babycrow

FLOWN THE NEST

2011-12-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

Excuse the ornithology pun but I have moved to a new blog which you can find here at babycrow.tumblr.com Please come and find me!

MOUNTAIN RIDER

2011-07-26T04:50:00.000-07:00

This was part of a print series produced by myself and fellow PUCK member Robbies Brown Shoes for Tokyo Fixed at the Hyper Japan event in the Olympia. It is obviously inspired from Japanese ukiyo-e prints and we went with the Risograph printing process to create a similar woodblock effect. The Samurai is riding a track frame based on the legendary Japanese frame builder Nagasawa.

BOULDERS & BUFFALO

2011-05-31T02:35:00.000-07:00

I'm loving this Justice video for 'Civilization', the colours and saturation remind me of the old Transformers and Gundam animations, or any of the late 80s / early 90s anime that featured an unnamed rocky desert for that matter.

WHEN DARROW MET MOEBIUS

2011-05-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

In 1984 Geof Darrow and Moebius hooked up to produce a portfolio of prints named La Cite Feu. I just found an example on flickr, checkit.

Babycrow x

SWORD AND SWORCERY

2011-03-30T04:19:00.000-07:00

Audience Calibration Procedure from Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery on Vimeo.

This game for the iPad looks awesome. It is soon to be release for the iPhone and I will certainly be making a purchase. The style of the whole thing reminded me of Robbie's Brown Shoes which is definitely a good thing!

PICK ME UP

2011-03-17T08:48:00.001-07:00

Currently Showing work with my PUCK Collective at the Pick Me Up event at Somerset house. Over the course of the ten days we will be producing a daily newspaper that collects some of our inspirations and sketches into a handy little tome and will be doing live screen printing of tshirts and tote bags on the two late night thursday openings. I'm also going to be bringing my gocco printer down in the week so if you've ever wondered how they work and can't be bothered with youtube then come and check it out. Its a great show and absolutely packed with amazing artists, well worth the entrance fee and a perfect place to go and collect a few pieces for your walls. We have a load of prints for sale at most reasonable prices!

GO RED!

2011-03-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

A few members of PUCK put their heads, bodies and legs together in order to contribute to a charity consequences event, GO RED! You can go onto the website and play with the options then buy a print for charity. Proceeds go to Richard House, a purpose built children’s hospice in east London. The PUCK ensemble is pictured above.Richard House is a purpose built children’s hospice in east London.

GALACTUS!

2011-03-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

Not only is this a taster of an off the chain game boss, it is also a preview of the mighty Galactus who you can see in screen print form at the CAMP show that is currently running!

from IGN

PROJECT MAG - WRITING SCHOOL

2011-03-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

I was asked by the exclusively iPad publication, Project Magazine, to produce a couple of illustrations for their third issue. This image is for an article about a school of writing and features an ensemble of great writers in a nostalgic and sunny classroom. See if you can name them all, its a fun game for you..

RED HOT BIRO

2011-02-11T02:59:00.000-08:00

Sitting still at my drawing desk, staring at high speed drawing videos.

EDDY MERCKX 1969

2011-01-20T05:59:00.001-08:00

This was a Xmas gift for Tokyo Fixed, it features Max on one of the press bikes in the background. Eddy Merckx on an ascent during the 1969 Tour De France. I went for a "Frenchy" feel and attempted to invoke a little TinTin..

WIRED - HOW TO DO FIXED GEAR TRICKS

2011-01-06T02:47:00.000-08:00

This was a quick commission for Wired magazine which came out this month. The article was written by Super Ted and covers how to skid, wheelie and how to perform a dramatic dismount which, I imagine, could result in a few lost teeth. I went with the manga theme as the magazine were fans of my previous robot poster.

DW SUPERHERO

2010-12-01T03:05:00.001-08:00

A birthday commission from a wife to her husband. The brief was to depict the Groom in a superhero alter ego, stood on a Gothamesque rooftop scene. And the Wife of the Year Award goes to...

DW Superhero

IBOOK - MACUSER

2010-08-27T04:02:00.000-07:00

A commission for MacUser magazine's 'Publish your iBook' feature. I drew inspiration from the Disney Sword in the Stone movie where the wizard Merlin sings a 'Higitus Figitus' song and shrinks his belongings into a magical manbag. This, we all know, is a lot like publishing your ibook on the ipad!

PUCK COLLECTIVE

2010-08-27T02:59:00.000-07:00

Coming together like a Power Ranger Megazord, the Puck Collective website is live! Run your eyes over its pastel shades and experience the combined beauty of some the best looking and talented illustrators ever. We will be posting exhibition info and running an online shop from there too so stick it in your bookmarks and check it everyday without fail. There is even a blog.

www.puckcollective.co.uk

blogage

BUY BABYCROW!

