Here at last is the third piece in my "Death Mask" series.
This one took more time than it probably should have but gave me the opportunity to try out a bunch of new techniques.
A surprise success was the use of some topographic swatches that I found lying around the web. I got hundreds of them and they proved very useful for making textures.
I am trying to go in a wilder, more esoteric direction right now and am hoping that people will be staring at this and thinking, "What the hell is going on here?"
I'm not quite sure myself to be honest as I tend to make these pieces up as I go along. Guess I'm aiming somewhere between a Prog-rock album cover and a Fighting Fantasy book...

I was recently invited do design some characters for a project and one of the requests was for a cactus. A while back I sketched a "zombie cactus" and so thought this was a good opportunity to jam him into Illustrator and vectorize/colour him. I have included 2 versions here - one is the same as the original sketch and the other has an added plant pot which I rather like.

I was once again kindly invited to contribute to the brilliant I Want Your Skull magazine by Ryan August.

This time however was extra special for me because Ryan offered me an interview and I created an original paper toy that is included as a gift with the magazine. My craft is called Skull King and there are 5 different colourways that are distributed randomly.

I tried to design the craft so it would look equally attractive as a flat print that could be hung on the wall.

Issue 8 of IWYS includes 35 pages of artwork by some amazing artists and is limited to 250 copies.

Head over to the IWYS homepage to grab your copy now:
http://www.iwantyourskull.com/i-want-...sue-eight/

More detailed photos of Skull King can be found here:
http://horrorwood.info/horrorwoodhill...lking.html

Here is my latest illustration entitled "Oddomatic". It was again done for my friend's band Eenik, but this time in a more roundabout way. I simply ran with the title of the band's new album and saw what came out. Hopefully this one will also appear on a t-shirt or poster at some point in the not too distant future.

Here are some pictures of my latest papercraft custom titled "New Flesh".
The base is "Gubi-Gubi" by Malaysian artist Harold P. Ringgingon aka Pain Killah Art.
You can download the template for free directly from Harold’s blog here:
http://thefallengubies.blogspot.com/2...eries.html

This piece was an attempt to make use of one of the first things that I did in Illustrator about 4 years ago, which was left floundering in the depths of my computer. I completely reworked the image as the data was in a horrendous state. I think that Illustrator for the uninitiated is almost impossible to comprehend, though I love using it now. It showed me how much I have taught myself over the years.

I had originally intended the illustration to be for my friend's band Eenik once again, hence the new logo at the bottom (designed by the front man himself). However after contemplation we decided that it doesn't really fit in with the other stuff I've been doing for them.

Either way it was a good exercise. I pushed my computer to the limit with all kinds of grunge and weathering techniques. These kinds of effects are always very tricky and unnatural in Illustrator (a lot easier in Photoshop), but I feel that I had a pretty good go at it at least.

I may see what this image looks like superimposed onto a photo of an old wooden door or something, just as an experiment. If it looks any good I'll post that too at a later date.

As mentioned in my previous post the Eenik members gave me a few pointers for my samurai illustration and I went away and tweaked it a bit.

The hands really did need some more effort put into them and I think they make a big difference to the piece. Also, the "girdle" part was a bit stark so got replaced by more snakes. I wasn't sure if the whole neon thing would work but I think I like it now.

I really am benefiting from getting decent, practical advice on my work and actually listening to it for the first time.

Stay tuned for more Eenik artwork and possible t-shirts/posters coming soon. You can follow the band's activities here:
http://eenik.blogspot.com/

Here is my second illustration for my friend's band Eenik (http://eenik.blogspot.com).

I have taken some suggestions on board from the band and will be reworking certain parts of it. The hands for example need a lot of work (I am terrible at hands, so was admittedly a bit lazy with them). I will also be trying out a neon colour scheme. I purposefully limited my palette as I think it is an interesting discipline, but it does cause some problems (like the abundance of white in this one).

Overall I was 90% satisfied with the piece, so it was good to get some feedback to push me to make the last few improvements. Will post the modified version once it's done.

Here is an illustration that I have been working on for a while entitled "Dawn of the Plaid". I became a little obsessed with tartan patterns a few months ago and completing this piece hopefully got that out of my system (at least for the meantime). I made all of the swatches myself and may put them up for download from my site at some point.

As a break from all the Death Masks here is something else that I've been working on recently. The title is "Best Fiends".

I always wanted to try illustrating characters directly onto photos and this is my first attempt. I did it all in Illustrator and am pretty pleased with the results. Next time I may have a go at tweaking a bit with Photoshop, which is unfortunately a less familiar tool to me.

I have had a set of these fashion photos sitting around for ages and will hopefully get around to adding characters to them all at some point.