So we're rapidly heading towards the end of the year now so here's a few new bits of work to round things off. Really they should have appeared on this blog first but there you go.
This is what happens when you have no firm plan of what to draw. It's like the page is taunting you or something.
First up is this daft thing I did for a Kickstarter (or was it Indegogo?) project for the guys who used to Inside Xbox and who are now striking out on their own. Super good luck to 'em and you can visit their awesomeness right here -
http://explosivealan.com/ Next up is this cover for ace UK old games mag - Retro Gamer (issue 110). Lots of different characters this time based around a Wii U Nintendo Land theme. Do they all look like they fit together? I'm sure many readers (well, readers who post on forums, anyway) were annoyed that it wasn't a Christmas cover.
And then we have this for a friend's little business venture, creating geek-culture, laser-cut acrylic jewellery. You can visit him here -
http://nerdcraft.co.uk
So, what does 2013 bring? Well, you never know, Smart Bomb!! 1-2 might get finished, Dinkybox will certainly get a makeover and if I can get going on the other gazillion ideas I'd like to do I might get around to this at some point.
So, Nintendo Gamer magazine is to close, thus ending the Future Publishing unofficial UK Nintendo magazine line that started way back in 1992 with Super Play and continued on through N64, NGC and NGamer before ending up in its current incarnation. To be honest I thought it would at least hang on until the Wii-U (do you write that with a hyphen?) hit, just in case fortunes turned around its dwindling sales figures but it was not to be.
It is, of course, a sign of the times with many gamers now getting up-to-the-second news from the net and feeling they no longer need to patronise a printed mag but those that stayed with it knew the secret; it's not just about the information.
I've been genuinely touched by all the messages commiserating the end and all their tales of gaming childhoods growing up with the mags. Knowing that I had a tiny part in some of those mags gives me an immense amount of pride and so it was really nice that I was asked to do one more cover. Well, actually two; one for the newsstand and another for the subscribers copy.
So, here's the normal one:
Yes, yes, I know that Mario should really be in his white and red Fire Mario outfit.
and here's the subscriber copy pic:
I hope they're OK (last minute etc. etc. excuses) and I do wish I'd been able to do something slightly more epic and off-the-wall but there you go. Can't imagine I'll ever get to do another games magazine cover now unless I do my own. Now there's an idea...
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
Clickty-click to visit me at Lemonade
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.
There's a great article on Super Play magazine over at
Nintendo Life so here's a bit more old SP artwork to celebrate.
Look! That's Lisa Nichols' (SNES fans hearts swoon) writing at the bottom telling the scanning guys what size to prep the artwork to. This was before we all had Photoshop on our desktops and had to do that sort of stuff for ourselves. The artwork was done on acetate - animation cel-stylee - and was scanned in on a big drum.
Someone in a boat, going somewhere mysterious. Probably.
As is traditional in our household, I draw a card for my son's birthday but always leave it right to the last minute and then panic about it. This year was no exception and what could have been a leisurely Royal Wedding Friday afternoon suddenly turned into 'CARD PANIC!'
Although I could have easily gone with Bakugan I plumped for the (slightly easier to draw) Galactus/Silver Surfer combo. He's been watching the recent(ish) cartoon (where they tried to channel the sprit of King Jack into the artwork) and really enjoyed them.
As my home printer is just a bit dusty and old (and under the desk where I dare not go) I dug around and found a few old Pantone Tria markers that must be at least 8 or 9 years old but, amazingly, still worked. So 1 piece of A4 bleedproof marker pad paper later...
Funny, ages ago, this was how I'd do cards for people but since the computer took over you end up doing everything on it. It's nice to get back to an actual bit of artwork. And Galactus always rocks.
Some nice person is doing an article on one of my old video game magazines - Super Play - so I braved the dusty dimension of under the sofa and retrieved my old portfolio (you know, the one with real, physical, untouched by the hand of Photoshop, artwork) so I could scan in a few bits and bobs.
So here's Neko, the Super Play subscription tiger. Each issue he'd be put in a more perilous predicament, doomed to a hideous fate unless enough people subscribed to the magazine and saved him. Well, until the next issue, that is.
I'd forgotten quite how labour intensive some of the Neko illos were. They were done (as I also did the covers in those days - '92-'94) on acetate with the linework on the front and painted on the back; animation cel-style. Often they would be just as complicated as the covers and boy, did I get through a lot of paints back then.
Now I've opened the Pandora's Box that is the Old Portfolio (TM) expect to see more horrors from the past. Just don't ask me to post anything from the Scorpion Man comic from 1980.
RSS Feed