2010-07-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

Believe it baby! You can now buy the A1 Robot Chase poster and the Ghost Rider Polo gocco print at Tokyo Fixed! I've been getting quite a lot of love over these prints which is really nice, thanks! They came out really well.

TEAM UK

2010-06-18T03:42:00.000-07:00

The world barista championships are in London this summer and the UK competitors will be adorned with this regal beauty.

more info here at Square Mile

TIED TOGETHER X TOKYO FIXED X FEATHER BIKE

2010-06-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

This is the result of the two weeks hard labour. Amazing what can happen when enthusiastic, selfless, creative and talented people come together! Big props go to Feather Cycles and Death Spray Customs for the quick turnaround and to all the Tokyo Fixed boyz. Its great to see a drawing come to life like this, we wanted the bike on the Tshirt design to match the finished article but it was a bit of a chicken and egg situation. We had to speculate what we could cobble together in time and depict it in the drawing, then design all the appropriate graphics for the bike in a way that could be quickly realised in the spray job. I have a time lapse video of Greg Falski putting the bike together but it needs a little editing.. watch this space.

more pictures of the build here

NIKE RED TEAM TEES

2010-06-11T05:16:00.001-07:00

This is a tshirt design for a nike charity event. Teams across the globe take part in a le mans 24hr style race to promote the charity Red. Checkit here

TOKYO FIXED

2010-06-11T04:00:00.001-07:00

Poster ad for Tokyo Fixed. The drawing is mine and the layout film poster styling are by Toby
This has popped up all over the internet as people get excited about the new website launch.

DEADPOOL - FOR THE LOVE OF

2010-04-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Blam! A delightful ink and watercolour of Deadpool shooting some guns.. This will be available for sale at Orbital Comics in London from the 16th till the 30th of April 2010 at the "For the Love of" exhibition.

I have always loved these characters from the early 90s as it was the time when I first got my impressionable mits on copies of X-force and the like. All muscles and guns. Many hours of my formative years were spent drawing these characters even though the comics were hard to come by where I grew up so I rarely had any clue as to the plot or what the characters where about. Looking back now I realise it didn't really matter, it was much more about the energy and the kinetic, explosive panels.

WEBSITE RE-UP

2010-03-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

I have tucked a few new things into my website with a stack more to go. Plenty of scanning and RGBing to be had but check out what I got so far.

FUTURE OF COMPUTING

2010-03-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

I had this double page spread published in last months Mac User magazine for a feature article on the 'future of computing' I only just managed to get my hands on it! The drawing illustrates the App Store phenomenon and all the multitudes of developers who are trying to get their apps published.

My early sketches for this piece illustrated a ten commandment style ipad and a crowd of lemming like developers surging at a mountain peak. Unfortunately its quite an obvious idea as a load of people knocked up similar things around the ipad's announcement. Shame as mine would have been badass!

GHOST RIDER POLO

2010-03-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the finished Gocco print in a limited print run of 50.

MR UNIVERSE

2010-03-07T17:31:00.001-08:00

Another piece for the Go Red charity auction. This time I did some legs, I was quite torn with which subject matter to choose but ended up doing some giant Mr. Universe pins. It was drawn in red pencil and then watercoloured, the shaded areas were supposed to be a slightly darker colour to the main skin red but I over cooked it a bit. The result is quite interesting and it has a bit of a Mignola Hellboy look to it! I work some pastel in for the highlights.

20 MINUTE RECHARGE

2010-02-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have an illustration in this months copy of Men's Fitness.

The article is about coping some zzzs at work. This brief was very quick turnaround but I think it ticks all the boxes. I went for a Matrix style green tinge to the colouring, stopping short of adding a "hello neo.. the Matrix has you." on the screen.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: CROSSEYED & PAINLESS

2010-02-26T16:56:00.000-08:00

Here is the flyer for the Crosseyed & Painless show. Looks like its going to a good night! I like what they've done with the logo colourway here, nice two tone gold oww!

checkit

CROSSEYED & PAINLESS

2010-02-24T14:51:00.000-08:00

This is a logo design for a club night that's coming up soon. I will post more info as soon as I get it.

GO RED BLOOD

2010-02-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

This is for a charity auction called 'Go Red'. It will be held at the coningsby gallery on wednesday 31st of March. The idea is to do a remote collaborative 'consequences' drawing, like the ones where you draw a head, fold it down and pass it along to someone to draw the body etc. I got body as part of a group project with the new illustration collective PUCK. The rules were that it had to be predominantly in red. I went with the blood gang sign plus prison tattoos. Didn't want you to think I was going soft doing this charity stuff!

http://www.goinggoinggone-red.org/?p=224

ATLAS

2010-01-26T14:20:00.001-08:00

Another UKBC concept. Vetoed on account of being to anatomical/homo erotic. Fair enough this time!

