Music Exchange

Exciting news!

I have just returned from a very promising portfolio visit with Paul Connett from Music Exchange/My Gifts based in Manchester. I will hopefully be working with the design staff over the next few months to come up with a whole new range of designs for a verity of products including greetings cards, mugs, calenders, place mats, aprons and many more!

I'm so excited right now! Can't sit still! Want to get started NOW!

In other news, here is a very excited looking monster!

Dragon Doodles

Just a quick post about some dragons I've been doodling recently. Good excuse to try out some different colour schemes :)

Recent Monsters

Some of the more recent monsters. They seem to be developing a darker colour theme at the moment :)

VS Launch Night

Last week (Wednesday 10th October) I attended the launch night for VS. 

VS is a zine that has been put together by 4 of my fellow graduates who have joined together to form a collective called 'Foursight'. 

@wearefoursight

The event was a great success and everyone had a great time drinking and discussing the illustration work. Below are a few photos from the night.

Boxing Mug Shots

The Draw Off

Cat Show

Really need to get my act together and start producing some more new illustrations to be used on cards, keyrings etc, at the cat show. To make things harder it's not just any cat show, it's a Siamese cat show! And they are a pain to draw! 

I usually stick to drawing chunky or fluffy animals... Siamese cats are the complete opposite of these things! However it's going to be a good challenge! And now that I'm much less stubborn I should be able to stick with it and get lots of new ones done!
So far I have one design in two different colours! So far so good. Wish me luck!

Halloween & Card Ideas

Have finally had chance this week to start work on my Halloween inspired illustration. I've had the idea for weeks but hadn't had chance to make a start on it until now!

There is going to be a lot more to it when its finished but this is where I'm up to so far!

Have also been working on some little football characters for my mum to use on her card designs. Hopefully these little guys will become a success! 

Other Bits & Bobs

Alongside the two projects and my daily monster project I have been producing other illustrations. Some were for specific reasons and some were just because I felt like it at the time.

Here is what I've been doing since graduation...

Mermaid Millie

Birthday Illustration for my best friend and fellow creative Millie Connors

Twitter @madeby_millie

Triceratops

This was a practice image for a personal project I had in mind. I want to make a set of educational posters for children that could be displayed in schools. This was going to be for a dinosaur hight comparison chart poster. I intend to revisit this project soon!

Tiger in the Jungle

Wanted to try drawing something a little more complicated to see if I could. Turned out alright I think. The background is a simplified version of a photograph I found on google.

Caged Dragon

Nothing to say about this one really. Started off as a doodle of a pissed off dragon so I decided to put him in a cage to give him a reason to be pissed off.

Shark

Another doodle that give me the chance to play with my paint-splat textures again. 

Website Updated

Have updated my website recently! Lots of new work to be seen! Go take a looksee :)

Link

Guinea Pigs

And now for something completely different...

One of my other past times is photography. Studied it for 2 years at A level (and got a D, Owch!) but decided that illustration was the way to go in the end. However I still greatly enjoy taking a few snaps occasionally and wanted to share a few of my favourite photos from my piggy photo shoots!

August babies

Socks, Carlo, Gizmo & Maria

 Spoink

Growing Up

Penelope & Nutmeg 

Graduation!

Have just realised I haven't posted about graduation day! Was a really great day and really made the 3 years of work feel like an enormous achievement!

Was also brilliant to see everyone from my class and the other pathways all dressed up. I was a bit nervous when we had to walk up on stage. I forgot how to walk for a moment! 
Then despite being told not to throw our hats around, we still had a great time launching them to the sky! Got a few fab photos too!

Many More Monsters!

There have been lots of new members to the monster family over the past few months! Below are a few of my favourites... 

You can now also follow the daily monster on tumblr here TheDailyMonsterMadness

A wonderful place for all things monstrous!

Patchwork Pie

The second project I've been working on since graduation is for a website that is yet to be made live! (so not sure if I should be talking about it yet, whoops)

The idea is that you post a request for help with odd jobs etc, and then people respond offering to help. Then you can pick the best person for the job based on their price, rating or rank.

They asked me if I would produce a set of illustrations that helped explain how the website works for their users.
Unfortunately this job is unpaid and I agreed before I got the offer of the paid children's book job (whoops). But I figure it will be good exposure! It's also been a good chance for me to practice drawing people which is something I have been reluctant to do in the past. Hopefully this will show potential new clients that I'm able to draw something other than monsters!


I got a rough description of what each part needed to explain but still had a great deal of creative freedom! Its only been towards the end of the project that the client has started to request different colours and fonts, luckily nothing too complicated to change.

I've had to change a few details to enable it to work on their website layout such as the background colour and font. I preferred the lemon background with blue header and footer sections... But alas, this will have to do :P

*Update* I have just received an email informing me that Patchwork pie is now up and running! Click this link to have a look!