Littlest guy gets sick.

Well my youngest son was sick the other night- poor little guy,
so' bad beasties' is my medieval assessment of the cause- horrible beasties. Mind you we don't have a cat and said nonexistent cat would never be allowed to sleep where it is if it did exist.
At top is the cure for other child injuries-"ice cream planet"- as yet uncoloured. Our intrepid explorer will have to ditch his helmet before using the aliens welcome gift.
the kids with the torches- just a recent doodle that happened.

At bottom is an under the bed type monster taking a break,
- actually it was probably a self portrait as sleep deprived dad at the time.

Sprawling sketch in progress and older sketchbook image.

While waiting for Eleanor Curtain Publishing to get back to me on the roughs, and inspired by the great work of some of the Jacket flap Illustrators I've begun the next drawing push.Which sort of goes like- study anatomy books and animal books at night - sleep on it, and start drawing in the morning,
then after a few alternations my eye should be in and I hopefully I canthen get some nice new stuff quickly. I'll probably try a few watercoloury things since I often get a nicer mood drawing on paper(probably because I'm more comfortable-
that said these days instead of an eraser I find I'm searching vainly for an undo button on my drawing board.).
So heres a sketch that I started today- theres more of it I just haven't materialised the other monsters to the left enough to show yet.
Also theres a quick watercoloury dabble of about 6 months ago just to break up the monster vibe a little..
Watched another episode of Mathew Collings 'This is Civilisation' tonight- its become my art pep talk.

Black and White

A collection of fairly recent black and white sketches. Not too dark (in mood). The trolls are part of my 'Billy goats gruff' exploration. On my lost world blog I had more (but once I start thinking about an actual design the need for self consistent fantasy kicks in and leads me too far away from the mood/character I was really after- so I might end up with something that makes total sense from a 'I'm a monster what doI need to survive under this bridge' but a bit humourless.)

Book Pitch Images for Weldon Owen Publishing

Blue and grey Phases

Here are a few older drawings done in blue pencil. Some of the tireless followers of my Lost World blog might remember.
Brillig is of course a drawing of the start of Jabberwocky- which I haven't coloured yet.
Cook off is one of those drawings that just happen, but I like the characters I made there.
The other two are ideas for my take on a red riding hood inspired world/book/computer game.

Bottersnikes and Gumbles

I'd like to see a film made of Bottersnikes and Gumbles so heres a few of my own ideas for them as posted on my Lost World blog not so long ago. Its a bit like redesigning a cat though, its hard to reimagine something when the original seems so right.

Rough stuff from the not for kids book.

Well the penguin's aren't too rough but the owl and squirrel and canada goose are.

Kids Style but .....

Sadly not for kids. All of these images were done (quickly= 1-2 hours each) for a client working on a book on financial advice /planning. Originally I wanted to do a style a bit like some of Richard Scarry's painted stuff (which I'll post too) but then there came this impetus to be more serious or factual so I reverted to a modified 'Lach' style (for speed also).
The trouble when you have no time to do proper research/studies of the animals is that by the time you get to the end of doing the images you're starting to see the details and key forms you missed in your rush. But then its still supposed to sort of kids bookish so its not life or death that the some things aren't ultra realistic. Also none of the animals are australian so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage there. Still its about trying to trigger a feeling or a recognition to associate with the words more than pictures in themselves so hopefully I did that.