LADY OF THE LATTE

2010-01-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

This was a certificate design option for the UK barista championships. I had a death in the family around the closing date for this project and so they may have had to go with another design. This piece is loosely based around the art work for the film 'Excalibur' and I've gone for that 80s airbrush effect. For those of you unfamiliar with the coffee industry, they run these competitions where baristas can attempt to out do each other in the noble art of coffee making. The device in the Lady of the milky Lake's hand is a portafilter which is used in making espresso. A well established industry professional pointed out that the lake of milk splashing about and dripping down the supernatural water dweller's wrist could be considered as looking 'spermy'. I choose to ignore his comments.

JUDGE DEATH

2010-01-24T14:15:00.001-08:00

Oh yes! Judge Death vinyl model kit bought from a charity auction at KK Outlet just before crimbo. Some crazy fool by the name of Jean Jullien (a very talented and prolific designer/illustrator from France) submitted this to the auction as it was an unwanted gift from his uncle Thierry. He states that he was 10 years old at the time and blinded by the charms of Marvel comics which led him to disregard the dynamic and highly detailed vinyl sculpture and leave it in a pretty much as new condition. I can distinctly remember these boxes on display at the toy shop Beatties and there were painted versions in the cabinet as well. I really wanted one but Unfortunately, my mother was less inclined to furnish me with an undead, screaming Harbinger of death in 1:6 scale as illustrated by Brian Bolland than Uncle Thierry was. Having remained at the gallery for the duration of the show, Judge Death is now finally in my possession! However, what good is Judge Death without Judge Dredd? No good whatsoever is the answer so I hit up ebay and sorted myself out.

RHONDA GROVE

2010-01-24T09:44:00.000-08:00

So, a belated happy new year! The first month of the year is always a bit of a right off and my macbook has been in dire need of a spring clean (it was running like an incontinent old man) There are a few exciting projects in the pipeline and a few drawings that can't be posted until they're published. The drawing above was commissioned just before the holidays as a birthday gift so as the gift has been received I can safely share the love. The stella can and the black cat were established features of the place and requirement of the composition!

I promise to post more regularly from now on..

peace out

RAGE AGAINST THE FACTOR

2009-12-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

I just bought 'Killing In The Name' from itunes to topple the xfactor monopoly and you should too. find out more here. You have till midnight tonight (sat 19th) to do it!

UBF 6

2009-12-10T15:08:00.001-08:00

Creepy Gwilym Davies Santa! The next UBF round is to be held at the Columbia Road Christmas Market where World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies is hosting the event on his legendary coffee cart. Take away cups I believe..

ps. sorry Gwilym!

TOKYO FIXED SHOP FRONT

2009-12-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

The Tokyo Fixed shop is up and running so if you don't mind the feeling of your eyes popping out on stalks then go and have a look at some of the eye popping bikes they have there. Or you can check some pics here

You can see my logo in situ top left of this blog post. I quite like the understated use of it with the black vinyl. More to come soon..

TOKYO FIXED

2009-11-25T04:53:00.001-08:00

This is the new logo design for Tokyo Fixed. The company have specialized in importing exotic and rare bike frames and parts from japan and other hard to reach places. They are now opening a shop in Soho and this design will be gracing the shop front. I have been doing some other bits for them including a set of framed prints which will be available soon and I'll be sure to let you know when.

The shop is opening tomorrow with a launch party tonight.

Tokyo Fixed
4 Peters Street (just off Berwick St)
Soho, London,
W1F ODR

FRIGID FINGERS

2009-11-12T07:07:00.001-08:00

I will be drawing live tonight along with the newly formed 'PUCK' collective at the LCB skate shop at the top of brick lane. Come along! I will try and post some photos of the event afters..

GIMME SOME SUGAR

2009-10-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

I have just passed a chivalry test. An old lady came knocking at about midnight telling me that her bus had terminated early, I have a feeling that she mistook Clapton (hackney) for Clapham (the opposite direction). She also told me that she was diabetic and needed some sugar asap. Despite getting the distinct feeling that she would be hard to get rid of, I invited her in have a sit down and some nosh. After she nailed half a jar of my Gran's jam, a box of my house mate's Nairnes Oatcakes and a very old chocolate muffin, she critically analysed the coffee I made for her and told me all about cardamon. This took her about and hour and forty minutes.
I can tell you now that although I would always extend hospitality to those in need, I secretly hoped that she would turn out to be a powerful witch who wanted to reward me for my kindness with arcane knowledge and magical training..

