Blog Catch-Up: Cards and Commissions

Another blog post, another apology for the lack of consistent updates! *sigh* Unbelievably, I've been running this blog for 8 years now, since 2008 and until last year my annual number of blog posts was consistently in triple figures. Last year I managed 33 blog posts all year, and so far this year I've only managed half that amount. There are various reasons for this: it takes time to do these posts - resizing images, checking the formatting, writing this nonsense etc. – and in recent years, I've just had less time. Partly because I've been busy working on interesting projects that I don't always get to tell people about because Reasons, partly because of having to work elsewhere in order to earn money to exist, partly because of Life. I could spend more time saying how I'll be posting more from now on, but in all honesty, that's probably not likely. I will still post here when I can, but if you want to keep more up-to-date with what I'm up to, you can always Like my Facebook page or follow me on Instagram.

In the past, I've made a LOT of Birthday cards for friends and family, it's something I enjoy doing and part of the challenge is coming up with new ideas every year. For various reasons (similar to the reasons why my blog posting has been greatly reduced), this year I have had to reduce the number of cards that I make, but I've still managed to make a couple and have also this year have also received a few commissions to make cards for other people.

My friend Anne asked me to draw a portrait of her and her husband Kurt for their Wedding Anniversary. She sent me a photo for refernce...


She aslo commissioned me to do a picture for her friend's birthday, with her and her friend. Again she sent me a photo for a reference...


Here's another commissioned card to welcome the birth of a new baby. For his one I was sent a bunch of reference photos of the couple but came up with the poses and composition, and also had to imagine the baby as it hadn't been born yet! It's quite surreal drawing a card for somebody that you don't know...


The same person that I drew the previous card for also asked me to draw a card for their uncle's 60th birthday. They sent me a couple of photos for reference, and wanted to have him fishing and catching a fish...


This was a fun one, to draw a birthday card for someone's nephew(?). His favourite show is Andy's Dinosaur Adventures and they asked for a drawing of the Birthday Boy off on a Dinosaur Adventure with Andy. I had to look up the show on YouTube, but they also sent me a lot of reference images, as well as some cute photos of their nephew dressed up as Andy...



Finally, it's not all commission requests. And I did manage to find time to make a couple of personal card too! This one was for my friend Chantel's birthday. I don't see her so often (hardly at all, sadly!) since she moved to Hull, and now Leeds, for work, but I do know that she loves Pokémon, so I made her this Game Boy-style card...


It was also my mum's 69th birthday, although she preferred to refer to herself as being 68+...


My University friend Rishi got married to Deepa last month. I was invited along to the wedding, but didn't have time to make them a card for the actual day, but drew this one afterwards using the photos people had taken for reference, and sent it to them for when they got back from their honeymoon...


And finally, another University friend, Francine got married the other week in Las Vegas and had a Live Stream of the ceremony that Guests could watch online from home. While I did this (at 1am in the morning, because of time differences), I did a few sketches and shortly afterwards sent them this drawing...

Olive and Jake portrait

My friend Chris recently commissioned me to draw a portrait of his daughter Olive and her friend Jake...

Card commission

I wanted to share a recent commission I worked on to draw a birthday/house-warming card. This was a fun job and the client was thankfully very clear in what they wanted, providing lots of photos for reference. I was pleased with the final result, and happily so were they!

CARD-MAGEDDON!!!

Forgive me Internet, for I have sinned. It's been over a month since my last blog post! And while I try to get back up to date with my assorted scribblings, I've realised that I've got a bunch of birthday cards and card commissions that I have so far failed to upload, so if you'll indulge me for a moment, I'm going to stick them all up onto the World Wide Web in one voluminous post.

Here we go...!

Sometimes an idea just pops into head and the only way I can exercise it from my mind is to get it down on paper! So after a slightly hysterical conversation about the character Bane in the film The Dark Knight Rises with my friend Arianne (you had to be there!), and finding out that it was her birthday, I drew her this card. With a ghost. Because there's always a ghost!



