still working through the macmillan. in an ideal world, this is going to be licked by the 25th. hrm. 26 days to draw 8 pages and colour 10. that's.... not totally crazy... right?

pencils for a little something for that doodle caboodle thing we do. man. that moment right before you start laying down watercolours on a drawing is always so very, very terrifying.

while we're on the subject of things in circles;



BITCH DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT DESIGN, YO.

in other news, here's a fine podcast from the folk over at books you should read discussing books and their film adaptations. god damn. jaws the novel sounds AMAZINGLY awful.
BYSR – Episode 65 – Books Becoming Films

final line up fro the wall stickers. JENNY'S in the process of looking up a place to print these off where it won't cost all manner of appendages.

speaking of jenny, i went to check out the camberwell graphic design show.


HOLY MOLY WAS THAT A TREAT FOR THE EYES. the standard of work at that thing was high. so very, very high.
some of the fine folk who were exhibiting:
http://naomi-workman.blogspot.com/
http://rhopejohnstone.co.uk/

today, i am hopefully going to go rot in the british library. can't wait.

stuff from the last batch of liberty pages. now with at least 100% more gonnahavetachokeabitch action.

here's a great little blog post from sam macleod examining shot progression through a scene and how it can play into characterisation. you should check out the rest of his blog to boot. man does some FANTASTIC watercolour studies.

moleskinning, with our now non-existant studio (SOB! WAIL!), madrid and unsuspecting victims.

and now, time for a random photo

DONE! well thank god for that. lets hope the next thing you try and do for this project doesn't take two months because other wise i've got a very bad feeling about productivity.

in other news, this week has been a pretty awesome week for getting things in the mail. first up, i got a physical copy of 'now i am twenty' by nowhere again who were super cool enough to let me do art chores on the album;

feast your ears right here;

if you think this could be a keeper on your mp3 player, l you can download the digital album down at their bandcamp page for the low, low price of whatever you feel like paying. if you want the physical copy, it's £3 and you get that very, very funky pop up case photoed above. and, of course, some heavy tunes.

second thing to come in the mail was this:

richmond clements and i did this for the good people at renegade arts roughly two years ago, but it's only just gone to print. needless to say, this is still OMGWTFBBQ levels of exciting. if you feel like snapping up a copy and pouring over richmond's super fly story about a giant millitary robot on the run (and some rather...er... "old" art by me), you should be able to buy it soon on the RENEGADE ARTS STORE

man. what timely, seasonal scans these are. also, lol wut tortoise feet?

MORNING!



so back to the macmillan. man. i really, REALLY love pencil drawing. that first panel is WAAAAAAAY too heavy handed though- totally need to redraw that if there's any time left over once all the pencils are done.



aaaaaaaaaand some more random junk left over from the second year sketchbook. what fun!

JENNY , a foundation buddy from way back, is doing something really cool with her summer. she's managed to get permission to renovate a retirement home down into camberwell and is planning turn it into a totally rad blast from the past. the sketches are for potential vinyl wall stickers. because who doesn't love 40s swingers (and not the kinky kind. although i bet they'd be all kinds of fun too).


remember these guys? speaking of nostalgia, i'm taking part in an exhibition down at my old school where they're getting a bunch of ex-students to show our stuff. figured this would be a fine excuse to finish off the children's book from last year. mostly just throwing these up here for reference because drawing from massive sketch books is such a pain in the keister.


lastly, saw a poster for this up in the windows of one of those wonderfully hip and trendy galleries down in old street. i know nothing about this book other than i yearn it.

oh alex. you're such a sucker for anything nicely drawn.

what's this? yet another horrifically late birthday card... or if i was being a smooth criminal, this could be passed off as being TOTALLY prepared for next year!

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeaaahhhno.

also, some random bit's of junk from last year's uni sketchbook. REALLY want to do something with the crazy cavalry horse thing.

AND DONE!

well, that's one thing off the never ending list of to-do. also, this taught me an awful lot about creating filters/colour tweaking with photoshop. god damn. that program is so smart.

went on a total ted binge yesterday. here are some highlights;
hans rosling on the growth trends in the spread of aids.


aaaaand julia sweeny on her religious convictions

that second one's a total ace bit of storytelling. i could seriously listen to sweeney read the phone book all day long.

bits and bobs from the summer project. man, really digging putting images together with just block colour and minimal lines. it's like the total antithesis to how i normally work... have i just turned into nega-vers me without noticing?

crossing those fingers in the blind hope that everything for this poster is going to be nailed by the end of the day...