IVY & OAK

2009-10-18T07:23:00.001-07:00

The 4th single for Kill It Kid. I have had carte blanche for most of these covers with the band not really having any defined ideas of what they wanted before I began drawing. This can be a curse as much as a blessing at times but with this design, Chris had quite a clear image of what he would like to see. This puddle effect seemed like a great idea but its surprisingly tricky to get across convincingly. I think it works here though..

KILL IT KID OUT NOW

2009-10-05T03:37:00.000-07:00

The Kill It Kid album is out today. Go and buy it to fully enjoy the glorious artwork on the cover, plus the music is pretty good to boot! They have had some really good press and are hopefully starting to make some waves. Their UK tour starts this month so if you like what you hear then try and get to see them, they are awesome live, really good showmen.

“A hook-laden riot...big things may be coming their way” 8/10 NME
“Monstrous Delta blues grooves” ***Q Magazine
“...an outstanding British record” 9/10 Clash Magazine
“Unbridled quality” Drowned In Sound
“Ignore them at your peril” Artrocker
“An outstanding debut and, just maybe, one of the albums of the year” **** Music OMH

dang!

ROCKETSHIP

2009-10-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Album launch party for Kill It Kid. This was produced at very short notice over an all night session, fueled by cascara (a very high caffeine beverage made from the coffee cherry fruit) The hit from this drink felt a bit like I was in this rocket here.

SEA TALES OF TERROR

2009-09-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have never really been into vintage clothes shopping. The smell of old man, damp, a hundred different homes and lifestyles that are collected together to form a mutant funk of clothes that rarely tickle my picker, is not for me. Books however, yes please. I have a weakness for it. I really don't like the cover art work on the majority of contemporary books, in particular SCI-FI and Fantasy which always seem to be so vanilla. The golden age of cover design for me was when artists seemed to be liberated and free to express whatever the hell they liked in order to illustrate the tome and in most cases appear to be either enduring or attempting to induce some sort of freakish trip.
Brick Lane on a Sunday which is something of a Dickensian affair with suspicious street vendors hawking their wares on the post saturday night street surface, has spawned a number of worthy book purchases. 'Sea Tales of Terror' has one of the finest covers that I have ever seen on a book. It cost me a couple of quid from a popup vintage market down the Truman end of BL. Although the image is sort of comical, there is no doubt that if a 100ft tall 'sea skeleton'(?) reared up from the ocean, it would scare your shit out, so job done (pun).

'Science Fiction Stories' has a slightly more low brow design. Looking at it now I can't decide why I like it. Its sort of crap. But brilliant. There are interior illustrations too which fail to disappoint..

PYROCLASTIC FLOW

2009-09-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

I went to the opening for the Graniph Design awards exhibition at KK Outlet a few weeks ago, I got really wet on the way down there on my bike and had a massive black streak of road water up my back. Part of the show involved a drawing competition where you could design a t shirt with felt pens and have the chance to win one of the T's in the exhibition. Throughout the night they were filming and interviewing people to make this video, at the end of the night they approached me and, having made good use of the free booze, I was potentially a little over eager to oblige. They must have gathered at least 20mins of footage from my interview but mercifully, much of it has been cut leaving only my description of one of the designs I produced (the explosion). Somehow during my piece to camera I managed to adopt the pseudonym "Dave Moist" on account of my beleaguered journey down there, a name with has stuck with the people at KK outlet.

You can see a number of my master pieces bellow on this gallery vid. look out for the babycrow email address at the bottom. The design that won me a t shirt was the 'man love' one. My housemate produced the sweat patch beauty!

FRESH!

2009-09-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

I have updated my website. Its mainly the cream of the recent crop organised into categories and slide shows. Checkit!

UBF 3

2009-09-25T10:03:00.001-07:00

Its coming soon! Blazing Pitchers at UBF round 3. This month its a speed challenge where the hearty baristas have to make four technically accurate drinks in the shortest time with penalty time added for spillages and bad habits etc. The times go up on a leader board a bit like the fastest lap on top gear.

for the poster I went for a warp speed effect with lightning charging the blazing pitcher. This is pretty much exactly what the UBF is like..

KILL IT KID LIVE

2009-09-19T12:08:00.001-07:00

This design was originally produced for the album promo but ended up being appropriated as the live album cover to be sold on their Kill it Kid's headline tour.

Each element of the electrified rubbish heap represents an element of the the band, production or album.

BEAR BLING

2009-09-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

This bear originally featured in a design for Kill It Kid's album which then didn't get used, scrapping the idea for the design I posted previously. Then I was asked to create a t shirt design that involved the bear from that design, I put one together and this got used. Before I realised this however, I decided to redraw the original (quite cartooney) bear into the furry incarnation you see before you. So this bear didn't get used, the original did and now the album design that the bear made it's first appearance on has since been rejigged into a live album to sell on their Oct 09 tour! I was pretty happy with this drawing so decided to share it with the interweb anyway..

KILL IT KID ALIBUM

2009-09-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Album design for Kill It Kid. The design will come on a three fold card case with a full length pinball design in the inside.

UBF 2

2009-08-18T02:46:00.000-07:00

Design for the second round of the Ultimate Barista Fighter competition. After the success of the first round, this event seems to be generating some heat.

I based this design on an image I created some time ago for a show my friend Peter Attridge and I put on themed on 'spellcasters'. I toyed with more traditional wheel of fortune motifs but it seemd to lack the high octane vibe of the event. Hence the burning cosmic wheel of chance.

HEAVEN NEVER...

2009-08-18T02:43:00.001-07:00

SEEMED SO CLOSE.

The final artwork for the next Kill It Kid single. The song features a character who killed his girl as a result of her calling out another man's name (presumably at an inopportune moment). Our hero is caught by the law and begs to tell his story before he faces his fate, prison, the chair etc. Its a very good song!
The plaid effect was a very time consuming process involving four separate layers of pattern and eight scans. Worth it though methinks?

DREDD

2009-07-21T19:29:00.001-07:00

This is a sketch of Judge Dredd. I could doodle this chap for hours, although I hate dealing with that right shoulder pad, eagles have never been my bag..

ULTIMATE BARISTA FIGHTER

2009-07-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

A quick flyer design for the Ultimate Barista Fighter event, conceived by Scott Griffith and Square Mile Coffee Roasters. The first round is a head to head latte art pouring contest into a 6oz cup. I took a little inspiration from the dairy milk logo here!

BABYCROW X SQUARE MILE COFFEE

2009-07-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

In a collab with Square Mile Coffee Roasters (whom I work for as well as illustrating!) I have produced this t shirt design. The subject was commissioned by James Hoffmann, the world barista champion 07, and features El Griffo (the lucha libre personification of SQM) throwing a 4ft tall colleague. Events that inspired this image can be seen on Anette Moldvaer (world coffee cup tasting champion 07)'s Flickr.

There may be tweaks etc before this will see a t shirt so don't get too excited! will post more info as and when..

BURST ITS BANKS

2009-05-21T15:17:00.001-07:00

Completed the second single design just as the first single is released. You can download it from Monday the 18th May from all good Online retailers and its going to be just 50p on 7digital.com You can also pre order a 7" Vinyl from www.indian.co.uk/killitkid. I saw the printed 7" at their launch night and it looks pretty swede!
The new single 'Burst its Banks' is a darker, punchier track and has a sexy element to it which I have tried to convey here. Its a great track and I have loved listening to it whilst working on the design and get a real buzz when I hear it live. Get to one of their shows if you can, it certainly is a spectacle worth seeing..

MEKANO TURBO

2009-05-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

A short comic produced for Alexis Ziritt who has a table at the New York Comics Convention this year. All the characters are his but this short story is written and drawn by me.

Working with sequential art is a labourious and time consuming process, I get quicker at it with every completed page but the challenges it throws up for pacing and storytelling and the amount of research you have to do for reference makes it an intimidating task. That said, its fantastically satisfying and a labour of love.

There are little tricks and visual tools that I have been picking up from my comic creator heroes like Paul Pope and Geof Darrow and I'm surrounded by a pile of comics for inspiration whilst I'm working. Although it is important to refer to the work of my peers and learn from their experience, I look forward to the time when I can 'think' about it less and put more focus into the pace and flow of this unique storytelling medium. The last short comic I produced took me at least twice as long as this to complete and had less going on in the panels so hopefully that's a good sign.

The main character in this story is named Tuerto (one eye) who is up against fascist future robot police, gangsters, mutants and a post apocalyptic Venezuelan wasteland.. good luck with that Tuerto.

enjoy!

BURST ITS BANKS - ROUGH

2009-05-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

A rough working of the next Kill It Kid promo, Burst Its Banks.

FUTURA

2009-05-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Entry for the type tart project. more info here www.uktype.com/index.php?id=56,65,0,0,1,0

POWER IN NUMBERS

2009-05-06T03:22:00.000-07:00

Holla, here is the blurb for the Power in Numbers private view. Come one come all!

The opening
Thursday 7th of May from 7pm at Bodhi Art Gallery on Brick Lane (opposite the bagel shops). 48 artists each with an edition of 50 hand pulled and numbered screen-prints (including a few surprises). The soundtrack will be provided by the sound doctor Rob-Tronica. All of the prints are being sold for £20 - we can only accept cash so bring a few notes with you! The show runs until the 27th of May 2009 - there are lots of events along the way - go to www.curestudio.com or www.twitter.com/curestudio to keep up to date with what is happening.