My brother commissioned me to draw a birthday card for his friend Kate...



Well, actually he commissioned me to draw an engagement card for Kate and her boyfriend James first, but because I was particularly busy at the time, the birthday card ended up being done first. Still, I made the engagement card eventually...



Also, Arianne got a Full Time job and so was able to spend less time at the gallery, meaning she doesn't have to wear the uncomfortable tie so much...



Somewhere along the way, Keare and Nile got married. Congratulations! And I drew this portrait of them both in a card that Andy Oliver organised...



More recently, it was Julia Scheele's birthday, and I drew her this card, based on the cover she drew for Summer Camp's zine Drive Past My House, which they released to coincide with the launch of their album, Bad Love...



And I think that about brings us right back to the present. For now! I'll be posting some other stuff that I've neglected to shove onto the Internet very soon, and then I'll hopefully be able to maintain a more consistent schedule. At least that's the plan...

Happy Birthday Clare!

My friend Jess commissioned me to draw a card for her friend Clare's birthday. The last couple of years, I have made Jess a birthday card based on the covers of Hanson albums, because she loves Hanson. And it turns out (surprisingly!) that she's not the only one, and her friend's Tash and Clare are also fans of Hanson. And so Jess wanted me to draw a card for Clare, also including her and Tash, and based on the cover to the band's Shout It Out album...

Who Let The Dogs Out?

A few weeks ago, I was contacted about doing a pet portrait of a dog called Pirate. I was sent some reference photos of the dog and they asked if I could use all of the poses in the picture. I did a rough sketch, and once this was approved I went ahead and drew the final piece using a Zebra Fude brush pen. I then coloured it using Photoshop and added a grass texture before also adding some ink washes that I scanned, to give a bit more form to the dog.

Portrait commission

My mum recently commissioned me to draw a portrait of her friends, Chris and John, for their 40th Wedding Anniversary. As they spend a lot of time gardening, I used a photo of them together in their garden, which their daughter Karen sent to me.

Congratulations Rianne and Adam!

My friend Jenny commissioned me to draw a portrait of her friends Rianne and Adam as a wedding present. She told me that Adam had wanted to get married wearing a Stromtrooper outfit, so thought it'd be a nice idea to make his dream a reality. I got some photo references from Facebook and after drawing a rough sketch, which Jenny approved, I drew the final portrait...



Jenny bought a frame for the picture and when they got back from their honeymoon this week she gave it to them...



I think they liked it! :)

Hitachi Data Systems at VMworld

I was recently commissioned to produce 5 single panel comic illustrations for Hitachi Data Systems, as part of an online promotion for their participation in VMworld 2014 Europe, "the global conference for virtualization and cloud computing", which was being held in Barcelona. I was sent the script and scenarios for the five comics, which I was very pleased about, because my first thought when I heard they wanted some IT-based comics was "How many jokes can I get out of turning it off and on again"?!? After working up some draft sketches, the dialogue was tightened up and some of the ideas reworked slightly, before I went on to produce the finished images. I'm very pleased with the final result, and happily, so was the client!

Happy Birthday Cristina!

My brother recently commissioned me to draw a card for his friend Cristina's 30th birthday. He was very specific that it should feature her, a cake and a giraffe...

Birthday card commission

I draw a LOT of birthday cards for my friends, but the other week I was contacted by somebody who wanted me to draw a birthday card for their husband Paul's 64th birthday. She sent me some photos for reference as well as giving me a bit of background information, like the fact that he enjoys fishing, and I came up with the following design...

Invitation commission

This was a nice commission I was working on last month, creating an invitation for two friends of mine that are getting married this year. Gus was in the Air Force and Kavita's a G.P. and they wanted an illustration that bought together these two areas of their lives.

I was happy with how it turned out, and even more happy that they were too...

A Tunnel Is Only A Hole On Its Side

A Tunnel Is Only A Hole On Its Side is the second book in author James Minter's The Hole Trilogy, following on from The Hole Opportunity which was published in December 2011.

