Experimenta

These drawings were made with Indian ink & a twig!

Van Dyck

Drawings made at a Van Dyck exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1999.

Pitching

The most fun part of working on commercials for me is the initial pitching stage. It's a stimulating challenge to find a style & technique to fit each particular job & always interesting to see what others come up with too. However, more often than not the designs that seem the most original or fresh never make it!

Drunk drawing!

One way of loosening up we found is to sink a few pints & get sketching in the local pub. The drawings above were made on beer mats, napkins, scraps of paper & many ruined sketchbooks using biros, brush pens, cigarette ash & splashed beer! Apologies to those depicted (couple of fellow bloggers on there too!)

French Animation

In Paris I picked up a DVD of classic French animation Le Roi et L'oiseau by Paul Grimault. Amazing film - the background layouts are incredible & the characters quite unique. Highly recommended.

Movie Posters

While in Paris I happened upon the French version of the poster for Guy Ritchie's REVOLVER. It's a bit racier than the British version & reminds me of those great movie posters from the 70's by Robert McGinnis.

KIRAZ

Spent the weekend in Paris & finally managed to get hold of some books by Kiraz. He draws such strangely proportioned girls but they somehow seem to work. They have infantile heads & faces, no hips or busts, over-long legs & torsos but are still sexy! Kiraz's colour palette is what make his paintings pop. He's in his eighties & still working I believe, but apparently he's very reclusive.

Pink Dog

Pink Dog is the saddest creature on earth.

NUCLEAR FAMILY

Designs for a 3HG commercial through CARTOON NETWORK,Europe.

CITY OF GOD

This image is inspired by the stunning Brazilian movie CITY OF GOD.

AZTECS

Drawings made at a Royal Academy exhibition a couple years back.

BOING!

Here are some colour keys I made for the channel launch of BOING!, the Italian BOOMERANG channel.

Recent sketches

More from my sketchbook.

Another commercial

The CHEWITSAURUS used to be claymation but in 2001 I updated the design in 2-D with 3-D backgrounds for Studio AKA.

Howl's Moving Castle

Just saw Miyazaki's latest, 'Howl's Moving Castle'. It's just as inventive & imaginative as his previous films, packed full of weird characters & magical scenery.
The title 'character' is wonderful. To see it emerge from the mist & stomp across the countryside is breath-taking.