I wish I'd done that!

These are just a series of artists, illustrators and photographers who I admire completely. They're work is so unique and wonderful half the time I have no idea how they cook up such brilliant concepts. I'm starting with an illustrator I met in Bristol. Bristol has art trail days where you can visit the artists house have a chat look at their work etc. I was lucky enough to meet Tom Percival...

...Tom Percival: He'd recently just published a children's book called 'Tobias: and the Super Spooky Ghost Book' for children of course. The illustrations are so charming, and the use of colours and how he's created the illustrations are beyond me, but it's something I'd aspire to be like if I followed the path of a childrens book illustrator. I'm intrigued by the weird and wonderful so the fact this is a ghost story for kids fits perfectly with the various projects I've taken on including: Spiritual Chickens, Ghost Cat and my Death by Kitchen Collage. The book was published by harper collins, but all illustrations and text was done by Tom in 2010. When I bought his book from the art trail he left a lovely little illustrated message for me inside the book, it's something I'll definitely treasure! What's really lovely about the book, you can see that he's used mixed media, and also the way he plans out the pages is great. There's a really lovely combination of full bleed pages and smaller comic like pages, which represents the flow of the story well.

Victoria Frances: This has probably been one of my favourite artists of all time especially when I was growing up, although I wouldn't say my work reflects any realistic drawings/illustrations, the gothic mood and darker images are definitely what I like to look into for my work. I'd say it was my inner goth, for as a long time I was clad in black gear and loving these illustrations for the dark and moody feel they'd give off, it was quite romantic looking too in a way. Almost a modern/gothic pre-raphaelite creation. However as this artist grew with her work so did her imagination, this is when she came up with 'Misty's Circus' a beautiful victorianna/steampunk esq comic with the character named misty the characters in this book were a lot more animated, all kept the digital qualities of her realistic work but really showed testament to her imagination and versatility. It's definitely something I'd aspire to be able to do. I just need to work out how to get that quality to my digital work, I really don't know where to start with it at the moment!
Older work:

Later Work

Mr Mead: Another Bristol based illustrator, the first time I saw his work was in a family friends publication. A free magazine given out in Bristol called Crack magazine. It's an indy publication with current and local artists, supporting upcoming designers and musicians etc. This was where I first saw Mr. Meads work. Again his work can be very dark. When reading interviews he said a lot of his characters or the ideas behind them have to him from quite graphic and dark dreams. So it's amazing that something so dark can be quite beautiful and intricate. He mainly uses biros to create his artwork, I've been lucky enough to on numeroud occasions go to exhibitions of his, he uses the style of his work not just to create on of pieces of artoworks but to also apply it to more accessible forms of buying artwork like his deck of cards. All characters were different but the suits followed different animals for example hearts were all bird based creatures. When creating characters myself I think on the same wavelength as a lot of these artists in terms of eyes or the lack of them. Having a lot of space where the eyes should be is a favourite way of drawing for me, it creates an absent darker feel to the image, as eyes are the thing that everyone looks at the way which people emote, when they're gone it feel cold.

Phillip Harris: Another illustrator who I've admired for many years even prior to starting uni, again his work follows sometimes a more darker or victorian feel, I just love vintage or victorian things, so the combination of both is pretty amazing sometimes. Phil is also a really great illustrator to have spoken to as alike me he's following the path of becoming a tattoo artist. Although his illustrations are a lot more successful than mine, it just shows that having versatility and being able to do more than one thing in illustration is a good thing. You're more likely to have a regular income and job, and enjoy it at the same time too. I think his work has progressed really well and has hit a niche in the market and a brilliant target audience. At the moment vintage things and tee's and indy businesses are booming. It's really popular to get hand printed tee's and to support local artists. So the way he's managed to apply his illustrations to t-shirts, badges, comics as well as to print is a great addition to his work. It opens up a lot more doors. Networking is so important these days so being able to do more than one thing is going to give you an advantage.

It ties into some of my tattoo designs I'm currently doing, I do need to finesse how I do my illustrations so maybe looking at phillips work is a good way of progressing mine.

Ulorin Vex (aka Christiana): Ulorin is an alternative model who also does amazing illustrations. She's a successful illustrator and using the networking she's got from her modelling has vastly helped the success of people buying her artwork. Here work is so beautiful, I've noticed a theme with the artists I've chosen, I seem to be choosing people as focal point to artwork, and in general I'm not great at drawing realistic people so it's definitely something I want to improve on, or at least to find a way of stylising people, especially women as they're a lot more fun to draw! These series of original drawings/finished pieces done by her have a mixed element of tattoo design, her modelling and overall pieces that work as framed/one off outcomes/t-shirt designs. I think the way she approaches her work gives it such a beautiful finish, I think this quality is what I'd like to achieve for my tattoo designs. Again quite dark moods and themes to the images.

Alex Lee Johnson Photography: As a photographer myself I can appreciate other photographers works, I think some of the illustrations I do feed directly off the creative model photography I do. One of the photographers I'm forever in awe of is Alex, his work is moody and ethereal and that's what I strive to create when I take a photo. Here's some of his work.



I'm forever striving to improve, with my illustrations and my photography, I'd like for some future projects to really bring the both worlds together or seek more influence from some of my work such as my 'Woman of the Wild' project, it would make a great illustrated story, and I would have all the reference imagery too.

Here's one of my latest photos as a part of that project: