Ingo Maurer

Loving this comic inspired "Bang Boom" lamp by German designer Ingo Maurer.

via imperious rex/ufunk

Latest Projects

For shame, I haven't posted anything here for over a week, so let's catch up on some recently completed projects shall we.

A couple of weeks ago I featured a selection of re-designed Superman covers from Warren Ellis' Whitechapel forum. I love these kind of projects but rarely find the time to contribute. But when I found out that the next challenge was to re-design 2000AD #1 I just had to chip in. Here's what I came up with:

Although I'm pleased with the general look of the typography and the metallic finish, the fact that I failed to come up with a decent central image somewhat lets the side down. You can see the some of the more successful entries here.

As I was putting it together I was reminded of this 2000AD cover by Brendan McCarthy. I believe it accompanied an Alan Moore future shock which was a Hitchhikers Guide parody. It's amusing to see that 1981's vision of the future still comes with play/record buttons.

The following week's challenge was to re-design Amazing Fantasy#15. When it comes to something as iconic as Spider-Man's debut, you've got you work cut out not to refer to it in someway. The book's title immediately suggested a 1950's pulp magazine style, an idea that seemed to be popular amongst the other entries. The Pulp Fiction Flickr pool proved invaluable when it came to reference. As you can see below I pieced the artwork together from various sources.

Getting involved with the Whitechapel challenges forced me to sideline my submission to Brendan Tobin and Pedro Delgado's, March MODOK Madness, a month-long celebration of the much ridiculed Jack Kirby creation. I'd actually started this back in February and had been puttering about with it for nearly a month before a sedate Sunday afternoon allowed me to complete it before April set in.

And finally, I created this montage to celebrate the first Anniversary of Kirby-Vision. It features just some of the fabulous artists who have submitted work to the blog. It was another race against time to get it finished and I eventually posted it three days later than the actual date, but I won't tell anybody if you don't.

Whitechapel Superman Challenge

Over at the Whitechapel boards, Warren Ellis recently laid down the gauntlet to re-imagine the first issue of Superman. Here's a sample of some of best. Be sure to check out the rest here.

Felipe Sobreiro

David Bednarski

Andrew Jordan

Thomas Perkins

Tom Muller

I've been Interviewed

A fake house ad for a fake Jack Kirby comic which I created for an interview about Kirby-Vision for Tim Miner's Marvel Smartass! blog. Read all about it here.

The People vs. George Lucas

Premiering on March 12th at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas, The People vs. George Lucas explores the often conflicted dynamic between Lucas and his fans. I'm looking forward to seeing this, but what's even more exciting is the fact that my first Star Wars: Uncut animation in the opening and closing montages of the trailer.

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 134

Here's my third and final submission to the Star Wars: Uncut project, this time in the style of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations. I've been planning on trying out Gilliam's style for a while now and this scene (taken from the Leia hologram sequence) was visually quite straight forward which allowed me to take it out of context and drop in a couple of silly gags. All of the images used were culled from various sites (see links below) and the vinyl crackle and yawn were sourced, again, from Soundsnap. There's minimal animation, so it was a lot quicker to put together than my previous submissions. Great fun though, I'm raring to try this style out on some other ideas.

Original images - Alec Guiness, Man in chair, Gramophone, Yoda, record sleeve, wallpaper, carpet, table, Lady in bonnet.

Merry Christmas One and All

Tommy, 1975 (dir. Ken Russell)

Movies In Frames

Star Wars Uncut: Scene 248

Here's my second submission to Star Wars: Uncut project, inspired by The Beatles film, Yellow Submarine, directed by George Dunning. It was great fun to re-design the characters in the style of the film, especially Chewbacca in the part of Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D. There's a bit more movement in the figures as opposed to my last submission, but I've yet to graduate to any fully-fledged acrobatics. All of the interiors and backgrounds are taken from the film and 're-imaging' in Photoshop and the whole thing was put together in Flash. Sound effects where obtained from the rather marvellous Soundsnap.com and the voices where provided by myself (with apologies to any Liverpudlians out there wondering why the cast have Birmingham accents!). Not sure just yet if I'll take on another scene, but I have a few ideas on how I'd like to render it, so watch this space.

Star Wars Uncut

Busy on my second animation for Star Wars: Uncut. Here's a sneak preview.

Star Wars: Uncut

Star Wars: Uncut is the brainchild of Vimeo and Boxee creator Casey Pugh. The idea is to re-create the film, fifteen seconds at a time. How does it work? First, you claim your scene, there are 473 to choose from, you then have thirty days to make it in whatever fashion you want. Viewer's can then rate the videos with the Vimeo's 'Like' system and the most popular will be edited together to form an entirely fan-made version of the film. Here's my submission.

I chose to base my animation on the manga comic adaption by Hisao Tamaki to reflect the close relationship Star Wars has always had with the comic medium. From the original Marvel adaption by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin, to the current selection of titles published by Dark Horse, Star Wars comics are often as cherished as the films themselves. I selected and loosely re-drew various figures from Tamaki's books and then created individual background's in Photoshop. For the TIE fighter, I sourced a 3D model on the excellent Google SketchUp and re-drew the desired angle. The animation was then put together in Adobe Flash. To abide with the submission rules I recorded all the sound effects and speaking parts myself (please forgive my Alec Guinness impersonation). It's been a really rewarding project to create and I've already bagged my next scene, which I promise will be something completely different.

New Portfolio Website

My new portfolio website is now on-line. This is the first website I've designed and built and I'm not shy to admit that it's been an intense learning curve. The site concentrates on my commercial work as a creative artworker with a smidgen of personal stuff. It's not all there yet but now that I'm free to concentrate on other work, I'm intending to update it with new projects regularly.

A Patchwork of Flesh

Paul Cooper has posted my tribute to Ken Reid's Frankie-Stien, along with my daughter Eden's SpongeBob Frankenpants, at his wonderful blog, A Patchwork of Flesh. It was fun sitting with Eden on a rainy afternoon and doing some colouring in, but I prefer the original pencil and inked versions.