New Talent Alert: Lisa Beta

Lisa Beta is an illlustator & character designer who gathers ideas by taking a look at the everyday world from another angle. Clients include BBDO, Amnesty International and KFC, take a look at her humorous portfolio...

New Talent Alert: Chris Gilleard

We are pleased to announce that we now represent graduate illustrator Chris Gilleard. With a strong passion for character and creature design using pixels & vectors, Chris's portfolio can be seen here...

Choose a Tash for Movember

The line up

Freddie Mercury

Hulk Hogan

Magnum PI

Ron Burgundy

Ron Swanson

Duncan Beedie joins Movember to raise cash and awareness for Prostate Cancer.
And not one to stop at the growth of his own 'tash', Duncan has also created five fantastic 'famous moustache' artworks which are now up for auction. You can enjoy the facial grooming of Freddie Mercury, Hulk Hogan, Magnum PI, Ron Burgundy and Ron Swanson as unique A3 giclée prints.
With 100% of the money going to the very worthy cause, bidding is open until Thursday 21st November.

If you'd also like to sponsor Duncan on his hairy journey go to his mo space.

Journey by Starlight

Britt Spencer teams up with Ian Flitcroft to bring us 'Journey By Starlight', 'a time traveller's guide to life, the universe and everything'. The book sets out to explain many things, (in an understandable way) from why the sky is blue to Quantum Mechanics, illustrated in Britt's naturally humourous comic style. Britt says "...it's been doing great critically and was even highlighted on NPR's "On Point" program as a "great summer read." Go get yourself a copy.

Shepherd East Conference Video

Matthew Robson has completed a fully animated conference video for Shepherd East.

Produced for Motus.tv Matthew animated seven separate characters for a 2 minute short "(it was) a testament to how far technology has moved forward over recent years." say Matthew.

Each of the characters (apart from Bruce Forsyth) are members of the Shepherd team, with the use of many 'in jokes' and personal catch phrases, the video "got a rapturous applause when shown at the conference." Matthew says of the production "Technically, it was using some new custom modified animation software that allowed me to dial in a much more nuanced performance for each character. Add to that the fact that style wise I’m moving away from black keylines in favour of coloured ones, and towards simpler, light and colour focused backgrounds with no keyline at all, all go to make it one of the jobs I’ve had the most fun with this year." See the animation.

Music Tribes

Commissioned for a set of 10 characters, Jonathan Allardyce has come up trumps with these amusingly believable figures for Q Magazine. Music Tribes, an article written by Rebecca Nicholson of the Guardian, gives us an accurate insight to several types of character based on their musical taste. Jonathan has used his great understanding of people to illustrate these types, he says "...the text is laugh-out-loud accurate and a joy to work with so I was determined to do a good job..." Here we have clockwise from top left; Mod Dad, Bro-Stepper, Earnest Pitchforker and Little Monster.

Kurt Vonnegut

 

Another wonderfully expressive portrait from Kathryn Rathke, who created this drawing of Kurt Vonnegut for The Stranger Magazine. The weekly Seattle magazine runs a "Regrets" page in which they list all of the mistakes/regrets of the staff and contributors, and this year they asked for 'regrets' from local artists & writers. Kathryn says " I wrote in that I regretted that I have drawn many authors, but had never yet had the opportunity to draw Kurt Vonnegut. The paper responded by asking if I would like to draw him as the feature illustration for that segment of the paper, thereby allowing at least one citizen the opportunity to conquer one of her regrets!". A truly original way to get a commission!

Bite

just sleeves

Bill Greenhead has successfully completed his eighth ad for Bite in Romania. No stranger to the overhead shooting, Bill drew directly onto a whiteboard with no guides to help! And with 3 days to work out what they were going to do for the final shoot, Bill helped with the storyboard and design of the ad. Commissioned by award winning McCann Erickson Romania and alongside StudioSet TV, the job has proved to be a fun one, in the spirit of Bill's entertaining drawings. Bill says "We used cardboard cut-outs for the first time to reveal other drawings, an idea I brought over from another shoot I did recently in London, to great effect. I just wish I hadn't thought of wearing the Christmas jumper. It got quite hot under the lights. Luckily I only had to wear the sleeves."  Watch it now.

Ron Borresen's Scrapbook

Florida based illustrator Ron Borresen on working for National Geographic & other magazines he aspires to. Ron's Scrapbook.

Greenhead Illustrates Peter Kay Book

"The Book That's More Than Just A Book - Book" written by the comedian Peter Kay is out now, and illustrated by another genius of humour Bill Greenhead. Bill created 6 page artworks plus a childish drawing of Yoda. Five of the strip cartoons were done in a 'Grange Hill Style' and the sixth was in black and white. Bill says of the job "I had to draw Peter as a 11 year old boy, which was challenging. He was very supportive through the process and it was a joy to work with such a comedy genius.He said my work was very funny in an email....I'll never wash that email again!"

Britt's Solo Exhibition

Britt Spencer has just come to the end of a solo exhibition, one that was a final qualification for his MFA. The show highlighted his larger acrylic screen printed works and "a pretty fun kinetic sculpture". This work marks a fresh look for Britt's illustrations, the same humour with vivid punchy colour.

Daniel O'Leary Gets Political

Take a look at this small selection of Daniel O'Leary's super portraits of some interesting figures, both in US and Middle East politics. He says of his paintings: "...The image of the nurse is of Nancy Pelosi (American Political figure), the second one is the president of Iran in a compromising position, betraying his statements that there are no homosexuals in his country and the third shows American political figure Sarah Palin, known for being .....less than a genius..."

Andy Hammond's Scrapbook

This week leading illustrator Andy Hammond takes us behind the scenes to reveal what inspires him to create his amazingly popular work.

Mike McGavick Portrait

A high profile commission for Ron Borresen recently sees him create a powerful portrait for the front cover for Insurance Times / Global Reinsurance magazine. Ron says: "...It was the cover story on Mike McGavick, businessman and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2006. It was sketched out, scanned in and done in painter..."

QI Annual

Peter Thom comes to the rescue this month with this lively superhero inspired illustration created for the cover of this year's QI Annual.

Commissioned by Eleanor Crow at Faber and Faber, Peter greatly enjoyed the project and explains, "..I felt that the job which involved creating caricatures of some of the larger than life presenters and guests of this show, would be fraught with difficulty, but in truth the job was a delight to work on." The QI Annual will be available to buy from November 4th.

Hellebrities

Humour is never far from the surface with Bill Greenhead and his brilliant range of Hellebrities top trump cards.

Featuring 36 celebrities in a series of satrical poses from David Peck'em to Johnny Dedd, Mudonna to Leonardo De Capitated, the cards are available to buy here. Working alongside Shed Simove at Talent Shed he has also animated an advert which can be seen here.