Pattern selection

Here's a few more patterns to soothe your mind...
Or the complete opposite.

Of course I'm still playing Pokemon Go

Imagining the legendaries as garden birds.

#JustWrite Day

 I do quite a lot of work for the Ministry of Stories which is a charity that encourages kids to write and nurtures their creativity. I often live illustrate for the Little Green Pig here in Brighton while the children yell story ideas at me to draw - it's great fun.

Recently the Ministry of Stories got together with pen makers BIC to produce the country's first hand written newspaper which was promoted as #JustWrite Day.

Look out for the paper in your local town and get writing!

Art Test

Here is some work I've done for my last ever art test.

After an interview with a company that seemed like a great match for me they asked for me to do an art test. Normally I'd say no, especially after my previous art test debacle with that company in Denmark. But they seemed nice and I loved what they were doing - still do but don't agree with the art test. This wouldn't happen in any other industry. My work is clearly on display so they are aware of what I do. A much fairer way is to pay for a week's work. Then the applicant doesn't waste their time for nothing and the employer gets to see how they applicant works and fits in with the company.

I didn't even get any feedback, reply, thanks for spending time doing this just a vague explanation from a recruitment agency that I wasn't a fit at this time.

So I urge you fellow artists - put your foot down and say NO to art tests. Together we can stop this.

That said I'm really pleased with how this My Little Pony licensing work turned out.

Spoiler cats

If cats could talk you know they would.

Hamster Cultists

I found a 10 year old comic I did back in 2006 - Here you go:

World Malaria Day

It may be wet here, but it's not hot so spare a thought for those living in the tropics

without resources to fight malaria.

Today is World Malaria Day so please help out if you can.

Schrödinger's Corbett

I'm enduring another week of Schrödinger's Corbett.

I've already beat 300 other candidates to get through to the final 8 and will find out if I make the next whittling down to get to the top 3 on Friday. 

Wish me luck!

Happy Easter

Hope you're having an EGGcellent time!

Happy National Toast Day!

It's the more mundane pancake day...

Night lights

If you are a member of the exclusive club who likes what I do you'll be pleased to see these night lights I've designed with the illumination company Locomocean.

These are the samples that were previewed for buyers at this week's Spring Fair in Birmingham.

There's something for everyone, providing they like unicorns, zombie rabbits or cup cake cats and you obviously do otherwise you wouldn't be reading this blog.

Loving how this one turned out. Ice cream meets mythical beast in the form of the Unicone.

I've been drawing the Zombunnies for ages so it's nice to see them in a physical form and these chaps are about a foot tall and the colours are amazingly vibrant.

I'll let you know when and where you can buy them when I do but in the meantime check out the Locomocean site for updates.

Tasty teaser

Exciting news on the horizon if you like cats, ice creams or ideally both.

I’ll just leave this here as a tasty little teaser....

Expecting art work for nothing

Just before Christmas I got an email from a PR agency asking if I would like to enter a promotional competition to have ago with a major UK toy company's 3D plastic 'pen'. It sounded good and the prize money was decent. So I agreed to enter, the PR company sent me the pens and I was off.

After a shaky start I managed to come up with the models below and as per instructions sent the PR agency photos and videos of my creations.

Despite being the agency's favourite I didn't win so that was that. Fair enough.

But the other week the agency got in touch asking if they could display my entries at the company's booth at the UK Toy Fair. There was no mention of payment or even paying for postage. I explained that they're welcome to them as they're just sitting in the shed but they'd have to pay for them. They graciously said I'd have my name on them but still no mention of sweet cash. After a few emails back and forth with me explaining that I spent quite a bit of time on them and this is my job and this is how much I'd like from them the communication from their end ceased.  I'm not surprised just disappointed. It's a shame that this seems to be the norm in the design world.
Here they are all heavily watermarked to hammer home my 'nothing for free' point for your viewing pleasure.

Pug Medusa

Here's my first post of 2016:

A pug medusa.

Shut up.

It's still January.