Artists in the show:
Alain Magallon / Alice Stallard / Camelia Dobrin / Brett One Side Zero / Charlotte Smith / Chris Floyd / Claudia Boldt / Dan Speight / David Gibbons / Emma Vorster / Emmi / Haruka Shinji / Heejohng Chae / Ivan Mayorquin / Jake Blanchard / Jez Burrows / Jim Smith / Josephine Spencer / Luke James / Marc Stewart / Mark McClure / Maxwell Harrison / Naíma Almeida / Niko / Patrick Savile / Peter James Field / Peter Stitson / Raymond Wong / Rose Stallard / Royal Glamsters / Sara Nesteruk / Sichi / Splendidhand / Stephen Chan / Steve Price / Steven Emmanuel / Stuart Chatman / Tom Baxter / Trisha McNally / Wayne Chisnall / Yann Brien / Austin from New / Random Boy / Ministry of Love / Baldrick Buckle

Images of printing:
http://snipurl.com/curestudio

Video of printing:
http://vimeo.com/channels/edition

MASHUP

2009-04-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

This is a design for a screenprinting competition, the brief being 'power in numbers'. As a kid I was really into Jim Lee style x-men and this is a bit of tribute to that. All the costumes are Lee style. I haven't really drawn marvel or DC superheroes since I was about 12, apart from maybe batman and superman a couple of times and I can freely say that it was so much fun! I can't wait to colour it, although the brief was for a one colour design, I'm gonna colour it anyways.. I'm particularly pleased with Gambits face.

SEND ME AN ANGEL DOWN

2009-04-02T15:40:00.001-07:00

This is the design for the new Kill it Kid single. It will be available as a 7" on the 18th of May I believe. The challenge here was to create something that nods to the band's rootsy blues country stylings whilst injecting something new and vibrant. It is also quite a somber subject to the song lyrics although the actual song is very uplifting so I wanted something sensitive but not in anyway depressive or morose. The writing on the barn was inspired by the rock city barns but has a slightly anarchist edge to it..

MICRO MESH

2009-04-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

This is a single page story about micro mesh and a celebration of the wonderful American Apparel ads on the back cover of Vice magazine that feature the most fantastically attractive women..

LISTEN UP!

2009-03-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

The final coloured version. This sort of drawing always seems like a great idea and appeals to my slightly anal tendencies to fill a page with detailed line work, but when it comes to adding colour, I get those feelings of wishing that I hadn't started! It didn't take very long but all those hats are fiddly.

LISTEN UP SCREENTONE

2009-03-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

Photoshop screentone. Varying degrees of success can be achieved from these and they don't cost £5 per sheet!

LISTEN UP

2009-03-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

An assembled crowd, listening intently to a speech. For your pleasure I have uploaded the line drawing before I colour it. The colour will follow.

KILL IT KID

2009-03-12T18:00:00.001-07:00

these are the logo designs for the band Kill It Kid. I'm currently working on their forthcoming album and singles releases which will be coming out throughout the summer. Have a listen on www.myspace.com/killitkid I am also doing their myspace design but its a work it progress so bear with it.

THREADS

2009-02-11T02:05:00.000-08:00

Hello friends, it's time again for me to call upon your esteemed taste and cast vote upon my wares. I have a number of designs coming through on threadless that I think would make badass tshirts so go on there and click the 'i'd buy it' tab (you don't have to buy it) and give me a nice fat juicy score! Once again, I would be in your debt and If it wins and you really like it I will do my best to get you one..

There should be a few coming through so check them out.

BOOM

2009-02-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

FIX UP, LOOK SHARP

2009-02-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

fix up from babycrow on Vimeo.
I'm having a dabble with rotoscope animation. Its a slow process but I'm pleased with the effect. There will be more coming soon..

SNOW

2009-02-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

Its hell out there. The snow is falling, the post office is closed and the blokes next door have been assaulting innocent pedestrians with rudimentary icy projectiles, pretty much all day long! I myself received such a blow to my inner thigh as I vaulted over our frozen shut front gate. Mercifully, I had no feeling left in said appendage after my fruitless trip to the post office.

Last night, at around 1am, my housemate and I constructed the second most monstrous snowman you would ever have seen. Complete with a carved visage (we had no carrots) and a withered arm, clutching a spent can of ginger beer.

In an unfortunate turn of events, the snow continued to fall over night and through out the day. The weight of fresh snow transforming our ugly but innocent snowman into what I can only describe as a phallic totem.

I should probably attempt to amend this horror but am reluctant to be seen manhandling such a thing. I will await until cover of darkness, where hopefully the snowball battery from next door will have subdued.

PIPESLUMO

2009-01-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

I'm intending to produce a series of these drawings that will possible work together, and do maybe a panoramic version. I'm intrigued by some of the organic shapes that you find in engines and engineering, chubby pipes and frilly filters and the bulging hulks of manifolds. Everything generally has a practical purpose but there can be some beautiful compositions that form in the process.

ZOOM

2009-01-21T01:49:00.001-08:00

printed on the gocco printer, this is a postcard design to get your juices flowing. I can't wait for summer. The colours are fluro which doesn't come across on the scan, but believe me, they are bright!

with plenty of ink and allowing for a margin of error, you can pump out about 50 good ones and a few duds. You can probably get more out of it with different designs and more experience but this design is an exclusive limited run of 50!

MAINFRAME

2009-01-15T15:33:00.000-08:00

I am currently spending some time interning with the lovely people at the motion graphics studio 'mainframe'. This was the prize I received for the glug 'all i want for xmas' competion. One of the tasks that has occupied me this week has been ident designs for a sticker sheet.

this particular design features a writhing tangle of cables that spell out the logo. It was sort of inspired by what becomes of tetsuo in akira (I won't spoil it if you are yet to experience it!) There's a whole bunch on flickr here

STEVE

2009-01-15T15:23:00.001-08:00

Steve has his, where's yours?

PRINT GOCCO!

2009-01-06T06:15:00.001-08:00

my first experiment with print gocco, which is a sort of homegrown Japanese screenprinting kit. This is intended for the rear of some art prints that I'm doing for promo purposes. You can't tell from the scan but its a really nice pearl finish from the oil based ink that has quite a unique quality. Will be posting more results as they appear.

EAGLE-EYES

2008-12-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

The year 2009 will see a new age of military might. The new and genetically improved, Eagle Eyes!

(this, of course is entirely untrue. Although I may pitch the idea to Hasbro or whoever makes action man)

BEAR VS SALMON

2008-12-22T05:10:00.000-08:00

I have tried a few new things with this image, I approached the colour in a similar way to cell rendering in animation and the way that I applied the shadow gives it a slight manga look I feel. I recently watched 'spirited away' again which may have had an impact here.

DOWN WIND?

2008-12-19T08:32:00.000-08:00

you think I got to smell them coming?

SANDWICHES

2008-12-19T06:26:00.000-08:00

mustard, ketchup, mayo.. Kudos to anyone who can identify where the line 'here come the sandwiches' originates from!

WILL YOU BUY?

2008-12-17T03:31:00.000-08:00

I have made some designs available for sale on redbubble. They are quite reasonably priced and the tshirts come on American Apparel stock so you know what you're gonna get.

go get go getter

DON'T PANIC

2008-12-15T06:20:00.001-08:00

I have received printed copies of my pack design from don't panic so you can expect to see them on the streets in the next week or so. Keep em peeled!

DAPS

2008-12-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

Creativity is a fickle beast. Sometimes the juices refuse to flow, other times you see something that commands you to draw it. In this instance it was my shoe.

PIMP

2008-12-10T17:02:00.000-08:00

gradients are happening. I'm seeing them all over and though they generally have a bad rep, when applied effectively no one can deny how slick they look. A prime example is in the Justice DVNO video by SoMe which is full of super gloss logos with a retro spacetastic disco flex. I can spend hours creating these effects just for the fun of it. I even have an airbrush which, I have discovered, you are required to sell a portion of your soul to get good with. Its really messy with seemingly invisible overspray tinting everything it touches (my mac speakers are now forever tinted pink) and although you get a lovely texture with it, photoshop is a lot more forgiving. I still find many uses for it, I recently customised a plain white pair of daps into a hot pink to fluro green affair! sex.

DS FANBOY AHOY!

2008-12-05T03:28:00.000-08:00

Some like minded individuals over at www.dsfanboy.com have featured the glow stars drawing. checkit

RAYBANMAN

2008-12-03T05:37:00.000-08:00

this is a character inspired by the old 80s Kia-Ora advert "its too orangy for crows" At one point of the advert the sun which has become a basketball, lands on a female crow's head and becomes laundry which in turn springs to life and has a little dance. It had a bra for eyes. This is what you would see dancing along singing 'kia ora' if my laundry came to life. Not that I wash my RayBans. I did wash my mobile once..

