San Francisco Friend Artwork

Apologies it's been a long long time since I last posted/added any new artwork to my website, been quite busy over the summer so far with various things.

The following is a piece I have done for a really good friend of mine who yesterday moved to San Francisco, California, in the USA. Another one of my friends Fleur Terry whom is studying Printed Textiles and Surface Pattern Design BA at Leeds College of Art helped me make the piece, drawing the Tropicana & Alacatraz pieces whilst also helping with many decisions in the piece :)


So yeah here it is...

Robot Me.

This piece is done along with other illustrators in my class for a secret reason currently ;) Will update this post at a later date with the reasoning behind it but yeah, here is my interpretation of me as a robot...

Many influences in it from old retro toy robots, film/TV robots & various aspects of technology.

Great fun to do!

Freddie Mercury Sketch

Basically it's just what it says it is :) Fancied drawing something & the legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury was the outcome.

British Wildlife Postcards; River Birds - Kingfisher

I have decided to put upon myself a task to create a series of postcards based upon British Wildlife, be it butterflies, small mammals, amphibians/reptiles, river birds etc etc :)
Started with river birds & I aim to do five animals for each set as such, so for River Birds it shall be; Kingfisher, Swan, Mallard, Moorhen & Heron.

The following is the first of those five, the Common (Eurasian) Kingfisher with it's brightly coloured orange & blue feathers.

Gone for a nostalgic 70's feel with the colour scheme / textures / floral patterns & such like. Hope people like it! The floral pattern brushes were given to me on file by a friend & in all honesty I have no idea where they came from to give credit to the creator, apologies :S

Will most likely attempt the Heron one next over the next few days.

Mermaid

Done this piece to exhibit at my exhibition for college & possibly New Designer's in London. Very much inspired by the latest Pirates of the Caribbean; On Stranger Tides & the concept art for the mermaids. Couple of people have also said it looks like the strange creatures in the Harry Potter films in Hogwarts Lake, to which I definitely cannot disagree lol

Used a mixture of line art illustration, digital colouring & photo manipulation to create the piece.

Book Covers + Poster Finished

After a couple of months of work & a killer couple of days due to me leaving my sketchbook til last minute here is the final artwork for all the book covers & the Life of Pi poster :)

In alphabetical order...

Life of Pi - Coloured Line

Here is the line art for the Life of Pi piece, done in a more minimalistic way :)
Will upload the actual book cover shortly!

Postcards...

Here are the two designs for each side of the postcard I plan on using for New Designers in approxiametely 2 months :S

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson Line Sketch

Decided to draw something & that something ended up being Dwayne Johnson also known as The Rock (wrestler) from Fast & Furious 5 (Fast Five) the new film in the series of racing films. Dwayne plays prettttty much the most awesome Special Agent ever lol.

Anyways here is my sketch, the fingers/hands could be better but quite pleased with it :)

Titus Groan & Life of Pi Sketches/Line Art

Here are two new pieces, one being part of the line art for an upcoming FMP piece - Mervyn Peake's 'Titus Groan', featuring a rather inquisitive (and eventually) evil looking owl, and the other being my sketch or plan for Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi'. There will be rather a lot of change between the images now & the final outcome but hopefully I shall get both done by the end of tomorrow! :)
Best get on it really...

ANOTHER possible postcard design?! - Joker Line

... still undecided as to what I am going to use on just one side of my postcard for New Designers this coming summer, god knows what to put on the other side, ahh well.

But yeah features just the line art with additional red colouring, be it blood but I like to think of it as ink splats :)

The white surrounding the image (in certain areas) is the bleed.

Birdsong Book Cover (+ 3,000 Page Views :D)

Here is the 6th book cover I have done so far for my Final Major Project (FMP) at University :) This is Sebastian Faulks' - Birdsong which follows a man by the name of Stephen Wraysford before & during the first world war and it sets in both France & England.

I have gone with the idea of loss & a battlefield due to the obvious war elements, but there is also a main story of love, so added a lovebird to represent said emotion, making the lovebird quite prominent & colourful.

Also I'd just like to say thank you to all those whom have taken the time to stop by my blog, can't really believe I've somehow got 3,000 pageviews?! :D

Thanks again!

Tom

Birdy Book Cover

Here is another book cover for my FMP, being that of William Wharton's - Birdy, which is a story of a damaged soldier based in & around the second World War. Eventually leading to the main character becoming mentally ill & obsessive about birds (in a nutshell :P)

Hope people like it anyways, and there is as always room for improvement with any suggestions?!

