Watercolour pencils

My Nan recently paid a visit to the pencil museum in Cumbria and brought me back some watercolour pencils.

I've never really used them before but I thought i'd give them a crack and I have to say i'm really pleased with the results! I've often tried watercolours and have failed miserably but the pencils give you more control over the colour and where it's placed.

So after watching a few tutorials on YouTube on how to use them here is my first attempt at watercolour pencils...not perfect but I think I'm getting the hang of it quite quickly. It looks better in person but it makes a change from the digital colouring I'm used to and a lot easier than markers!

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Last year I did the poster for a local thatre company's Panto, Mother Goose. This year they are doing 'Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs' which has proven a bit more of a challenge.

The challenge for a MASSIVE Disney fan like myself is to do a poster which in no way resembles the grained in image of Disney's Snow White'.

After a few redraws and costume & hair changes I am pleased with the result. The Disney influence is still there, especially in the witch, but I'll never get away with 27 years of watching Disney without picking up some tips. Hardly a bad thing :-)

A Very Potter Musical

I was recently introduced to 'A Very Potter Musical' on Youtube by my friend Emily and I have to say It's brilliant. If you like musicals it's well worth a watch. Well done to the guys at 'StarKid'!!

To thank Emily for passing me the link I did her this very quick sketch of Draco Malfoy from the show.

Now I just have to wait for the sequel!!

Junior Whites website launched!

The new Junior Whites website which I did some player and mascot illustrations for a while back has been launched today.

I've had a quick look at it and I have to say the designers at BWFC have done a lovely job on the games, especially the Kevin Davies Keepy Up one, it made me giggle!

The images look great, especially my favourite Lofty pic. All in all a top job, well done wanderers!

Visit the site at http://www.juniorwhites.co.uk

The Deadwood Stage!!!!!

This is one of those times where I had no intentions of drawing anything specific, I was just doodling whilst waiting for Photoshop to open numerous large files. I just happened to have Calamity Jane, another of my favourite musicals on my ipod and ended up sketching this rather attractive version of Calamity.

There's something about sketches that I find more interesting than finished images, in sketches you can see the construction of the image and how the illustrator refined the picture.

Anyway enough rambling, back to work for me :-)

Nelson 'N' Deck Adventures

After months of secrecy and hard work behind the scenes, the new children's book I have illustrated is ready for the shelves! Nelson 'N' Deck was a real pleasure to work on, the scenes of London were particularly tricky and time consuming but as they needed to be spot on it was time I needed to spend. The author Chris Gillott sent me a lovely testimonial.

"Stacey has been an absolute dream to work with. From the very first time I explained my project and artwork concepts and requirements with her - she has delivered way above my expectations. My brief was for Stacey to deliver some stunning full colour illustrations to compliment the book I had written, "Nelson 'n' Deck and Friends: How the Adventures Began". This is the first in a series of children's books I have published with the aims of making London fun for kids, educating them about all London has to offer all year round, and to help children's charities with the profits from the book. Stacey listened to my specific ideas for the styles I wanted and came up with loads of brilliant suggestions too. As you will see from the book cover artwork she has done an amazing job on not only the cover, but on all the images within the book (over 20!) for which I am eternally grateful. I also got Stacey to design my corporate logo as well for Star789 Limited. She is a totally undiscovered talent (although she is getting a lot of exposure now!) and I really look forward to continue working with her on the follow-up books in my series. All I can say is whatever your illustration needs are, give her a call and ask her to work for you - you will be more than delighted with the results!"

Chris Gillott
Owner - Star789 Limited
Author of the - Nelson 'n' Deck and Friends -series of books
www.nelson-n-deck.co.uk

You can buy the book by visiting the web address above and following the links.

I'd Do Anything Part 2

Finally got it finished. Really pleased with it as well. I think it works because of the costumes and stuff. I might do more show pictures, next one is pirates of penzance so hopefully ther'll be some great pics!

Down the rabbit hole

I drew this picture of Alice falling down the rabbit hole One lunchtime at work. I needed to draw something cause i was having one heck of a day!

It was done straight from memory so I'm quite happy that I got the proportions right etc. I got bored when it came time to colouring the teapot and stuff, maybe I'll go back at a later date and edit it.

Also not entirely happy with Alice's face. It's nice to do a full scene, especially one from such an iconic film, and also one that I love!

Argh these stuuupid markers!

Well I've had another outing with 'the markers' and I think i'm getting the hang of them slightly, I'm happier with Tink's hair but I'm still strugling with blending the colours properly. I've seen people use coloured pencils as well as the markers to add highlights and shadow and make it pop more so I might give that a try.

