Aces Wild- CD cover

Aces Wild- CD single cover

This is an old post from CreativeIreland.com that I'd forgotten about

This design was used on a limited edition CD by my band Aces Wild.

I reused some of these elements in the final album artwork as well


I notice a couple of these images are getting cropped here- don't know why

Right click and select view image to see the complete picture


Original post below- - -





Here is one i did recently for my own band Aces Wild

Here is the prelim sketch for this cover




Then I worked it up a bit




I had the idea of making a card featuring each member of the band- heres me

Its a bit like that bit in Reservoir Dogs, in this case instead of everyone wanting to be Mr Black i had to decide who was going to be the Ace of Spades( the coolest card!)

In the end the singer got that! I took Hearts simply cos no-one else would want it




Heres the final( i think) cover


and here is the whole thing-itll wrap around the cd




some details lost in optimising..but you get the idea

The Fastlane Roogalators

A gig poster I did for the Fastlane Roogalators a while ago

Like a scarecrow...

...I'm outstanding in my field

well, the Digitalart.org guys thought my pic of Roger Whittaker was worthy of their "standout" award anyway

Thanks!

Misty-The Cult of The Cats

I'm currently working on a couple of comic strips. This one is past due and still not finished!(Sorry Chris...soon, soon)
It's a sequel to a story that appeared in the original Misty comic. The original pages can be seen on this fan site. This story is written by Charles Ellis. I've updated the look slightly to make it a bit more appealing to today's reader ( i hope)


Drawn in photoshop, here are a few unfinished pages to preview

Promotional Postcard-2

Just received my cards from Moo-and they look great

Not expensive and a fast service too, check them out.

Promotional postcard

I'm awaiting delivery of my first ever batch of promotional postcards. I used Moo, for a small run after a look through the comments on the AOI forums.

I couldn't think what to show on it so after a few aborted ideas I just drew a nice piggy.

Flower Girl

Another girl on a beach

Pinnochio

Another one from the archives. I've just realised my photobucket account is full of sketches and finished work.

I'll stick some of them up here.

This was done for a mate from a message board in the UK who was producing a brochure for a panto.

Professor

A confused professor- for an article on education in the Examiner newspaper a while back

Nana Mouskouri joke

If theres a bad |Nana joke I haven't heard it

Mike Nesmith

Mike Nesmith, the coolest Monkee, pioneer of country rock and music television. He is also responsible for producing cult movie- Repo Man. I currently have his greatest hits "Listen to the Band" on continuous roatation. Check it out, well worth picking up.

BBC Radio 2 are currently playing a short programme about Mike- listen here

Cat Laughs - Comedy Festival brochure cover

I got a call out of the blue asking if I'd be interested in this job after the client had searched a few sites and were impressed with what they saw on mine-- a picture of a hammer...

After meeting with the client all became clear. Their concept was all worked out- a wooden crate almost bursting as the contents tried to get out. For this they decided they needed;

a) someone who could draw wood and
b) someone who could draw shiny metal

The original idea was to have the crate suspended on a chain, with additional chains wrapped around it.

I did a quick rough




The idea was that the festival itself is escaping from the crate. So I had to think what can I show to represent stand-up comics? What indeed? It's a profession that uses few props- clown shoes etc were a no-no ( "too evil" said the client, revealing perhaps a little insight into his psyche). I settled on microphones and...other microphones. The pages of script were abandoned. We quickly decided that suspending the cage this way would get in the way of the logo so I decided to place the crate on the stage. I was also concerned that the whole thing had a bit of a 'Deerhunter' soldiers in a cage vibe. The beer bottle also had to go.

So with the crate now on the stage I reworked the crate to look less frightening and added a few more limbs.

This approach got the go-ahead


I tidied it up a bit and added cool medieval metal hinges...



Which I immediately had to remove(too medieval). The cat seemed a bit too distracted from the proceedings so we tried getting him involved..


There he is, slashing at the microphone lead. As it turns out this was deemed a bit too vicious looking. I also added the chains idea- and promptly deleted them again (hooray for photoshop layers). My stroke of genius here is the addtion of that universal symbol for "funny"- the rubber chicken.

Alas, this too got removed..strict guidelines regarding...



cruelty to animals..

So there you have it. A little bit of resizing and it was done.

I really enjoyed this job and working with the guys.

The festival is happening in Kilkenny in June

Details here

This was painted in Photoshop CS3 using a Wacom intuos III

Ms Devil

Another old one. Inspired by Coops devil girls and classic pin up art

Charidee

I did this for Threshold, the housing charity. I was more than happy to do a freebee for them as they've helped me and lots of people I know in the past. It took a surprising amount of changes and updates to finish this as the person who initiated it left midway through. in the end they used a hybrid of my original sketch and the finished artwork (!) I wasn't very pleased with the final result but i hope it helped them raise some cash anyway.

My initial rough version


A second version showing some changes the client wanted


I don't have the finished one to hand..but you get this gist

I'm glad to have helped..even a little

karma people

it's all about the karma

What's happening

Looking through my hard drive I notice I have dozens of half finished paintings. Over the next while I'm getting my arse in gear and finishing them off. The WW2 pinup below is one of these. She's been languishing naked, with no legs since sometime last year.
Poor thing.

Hooray for war

Here's one in the style( well trying to be..) of classic pin up artists like Gil Elvgren and Baron Von Lind

Life's a beach

just a cute girl who ain't gonna let a bit of rain get her down

Harley Quinn

DC comics Harley Quinn

Roger Whittaker

Everyones favourite Kenyan whistling folk/cabaret singer who, lives in Laois will be 72 on Saturday 22nd March

Happy Birthday Roger




Mexican Whistler

Oh great-another illustration blog

Ive decided to start a blog to showcase current work and any other sketches and doodles.

Why oh why did I have to do my website in Flash, with a ridiculously ambiguous file-naming system that makes it an almighty pain in the arse to update!?

At the moment I'm doing a cover for a comedy festival- will post a few process pics when I finally finish it.

I'm also working on a few comic strips so I should have something to show...in a few months ..

maybe