Aardman's Pirates!

For the last three and a half years, I've been working with Aardman Features on a new stop-motion movie about pirates, based on the hilarious series of books (honestly, they're brilliant, buy a copy now!) by Gideon Defoe. This has taken up a big chunk of my life since early 2008, and I've designed a load of characters for the film. It's been the best experience, and I've loved every minute.

But never mind all that soppy stuff, Aardman seem to be releasing lovely pictures for everyone to see! Here's the first official teaser as spotted on 'bleeding cool'...


Here's the Pirate Captain, designed by me and Zebe, with lots of input from Peter Lord (and the doodlers in story, and the sculptors in model-making) and based on some early sketches by Carlos Grangel. In the background you can see little bits of the Pirate with Gout, the Burly Pirate, the Pirate with an Accordion and the Pirate with a Scarf.

And click here to see lot more stuff that Peter Lord has tweeted recently...

Only a year, or so, to go until theatrical release! Oo-Arr! It seemed a long, long way away in January 2008....

Here come the Jolley-Rogers!

I've been a bit quiet online recently. I've been ignoring my inbox, showing alarming disinterest in the BBC's weather pages and resisting the lure of Facebook. And I've been neglecting my blog. I've even disconnected my broadband, for a day or two at a time. Blimey.


And that's all because I've got a book to finish. The follow up to 'The Pirate Cruncher' is on it's way. 'The Jolley-Rogers' is due to be published this autumn by Templar, and I'm working frantically to get it all coloured-in, so that Templar can do their wonderful thing and turn my computer doodlings into a real book. It's not a sequel, but it is most definitely a follow-up. It's the same number of pages (too many), it's got pirates in it (there'll be no pirates in my next book), there's some treasure, some speech bubbles, a few "ooo-ar's" and a big fold out page. But I've still got ever such a lot to do, and not that much time.

So I'm about to go into hermit mode.

I shall ignore my phone.

I shall ignore my email.

I shall barricade my door to protect me from the little monsters that terrorize my house.

And I'm going to disconnect from the magical interweb until this pesky book is finished.

So there.

The Gorilla Artbook!

For the past few years, I've been a member of a small artists' forum, called Gorilla Artfare, and this April sees the release of our first book, aptly named 'Gorilla Artbook: Volume 1'!

(click the image for more info!)

I'm very proud to be part of this book. There are hundreds of beautiful paintings (digital and 'traditional') by around 70 different artists. It's being published by CFSL, who are a French publisher producing beautiful artbooks and comics.

The Gorilla Artbook will be available soon from the CFSL website.

And for inspiring art, check out the Gorilla Artfare blog in my links....

The Pirate Cruncher Audio Book!


A few months ago I went to London and put on lots of silly voices in a recording studio (see December 17th's blog post), and Templar recently sent me an advance copy of the CD.

With a wrinkled 'Pirate Cruncher' in hand, I listened to it with my wife and daughters, and it was excruciating... Does anyone like the sound of their own voice? But they all loved it, and reassuringly, Daisy said "It doesn't sound like you, Daddy. It sounds like proper pirates!" The only downside is that Daisy says she wants a CD player in her room. But she'll just have to put up with the real 'me' reading to her, at least until her birthday.

So if anyone's interested in listening to me attempting a load of silly pirate voices... Preston meets Cornwall via North Wales... The multi-media 'Pirate Cruncher' experience is due on the 1st April, or so they say.

Ooo-arRR!

Shiver me timbers!

Splice the mainbrace!

And all that.

EDiT: Amazon got it wrong... The CD version of 'The Pirate Cruncher' is going to be available on 1st June, not 1st April! I'll post a reminder when it's published!

P.S. A big 'THANKS' to David at Heavy Entertainment, who recorded the session,and encouraged me to do the silly voices!

Tales of the Spiffing

As I've mentioned a few times on my blog, I've done a lot of work for Aardman Features over the last three years, designing characters for their upcoming 'Pirates!' movie.

I was having a couple of months off last summer, when Ashley Boddy and J.P.Vine assembled a group of artists to work on a comic anthology called 'Tales of the Spiffing: Comics from the Sceptered Isle'. But then someone dropped out, or they had not enough pages or something, and the day before it was due to go to print, Ashley asked if I fancied making a contribution.

I tried to do a very, very quick comic, it all went to pot and I was in a big huff in my studio. So I ended up adapting an existing image to fit the book, and that's what's appeared in the anthology. Not a comic by me. Just a picture.

But there are lots of lovely comics by other talented artists, all of whom are either employed by Aardman, do contract work for Aardman or have worked freelance on one of their projects recently. Ashley's set up a blog with some preview images and a Paypal link for anyone who wants to get their grubby hands on a copy..... click the image above to be whisked away to the 'Sceptered Isle'!

And Ashley says I can do a comic next time. So I will. If he remembers. Now that I've finished with all the 'Pirates!' work, and I don't go there anymore. I think I'll keep popping in and annoying everyone, so he doesn't forget.

Will Gallows & the Snake-Bellied Troll

Ooops! I missed this one! 'Will Gallows and the Snake-Bellied Troll' by Derek Keilty was published on 3rd February by Anderson Press.

There's a cover by me, with black and white interior illustrations too. There are quite a few full-page illustrations, plus a bunch of vignettes. The author also added a few smaller illustrations of his own.

Here's the artwork for the cover...


Some of the interior illustrations were sketched out on paper, some were sketched directly in Photoshop CS5. And I did some character sketches early on in the process, one of which made it as a vignette in the book, the not-so-pleasant Sherifff Slugmarsh. Here's the original pencil sketch...


And the 'inked' in CS5 version...

Imagine FX no.067... Steampunk!

It's been a while since I did any work for Imagine FX, but editor Claire Howlett emailed me before Christmas asking if I fancied creating a workshop looking at Painter's brushes. I use Painter 11 for most of my work, coupled with Photoshop CS5, so with an open brief, how could I resist??

I did a painting based on one of my favourite Victorian photographs, Isambard Kingdom Brunel standing in front of the launching chains of the Great Eastern. I've been itching to use this photograph as the starting point for a steampunk painting, and this was my chance.

In my spare moments, I've been developing this character for a personal project and it was great to have an excuse to spend a bit of time on him. He's been the subject of various sketches and notes for the last few years, but a very busy schedule has held me back. With a bit of luck and some more time, he may yet see print in the not-so-distant future....

So if anyone's interested in Painter's brushes, my wafflings or just following the process on one of my digital paintings, go and get yourself a copy of the March 2011 issue of 'Imagine FX'!