Big Softees Website

Just put up a holding page for the Big Softees website in anticipation of the Crammed Organisms show in June. I'm putting together a portfolio of all the plush toys and handmade soft sculptures I've been involved with over the last two years for exhibitions and the upcoming CO show. All thanks to Ciara Brehony. Marta Bahillo and Renate Henschke.

I'll post the full site here when it goes live.

Vodabus II

Just spotted another Vodafone bus this morning on Nassau street. This one features the deckchair illustration. Again, I looked like a spanner jogging down the street after the bus taking photos of it. Maybe I should submit it to one of the many Irish Bus Spotters blogs that's out there...

Animal Parts

I met my sister Ciara in our folks' house this morning, as it's half way between us, to get the first four plush toys finished and sent to the Crammed Organisms people in Missouri. There's six altogether but if we didn't get them sent by 3.00pm we wouldn't be in the book. Ciara had done most of the work on them but luckily our Mum was there to help with some final stitching. I made it into DHL with minutes to spare. Like some very, very low key action film.

It was the first time I had seen them in the flesh anyway and they look amazing!

We took lots of proper photos of them which we'll put on the site when they're all finished. In the meantime, here's a few camera phone photos.

Big Softees

My sister Ciara is currently putting the finishing touches to the plush toys we designed for the Crammed Organisims show that I mentioned here before. I designed a couple of simple tags for the toys that we'll attach to them (see above). I'll put up some of Ciara's photos of the toys once they're finished and sent off. They have to be in the US by Friday to get into the fancy book they're producing so it's a bit of a panic.

We've registered www.bigsoftees.com. We'll be putting all of the toys we've worked on so far on the site next week.

Next Months Dystopia

Dystopia for the May issue of Totally Dublin.

New Portfolio Website

I've been working on and off on my Portfolio website chrisjudge.com over the last month or so and finally got around to finishing it off. There's probably a few bugs and spelling mistakes that I'll need to address over the next few days but if you get a chance take a look around while I'm still tweaking it . There's lots of new work on it.

None of the links to my Flickr account work yet as I'm filling it up with archived work, and it's taking ages, but I should have that up in the next few days.

MINI Low Emissions

This is the Cover Illustrations for the MINI DM that I worked on last week that deals with MINI's new low emission standards. They went out in the post this week so I'm looking forward to get a copy of it which I'll put up here.

It was the first time I use the words "Fart" and "Ass" in a formal meeting. Very liberating...

Tiny Little Horse

I was invited to join creative poster collective Tiny Little Horse which I'm really excited about. Bren and Gav just added me to the website so previous posters I've worked on will be added to their site in the next few days.

Here's a blurb from the site:
...is a Design Collective based in Dublin, Ireland. Primarily the work takes the form of gig posters both screen-printed and digital. But it has also found it's way onto tshirts, badges, gallery walls, found objects, shoes, comics and other bits and bobs.

Crammed Organisms

Myself and my sister Ciara entered on a whim to Crammed Organisms which is a huge plush toy fair in the US. I just got a mail from them today saying we had been accepted which is great! We now have to design 5-6 characters and make them from scratch in the next three weeks which is scary. Check out their site for more info, looks like it's going to be amazing.

New Exhibition

I've been working flat out on a new exhibition over the last two weeks and just finished all the work so here's a sneak preview of three of the 22 pieces.

The exhibition is in conjunction with Turtlehead who will host and promote it on their site. The whole show will be online only so we're really excited that people can see and buy from it worldwide. It will go live at the beginning of May (for one week only) and there'll be virtual wine served. I'm also working on a limited edition T-Shirt that will come free with every painting and all shipping will be free!

Mini Artwork

I've been mad busy working on a small exhibition over the last few week so I've really neglected the blog. Shame on me!

Here's a little bit of some printed artwork I've just completed for MINI for a Direct Mail campaign with McConnells. I'm really enjoying working on these as there's lots of freedom to create characters and explore ideas. I'll post all the finished artwork when I get it next week.

Studio

I mentioned it a few posts ago but photographer Aidan Kelly has been working on a project called Studio and has just uploaded a site with a few select shots from various artists studios including my darling neighbours Angry and the handsome Oliver Jeffers. The photos are a lovely glimpse into peoples secret domains which I love to see. It's an ongoing project and will be compiled into a book later in the year.

That's a photo of my award winning legs. Check out the rest of the photos here.

WEtv / Turtlehead T-Shirt

This is the design for the WEtv / Turtlehead T-Shirt that Keith asked me to do that they'll be giving away on the show on the 12th of this month. Limited to 20 shirts. I believe it will air between 11am-12pm.

WEtv

I spent the morning in RTE doing an interview for Turtlehead with Keith and Will on a show called WEtv. It was supposed to start at around 10am and finish around 11am but of course Bertie had to go and resign just when we were about to start. Jeez, Bertie. Everyone in the building were running around like monglords.

The show goes out on TV in about two weeks and should be perfectly embarassing.

Here's a pic of the presenter, Will St. Ledger and Keith from Turtlehead talking about Brian Cowan's expansive noggin.

Vodabus

I was en route to RTE on my bike this morning when I spotted this bus on Leeson Street so I gave chase. It's a wrap-around illustration that I did for Vodafone and have been keeping an eye out over the last few weeks. Anyway, everytime I caught up with the bus the damn thing kept taking off just as I got off my bike to take the camera out. I finally caught it at the lights outside RTE and got these 'wonderful' photos. Check out the dullest sky ever behind the bus.

That was my morning adventure.

T-Shirt Mania

Some photos of the three shirts I worked on at T-Squared in the Bernard Shaw on Saturday, taken by Keith from Turtlehead. There were lots of brilliant handmade shirts by various people which I'll link to when he puts them on his blog.

I had that mental block of what to draw when your put on the spot so requests from people were the way I dealt with it. This is the one John from BS asked for.



Meatloaf for Cliona...


Giraffe for Lois...