old stuff! because this blog is more behind the times than a caveman in power shoulders:





these are from the four-project-pre-mid-year-assesment-cluster-fuck days. this project was all about coming up with some pretty pictures for a few lucy mangan columns. yeeeeaaaaah.


reggie watts came up in conversation the other day. hot dog, that man is genius. if you like beat boxing, loop machines and mad, rambling improvised streams of consciousness, give him a go!:


in other other news, we went to antwerp last week. good gravy did we draw the shit out of that place. god knows how we managed that between all the beer and general good times. expect a barrage of sketchbook nonsense and photos from that in the not too distant future. in the mean time, here's a picture of resident art man extrodiner aldous to hold you over:



guys. man can draw.

cover spread for the new york editorial project.

this one was a lot of fun. the article we were illustrating had a really weird angle. our besotted protagonist spent most of it trying to get through administration and red tape to get an interview with new york herself. when he finally gets to talk to her, he realises that she's transformed into a cold hearted, man-eater of a monster monster (or maybe she always was and he had the rose tinted glasses on a wee bit too tight). with this, i wanted to try and get down the apprehension he develops towards her while depicting her as this soulless seductress and good lord this is getting wanky.

and it sounds like our mysterious neighbour who just moved in next door has got himself a piano. he's pretty good.

(3/3 of the new york editorial project)
i spy with my little eye something beginning with MELODRAMA. gosh, this is angst-tasic. why everyone in new york is styling themselves on dr manhattan is totally beyond me.

in other news, went to see the tigerlillies last week.

FUCK ME, THEY'RE GOOD.

we totally went on impulse and bought tickets at the last minuet. i'm still pretty amazed we managed to land any since that was supposedly their only london show this year. it was kinda like what would happen if the league of gentlemen folk decided to to turn their hand to writing macabre cabaret-style show tunes complete with theramins, musical saws and wonderfully shit panto-esque antics.

here's one of their more upbeat tunes:

...eww. tarting this one up did it no favours whatsoever and the colouring itself is pretty slap-dash. need to start thinking about doing colour studies before blundering into these things. who knows, they could be the best friend you never knew you had.

the article was all about this guy coming back to new york and realising that it maaaaaaaaybe wasn't the city he fell in love with all those years ago. i thought it might be fun to set it up as the guy getting increasingly more disillusioned as he's stood up on a series of dates. tutor pointed out that it looked a little too comic-booky though and i'm not going to argue. that is a trap that needs to be avoided.

howdy-doo!

going to throw up the colour versions of the editorial project pieces. i would have looooooooooved to be able to spend a little more time on these but deadline said no. as such, i'm going to have to ask you to try your darn-dest to ignore that delicious plastic grass.

on the topic of new york, that's the theme of our first sketch jam over at our shiny new art blog: http://thedoodlecaboodle.blogspot.com/ if you want in on the fun, drop me an email over at alxmoore6@googlemail.com!

editorial project! now with 99% more colour!

pandemonium was meant to be the word behind this one, but looking at it, others seem to come to mind.... hmmm... i think they go something along the lines of WHEN I WAS A YOUNG BOY, MY FATHER TOOK ME INTO THE CITY TO SEE A MARCHING BAND and so on and so forth.

huh, if i ever get around to making that illustrated song book i've been wanting to do for FOR-FUCKING-EVER, this would probably be fair game for that particularly emo-tastic ballard...

yeah, totally abused this for the sake of drawing gnarly monsters but oh lordy lordy was it fun.

(i'm also maybe a little too please with this one)

300th post!

and what a crappy one it is too. the out come for the equals brief. eeeeeeeeew. the yellow one was the first attempt but it felt so freaking static. tried to bring it back to life in the second attempt but maybe it's too scrappy and dark?

GAH!

editorial project stuff. teetotal was the first of the 'made up' words they gave us to tackle. the fact that there are fruit based alcoholic beverages out there COMPLETELY undermines this one.

christ. haven't inked anything in forever. it's waaaaaay too fricking intense.

stuff for the editorial project.

buzz word for this one was 5th column (derived from general molar's insurgent group planted in madrid during the spanish civl war). was made super tricky by the fact we had to work to crazy small dimensions (something like 3x5). the good news is that apparently most editorial brief out there in the real world will measure in somewhere around there.

yay?

hmm, should have made the stink eye on the traitor more evident. did not come out _at all_ in the print off.

also, ARMS DON'T WORK THAT WAY!

we're doing this super quick fire editorial project at the moment where we're given a word and then have three days to come up with something niffty. this was for maverick. phoar! can't you just smell the machismo?

that glowing thing was meant to be like a cattle brand but it ended up looking like a big flaming y.

done while stuck on a train coming back from edinburgh.

boy howdy. failed miserably at posting that last post.

anyHOO, some rough stuff from our current project. it's pretty crazy- twice a week we're given a word of phrase to illustrate. this time round it was equals. this one was... tricky. came up with some bull shit, wooly idea about how sheet music can equate something tangible you can hear. so. very. lame.

more stuff for the student journal, this time for an article about a tone deaf girl who was duped into thinking she was the next maria callis.

eh, not sure if her inability to hit a note comes through here. should have done something to make the stanza in the back ground more painful/aggressive/dischorded.

last post i was waxing on about gabriel ba. he and his brother are a super talented pair. please, check them out -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/10paezinhos/sets/72157606185530624/

and speaking of ripping things off...

i tottally gorged on gabriel ba with a back to back reading of the umbrella acadamy and cassanova TPBs. my god, that man can draw the the shit out of a comic.

but yeah, it's lead to me starting up my milk tost imperssination of him again with this illustration for the student paper. i didn't get a chance to read the article which was super crap on my part but i think it's about students sneaking into high-society events. uuuugh, this was done very late at night with very little planning and thought. i have no idea how they're going to fit it into the page. the paper's only a5 but this thing's got akward dimensions so it's probably going to be super tiny.
...
WELL DONE YOU.

artistic angst asides, may i present to you a super awsome trailer:



oh HELLS yes.

do over of the refugee illustration for folio although elen seemed to prefer the more emo-tastic version. i guess i wanted to try something a little more design based rather than literal... for which i totally blame the graphic genius of chris ware.

christ... those blank, soulless eyes are actually a little creepy.

HOLD IT! 

... something that doesn't leave you reaching for the nearest dashboard confessional album and black eye-liner? no way...

for an article on escapism into children's literature. unlike the other two, this doesn't suck a load of ass. 

*GASP*  what!? moar throat slitting art?!? how utterly delightful!

but yeah, illustration for an article on refugees. this was going to be a whole lot more ambitious, shot at an angle with a tone of hands clutching at the fence but then 1. there's not a whole lotta space for the illustrations so the tiny reproduction would most likely be unreadable and 2. there was a little matter of meeting the deadline.

BLEGH!

never a frow with gordon brown!

i cannot draw our priminister. also, elen raised a very good point when she said 'isn't obama ment to be black?'

....

....

GOOD JOB!

the final for an article about where relations between the usa and uk are going. if you just happen to be in oxford, the journal should be hitting shelves in four weeks or something.

exciting!

final for the article on the regression of the metrosexual.

something went horribly, horribly wrong with captain caveman over there (2nd from the left).