Lionesses

Jason and the Thai Beer!

Me and King John went to see The Meg the other day at the beautiful old 1911 cinema- The Dome in Worthing. The film was a well made slice of shark action cinema with the ever reliable Jason Statham in the lead but I have a question! This isn't a spoiler but if you go and see the film please bear this in mind.
After an early tragedy in a submarine Jason's character (can't remember his name) goes for a long 5 year sulk in Thailand where he slobs around drinking Thai beer all day before being lured back for another rescue mission. At one point we see him coming out of the shower with a fabulously fit and totally toned body- AFTER 5 YEARS DRINKING THAI BEER?!?
I'm going to try it! I'm an unrealistic optimist!
And also, why oh why does every action/disaster film have to contain a dog in peril which (spoiler alert!) ALWAYS SURVIVES! and this one is particularly obnoxious!

Rant over.

The Joker

In the current issue of SFX- the magazine about all things sci-fi I have an illustration of Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker for a forthcoming film also starring Robert de Niro.

Solo

In Nick Setchfield´s regular ¨Development Hell¨ spot in SFX magazine I am asked to accompany the news of a film in development by a relevant illustration. If (as in the case of Solo) the film has a few changes along the way I may get to draw it a few times.
Here are the three cartoons I drew for the stages of bringing the film Solo to the screen.
The film was announced by Lucasfilms in early 2016 and all the young hopeful actors of Hollywood auditioned for the prize role of Han Solo. I was asked to illustrate all of them about to shoot Greedo!

Alden Ehrenreich won the part. Then shooting began with the directors Loed and Millar who had made the Lego Movie. They were soon kicked off the project by the producers for ¨artistic differences¨ and George Lucas´s mate Ron Howard was brought in.

Then the rest of the cast were announced including Emelia Clarke and Donald Glover as Lando Kalrisian. This drawing was done waaaaay before the film´s release and I didn´t know that Glover would be sporting a fetching beard. But we did know that it was being described as a ¨space western¨ in style.

As you may know, it opened to a bit of a bashing from the critics but I really liked it' Especially the robot! Robots seem to steal every film that they´re in including the recent reimagining of the old TV show ¨Lost in Space¨.

Cartoon samples

Recently on Facebook there was a challenge to post up 3 examples of work  every day for five days. Here's one of my posts featuring two comic strips- Maid Marian and her Merry Men from one of the 8 graphic novels I illustrated based on the award winning TV series written by and starring Tony Robinson. And a more recent couple of strips from Mega magazine featuring a toilet-obsessed Doctor Who clone called Doctor Loo.

Match of the Day 300

Last week Match of the Day, the football magazine marked its 300th issue.
I've been contributing a caricature comic strip every week for most of that run. The guys on the mag (mainly Ed Beeryman) write the script and I illustrate it. Even though I'm not a footy fan I enjoy this weekly challenge as there are always new victims for my caricaturing skills such as they are.
I hope it carries on as it's a fun and regular job!

Independence Day 2

This month's cartoon for my regular spot in the world's number 1 sci-fi magazine SFX is about the sequel to the best B movie ever made (in my humble opinion) Independence Day. The sequel has only just been announced and the only information the mag could give me was that Will Smith isn't going to be in it. Not a lot to go on but here's how it turned out. FZZZZZAP!!!

Star Trek puzzle picture

One of the magazines I work for on a regular basis - the excellent SFX, likes to give me difficult challenges from time to time and this is the latest. What they wanted was a spread to go in the superb Star Trek special (available now at your local newsagents or on line) showing visual references to as many episode titles from all Star Trek series as I could fit in. From a list of 100 I managed to squeeze in 87. You'd have to be a total Trekkie to get them all methinks. It was a really fun job and the sort of challenge I love. Hope you like it.

Match of the Day comic strips

I've been drawing a weekly comic strip for the BBC magazine Match of the Day for several years now.
There are advantages and disadvantages with doing a regular weekly spot somewhere. What I like about it is that it's a regular income which in these lean times is great and this particular strip involves drawing lots of different caricatures every week. I love that. The disadvantage is that because this strip is topical and about what's happening in British football at the time, it means that I can't draw a few weeks ahead in order to have a nice long holiday. So- pros and cons but it's great to have a little bit of security in the increasingly difficult world of illustration. Here are a few recent examples. There are no words cos the balloons are put on by the staff at the mag.

Spiderman 2

Here's my illustration for the current issue of SFX magazine (the best magazine on the planet! Although, I'm a bit biased cos they use my services regularly.) This is to depict the upcoming Spiderman movie which is a sequel to The Amazing Spiderman which was a reimagining of the Sam Raimi trilogy of Spiderman movies. I guess the world can never have enough Spiderman. I like Andrew Garfield in the role though even if he's pushing 30! How ancient is that?!?