Raison d'etre

Ich mag Burgenland und Zuege

For those of you whose German is even worse than mine, that translates as "I like Burgenland and trains", which is true. Burgenland is much maligned as a destination but it's actually really beautiful. It's not as spectacular as the alps or Vienna but it's a lovely quietness with it's rolling hills and vineyards, a good place for 'gemuetlichkeit'

I also like trains (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHkKJfcBXcw)

Seex Sells

Lord Of The Flies

Ok, confession first, I've never read Lord Of The Flies. My information on the book is largely based on people saying things like 'it was like something from Lord of The Flies" etc. I know it's about some kids that get stranded and kind go all tribal (I'm pretty sure one of them gets killed in some brutal manner, no doubt to illustrate that deep down no matter how innocent set out, we're all asshole in the end [or something]) 

No tribe mask repeats it's self.

Good But Hot

Antoine de Caunes is better known as the presenter of cheeky 90's channel 4 show, Eurotrash. A surreal mix european weirdos, comedy voice overs and gratuitous nudity, Eurotrash was a guilty favourite of my mine during my teenage years (remember this is when the internet was slow and untrusted and we didn't get Channel 5 very well) and so I was interested to discover he'd written a book.

Good But Hot is actually pretty good. It's a sort of noir detective novel that follows Sam Murchison, a  morose, alcoholic PI hired to find a wealthy industrialist daughter. It's not spectacularly orignal but i love a good detective novel and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The original cover (or at least the copy i had) was rubbish (really, very awful) and didn't do the book justice at all so i've tried to capture the feel of the book a bit better myself. It's pulp, but maybe that's a good thing.

Burning Sky

Artwork for A Fight You Can't Win's new single Burning Sky

AFYCW's new single Burning Sky (out 13/05/13) is about all about doctors handing out anti-depressants like they were sweeties. I worked with some initial ideas around this sweet/drug motive but i felt like i'd seen it all before. I did a really simple, graphicy one we quite liked but the guys decided to go with this one. (There's something about hyena laughs/false laughter/anti-depressants there but truth is, i just really like drawing hyenas) 

Seex at Home

A friend asked me the stencil her blinds and I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out although it was a tricky wee job. I've never done anything on that sort of scale before and everything took longer than I'd expected. I'm used to working on a computer where if you make a mistake you just hit cmd Z and everything's ok but when you're working on someone else's blinds there's a bit more pressure and not a lot of room for error. The birds are stenciled on both sides with some of them only on one side so there's a different effect depending on whether you're inside or outside and whether the sun is shining through them and there's a red, rose and lilac bird (one on each blind) to represent Shauna's 3 girls. 

Special thanks goes to Mum for helping me and letting me make her house smell of spray paint.

Probably 'bout time you gave your hair a wash, hen.

Today's post is once again inspired by Japanese queen of sugary surrealism Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, she's an odd chick but she does inspire you to do something wacky. I've also been very much inspired by Yuko Shimizu (not the one that invented hello kitty), her mad skills and east meets west style makes her one of my favourite illustrators.

I decided to turn this picture of her with hair menagerie into some fan art for the Bronx second album, self titled. I suppose this is as good a time as any to get this off my chest but I fucking hate when bands self title albums. It just means you have to come up with some rubbish disambiguation term for it (ie "the Bronx, second album" or "Blur, the one with the yellow cover"). That said, this is an mind bendingly awesome album and they can call it what they like.

If you are unfamiliar with the Bronx, apologise to your ears right now. 

Illustrate you point

Har har, pun.

Seven Psychopaths

I watched Seven Psychopaths while I was on holiday and decided to do a wee fanboy poster. If you haven't seen it, it's a clever little film by In Bruges director Martin McDonagh. If you haven't seen In Bruges go have a word with yourself then watch In Bruges. Then watch Seven Psychopaths. Cause they're good.

Spooky Barn

In the event of a zombie apocalypse i will not be checking out what's in there, no sir.  

Sunday Drawing

So yesterday was spent doing this wee number. It's based on photo of Japanese pop idol Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, but obviously I've toned her down a bit. 

If you aren't familiar with Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, she's a sort of sugary Japanese Lady Gaga, the video for Ponponpon for example looks like a sherbet induced hallucination that's trying to give you diabetes through the screen, dangerously weird stuff...

Topsy 1903

On 4th January 190 Tomas Edison electrocuted an elephant named Topsy. Yes, really. Yes, THE Tomas Edison. I shit you not. 

Almost as surreal, is the fact you can what a video of Topsy's grizzly demise on youtube. 

Technically, Topsy was executed, having been sentenced to death for killing 3 people. They had  originally planned to hang Topsy (although, quite exactly how that would have worked I'm not sure) before Edison and his gang piped up with their snazzy new idea. 

Edison also publicly electrocuted several cats and dogs. Yes, really.  

I don't really understand how electricity works so I've just kind of plugged everything thing in to each other

Illustration Advice

I did a talk at Edinburgh's Telford College (as it used to be known!) about my first year and a bit working in industry. This is (for what it's worth) my advice

Whack!