Evolution!

Sometimes I get asked about how I come up with the ideas for my drawings. I usually give the same answer, "a family history of mental health issues and the correct ratio of illegal narcotics and coca cola"which usually get me a smile from the person that asked the question and the opportunity to change the subjest. To be honest, I don't  really have a good answer. I just doodle and stuff comes together.

But, since I'm supposed to be an artist, and this is supposed to bea blog I thought I'd show you guys (at the time of writing this I have 2 people subscribed to my blog - Stephen Fry eat your heart out) how a I produce a painting.

Here's the background to the piece...

I'd been asked by FD2D magazine (http://www.fd2d.com/) to do the front cover for their next issue. This particular issue was to feature what is known as a gatefold cover. A gatefold cover, as I understand it, is a magazine cover that folds out to create a double sized page thus giving the reader a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately for me I'd spent so long on the actual main illustration that with 2 days to go I had absolutely nothing for the inside page.

I had to create a whole new painting that matched the theme and the colours of the other image and I had to get this done in about 10 hours total (I work a full time job - this art thing is a sideline). I knew that I would never have enough time to create a character from scratch so I started trawling through my old work.
After rooting through countless old sketchbooks I eventually found the following image on my facebook page (I'm on there as Uh Oh in case you're interested). I carried on looking but kept finding myself coming back to this particular painting.

I decided this would be the basis for the new piece but that it would need some serious alterations to make it work. So I grabbed my trusty sketch book and best stolen ikea pencil, made a cup of tea and started scribbling...

The next few pics are snapped off the pages of my sketchbook and hopefully show the progression of the idea...

After a promising start, I'd found myself at a standstill. I had the basic idea but I couldn't seem to get it to work,  I was stuggling with the idea, I knew it had to be a long armed robot with a brain in a jar and really flexible arms but I couldn't get it to all tie together...

I figured that the caterpillar legs weren't working and I just needed to make it simpler. I decided to stop whining about it, so I pressed on and after a couple of hours and several cups of tea, I cracked it...

Simple is beautiful! I settled on a rounded jar top and simple legs. Course, it needed some refining...

Eventually I remembered a similar picture by an INCREDIBLE artist and someone who I am constantly in awe of Jeff Soto (http://www.jeffsoto.com/). The arms in his picture sparked my brain off again and in no time at all I'd cracked the arms and legs!

Ta Daa!
This was the finished sketch. I know it doesn't look like much here, but the point is to create an image for me to use as a rough template for the painting, so it doesn't need to be perfect. To have an idea of what this would look like with the matching background from the front page I knocked up a quick mock up...

It was at this point that I realised that I'd finished. I had a creature, a pose and a background that I liked and that was ready to get painted.

The hard part was done and now all I had to do was to was to actually paint it up...

I'll show you all that in the next thrilling installment of (drumroll...) "Uh oh Artwork!"