some pages from this year's macmillan competition offering.












will be putting the rest of it once it's all coloured in and whatnot (which'll hopefully be a thing happening once the degree show's out the way). unfortunately, this time round they were having none of our submissions. but that's totally cool- went along to the show up above foils last week and holy moly. there was some very good stuff there.

here's a gloriously incomplete list of winners and highly commended folk. give them a look. they'll knock your socks off:

http://jasonhibbs.co.uk/blog/

http://rubytaylorillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.sophyhenn.typepad.com/

http://lofi-illustration.tumblr.com/

http://saragibbesonillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

http://elladraws.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.samialadawy.com/Blog-2

http://laurenmayillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

bonus content!

'everything is a remix' is a really nifty, bite-sized, homemade documentary looking at how ideas are reused again and again and again in everything from entertainment to innovation. asides from that, once it gets rolling, it is a visual treat. give it a butchers!

YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE FINISHED YOUR MACMILLAN BOOK BY THE END OF THE DAY. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE IN THIS.

here are some cheeky panels from it. the story's about a magic dog who can't spell. it was going to be called god the dyslexic dog but then it turned out that there was something all ready going by that handle. boo. also, it might have been a little offensive to religious types. double boo.

888

podcast time! oh my god. girl on guy with aisha tyler is totally my jam. i would quite like to be her when i grow up. this episode is with the director of bellflower, a super homemade movie that's an apocalyptic romance. er. i haven't seen it, but it looks super slick and hearing about creative people getting creative is always a blast.

PUT IT IN YOUR EARS RIGHT HERE.

so roughly this time 365.25 days ago, we were gearing up to send our entries off to the macmillan prize. this year some of the more masochistically inclined of us decided to go toe to toe with it and well... let's just say i'm nowhere near dotting the i's and crossing the t's on that one this time round. ack ack ack.

but it's totally gravy because you've got three weeks to do 9 dummy pages, colour three of them in, pull some end papers and a cover out your ass... and finish your final major project... and make the metric tone of corrections to all your previous project.

fucking cakewalk mate.

ah well, here a throwback to better days when time management was a thing in your skill set:



so yeah, finally got around to making a cover for last year's offering. i don't know, figured i'd finish that bad boy off so we could hopefully sell some copies in order to make some greens for our degree show...


(ta for the photo, eva)



"i can't believe you bound this yourself"- martin ursell



so yeah, if you're interested in maybe snapping one up, shout us a hollar and i'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement...

****
so recently got turned onto marc maron's podcast. holy crap. the rss feed for that thing is a treasure trove of wonder. here's an episode that destroyed all my preconceptions about russell brand:

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

and then some shit from my sketch book:

DOUBLE POST. SO INTENSE.




but really, trying to work from multiple pages from multiple sketch books was making me want to re-enact that scene from scanners. while we're tinkering away on our Final Major Projects, we're meant to be entering another competition. seeing as doing the macmillan last year was a total blast, i figured to be gloriously adventurous and have another crack at it. hoo har. goal for today is to get two of the three style tests licked.

*switch game face to the 'on' position*



and some sketch book crap that made its way into the scanner. unfortunately, these sentiments could very well apply to today as well. boo.

o9

1o

11

12

13


...

sssssoooo anyone out there fancy publishing a children's book?

also, google images may be owed a very big thank you for helping out on that last spread.

o5

o6

o7

o8



huh. on reflection prehapse doing a children's book about a small girl vanishing into the night with a tall, mysterious stranger wasn't the wisest of ideas... #questionablesubtext

oh well. at least you didn't have him rolling up in a dodgy white van with blacked out windows and "free puppies" scrawled all over the side.

SIDE NOTE TIME! here's a totally jammy blog by comic book artist sean gordon murphy about how to deal with back grounds. those are some wise words. and while you're over there, you should check out the rest of his DA page. holy moly! i cannot wait to get my grubby little mitts all over joe the barbarian/a trade of his run on american vampire

o1

o2

o3

o4


ah yes. this old chestnut. one of the things i really wanted to do over the summer was to get the rest of the macmillan book licked. ok, so didn't get round to doing a cover or second lot of end pages, but hey, it's a pretty good stab, right?

