Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Atticus Finches

A while ago I did these 2 T shirt designs for Atticus. Nothing came of it, but I'm still pretty fond of them. One is inspired by Dia De Los Muertos sugar skulls, the other by acoustic guitar labels.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Pole Studio canvases


I just completed working on some amazing photos for The Pole Studio. I was tasked with designing a set of canvases that will hang on the studio wall, feature these photographs and a bit of graffiti-inspired typo. I'm so pleased with the finished pictures and really enjoyed working with these stunning photos. Click on the pic above to see them in all their glory.


Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Last Thylacine


This is a sketch book drawing of "Benjamin", the last known Tasmanian Tiger (or Thylacine), who died from neglect in a zoo in 1936. Thylacines are certainly not unusual because of their extinction at the hands of humans, but because they are marsupials. Even though they look very much like wolves, dogs, foxes and at times hyenas, Thylacines are not related. Until they all died out, they lived in South Australia & Tamania. They were around the size of a small Labrador, and had pouches to store the little'uns in. I get this fascinating feeling of familiarity when I look at them, but at the same time there are things about them that seem like someone just made them up. Their jaws could open really wide. I mean rediculously wide. And those stripes look like a dinosaur resonstruction artist thought it would be creative, yet believeable enough, to just paint them over the top of the hind quarters. It was the curiosity factor, coupled with locals wanting to protect their chickens, that lead to their demise.

These days you can go to the Natural History Museum to see a mounted specimen, but all the taxidermically preserved examples that I have seen don't do the Tylacine justice. You can see "Benjamin" yawning, pacing and eating in 42 seconds of footage that were recorded in 1933. Or become a Thylacine boffin and read the Wiki page.

There is still hope, even though they were declared extinct a long time ago, Thylacine sightings are often reported but there has never been any confirmation. If they're still out there, I pretty much hope they're never found.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Triptych on Unconcious Inferences of Visual Perception

There are a lot of assumptions we make without even thinking that help us make sense of everything we see. These things that we have learned from experience and generally hold true only become apparent when things start to look a bit odd. I've illustrated three of them below.

I: Light comes from above

II: Faces are presented upright

III: Objects are usually viewed from above

Monday, May 4, 2009

Casper, the friendly dog


At the moment I'm experimenting with drawing negative images and then inverting them once I've scanned them into Photoshop. I've been checking how different techniques turn out once they're inverted, because it's quite hard to tell when you're drawing it. The more you work it up, the wronger it looks. I'm pleased with how this one turned out. The finished image is shown above, the picture below is what I actually drew. I really like the painterly effect, and how it turns out blue-tinted. I think I'm going to be doing more of this.


Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Always be prepared...

The Zombie Apocalypse is coming. Best be prepared in these killer heels (ahem).
For the past week I've been dabbling in... What would you call this? Product embellishment? I dunno, working with deep-etched photos in layout.
I can take credit for everything in this image except the photo of the shoes (anonymous internet find) and the shoes themselves (by those slick bastards at Iron Fist). Oh, and the font! Which is called KidTYPE by Monotype Imaging and you can download it (for money) here.
I really want a pair of these! (Birthday coming up, size 7, thanks) They are sheer genius but the real kicker is the name - Zombie Stompers. Heehee.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Oogie Boogie Tree

Check out this brilliant tree I saw today while walking through St. Giles churchyard in Camberwell...