Social Icon Illos

One of my great clients ARB ( a 4x4 accessory company) asked me to do them some bespoke social icons for their new website. Results below.

If anyone reading this wants to personalise their business website with some unique icons or images just let me know.

cheers,

Old Faces

Here a couple of faces from a few years ago that I stumbled across.

Different Caricature Style

Late last year I had a couple of clients ask for a different style of caricature.  It was fun to do and hopefully I'll get the chance to do a full piece like this soon.

45 min Sketch: Ryan Gosling

A few areas of my art improved last year, but sketching definitely wasn't one of them...I seem to be getting looser and looser with the sketches I do for paintings because I know how it'll end up once I finish it.  This is fine for me, but bad for clients who can't see directly into my mind.

So here's a sketch of actor Ryan Gosling to start the improvingness...

Echonet Cover

Here's a cover I did for the independent newspaper Echonet (see it here) as they launched their new digital tablet version of the paper just before christmas

Fox Hunt: step by step

Here's a step by step guide of how I put together my Fox hunt illustration.  All up it took about 15 hours, done on Photoshop.

Okay, so here is the final artwork...

 Step 1: Here I've laid out my idea using some rough reference photos to get an idea of scale etc, the initial idea is a bit different than the final artwork, but a little way in I realised that the fox wasn't working.

 Step 2: On a new layer I've refined the sketch to get an idea of facial expression and detail using some more reference photos (I've coloured matched the photos to one another to make sure they'll all have the same look).

 Step 3: A mid tone is laid down (mid to the horses and backround) and I start blocking in the first details on two layers (horses and fox).

 Step 4: I've separated the front guy and finished the painting to a pretty high level of detail, focusing on expression and lighting.  As he's the main guy, his colour and level of contrast will be the base for the other elements as I progress.

Step 5:  The fox is gone and I'm painting the secondary figures while trying to figure out what to do in its place...

 Step 6: I've blocked in the background figures on two new layers, to allow me to adjust the depth of field later on.  I've also started to rough in the background colours to match them in.

 Step 7: I managed to come up with a new idea to pop in the foreground (two dogs) which I painted to final level striaght away, before I changed my mind again...

Step 8: I cropped the artwork for better balance and have started adding the little details, extra dogs, more background detail, and contrast on the ground to match the lighting of the figures.

 Step 9: Background details are finished and then depth of field is added to draw the focus to the bits I want people to look at.  This also means that the background woodland can be a lot looser ans the blur will tie it all together.

Step 10: Final flourishes are added, some splashing and light reflections behind the different elements to soften the look. Done.

Cartoonists Exhibition

Happy New Year All!

I've been ridiculously busy and have a lot of stuff to post, but I'll try and resist chucking it all up at once.

Here's a little cartoon exhibition I organised to show off the work of some colleagues.  It's at a great venue near my house (Jinks Creek Winery) and it showed the work of some great Australian cartoonists, and friends, Jason Chatfield, Mark Knight, Alex Hallatt, Nik Scott, Paul Harvey, Bev Aisbett, George Haddon, and myself...naturally.

Below is a piece I did for the exhibition called "The Fox Hunt", I've got a step by step of how it came together to post in the next couple of days.