Saturday, September 13, 2014

Stand and Deliver.

This book, ’The Accidental Highwayman’, was released in the US recently so I am able, after a long (but not untypical) wait, to write about it!

It is the first book by Ben Tripp, who previously worked for Disney and thus is a bit of a dab hand with the ink pen - no pressure there then, ahem. Some of his internal illustrations were already done by the time I started work. You can see them below - they look digital, which if they are is quite marvellous - but the art director Seth fancied a typographic approach.




I did some little thumbnails as I had so many ideas - thumbnails are unusual for me as I normally go in with something a but more resolved - and Seth picked the one he liked.


It was then sketched out in proper detail and approved with a couple of minor changes but went to press almost exactly as I’d drawn it, in one take, ink a combination of dip pens and fineliners. My own pistol, mask and horse (I’m getting good at those considering I am not a horse fan) were substituted with Ben’s, since he did want some of his own input on the cover, but the cover is essentially unaltered.
In the process of researching I of course had to Image Search for ‘hanging’ and ‘lynching’, along with ‘pistols' and 'rearing horses' - not as ‘delete-history-scary’ as some of the things I’ve had to Image Search, mind...



There were plans for two versions of this - night and day as shown here on my final artwork - but I do not know whether these will make it to the shelves!



Here’s an excerpt from the book - which was finally published in red!

Monday, September 08, 2014

The Big Issue.

I daubed the cover of this week's Big Issue, always a decent read. Black felt tips on paper, nothing clever, just lots of references. And done bloody quick too - two days' notice.

Renaissance-man Eddie Izzard is on the front, interviewed about his new role playing the inventor of radar! Spot the SS cufflinks.

http://www.bigissue.com/


Jingle Bells In August!

It was nice to be featured on this get-your-geek-on blog about print called For Print Only, run by the team at Under Consideration.
Having submitted this to the site a few months ago, the timing is odd (Christmas cards in August) but hey - and it scares me to say this - it’ll be here in no time!

It reminded me how beautiful the block was that was created for the foiling - like a giant piece of jewellery.


LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails