Heston Blumenthal

Been a bit slack on the posting - mostly been working on some stuff that I can't share at the moment. But I had some spare time yesterday afternoon so I had a crack at chef/scientician Heston Blumenthal.

Photoshop, 4 hrs.

Whippy logo

I got this rush job late last week. An ice cream van company that needed a new logo pronto. They had comissioned a "cartoonist" to do them a logo, but that unscrupulous individual ripped off someone elses logo and claimed it as their own concept.

Naturally this was brought to my client's attention by lawyers and so the need for a new logo was born!

It's an icecream. Nothing complicated and a little too close to the original logo, that caused all of the issues, for me - but it's my clients logo now and the result isn't too bad.

Acrylic Painting

I spent a couple of hours over the last few afternoons having a crack at painting in acrylic. I had a false start a few months back, it was my first ever go and it was an unmitigated distaster, so I had a bit of a breather before I tried again. I tried black and white this time, to make it easier on myself and I also chose to paint a caricature of Larry David, which also made it easier.

Any way I'm pretty chuffed for a first real go.


And a sequence of how it came together

When a super studio becomes a MEGA studio!

I've been in my new studio for 10 months now and as super good as it is I felt the need to update a few things...mostly after a friend begain building his new music studio at his house.

Anyway, I updated a few bits of hardware and rebuilt my desk to make better use of it's enormouse size and to build in my light table.

It was all completely unnecessary, but sometimes I get a hankering to design and build something and luckily it didn't turn out crap!

Scarlett Johansson

I've spent the last week or so drawing a lot of ugly blokes, so I thought I'd give myself a break and draw someone who wasn't...

3 hours, 100% photoshop

A few commissions

Here are a few commissioned caricatures for clients around the country. I've been renovating my studio desk the last week so I've just been doing the work I actually have to get done...

Kristina Keneally

This is an illustration I did a while ago for a magazine in the US, but I've been waiting for permission to use it. They haven't gotten back to me either way, so I thought I'd post it regardless because it came up a treat.

For those who don't know Kristina Keneally is the Labor Party Premier for the Australian state of New South Wales. She's originally from the US, hence the interest from a US mag. She's jumped into a position that's really a sinking ship, after years of mismanagement from her predecessors.

I don't really care though because I live in Victoria...

Enjoy!

Master Chef Caricature

I love cooking shows, I always have and in fact I spent most of my uni degree watching them...and naturally I got hooked on Masterchef Australia which concluded last night.

I was approached by, then finalist, Adam Liaw to work with him on a caricature and quick logo for his food blog (adamliaw.com) during the week. I knocked out the work and then what do you know he won the whole competition!

I'm just glad that after watching the show for so many hours it actually resulted in me getting some money! If only that system worked for The Simpsons...

New Australian Creative Cartoons

Christophe

ACA member and 'It's a Jungle Out There' cartoonist Christophe Granet was kind enough to go out of his way and pick up a couple of bargain Gerald Scarfe books for me the other week. As a thankyou I drew a funny picture of him (and I paid him for the books of course...).

Julia Gillard our Prime Minister

Our new PM, Julia Gillard, has a cracking good head to draw and so the other night I was seeing how simply I could represent her. I got it down to a couple of shapes that I made into a collage last night.

Tim Burton

I had the pleasure of visiting the Tim Burton retrospective that opened in Melbourne yesterday. I highly recommend it to anyone who can make it to ACMI in Melbourne city or who has the exhibition cross their paths in the future.

I'm a bit of a Burton fan, he's made some great movies and some shit ones, but they're always Tim Burton's...if you know what I mean. So in that regard it was great to see his work from a teen onwards as he found his feet and his style.

I found that there was some definate stylistic leanings towards Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman, but that said I think it's hard for any illustrator trying to find their own style not to reference these two legends.

Either way I'm gushing, it was super and you must see it. And if you're going to go, buy the tickets online before you head down - the line is waaaaaaay shorter!

Rudd is gone

Well, in a unexpected/expected turn of events yesterday Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted from his position. He's only been in the Job for 2.5 years and now is great big melon head is outta there. I know many cartoonists were a little bit worried when he won the election in 2007, because his head is sooo plain and coming off 11 years of drawing John Howard's head it was a big difference.

But they all found their way and below are a couple of my versions of Rudd's head while he was in office...

Who's a pretty boy then...

I'm seem to be in a sketching and posting mood so I just knocked out a self portrait to replace my various avatars and to put on my new batch of busniess cards.

Let the visual comparisons to Dave Grohl begin!

Dave Grohl 30 min digital sketch

The last one was shit so I tried the digital way for 30minutes to see if I could crack his face. I'm not sure how many people have said I look like Dave Grohl in the past but I'm not sure it's a good thing...

Dave Grohl 25 min ink sketch

Here's a quick ink sketch of Dave Grohl I did yesterday. The caricature is pretty rubbish but it was more of an exercise in style and technique to see what works for me. FYI I used black ink, an old rigging brush, toothbrush and a 0.4 and 0.6 artline.

It's something I guess...waiting for the go ahead from a few clients to post some more commisioned work I've done.

20 minute ink sketch

it's an elephant...

Ol' Dickeyes

This was a little gift left in my studio from Ginger Megs cartoonist and all round nice guy Jason Chatfield when he visited a while back.

The concept stems from a drunken train of conversation on my Bucks night...nuff said.

Editorial Exhibition

My editor from the Video Journalism Movement has sent through some photos of a recent cartoon exhibition on press freedom that I was a part of in Amsterdam. The exhibition was an apparent hit and there's now talks of it being on the move to Lima, Moscow, and New York!

The exhibtion looked brilliantly put together and it was a shame to be so far away from the launch (although any future "business" trips to Holland sound okay by me).







My contribution (top): Nothing like a colo-rectal examination to bring out the laughs...

newmatilda.com is no more

satirical/informative Australian news website newmatilda.com has pulled the pin due to lack of advertising revenue after 6 years. More importantly they have pulled the pin on the newmatilda.com prize for political cartooning after two years.

I'm devastated, not only had I organised my entry for this years competition, but I was on a good run, 5th in 2008 and 3rd in 2009, and anyone with even the slightest understanding of numerical patterns knows that that means that this year I was a shoe in for 1st (and a cool $6000, although being in financial difficulty probably isn't the best time to give out 6k, and winning it and never getting paid would've been a real kick in the dick, but I digress...).

Anywho, this years entry in the now defunct competition is below and hopefully some of you guys get a laugh out of it.

What a jip.

Pretty house photos

As anyone who has looked at this blog knows I've been designing and building my house for the last 18 months. It's been the longest project I've ever done and most definitely the hardest. But now we've been in for 6 months, the landscaping is done and it's starting to look how I imagined.

My main reason for the photos is that I have unrealistic expectations of how my house should look after trawling through dozens of home magazines. It's like if people look at models in magazines they feel pressured to look that way. I had the same problem with the house...So the other night was clear and calm so I took a few photos and I'm pretty chuffed with the result.

Character Design

I love doing character design, but it doesn't come along too often. Here's a couple of characters I developed for a garden expert. The characters are to be used to teach kids about eating healthy, gardening and the like.

The characters are based on real kids who play the character sat schools and events, so it was bit of design and a bit of caricature, which was good fun.

It's a Chicken!

Here's a comission for one of my regular clients in-store promotion.

It's a chicken...a big chicken.

I'm currently working on their next promo and i've got 4 posters to do, so I'll share them when I can.

Australian Creative Magazine Cartoons

I have a regular gig doing a cartoon for one of the columnists in Australian Creative Magazine (advertising industry mag). I've had the job for a while and a few months back the column changed authors and the new author was looking for a new style to represent his writing.

He mentioned Ralph Steadman as a guide. I was so happy that I jumped aboard with a Steadman rip off and they were happy. Since then I 've been working with that style and trying not to make it too much of a rip off, but generally I don't care - Steadman is such a legend I have too much fun trying to work like him.

The other bonus is that the artwork is done with brush and ink (finished in PS) - something I'm not great at but love to do, it makes me feel like a real artist.