:)

Revised 'Call of The Wild' Cover

Here is an updated version of the Call of the Wild book cover done for my FMP :)

Revised 'The Dice Man' Cover

Just as the title suggests :)...well I just cleared a few things up, moved bits about & such like. Much more pleased with this version anyways.

Self Portrait Poster

The following is a self portrait piece, featuring some of my interests, such as;
Art (colour), Travelling (globe/map), Favourite animal (rhino), Music (earphones), Favourite colour (green), Video games (controller buttons) & Favourite holiday (cross on Kenya) .... well there's no way of telling all of that from just looking at it but hey-ho, hope people like my somewhat graphical collage?! :D

Added the PNG, minus the border & info text :)

 

 

Another possible postcard Design :)

Done a new postcard design for the postcards I plan to have for my exhibitions :)

Featuring an older illustration of a lion fish, done in ink.

Call Of The Wild Cover - FMP Piece

Yet another book cover as part of my FMP, this one being Jack London's 'Call Of The Wild'. I have chosen to Illustrate the traditional idea of a wolf howling at the moon, this wolf actually being Buck the main protagonist a St. Bernard & Border Collie (I believe) crossbred.

The man in the sky/moon is one of the Alaskan hunters whom kill Buck's owner, to which then spurs Buck to go on a search to avenge his owner.

Really pleased with this piece, but always room for improvement of course :)

Giant Panda Sketches

In all honesty I have no idea why I felt like drawing giant pandas...but I did & here they are :)

Lord of The Flies Book Cover (w.i.p.)

Here is pretty much just the line art for an upcoming cover as part of my FMP.
This one being that of Lord of the Flies by William Golding :)

Played on the idea of the wild boar or monster (as the boys in the book see it) as being the King or Lord they see it to be, so the literal lord of the flies.

Quite pleased with this so far :D ... Now to colour & make it an actual book cover!

Young Creatives Feature :)

If you get a quick minute take a look at a feature upon the brilliant Young Creatives Website that they did on myself.

http://theyoungcreatives.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/tom-wright/

Thanks!

The Dice Man (w.i.p.)

Here is another one....of the ten (oh dear) book covers I have chosen to Illustrate for my final major project at college.
This one being that of The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart.

It is of course currently unfinished with alterations and stuff to be added/taken away still but yeah hopefully it gives a good idea of the outcome? :)

Have chosen to illustrate the dice obviously due to them being the vocal point of the book, with certain sides of the dice highlighting potential outcomes... wealth, murder, love/lust, danger etc

Take a look see anyways!

Possible Post/Business Card Design...

Here is a colour version design of one side of a possible post card to be created for part of the New Designer's exhibition I am taking part in later in the year.

Featuring my Joker illustration & contact details :)

The Crane & The Peacock (Tree Time Tales)

FINALLY finished my tree times tales project, which is that of creating a piece of artwork retelling an old tale or story artistically of course :)

I chose Aesop's fable the Crane & The Peacock, which has the moral of basically "Fine feathers, don't make a fine bird" which personally I feel can be brought over into humans, so not necessarily making someone with nice clothes, hair etc a nice person.

Hope people like it anyways :)

FMP: A Kestrel For A Knave Cover (Work In Progress)

So here is the first of the workings for a book cover for my final major project... this one being Barry Hines' - A Kestrel For A Knave.

As you can see it is first of all majorly unfinished & very much a work in progress with much more to do in terms of background and bringing it together as an overall piece but I'm liking the direction it's going so far so fingers crossed it goes ok anyways :)

Have taken a large amount of inspiration from Ron Guyatt's artwork, please take the time to look up his work, it's brilliant in every shape & form of art!!

Charizard :)

Ok soooo I haven't today done any work as such for current projects but I remembered a drawing I did a month or so ago of Charizard and thought I would colour it in ... so here it is, so far anyways!

Japan Tsunami Appeal: Ganbare Nippon - Big Helper

Hi everyone, in light of everything that happened to Japan in regards to the earthquake & Tsunami I felt inclined to do a little drawing as part of an appeal for Illustrators.

Here is mine, featuring a helper & his tool box, which hopefully will bring a little bit of joy & happiness to anybody seeing it. Hope people like it, it's supposed to be a symbol of anybody being able to help really, in light of anything that has happened :)

Thoughts & best wishes are with those in Japan right now.

Twining's Tea Packaging

For a one day project at college.... TEA!

With illustrations of various berries/flowers to resemble that of the ingredients.

