Tumorous

I'm Still Here...

Just busy with many many things. New blog on its way.

Birdemic: Shock and terror!

I just entered a Don't Panic competition. The brief was to design the official quad poster for 'Birdemic: Shock and terror', an upcoming avian horror film directed by James Nguyen. I based my design on old-school grindhouse posters from the 70's. Vote for your favorite design here.

Sadness May Follow

It's been a while since I last posted something so I thought I'd upload the cover and title page of the zine I'm currently working on (to be printed in June). The full thing is only half the way there but it's going to feature at least 14 separate artworks and maybe some creative literature. The contents page shown isn't anything final, it's just a prototype of a series of different layouts.

Frankie

A DVD cover design I produced this afternoon for a joke. I found a character portrait I did last year for my friend's kitchen (they called it 'Frankie') and just started playing around with it in photoshop. I got the Blue-Ray case template from daemonsmovies.com.

Shaky Cam Movies

A last minute ink drawing for PULP Magazine issue 7. Not sure whether it'll be featured, gets printed at the end of April. The editor gave me free reign over what I could do as long as it could sit next to an article about hyperactive shaky cam films such as Cloverfield, Blair Witch, Bourne etc. (where you can't see shit). Original piece didn't feature the green.

I'm currently working on a zine, more t-shirt designs (which I actually hope to print this time) and a lengthy book project so I may not have stuff up for a while but when I do there should be lots.

Eddie Brown

Today I adopted the style of Matthew Lyons and designed another flyer for The Punchbowl. I began by following a short process description he wrote for an exclusive ISO50 illustration (as I have never worked in pure digital before). This is my first attempt at digital illustration.

Matthew Lyons is an incredible illustrator. I think his work is stunning. He has a faultless eye for colour and composition and generates some really interesting work. He chooses to illustrate faux film stills because they allow him to depict everything he's interested in. With the style of film title stills he can involve typography, set design, composition and character poses.

A Small Drug Problem...

Another drawing for PULP, this time illustrating the topic of heroin abuse.

Sexy Beasts

PULP Magazine recently asked me to illustrate an article about some of the disturbingly strange sexual habits of animals that you wouldn't hear Ben Fogle mention on Animal Park. I drew a pervert flamingo and a dismembered octopus.

The Warden

Another pencil drawing I did, this one being the biggest yet. The whole thing was drawn across 23 separate A4 panels (I should really find a bigger piece of paper). I'll upload a photo of the whole portrait when I mount it all on my kitchen wall.

Corned Beef

This was a self titled brief that followed on from the experimental book project. I crafted an A7 booklet that documents the history of the famous brine cured brisket commonly known as 'corned beef'. Running alongside the text is a series of 8 illustrations (all steel plate etchings) that tell the tale of an olympic speed-eater who is incapable of gaining any weight. The text block was edited down to 26 pages and digitally printed on both sides. It was then stab-bound and wedged into a glossy paper casing using standard adhesive.

Experimental Book Brief

Through the format of an experimental book we were asked to investigate, explore and experiment with ways of visually expressing an experienced form of communication. The focus of the project was on experimentation with media, visual language and cultural form. I stumbled across a block with this project and found myself rather stuck for ideas. This was due to the lack of creative research and thinking I carried out at the start of the brief. I ended up illustrating different forms of body language in very obvious ways. Despite the unhappy out come, however, I learnt quite a few essential book binding techniques.

The Big Doodle

Last month I partnered up with housemate Michael Clegg (2nd Year D&AD) to produce a giant collaborative doodle sheet. This large piece of paper sat on our kitchen desktop for weeks gathering food stains, burns, bleach and hundreds of small doodles and text that reflected upon our feelings, opinions and spur-of-the-moment observations. This is only a finished section of the full doodle sheet. More on its way.

Bruce Kabuce

For this brief we were asked to explore visual representations of memory. We had to consider ways in which memories are evoked and translated into artwork, and how art objects themselves become evocative. Different notions of memory had to be explored in some depth at the outset. These could have included collective memories, personal memories or folk memories.

The finished piece of work could have been a complex multimedia construction or a simple pencil drawing on paper but the main idea of the project revolved more around the creative route that was taken up to that point. My final response represents the memory of my first wasp sting and how it has become peculiarly entangled with a memory of Bruce Forsyth (for reasons unknown). His visual presence on television will always remind me of my first encounter with wasps and wasps will always remind me of Bruce. (Selected pages of sketch book work).

Fake Flyer

Fake flyer I designed for a fake event. Fake bands. Fake sponsors. Fake place.

The Face

I haven't worked with pencil in years so I thought I'd give it a shot. It started out as a drawing of an eye on a piece of scrap paper. I was curious to see how much more detail I could achieve with pencil than ink. The piece eventually expanded outwards across 5 other A4 panels.

Pulp Work

Before the end of term Pulp magazine asked me to illustrate a couple of articles for them. One article was about absurd inventions for students and the other was about favorite albums of the 90's.

A Rake's Progress

In the 18th century William Hogarth produced a series of 8 paintings titled A Rake's Progress. The paintings show the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the son and heir of a rich merchant, who journeys to London, spends all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling and consequently ends up in the Fleet prison where he finally goes insane. We were asked to create our own version of A Rake's Progress. Mine was a series of 6 drawings showing the rise and fall of a successful business man. The main idea of the project was to improve our ability to visually demonstrate a flowing progress through character language.

The Arcimboldo Effect

For a 3 day project we were asked to recreate a particular figure in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an italian painter famously known for his imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, fish and books. I chose to draw Ernest Gallo, the founder of one of the largest exporters of californian wines.

Keith

Keith was a character idea that branched off from a short narrative exercise set by my tutor. I'm still at work with it, the idea's still there. I'm thinking of featuring him in the zine I'm putting together this easter. This is a development of a rough drawing I did in my sketch book.

Hang the DJ

I remember over the period of last Christmas I wanted to screen print a few t-shirts. This was one of the doodles I came up with but sadly never got round to printing.

Head Peel

Some doodling I did over Christmas. This image was taken from my sketchbook and coloured in photoshop. I reproduced this illustration several times during a reprographics project when I was asked to experiment with different types of print and material. I also used it for my first etching induction.

Words and Images

For the second half of the moving image rotunda we were asked to create a 30 second stop frame animation at 12 fps. We had to select 3 words from a list and transform them into a moving image. The 3 words I chose were swinging, in/out and machines. Whilst developing the animation I found myself producing images similar to Darrel Gibbs' Origin of Symmetry.

The Circle Project

Our first project of the animation rotunda (1st year). As a group each of us had to create a 10 second animation at 12 fps that began and ended with an image of a circle. This gave us 10 seconds in-between to transform and play with the line. At the end of the week everyones animations were combined into a final video. The main idea of the project was to introduce us to stop frame animation.

Hello... I'm Here

I finally decided it was time to make a blog for myself. I believe that archiving my work in a chronological fashion will help me understand where things went wrong and where things got better. I hope to keep this updated regularly. Thanks to anyone who views it.

Best,

Chris