Joseph's technicolour milk float...

Very silly I know, but once I'd thought of it I had to see it through. I think there's one more along similar lines... can you guess... no, don't spoil the surprise ;-) Incidentally, this is my first blog post done entirely with an iPad. I used a digital camera as my 'scanner', tweaked contrast of the pencil sketches in snapseed app, composited, edited and coloured in sketchbook pro app and uploaded with the blogger app. It's not photoshop with a scanner but, in a pinch, it's reasonable for a bit of fun. I'm not liking blogger app as much as I could be doing though... a little unintuitive... so now to try and upload... then get some sleep!

technicolour dream goat...

Another month goes by... means another creature over on the group blog a little bit bunny that I share. This month it's goat and, like with my last blog post, I'm still in a colourful rainbow hued mood. Very unlike me (and the last very secular post) I've actually gone a little religious with the theme. Here's a sneak peek as always with the full illustration to be seen over on ALBB. To comment on something that you cannot fully see here... what with the silly season nearly upon us and time in short supply, I've gone for a short and sweet speedy illustration. That said I'm really very happy with the simple line work and overall retro, somehow 1970's children's book / animation feel. It reminds me a little of the black and white line work characters on the superb animated Paddington Bear tv series from my childhood. I still love the way they set a full colour 3D Paddington Bear puppet in a limited colour 2D / not quite 3D world. I think there's one or two more illustrations I really like to do in the same vein as this goat... watch out.

A very merry Newtonmas (or Isaac's prismatic birthday tree)

That time of the year if fast upon us once again dear folks so here's my secular way of marking the festivities. The short explanation for the image is that December 25th (might) also be said to be Isaac Newton's birthday... the longer explanation, and my similarly inspired card from last year can be found here. For a funnier 'Big Bang' explanation Sheldon explains it more fully than I can ;-)

To slightly elaborate on this years card... Newton ascertained by shining light through glass prisms that white light, far from being colourless, contains all the other colours (just think Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon album cover artwork...). Did you also know that, to experiment on how our eyes function and perceive colour Newton took a bodkin needle, shoved it 'betwixt the eye and the bone' and prodded his own eye ball! I decided that probably wouldn't have been the best thing to show on my card, memorable though it would be.

Physics (and anatomy) lesson over, my very best wishes of the season to everyone and to all a very sparkling new year!

Mr Toad on his way to the wedding...

A friend of mine is getting married next year and wanted a drawing of Mr Toad in his car for the wedding invite. It just so happened I'd already drawn something appropriate (and here) so I just did some recolouring to match their established wedding theme and suggested more hearty shapes in the trees and here he is...

a bit of a troll...

I just snuck my November Troll onto A Little Bit Bunny blog before the deadline (seeing as I suggested troll for the creature of the month I thought I ought to...). Sneek peek here, just his bonce... Bit of an off the cuff, no preplanning troll was this guy. I'd bought the DVD of Troll Hunter all ready to watch the film again for inspiration but just not gotten round to. You must see it. A superb tongue in cheek horror film, refreshingly in a non hollywood, hauntingly beautiful Norwegian setting, that makes use of scandinavian troll myth in it's plot. I still want to do some troll illustrations which reference 'proper trolls' with their glorious names like Ringlefinch, Tosserlad and Mountain King. Till now a fiercely hungry chap under a bridge will do though (a scenario not unlike one in the film...) Watch it!