also, sorry to get all pip-pip-cheerio british on this, but what is up with this weather? it's like peak summer time out there... and then some dude in the shop was all like "they say it's going to snow before october's out." lol wut? IS THAT THE ENDTIMES I SEE RIDING OVER THE HORIZON?

right. buckle in campers. there's quite a bit of ground to cover.





the last of the pencils for the macmillan book. they have since had the water-coloured-the-fuck out of them... and just in time too since it needed to be ready for this:



so my old school decided to put together a show of ex-student's work. it opened last night and is going to be running till the 23rd. if you fancy popping your nose in, that would be super cool. there's a crazy mix of stuff on show... and if you'd like to check out some of the artists' work from the comfort of your own home, here are some links:

CHARLIE GOLDBLATT
CHARLOTTE KAYE
JOHNNY MORGAN

aaaaaaaaand while we're on the topic of plugging artists, i recently got my hands on the first issue of FATBREAD'S brand spanking new zine. this quarterly publication's being put together by a squad of recent middlesex graduates. it's a really neatly designed book that feels super cohesive despite the big list of contributos:

www.jamesboast.com
http://keshetbuckle.blogspot.com/
http://www.shanenoonan.co.uk/
http://www.johncthurbin.com/
http://www.ginocullen.com/
http://www.vickyiscool.com/
http://www.arjunmahadevan.com/

it's also super fun. here's to the next issue!

FINALLY. i may have got around to getting a website put together. if you want to kill five minuets clicking through some goofy pictures, you can get right on that RIGHT HERE.



phew. for managing to make it through all that yadda-yadda-yadda, here's some neutral milk hotel. it's good for what ails you.

aaaaaaand some more pages from the macmillan book. hopfully going to get the last three pages drawn by the end of the weekend... and then get them all coloured, photoshopped and ready to before next thursday when i bugger off on holiday? AH HA HA HA HA. LIKE THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN.

ah well. you can always hope.


in the mean time, i never saw black dynamite BUT i did CATCH THE PILOT FOR THE ANIMATED SHOW OVER AT THE NERDIST. holy moly. this shit is amazing. as so beutifully animated too.

pimps don't do chores, yo.

some scribble from the second year sketch book. YEAH. BEEP IF YOU HEART CLOSE CROPPING.



aaaaaaaaand another page of that macmillan malarky (jesus, alex. what the fuck is this post? alliterating in the AM?). don't know if it's some form of stockholm syndrome, but i think i could happily draw silly wonk-factor five buildings all day long...
huh. turns out i did some rather funky maths the last time i posted one of these pages. turns out there's only 15 days to draw the last 6 pages and colour all 9. that's still... do-able...

right?

P.S HERE'S ANOTHER BLOG YOU SHOULD TOTALLY CHECK OUT! this post features some crazy awesome illustrations by kent rockwell for paul bunyan. check out those crazy cool initial caps! man, what ace designing. but this guy's whole blog's worth checking out, especially for those who thought our history of art lectures gave the short shrift to the history of illustration...

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?

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!

WALK OF SHAME! actually, that's wholly appropriate seeing as i only managed to get a shocking 2 PAGES done this week. poor form, moore.

IN OTHER OLD, OUTDATED NEWS:



so a while back, we went to the macmillan book prize show. as mentioned before, HECTOR got his ass shortlisted which is totally awesome. speaking of awesome, some of the other entries on show at that thing were absolutely mind-bending. it's a shame the macmillan website has ABSOLUTELY NO COVERAGE OF THIS COMPETITION WHATSOEVER since this stuff totally deserves to be seen.

being anal, i did some rooting around and found some websites you should most definitely check out:
http://emmabennettillustration.tumblr.com/
http://cargocollective.com/naomijonesillustration
http://elysdolan.blogspot.com/
http://vanyanastanlieva.blogspot.com/

leftovers from the macmillan project. the dip pen drawing is a fabulous showcase of my COMPLETE lack of understanding of hatching. i think i may have also been a little illibriated when i sat down to do this so that's a double fault. also, had a revelation the other day that mr. cloak man is essentially what would happen it spawn and mickey mouse had some kind of terrible love child.

hats off to class-buddy hector lloyd for landing himself a highly recommended award and a place in the macmillan exhibition. you can see some spreads from his totally fucking charming book RIGHT HERE . man. cannot wait to check out that show.

it's only may, but here's some stupidly summery music for your ass.