I'm actually quite pleased with watercolour effect on this Tink drawing, not so much with her dress although the shadows and stuff are clearer on the original, my cruddy scanner has messed them up.

Well I suppose I can keep watching tutorials lol, hopefully I'll master them eventually!

My new markers!

I've been toying with investing in some Tria markers for a while now and since I got some money for my birthday I decided to bite the bullet and give them a whirl.

Here is the first image I've ever coloured with Tria. The jasmine was drawn from memory so she's not perfect and I still need to work on the highlights, especially in the hair, but all in all I think I did okay for a first go!

If anybody has any tips on using these kind of markers it would be great to hear them!

Feed Me!!

Feed me Seymour!! I was inspired whilst listening to the soundtrack for 'Little Shop of Horrors'. The famous scene where Seymour discovers it's blood Audrey 2 needs to grow.

One of my favourite musicals :-)

Birthday Caricature

I had no idea what to get my friend Louisa for her birthday this month so I decided to 'cartoonize' her singing Far from the home I love in Fiddler on the Roof.

I'm quite pleased with the outcome as I had a bit of trouble making it look like her, but she was really pleased with it so that's all that matters. I printed 2 copies and layered them up for a kind of 3D effect them put them in a bordered frame. It ended up looking really nice.

Another string to my illustrator bow! At least now all my friends know what they're getting for they're birthdays :-D

Oh, it's a jolly holiday with you Tom!

It's always nice when people appreciate your work, especially when it's kids. All my cartoons are so child friendly, I'm really just a big kid myself so it was especially nice when why friend told me that her 3 year old little boy had taken a shine to my illustrations.

She told me that he had seen me in the Panto I was in and was his favourite character, so she had shown him the pic I drew of myself as the fairy and now he asks every night before he goes to bed if he can look at my drawings HOW CUTE!! He rang me up the other night and I promised him I would draw him a picture, so I have lol.

I asked his mum who he liked at the minute and she said Mary Poppins, so i thought it would be cute to draw him out with Mary 'Jolly Holiday' style. The text is mirrored from the Stage Show poster. So Tom, this one's for you :-)

The Boss is on a Roll!

My favourite scene from The Little Mermaid is when Ursula sings 'Poor Unfortunate Souls'. I love her as a villain, in fact she's probably my favourite disney villain, up there with the Oogie Boogie man.

Yesterday I watched The Little Mermaid for like the 100th time and decided after Ursula's song I was going to draw her. So I got my sketchbook and that's exactly what I did.

I'm quite pleased with this pic because I had no reference other than the movie that I was watching as I sketched, and as I wanted a particular part of the song, which had already passed, all I had was my memory.

"Flotsam, Jetsam, now I've got her boys, the boss is on a roll!"

Mucha Mermaid

It's a little known fact that I went to Fine art school for two years in between college and Uni. Whilst there I discovered Alphonse Mucha and absolutely loved his work. The lines the flow everything.

Of course my fine art teacher not only hated disney *gasp* and all things cartoonified *double gasp* but the miserable bugger also hated Mucha...'not proper art and a cliche of a cliche' whatever the hell that means (I'm sure the guy was drunk most of the time'.

Anyway I was reviewing some of Mucha's work again after seeing Bri-Chan's Giselle on Deviantart when I stumbled across Mucha's Springtime. 'Wow' I thought 'That almost looks like shes floating about under the sea' (one of my many annoying character traits is that i refer everything back to Disney!)

So anyway a few hours later and here she is, my Mucha inspired Ariel. I am really pleased with how she came out, I wasn't sure how i was gonna do the background but i think it came out super :-D.

Fine art shmine art!!! Hehe!

Fairy Fortune

Last week I had the pleasure of playing the good fairy, Fairy Fortune in the pantomime Mother Goose. I had a fab week and was inspired to draw a pic of moi in my costume!

If i get the inclination I may do the whole cast. Some of the costumes were well over the top and would make fantastic images!

I'm working on convincing fairy dust so the pic isn't finished yet, but I still think she looks very pretty, even if I do say so myself!

Lofty the Lion

I got a phone call a few weeks back from the people at BWFC, they had seen my illustration of Lofty in my illustration gallery and wanted me to draw a cartoon of him and 5 of the players for a new Junior Whites micro site they were in the process of creating. A few weeks later and here he is, I updated him a bit from the original illustartion I did. I tried to make him a bit more 'mascotty' and cleaner. Obviously he had to be wearing the new kit as well. I has a lot of fun doing this project and found the people at BWFC really nice to work with.