT WITH GUSTO!

OR NOT AT ALL...

COMBTASH

I do have a habit of making vaguely depressing design, and this one is no exception. Just a little something i did out of boredom the other night.

Mariachi T-shirt!

Finally seen the finished article, the Mariachi shirt I designed a few months ago is now in stock at Rescue Rooms.

Available to buy at the bar for £7.50

Check it out



































/http://rescuerooms.tumblr.com/

Teapot Menu

This bad boys just been installed in the freshly reopened Rescue Rooms in Nottingham. Its a large wall mounted menu, so has a nice impact. The teapots at Rescue are like cocktails you dish out in shotglasses, so I wanted to play on the whole idea of a classic twee tea room.

Rescue Rooms Flyers!

Been ages since I have posted, so heres an update of some of my recent work. Haven't been able to post these untill they were accepted and printed. These are two flyers I was commissioned to design for some Rescue Rooms quizes. The Bingo Starr one was designed with it being a take on classic, cheesey, game show type imagery to reflect the ideas of the quiz. As for the pub quiz one, I was asked to do something in a similar vein to my Toybox flyer, kinda dreamy and bright, so I went with the classic rabbit falling through space, alittle along the lines of Alice in Wonderland. Anyway, I think they turned out pretty nicely.

Toy Box Poster/Flyer

I have been working on these Toybox flyers/poster for a while now and I think I can let them be seen now.
Maybe I am too obsessed with balloons and blimps, but they are so perfect for poster design that I thought I'd dust off an old classic and do it again. I think they have turned out pretty good. It was a constant battle to find the right balance between the information and the asthetics of the image, but I think it worked in the end.

Screen Printing Set-up

Just a quick snap of my screen printing set up. Unfortunatly, I have managed to screw up all of my test t-shirts, so am going to have to wait for my next batch to arrive. I was very close to the perfect print on the last one, but then slipped so the print was missing the bottom inch. Balls. But yeah its promising so far, hopefully be selling soon.

Food Chain.

So this is the first design I have chosen to print myself. Seems to be the most popular with everyone I have shown it too.Now its just a case of practise, practise, practise; with alot of screwing up thrown into the bag too, I dare say.

The actual design is something I had in mind for absolutely ages before finally drawing it and it turned out pretty well. I was intending it too have alot more intrecate detail, like some of my other designs, i.e, hair and scales etc. In the end, I think it works alot better without these things.

It is also the first branded 'Sushi in Paris' design. The prospect of printing under another label I co-own is exciting, as its been about 4 years since we dissolved 'Demo'.

Anywho, a couple of friends pointed me towards some other pieces of work with similar themes, which I liked so much I decided to pop them in a blog as it had been a while since I'd written one.

  

This is an incredible installation by Chen Wenling, which my friend Safia pointed me too, which is alittle hard to unsderstand at first glance, but shares a trait or two with my design.

Nothing unusual here, just a hippo, suspended from the ceiling, with a furious looking crocodile pertruding from its mouth, who also has a angonized man in his jaws. Oh and there is a shark biting the hippo on the arse. Brilliant.

How do you even come up with this concept, let alone execute it in such an amazingly polished way? Oh my kingdom for a ticket to Beijing.

This one has a nice feel to it too, which my SIP counterpart, Sophie,  showed me.

This kind of Russian art is strange, dry and bleak, which I have always been attracted too due to my depressing nature. It has an almost folk-law like quality to it too, perhaps due to the wood effect grain marks on the animals bodys. Anyway, its interesting and I like it.

Will hopefully start screen printing soon, so will have to write something on how that goes when it inevitably all goes wrong.

Rescue Rooms T-shirt Concept #2

Pin-up

Pin-up has always been cool. Theres something about its cheeky, provocative nature and its tie ins with the War, that have always made it an interesting and fun subject to work with. Plus women are just always more challenging and rewarding to draw.

This design was never meant to be hugely origonal, as its an idea that has been done many times before. It was meant as more of a homage to some of the great artwork that the RAF used to have on their aircrafts during the Second World War, maybe even as a slight spoof. It also envokes memories from the classic scene in Dr Strangelove.

I've not finished this design, it still looks alittle flat, but I might tweek it and print it myself as I'm pretty fond of it.

Rescue Rooms T-shirt Concept #1

Parrot

Now that the t-shirt design for Rescue Rooms has been picked, I feel I can show some of my initial concepts which are not being used.

Whenever I am designing a t-shirt, and trying to brand something that people are going to wear, I always try and start off in the same way. You have to make it interesting, its not enough to just write 'AWESOME CLOTHING APPAREL!' on a shirt, and put some flowers and cool shit flying out of it. You need to remeber that people have to want to wear the shirt, its got to be beautiful or weird or clever. The design comes first, the text comes second. The text should purely be there to label what the design is representing, not vice versa.

Anyway, this is the first concept I came up with.

Doing a design for a club is hard, you have to try some embody the 'something-ness' of the venue. In the end, I just wanted to try and design something that was more like a illustration than a piece of graphic design. The parots were interesting to design as they are usually something people would associate with colour, but I had already decided that Black and White was the way to go. So I tried to contruct the parrot only giving the suggestion of its colour through varying sizes of feather. In the end I think it looked quite good, but I don't think I was quite clever enough with the text.

Black and White

I might just start defining myself completely as a black and white illustrationist. It just looks so damn sharp, and it is basically all I work with nowadays.. A friend just pointed me towards Mike Giant and his tattoo work, which is simply amazing. I love the cripsness, and simplicity. It is pretty similar to the work I have been doing of late, but I will not be showing it as its for some t-shirts for Rescue Rooms, and I don't want to spoil the suprise. Heres some amazing images from Giant though.

I particulary love the way in which he represents hair. I feel like if I could just draw hair and hands forever I would be content.

I all goes along with my new mantra, which is 'if you can't say it in one colour, dont say it at all'

You Slut! Poster

This is an attempt to make a poster for the upcoming You Slut! tour. My main influence at the moment is the Victorian/Edwardian style of etchings. I am particualry fascinated with the desire they had to fly, through any means no matter how unlikely the method was. A little busy, may need some toning down, but I liked that this chap had managed to reach the moon while still looking daper in a three-piece suit.

Rescue Rooms Flyer!

Finally got a job doing some work for Rescue Rooms, its not much but a step in the right direction. I was very happy on how I had managed to inquorporate a smiley face (for happy) a clock (for hour) and constructed the smile out of a dotted arrow (to show the extention aspect). This should be getting printed in the next few weeks, which will help feed my ego if not my wallet.

Pin–up Split

People often ask me how I go about making a design, so I put together this image of one of my most recent works, showing each stage. I always start with a sketch, this is important whether it is an origonal design or if you are using composite images, as it makes them yours, a new interpretation, you can work and rework them into a blended and polished image. Then comes the vectoring, when I start to work out any of the kinks from the sketch, and then colouring/shading. Its pretty arduous, but theres nothing I like more than whittling away on PS for hours at a time.

Sebastien Tellier - Look

This is one of my favorite music videos by one of my favorite artists, Sebastien Tellier. It was put together by Mrzyk & Moricean, and is totally in keeping with the black and white style I am currently rocking pretty much completely.

I wanted to be a doctor..

I always thought it was rather sad that the cymbal monkey always got lumbered with such a talentless proffession. I need to lean my designs away from being so sad.

Always the Cynic..

I'm loving victorian etchings right now, thanks to a massive book buying binge on Amazon. They inspired me to create this piece of work. Its alittle downbeat, but I love top hats and monicals.