Today, somehow I feel a little bit more like a proper illustrator. I now have an agent (the delightful chaps and chapesses at Lemonade) who will represent me worldwide. Look, here's my page on their site

I'm amazed (and not a little intimidated) to be amongst some fantastic talents such as my friend Neil Roberts and am proud to be part of their push into the States. Look at this poster. There I am, tucked in near the top with the latest dinkybox header.

So, why do I need an agent, especially in this world where I can have a website that the whole world can see along with a presence on countless other artwork and networking sites? Well, I guess the easiest answer is for the sort of exposure and introductions to potential projects I would never normally get through just having this webpage. It, sort of, marks you out as being serious about what you do and, dare I say it, professional.  It also, hopefully, leaves me to get on with the artwork and doing the thing I'm (supposedly) good at. What I hope to do is mix that grown-up side with my own home-grow projects (a bit more on this later) so this is where the real hard work starts.

Even though I've never actually played a proper game of Dungeons & Dragons I love the books and artwork of those early RPG years. You know, the 1970s Monster Manual with it's scratchy, slightly amateurish artwork. At that time I felt that, with a lot of practice, I could do pics like that, too. If I was that young now I don't think it'd even cross my mind that I could do the amazing paintings that adorn role playing books today.
There seems to be quite a resurgence in old-school RPGing with fanzines like Fight On!, new rules that pay service to the original D&D boxset and even metal miniatures based on those original designs.

The above was for a project a few years back that never went anywhere. It's just one of a gazillion sketches that got done trying to flesh out some NPCs but I quite enjoyed it and this sort of thing is, probably, the nearest I've got to role-playing work. There's always just one sort of Troll in video games - big, mean and with some armour on so I thought it'd be fun to try and do a whole family.

Ooh, life reset! Who pushed that button?

Well, after 11 years I'm out of the games dev business. I can't say I'm sorry, although having a full-time job is always a nice thing. I'll miss the friends and colleagues I worked with but it was the right thing to do at the right time. 

The future's bright, there's lots to do and daft pictures won't draw themselves y'know. At least I get the time to update this site a lot more now.

Don't all cheer at once.