Irish Illustrators Exhibition Opening!

Another day another opening, wha'?

I've spent the last few weeks (on and off) organising a show for the IGI in association with OFFSET. It's all hung and ready to go so drop in to Solas tonight if you're around.

All the details here.

Peepshow Tonight!

The Peepshow exhibition opens tonight. First of many openings this week as part of OFFSET which kicks off next Friday. Clik here for more info!

Design Week Graphic Novel.

More comics. This is a two pager I worked on last week for a new collaborative graphic novel called 'Machines, Miracles or Magic?' being produced by Lee Grace as part of Design Week. The premise was based on the brilliant Arthur C. Clarke quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

It will be launched on Friday 6th November 2009 at 6pm in Waterford City Library, Lady Lane.

Click images to see bigger versions .

Can't wait to see it!

Movember Comic

I was asked to contribute a page to a book that was made as part of the Movember charity week. I did a comic strip based on the jealousy of not really being able to grow facial hair as a teenager while all my friends were able to grow beards and sideburns and all sorts of hairy creations on their faces. I still can't even do it properly.

Click the image to read it all proper like.

Peepshow!

As part of OFFSET 2009 the boyos in Small Print are hosting a really exciting exhibition exhibition called Peepshow in Monster Truck gallery. They asked a selection of artists to create a new piece of art based on pure expressive fantasy or humourous titillation. The ruder the better basically. I think it's going to be a very interesting show indeed ;-)

I was delighted to be asked to take part. Here's a small section from mine. You'll have to go see the show to see the rest of it along with the other artworks!

It opens on Monday 2nd November and will run all week along side OFFSET.

I still haven't managed to see any of the Make A Wish posters I've done around. My Dad spotted this one in Dun Laoghaire so it was nice to see it in action.

Heineken Expression

I've been mad busy over the last week or so and completely forgot to post about the Heineken Expressions night that the Small Print hosted last Thursday. It was great fun meeting lots of new illustrators and scawling all over the walls. I forgot my blummin' camera as well but the lovely Tado managed to get a snap of my piece. Click here to see all the amazing work produced on the night on their Flickr site.

There will be two more events in the next few weeks where we'll be drawing live again. One in Cork on 13th November and one in Galway on 27th November. Loads more details here.

The Irish and Other Foreigners

The brilliant Shane Hegarty recently completed his third book called The Irish and Other Foreigners and I jumped at the chance to do the cover illustration when he asked me. A few years ago I used to draw a weekly illustration for his column in the Irish times magazine called Irisholgy so it was great fun to be back working with him.

He looks at what we think we know about the first Irish, where they came from and why they seem to have landed here long after they colonised our neighbours all the way up to modern immigration and emigration. A fascinating, informative and really funny read I tell you.

It will be available at the end of the month.

Make A Wish Animation

As well I was working on the Spaceman poster for the Make A Wish charity print campaign I also designed these three characters for a section of a TV spot which is on at the moment.

Piranha Bar in Dublin modeled and animated them in 3D for the opening sequence of the ad and they look really lovely. Also check out Stephen Synnott's brilliant Knight which they brought t0 life brilliantly also.

Click here to see it.

Denny in Cork

This is the second pop-up shop for the Denny Home is campaign that can be seen around the country that I worked on recently with Peter Snodden in DDFHB. I did the door, sign and windows etc in this one. This one is on Patrick Street in Cork city.

Desert!

Over the last six months I have been working on and off on a short animated film which I have FINALLY finished. We're just doing the editing at the moment. It's being shown tomorrow night for the first time as part of a Darklight night hosted by Synth Eastwood along with films by DADDY, Lovely productions and Fergal Brennan. We'll all be doing a talk about the films afterwards.

Click here for more details

It turned out to be a fun family collaboration with the story written by my brother Andrew and the sound and music done by my other brother Simon. I also had amazing help with the animation from two brilliant animators Andy Barry and Grace Chan.

I'll post the full film here next week.

Make A Wish on Scamp

Just posted a full list of all of the amazing artwork done for Make a Wish on Scamp. Check it out!

The Beasts

I've just reached the halfway mark of The Beasts picture book which is something I'm VERY excited about. It's a project I've probably started about 5 times but could never find the right tone or story so finally I've settled on a pure illustrated style rather than the usual illustration over photographic images I've been making for them. Hopefully the adventure will keep readers interested. Here's a small panel from it to give you an idea of how it will look.


At the same time I've wanted to do an exhibition using The Beasts as the main focus but again couldn't decide weather to use straight illustration or the drawings over photographs. I've been collecting those old framed prints of paintings in gilded frames from charity shops recently and thought they would be perfect to draw over as they are usually really dramatic and would suit the background rather than my painted efforts or amateur photos. So I tried one today and I'm really happy with it.


This is the first effort. I'll hopefully get a whole show out for the new year with this kind of thing.

Make A Wish

I was honoured to be asked to be one of several designers and illustrators to be asked to supply artwork for the brilliant Make A Wish charity. It will be used as a six sheet poster on bus stops and the like.

There's lots more info on their site here which you should check out. I'll post about the whole campaign on Scamp when I get all the artwork by the other artists. Amazing work so far. I also supplied three characters which are currently being animated for a TV ad so I'll post them here too once they go live.

We were given a list of wishes to choose from so I chose the one that I definitely would have chosen as a kid...

I think Kubrick is very much on my mind recently. The space suit is loosely based on Dave's in 2001.

PlayTown Mats

I finally received my physical PlayTown Mats™ after their journey around the world and Ireland. I worked on these at the start of the year. It was great to see them in the flesh and they look and feel really nice. And they slot together perfectly! I tried four of them together (2 hometown & 2 worktown). I have completed DownTown and FunTown which I'll post here once they're available.

Here's Ed, Billy and Tom giving them a thorough testing.

Click here for the original post about them.