reach!

It’s incredible how two weeks can shoot by, isn’t it?

 I’ve been kept very busy by another swell in the demand for illustrations for school books.

I’ll do my best to stay regular but things could get sketchy (‘scuse the bad pun)

Anyway, enough ramble, here is a triptych from the last wave of work for school books. 

This was stepping out of my comfort zone but it worked out pretty well, I really enjoyed the process of working in collage and look forward to doing more! 

motivational poster

Just...

...do it.

no nation like hibernation...

Here’s a quickie for this week’s IF topic: “hibernate”.

Like all bears, even the Mega-Bears must hibernate.

swirly caramely yumminess

This is a pretty silly one...

So why put it up, you ask? Well, It’s a vector illustration and while I don’t often work exclusively in vectors, it blows me away how versatile and subtle they’ve become; with feathering you can now do some crazy stuff!

+ it has crazy-cool wireframe view:

African princess

Here are a couple more illustrations I did using pencils and watercolours, with a little digital enhancing.

Once again for a Schuter & Shooter publication...

this week’s life drawing

We had another excellent model this week, a guy with some 30 years experience... I don’t think I could stand still for so long, that must add up to... like, a lot!

That was the long pose, then the rest are charcoal gestural drawings, it’s been a loooong time since I used charcoal...

do you like chicken?

...Chicken would looove a piece of you!

Inspired by Bill (the man) Sienkiewicz for this week’s subject on IF: ferocious

illustration breakdown

And once again for Nasou, but this time for a very different age group, a book about school... To spice things up a little, I've included this step-by-step of the process:

starts off as a simple, black & white sketch

then, the actual pencil sketch with added details and final perspective

then we ink the sucker

and add some watercolours

then, time for some overall texturing and blotting out the last white ares 

and after some digital lighting enhancements...

...it's done!

photo-washes

Aloha!
There’s a brand new page on my site collecting some of my photowash experiments...

...and that’s just a taste of what you’ll find ;)

Steve Biko

I reconnected with one of my very first clients recently, Nasou Via Afrika , and got to try out some different techniques… thanks guys!

This illustration is about Steve Biko, a martyred anti-apartheid activist of the 1970s, a man of brilliant thought and compassion. 

"man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being” -Biko

mesmerising

This one follows on directly from the previous post...

What is more lovely or more mesmerising than the female form?

-And check out some other mesmerising illustrations on this week's IF.

life drawing!

Well, after quite a while, I've taken up life drawing again :)

I've missed it a lot, it helps me vent frustration and just have fun with what I love... no briefs... no clients... no work... just drawing!

 These are quick studies of the drawing above, it's not something I often do but I couldn't which angle was nicest...

ruf stuff

I noticed that I don't often post rough work and for that I appologise.
My favourite thing is seeing the building blocks of other people's illustrations, the magical bits...

So here we go, some heads!

...and weird head-aliens...unicycling head-aliens!

greedy little elephant

Here's a look at another story I illustrated recently, once again for Shuter & Shooter, this one about a greedy little elephant desperate for some pumkiny goodness!

 

And again I tried something a little different by using pencils and light washes, turned out quite well... think I'll use it again :)

lil’ li-boons… (boundaries)

Some boundaries should be respected….

Still… aren’t they cute :)

a South African story...

There are so many great stories that unfold quietly and cross the paths of our daily lives, stories not written but lived and living still… people’s stories.

At the beginning of the year, I was invited to join a collective of African comic artists (l’Afrique Dessinée) and participate in putting a book together: "Thembi et Jetje, des tisseuses de l’arc en ciel”.
Each artist was assigned to illustrate a chapter of the story which spans two decades (10 chapters all in all), the book will be published in France by l’Harmattan later this month!

This is Thembi, a Ndebele woman...

And Jetje, an Afrikaans girl.

I loved working with the other guys and gals, some of which were friends that I hadn’t seen since Angouleme 2006!

And as a special treat, you can also take a peek at the cover by Adjim :)

mysteriousness

Here’s an oldie that I tweaked to make more… mysterious!

New pages/tab

A page has just been added for comics, look over there, at the top and to the right… see it?
If you’re on your mobile, then just click on the little downward arrow at top right…

I’ll be adding more of my short stories as I go, so keep checking :)

the rabbit and the wolf

I recently had the opportunity to illustrate several stories for Shuter and Shooter, a publisher I hadn’t worked with before, how exciting :)

One of these stories was an African fable about a rabbit... 

and a wolf…

the Gimp is dead, long live the Gimp!

One of my dearest models died recently.
Gimli (aka the Gimp aka Gimme aka Gimpster) was a cat of great standing and sweet, sweet disposition. A lion’s mane enveloping the most delicate personality, a real sweet-heart...

Rest in peace buddy, I miss you.

disguised

"what lion?”

Zitt’s story

And now for something completely different…

 

This is Zitt, an odd little crustacean character that I came up with months ago for the Velocity anthology, he was to feature in his very own 4page mini-comic of Moebius-inspired mayhem.

Regretably, this was right around the time I got ridiculously entrenched in other (paying) work, and so I had to pull out :(

I hope I’ll get to finish his story someday, I had a great steed worked out and it was gonna be infused with all sorts of funny South Africanisms like ‘bru’, ‘howzit’, ‘Obz’ and many more… 

For now though, it’ll be committed to the depths of this blog’s archives… but for now: Enjoy!