Once again, I produced an illustrated cover for the book, featuring various characters from the novel...



Both the paperback copy and Kindle edition are available to purchase now from Amazon. The third book in the trilogy will be released later this year.

Emperor Yes LIVE

Emperor Yes are playing two special Carl Sagan-themed shows this week at the Bloomsbury Theatre and the Hammersmith Apollo and asked me to draw a picture they could use online to promote the shows...

The Unexpected Consequences of Iron Overload

I was recently contacted by James Minter – who I've worked with before, producing the cover for his first novel, The Hole Opportunity – asking me to create a cover for his latest book, The Unexpected Consequences of Iron Overload.

The story follows the adventures of Jimmy Kavanagh a young man who has Haemochromatosis (sometimes referred to as Iron Overload), a condition whereby the body absorbs excess amounts of iron from a person's diet.

James was diagnosed with Haemochromatosis in 2004, but rather than being a factual account of living with the condition, he's instead crafted a humorous story about what happens when Jimmy's Haemochromoatosis results in some rather unexpected consequences, including magnetic abilities which allow him to save the life of Barbara, the woman of his dreams. The cast of characters gets larger with the arrival of a pair of Russian spies, two CIA agents, and a local cafe owner who finds herself unexpectedly caught in the middle of it all.

After reading through a draft of the book, I worked at coming up with something which reflected the tone of the story, and showed some of the main characters and scenes from the novel. Two things immediately sprang to mind: James Bond and this Jim Steranko cover to Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD from Marvel Comics...



Taking these two things as a starting point, and with some suggestions from James about which elements to include on the cover, I produced this rough sketch to show what I was thinking...



James was happy with my initial layout, although he thought that Jimmy looked a bit too suave and sophisticated in his tuxedo. After a bit of thinking I suggested that we get rid of his trousers, keeping the Bond-esque visual at first glance, but as you pan down the image it becomes more farcical. James was in agreement, so I went ahead and produced the final illustrations for the front and back cover...



The Unexpected Consequences of Iron Overload is available to buy through Amazon in both paperback and ebook editions.

Save The Date card

I was contacted by Andy and Nicola who wanted me to draw them a Save The Date card for their wedding, with the idea of having them both walking across Abbey Road like the famous Beatles album cover.

This was a fun project, although always a bit worrying to get a good likeness of someone that I've never actually met. Still, luckily they were both happy with the results...

Tom Fog Blog

My friend Tom was redesigning his website recently and commissioned me to draw him a banner image. Tom is obsessed with prison and homemade tattoos, so...

À vos marques, prêts, partez!

My friend Lenny took part in the Paris marathon last Sunday, raising money for the Anthony Nolan charity. Her sister sent me a message to ask if I could draw a picture of Lenny that she could get printed onto a t-shirt and as a banner, and take along to support her. So I drew this picture of Lenny running past a couple of Parisian landmarks...

Here are a couple of photos (courtesy of Anita Ghosal via Facebook) of my drawing on the banner and t-shirt...

Well done Lenny!

The Hole Opportunity: Additional character designs

I recently designed and illustrated a book cover for James Minter's first novel The Hole Opportunity.

James is currently working on the next novel in the series, and also putting together a YouTube video to promote his current book. As part of this, he commissioned me to draw a couple of additional characters not included on the book cover...

Colin Griggs' wife Izzy...

And Major Woods in his casual attire...

The Hole Opportunity is currently available to buy through Amazon as both a physical book and an E-book version.

The Hole Opportunity

I was commissioned to produce an illustrated book cover for James Minter's first novel The Hole Opportunity.

The Hole Opportunity is an English farce, revolving around the misadventures of Colin Griggs and his wife Izzy, who decide to set up a "Hole Farming Business", supplying holes to the local golf course. When things don't go exactly to plan, Colin ends up making an enemy of the club's captain: Major Woods.

You can order a physical copy of the book, or download an eBook version, from Amazon.