:)

Final Project + Tree Time Tales

Been a good three weeks(ish) since my last post, so apologies to those whom do take the time to take a quick look every now & again :)

Am at the stage at college now of being given my final project, in which I am to do 10 Front Covers from particular books & an accompanying poster for one, I was given a list of choices, to then pick ten. The likes of 'Of Mice & Men', 'Perfume' and such like are present. I haven't made a start upon these as of the moment but plan to do so sometime over this week...

The other project I have been given is that of 'Tree Time Tales', a project in which I am to illustrate in any way I deem appropriate an old story/fable/tale that can be relevant in current day. I chose to do one of Aesop's being that of 'The Peacock & The Crane', with the overall moral of 'fine feathers don't make a fine bird'..... So basically a well groomed/good looking person doesn't necessarily make them a nice/kind person.

The following is the line art I have done for the piece, with obvious chinese art influences :) I aim to colour with digitally but with definite understanding and reference to traditional chinese ink artwork.
Am pleased with the line work anyways so fingers crossed it all goes well!

Personal Professional Art Statement

Sorry this is a bit of a boring post but I have finally come up with what seems to be an OK artistic statement from my point of view about myself. Anyways please take a read if you get chance and see what you think, and if it does give a good but to the point description of me as a 'professional Illustrator'.

I am a freelance Illustrator from West Sussex in the South East of the United Kingdom.

After completing my A-Levels I then took part in a two-year foundation degree course in Illustration at Northbrook College. I have now begun my professional career in becoming an Illustrator. 

I enjoy all aspects of art, especially that of commercial artwork, so that of art created for a purpose. I draw inspiration from my surroundings and interests, and work ultimately using these to better the creative outcome. I approach things with a graphic and realistic hand but ultimately I have a very loose style, which allows me to adapt to tackle various problems.
I love the idea of my work being used for a purpose as such rather than just to be hung on a wall with various aspects of the media inspiring and influencing my work. 

I draw inspiration from the likes of films, music, books/comics, nature & wildlife, fantasy and science fiction. Particular emphasis on influence of course comes by that of work from various other artists, spreading across a wide spectrum of disciplines.

My most enjoyable work comes from that of doing work including my inspirations. Work as such that is a testament to these influences, bringing my ideas and imagination to life.

James & The Giant Peach Book Cover ... Finished.

James & The Giant Peach Book Cover...

So a lot has changed really since my first initial idea of the bold black & neon green glowworm look.
Have changed it up for a cutout effect .. Decided to pinpoint drawing the scene in which James, the peach & pals land upon the Empire State Building in New York City towards the end of the book. Spent rather a long time using the lasso tool and going over selected imagery to create my own shapes (rather than just copying of course) for this look.

Really glad it's finished as it were as I kinda got fed up of it lol.

Hope people like it anyways?!?!

Poem Project; Batty, Bedtime & Polar Bears

Here are the final three pieces for the poems projects.

Batty;
That of a bat scared of light.

Bedtime;
A poem about the scary things in a children's bedroom (imagination) ... decided to draw one of the monsters and itself being scared holding it's teddy & torch ... Urmm kinda looks like a err certain Marvel character ay? Hmmm lol.

Polar Bears;
Just about Polar Bears in general sleeping in the snow :)

Am supposed to have done small Illustrations to go on the page with the poem itself but currently have no idea what to draw for any of these. Except possibly actually drawing out snowflakes for the Polar Bear one.

Any ideas would be much appreciated?... Or do people like them the way they are?

Poem Project; As

Gone for the whole theme of opposites on this piece and specifically chosen the line; As fierce as a Tiger - As mild as a dove.

Yin & Yang was the main theme behind the piece with bold black & white variation :)
Some great tattoo & chinese artwork pieces used as references to do this piece.

Poem Project; Fish

The second of the six pieces for the poem project.

This one being that of fish basically being stupid & the idea of them being 'schools' of fish is funny or rediculous. So decided to draw a shark as they're pretty damn cool and chose one of the funniest types of shark - Hammerhead and make him look kinda goofy looking :)

Background fish are done using fish sketches, just fill coloured and then blurred :) Counts as small illustrations right? :P

Poem Project; Backgrounds + Poem

Spent a good while at college today creating & editing backgrounds for the poem project. I felt the background has to somehow resemble the poem be it by it's feel, content, texture, lighting etc so tried my best to do so.

All backgrounds are done by editing the original background created for the Elephant poem :) So lots of filters, colour changes & alterations. Hope they resembled the specific poems well! My favourites are the 'Fish' & 'As' ones :)

Take a look anyways...