GLOW STARS

2008-12-01T05:45:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in an earlier post, I have always had a fascination for glow in the dark things. As a kid my walls were covered in glow in the dark posters, stickers and glow stars, I had glow in the dark PJs and even glow in the dark braces! This is where the inspiration for this drawing came, It depicts all the things I wanted for christmases in my youth and would lay awake at night gazing at their glow in the dark incarnations blue tacked to the wall

TROPICAL KEN

2008-11-30T15:49:00.001-08:00

True story.

JUICY

2008-11-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

I started this drawing some time ago for a supermagic track named flash flood. The idea was to invoke hokusai's wave but suggest more of a surge than a crash. I only recently discovered the half finished drawing and it became part of the inspiration for the don't panic pack design, I therefore decided to polish it off and give it the power colours I had originally envisioned..

MY NAME IS SUE

2008-11-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

This has just been accepted into an exhibition! Its due to skip around London and Brighton in December I think. I'll update when I get more info.

WORMS

2008-10-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

SICK

2008-10-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

just been going through some portfolio bits. I drew this originally for a don't panic design brief but prefer it without all the type required for the poster. sick slick

DOGS

2008-10-18T11:48:00.001-07:00

POSTERWALL

2008-09-18T07:11:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some character sketches and playing with some different rendering techniques on photoshop. The character on the left is DeathWatch Bastard and the guy on the right is Johnny Omens. The posters on the wall are partly random and partly advertise some friends and bands that i know, rob bravery is a top drawer musician and supermagic being one that i was in. Peter Attridge is a prolific producer of posters (particularly for the ukraine girls) and I have honoured him in this scene, check out his beef. I've been attempting to create a slightly more organic feel to the colours, I want the comic to have a lived in feel.

GOD

2008-09-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

yo, this is a design for the don't panic pack competition. There aren't that many in the running this month so i stand a reasonable chance of getting somewhere. your votes would fill me with such joy! end date is the 15/09/08. big love

vote for me please!

I will also be posting a high res version on flickr so you can see the glorious screen tone in all its crisp edged wonder. I've just moved house and BT are screwing around with our broadband. Hence the limited number of posts this month. Bastard BT!

JOHNNY OMENS

2008-08-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

These are some early character designs for a new comic project that I'm working on in my spare time. The character is called Johnny Omens, I can't take imaginative credit for this name however. It was my sister's imagination that conjured the name when she heard it banded around in a meeting, having made a note of it she asked a colleague about him, only to realise it was John Yeomens! I declared that Johnny Omens was a badass name and could I have it? So thank you Sara! Mr Omen's features are based on those of Stephen Malkmus..

A BOY NAMED SUE COMPLETED

2008-07-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

Yeah! This little project has achieved some state of completion (on a cottage industry level anyway). The cover was a new challenge. This is the first fully painted illustration that I've done in a long while. I wanted to do something a bit different to the inside and you often see comic covers painted or at least very highly rendered. Its pretty crude but I like it, I think it does a good job of setting up the inside. I read the 'comics patriarch' Infantino's words on the subject of covers where he talks about 'irritating the eye' and using negative space to draw the reader in. I've found this with my own work where some of the throw away crude drawings that I have produced are the persistently popular ones and the examples of finer draughtsmanship go under the radar. Sometimes the little oddities in an illustration are the things that really give the character.

A BOY NAMED SUE

2008-06-16T01:47:00.001-07:00

my first real endeavour into drawing comics, i've taken the johnny cash song 'a boy named sue' and developed it into a short comic story. this is page 1

PEACE

2008-06-04T07:11:00.001-07:00

This is another design for don't panic on the theme of peace. You can see and vote for the finished poster here. I was quite pleased with the camo pattern, its something I made up with inspiration from the 'full metal jacket' design. The bright yellow (apart from looking more striking) was to indicate peace in its inefficiency as camouflage. Looks pretty cool though, I thought!

BABYCROW

2008-05-30T15:57:00.001-07:00

(after Hokusai's "Crow, Sword, & Plum Blossom") I have a love and fascination for crows and their spiritual significance. They are often considered in mythology to have connections to the afterlife, acting as a vehicle for shaman to transcend worlds when they enter a near death trance in a journey for enlightenment. This is one of the reasons that crows are thought of as spiritual guides and messengers. This void they inhabit is free from our perception of time, therefore they sense past, present and future at once. You may be surprised to hear that I'm not a particularly big fan of the Brandon Lee film 'the crow'. I found it a bit angsty!

This image is a retelling of a Hokusai woodblock print. Crows seem to crop up quite a bit in Japanese culture, I don't know much about any Japanese mythology behind this phenomenon but it may be something for me to explore. I love the fantastical themes that Hokusai depicts, I don't know what the story is behind this print but I want to know!

The benefit of a crow as a graphic element is great for striking silhouettes and compositions.

WARRIORS

2008-05-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari sits with assembled Afghan Sirdars.