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.

So, it's spring and I thought it was time I did a bit of a refresh to this site. Tidy the pages up a bit, add a few new (and old) items and do a new piece of artwork for the header; you know, that sort of thing.

If you remember some of the old magazines I used to work for you'll now find pics of all the covers to Anime UK, Super Play and N64 Magazine (for the time I was on them) on their own pages rather than just lumped together. Either follow the links here or roll over the 'The Art Crypt' tab above.

Please let me know what you think, if the site works ok for you and if there's anything else you'd like to see on here.


Thanks!

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.

I've been working hard for the last month or so (yes, thank you; no sniggering at the back) on updating the dinkybox site (for the uninitiated, dinkybox is a little online collectable toy store run by much better half and myself). New layout, new graphics; the works. I'm no coder but hopefully it works and is easy to navigate. 

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.

Culled from the sketchbook. Ready to guard your horde of Elven gold from adventuring types.

Ahh, the pretty, willowy, elf girls. They're so nice to draw. Hey, I gave you middle aged Troll ladies a while back. Give me a break! 

I found this the other day whilst thinning out some old sketch pads. I seem to remember that there was a bit of trouble that meant the con never actually went ahead (if you remember what it was, let me know) but by then I'd already done this.

I haven't actually done any 'anime' stuff for years now. Of course, I started out as a (pretty poor, when you look at it) Japanese-style clone artist but that was at a time when it was new and everyone was excited about those 'manga cartoons'. Nowadays, it seems pretty commonplace so I've made a concious effort not to do that kind of work and, instead, just incorporate elements of it into my own style.

Some days, though, you do just hanker after drawing a wide-eyed girl with candy coloured hair in a mech suit.