The "Bit List" Addition

After my honeymoon in Thailand I can add jelly fish to the bit list.

One Hell of a busy couple of months

It's been a busy couple of months, I finished landscaping my house, got married, and went on a honeymoon to Thailand. My work had to squeeze in between all of the above...which I kind of managed.

It was a great couple of months and coming out the other end I'm back in a position to work freely and effectively, the first time since we started building the house over a year ago.

This means more posts on the blog and less time crying in the corner of my studio trying to figure out how to get it all done, YAY!

The "Bit" List

I've got some good work to post as soon as I get the all clear from the clients. In the mean time I was doing a spot of gardening and raked over a wasps nest. I copped a couple of stings on my ankle and it got me thinking of a mental list I've head in my mind for a while - it's called The "Bit" List.

It's a list of all the weird and wonderful things I've been bitten/stung by in my 29 years and it keeps growing by the day - so much I finally need to get it down on paper (digital paper I guess).

Dog
Cat
Pelican
Emu
Budgy
Human (Baby, Child, Adult)
Guinee Pig (Gerbal for those in the US)
Goat
Horse
Rabbit
Lizard
Fish
Crab
Mosquito
Bee
Wasp
Ant (many types)
Spider
Scorpian
Centipede
Chicken
March Fly
Sand Fly
Flea


If I think of any more or unrepress some horrible memories I'll add 'em on.

Old Commission

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd post something I've been waiting to be allowed to post. It's a advertising illo for an ongoing client. Much fun to draw! The final illustration was 1.8 x 1m in size so there was plenty of room to go bananas...sorry.

Happy New Year!

A little late I know, but I've been busy lazing around my house for a couple of weeks. I'm back in the studio and looking forward to a new year of more consistent posting on the blog, more caricatures, and I'm even going to have a crack at tradtional painting....god help me.

Here's a nice way to start the new year, I got the new Video Journalism Movement book in the post. I've been a part of this from the start and it's great to see all of the cartoonists complied into a neat book - plus it feels good to be published like this.

And the Winner is...Me!

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about the Michael Collins Caricature Award. It's an Australian award (great prize money) and it's been going for 4 years now. The award is one of the driving forces behind me improving over the last couple of years as everytime I enter I'm blown away by the competition.

The last coupleof years I've been entering digital artwork and although they've been well received there's still a bit of a stigma attached to digital painting - the judges still believed that they were just manipulated photos and it took some explaining for them to believe otherwise.

I believe that some great artwork has been overlooked for top honours in the past becasue it wasn't painted traditonally.

This year though they opened up a digital category and I took out the prize...thank you, thank you.

The prize money for this new category wasn't great, but I did get trophy (below) and hopefully it'll grow with the huge number of sponsors available in the digital painting industry and people like Terry Dunnett won't be over looked any more.

My winning entry
My, first ever, trophy

WIP

A little somethin somethin I'm working on...

Stanley Awards - Sydney 2009

The Stanley Awards are Australian cartoonings night of nights and this year were held in Sydney. Not a bad spot at all. The weekend had two days of conferences and two nights of frivolity, it was a tiring combination.

Guests of Honour were most notably Pat Oliphant (ex pat aussie pulitzer prize winning political cartoonist who changed the face of US editorial cartooning from the 60s onwards) and Tom Richmond (MAD magazine illustrating whiz and all round nice guy) who both did great presentations.

The night was spent enjoying drinks on Sydney Harbour, watching an impromptu strip show at a seemingly innocent restaurant, and the awards night itself.

No nominations for me this year - fair enough. But the night was great fun and representing the new generation were Anton Emdin and Dave Follett with their first Stanley Awards wins. I did come runner-up in the after party cartoon contest, the results of which are unpublishable, and scored me a nice bottle of Red - which I responsibly brought home.

Below are a few photos of the weekend and some sketches done while I wasn't paying attention in the conferences.


Some bridge I guess...

My lovely fiance, Stacey, and me.

The Awards night, just getting started!

Rolf Heimann


Pat Oliphant


Jim Bridges


Me by Tom Richmond...and yes I've framed it.


Taking life very, very seriously indeed.