No Heroics: Promotional Poster

And finally...Yes, you may be pleased to hear that this is the last piece of artwork that I created for the ITV2 sitcom, No Heroics! I worked on this a couple of months after the show had wrapped, and was very excited that my suggestion of doing a poster in the style of a classic one-sheet movie poster, in the vein of one of my heroes Drew Struzan, went down really well with everyone.

It was nice to be able to take the time on this one without the pressure of an imminent shoot, really focusing on the likenesses of the actors. Of course, if you've seen the show, presenting them all in such a 'heroic' fashion isn't exactly true to their characters, but from my point of view it was a blast! I'd just like to thank series creator Drew Pearce, production designer Dick Lunn and art director Victoria Burnett once more for getting me involved in the first place, but most of all for allowing me so much creative freedom throughout the whole project. It's a cliche to say it, but when I left my job to go freelance 4 years ago, I really never could have imagined that I would have got chance to work on something like this.

In fact, one of the highlights of the whole experience was to see the delight on Nicholas Burns' face (The Hotness) when Drew presented him with this poster at the wrap party. I hope you like it too...

No Heroics: Artwork in Episode 2

Episode 2 of No Heroics aired on Thursday night. A lot more of my work appeared in this episode than it did in the first, especially when Electroclash and She-Force go to meet some of their fans at a convention. Here are a few screengrabs for you...

Faesthetic Issue 9 Illustration

In case you've not seen it before, Faesthetic is a collection of art & oddities from around the world. Faesthetic #9 showcases 80 pages of original UFO themed art, including four from myself. The latest issue features high quality 2 color (black & fluorescent green) offset printing. My two double page spreads can be found below. I'll post some photos once I get my hands on a copy. Many thanks to Mr Dustin Hostetler, aka UPSO, for inviting me to contribute.

No Heroics: Background Artwork in Episode 1

Now I appreciate that this is a little bit like Mike from Monster's Inc. getting irrationally excited when he's appeared on the cover of a magazine or on television, despite the fact that he's been cropped or covered by some graphics, but I thought you might like to see where my set artwork appears in the background of The Fortress, the pub where our (anti) heroes go, in the first episode tonight (10.30pm on ITV2). It's very much a blink and you'll miss it kinda thing, but of course the idea is that the comic references and paraphernalia will interest fans of the genre, and help bring a reality to this world where in actual fact we see very little costumed superheroing (yep I know that's not a verb) or action. In episodes 2, 3 and 5 my artwork has more of a starring role, so stay tuned.

No Heroics: Ladytrouble Comic

The first episode airs tonight (10.30pm on ITV2 folks!), but I've been granted kind permission to show you the artwork which appears in episode two the following week. There's no need for me to plant any real plot spoilers here, suffice to say that the two main female characters (Electroclash and She-Force) once starred in their very own comic together.

I was commissioned to design and illustrate their first cover (with more than a hint of She-Ra thrown into the mix), plus an individual comic panel, supposedly extracted from one of the internal pages, with the girls battling an HGV-based baddie called Payload. I particularly enjoyed creating these pieces, going for a recognisable likeness, whilst keeping the comic inks on show.





I'll post some pics of the artwork as it appears in the show once it airs next week.

Art of the Conchords

Yeah I know I know - you're probably all sick of me bangin' on about No Heroics now. Both of you. Well....tough, 'cos there's going to be a few more posts about it in the near future I'm afraid. Not a huge amount more, but a little, so you'll have to bear with me.

Still, I can offer you some brief respite now with a personal piece inspired by one of my favourite tv shows of the last couple of years. Well, I guess I gave it away with the subtle blog post title, but yeah, it's Flight of the Conchords.

Words can't describe how much I love the show, and honestly I don't know if my illustration can either, but it's probably going to be a closer approximation! There's something in the mundane humour that's so close to the blend we specialise in over here in Lidl Britain, but then it's also got this fresh-faced naivety and innocence, which our cynical comedy rarely goes near. Going out for dinner with their mugger is probably the most apt distillation of this, with Brett getting admonished by the thug for leaving Jermaine to be mugged by him. Brilliant!

And here I go trying to describe in words how I feel about it. So I'll stop there, but I hope you enjoy my portrait of Team Conchords, in the shape of Brett, Jermaine, Murray, Dave and Mel. With a handful of references in there that the faithful will no doubt appreciate...

IMDB, Design Taxi and Twitter

And now for some housekeeping...

First up, I was very excited to learn that through my work on No Heroics I was going to get a credit on IMDB. It's taken a while to appear, but it's now on there for real. Its very surreal to see it, perhaps even more so because they missed out the 'e' in my name just like everyone else does! Still, it's very nice to be in a position to need to ask for it to be corrected!

Next up, I was recently thinking that I just don't have enough places to update my portfolio. Having to make regular changes here, then at Behance, Computerlove, and Flickr is just too easy. But then the Taxi Design Network made me an extremely generous offer, and I thought it would be nice to add just one more to the list. You'll find my page here. Thanks very much guys!


Finally up, just a quick one to say that since hopping inevitably onto the iPhone bandwagon after years of having the most basic phone known to homo sapien, it finally made sense to join the Twitter crowd too. So feel free to add me on there if you're also of the twittering persuasion.

Behance Rules!

Perodically I check out what's new on Behance, so it was kinda cool to log in and see that they had decided to plug my Hot Fuzz project once more, well over a year after I first placed it on there. A couple of days later and the thing has now had over 430 appreciations and tons of kind comments, which is utterly insane, especially for a piece which to me at least is done and dusted.

Dave Stein at Behance also kindly pointed out that it was getting some serious coverage at Digg. So I really wanted to thank everyone who has shown their appreciation at Behance and Digg, and especially to the Behance team for their wonderful platform, which is truly taking off now, and deservedly so. Thanks everyone!

And in fact, seeing as it was so long ago, if anyone is interested you can check out the original blog post on the piece, showing how and why the whole thing developed...