SOME OTHER MUCH PRETTIER THINGS FOR YOU TO FEAST YOUR EYES ON:
aaaaaaaaaaages ago, one of my uni buddies posted some photos from a pop up book they're making. they're not totally done yet, but already they're looking totally dope. go have your mind blown in eye popping 3D over at ABI'S BLOG

also, another uni comrade, EILEEN KWAN recently started up a blog and it is UTTERLY GORGEOUS. go check it out.

speaking of things uni related things, apparently middlesex is going to be the most expensive university in england come next year. a lol wut? GOOD THING WE'RE OLD AND NOT GOING INTO THIS HIGHER EDUCATION MALARKY NOW, RITE?

pencils for the poster. man, the first crack at this was a total disaster. the composition was super dull and it wasn't drawn with any real idea of how it was going to be coloured. i've come to realise that this is just a really good way to shoot yourself in the foot.

PLAN THAT SHIT OUT, YO.

thought it could all be magically turned around in photoshop. ah ha. i don't need kevin spacey to tell me how wrong i was on that one. still. lesson learnt so it's all good, right?

and here's milton glaser (designer of the i heart new york design) on the fear of failure;

Milton Glaser – on the fear of failure. from Berghs' Exhibition '11 on Vimeo.

it's a pretty enlightening seven minuets. but shit, dog. could they have chosen a more terrifying still for the preview image?

a block coloured drawing with bad home-made fonts? MUST HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY'S BIRTHDAY!

yes. paper-party hats off to LEFKI who is just too damn cool for school.

RELEVANT NEWS TIME!

so yeah, i was at the LFCC this weekend for the launch of the SPIRIT OF HOPE ANTHOLOGY which jordan and i did a piece for. the book's been put together by the good folk at the comic book alliance- all profits are going to new harvest and the NZ red cross to help the victims of the japanese/new zealand earth quakes.


i also got a chance to play photographer which was pretty goddamn cool. the cba wanted some photos of the famous types with the book for promotional purposes;



yes.

and today's going to be all about licking the poster because something needs to be done about all those eggs in the air...

MORE FACIAL HAIR RELATED SILLINESS FOR THE DOODLE CABOODLE!

i freaking love train journeys. they are the perfect excuse to draw inane nonsense like this.

sketchbook stuff. wow, lady on the bus. your ability to sniff out high pheromone levels is, quite possibly, the creepiest shit ever.

OH HAI! MOAR RANDOM HEADS!
something for our GROUP BLOG. the current theme's facial hair... and somehow you got lumber-wolf man-jack from that? i don't know. lumberjacks are the most viral, manly thing out there, right? and viral, manly things tend to be hairy (chuck norris, case in point) so this totally makes sense. yes.


HORRENDOUSLY OUTDATED THINGS FROM THE INTERNET TIME!

this thing exploded all over the internet like a year ago, so chances are you've probably already seen it. but for the uninitiated, a while back this dude released a series of videos critting the star wars prequels. yeah, i know that horse has been flogged to the point that it's nothing more than a rancid soup, but this guy takes them apart to a level that is MOLECULAR and shows off just how badly put together these movies are. they're also a total hoot if burying ladies of the night in your backyard is the kind of thing that tickles your fancy. ENJOY!
STAR WARS: EPISODE 1 – THE PHANTOM MENACE

bits and bobs for something for the summer project. i think this thing's just going to manifest in the form of a bunch of... er... "posters"? oh man. can already see i should have drawn all these heads together instead of sporadically scribbling them throughout zee moleskine since the scale and alignment's going to all over the show. oh d'oh.

ah, whatever. let's while away those woes with some more over-saturated photos (i think i'm just using these as a distraction from how UNCOLOURFUL this corner of the internet is)!!


even the tutors agree that sammy is the number one thing to draw on;

pencils for the poster. mmmmmaaaybe got a little carried away with the drawing on this one since this is going to get buried under like a bajillion layers in photoshop.

OH WELL.

oh hey, want to get your mind totally blown? then check THIS DUDE. i acctually can't get enough of his wonderful stuff... AND HE'S 16 YEARS OLD.
...
SIX. FREAKING.TEEN

oh my stars and garters. he's got such a handle on form and character, it's nuts. dude's already interning at disney. i think he's going to take over the world.

rough sketches for the holiday homework. holy shit son, it is WAY past high time to get cracking on that. gah. so many things i want to try and get done for this, but i don't know... i think i'm kinda obsessing with the book at the moment. OH TIME MANAGEMENT. WHAT STRANGE MAGIC ARE YOU? in an ideal world, i'd also be finding the time to fix up the self initiated project and finish off the macmillan AND OH MY GOD STOP WITH THE BITCH FITS. BROADCASTING YOUR NEUROSIS ON THE INTERNET IS SOOOOOOO LIVE JOURNAL.

...

in other news, did you know 9 out of 10 middlesex illustration students prefer drawing on sammy than real paper? it's true!

stuff from the book WHICH WE'RE NOW A QUATER OF THE WAY THROUGH. AW-FUCKING-YEEEEEEAAAAAAAH.

what's a better way to celebrate than with some beatboxing fish?