Art Test

It's not everyday you witness a ridiculous act of self harm to your country and see your freedoms and opportunities vanish and realise that you're trapped on an island full of idiots and nationalistic twits who are prepared to pay more for everything just to have a few less 'foreigners' around. 

Today is the day our stupid leaders triggered Article 50 - signalling our with drawl from the EU.

   

And there's more bad news. I also heard back from a job that I'd applied for. They said no.

I was really disappointed for a couple of reasons. Firstly this position was for an innovative company in Sweden that I really admired and would have given my eye teeth to work for and they approached me, which seemed like a positive. Secondly I'd have an out for leaving England, where I really don't want to be right now and this all seemed really encouraging.

After a half an hour chat with someone from recruitment that seemed to go really well I agreed to do an art test. Normally I roll my eyes and refuse these time consuming tests as everything on the art front with me is already on line and presumably they like my art style and my professional abilities as laid out in my CV. But, like I say - this is an amazing company that I'd love to work for.

So I spent a week working on their brief. I took time from work and gave this project everything and then submitted the PDF I'd agonised over laying out nicely... then nothing. For weeks.

Today I got a barely personalised email saying thanks but no thanks.

I understand that companies must get loads of applicants and art is perceptual but to get an email saying they've been extremely fortunate to have an overwhelming interest in the role, and have been able to select profiles with very strong visual styles that fit effortlessly into the visuals we're targeting for our future games. They tell me this after seeing my art style, approaching me and then making me spend time on an art test. 

Sorry to whinge - I just need to get this disappointment out of my system.

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.

Dungeons & Dragons shirts

Here's a few Dungeons & Dragons shirts I did featuring my favourite D&D monsters: Owlbear (or is it Bearowl?), Beholder & Gelatinous Cube. They were for Mighty Fine but never really went anywhere.

Free books

 Both my books are free this weekend as I shamelessly cash in on the Halloween market - except seeing as they're free I'm not making any cash which luckily enough is how I operate normally.

Click here for 'Squire McIntyre's Travelling Mythical Petting Zoo - The Ghosts of Clatterwick Castle'

and here for 'Kitten Parasites - A Poetical Catalogue of Feline Infestation'. Kitten Parasites only works on a colour Kindle or on the Kindle App.

Hope you like them and I'd appreciate a great review. Lie if you have to (you won't have to).

Graphic Facilitation

It turns out that graphic facilitation is just a fancy expression for sitting in on meetings and doodling away. How is this not unlike what you do in a normal meeting? Good question. Someone actually made it a job and you can get paid for doing it. Better still, it turns out this is something I can do quite well. Who wants me?

Aaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhh! My eyes!!!

Aaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhh! My eyes!!!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! I couldn't find a picture of an Easter chicken but I do have plenty of pictures of cockatrices. Which reminds me. A perfect read for long weekend would be my Squire McIntyre book - it's got a cockatrice in it. Nip over to Amazon now and download yourself a copy.

Tower defence

 Here are some designs for a tower defence game I was working on. Sadly it was aborted, which was a shame as it played pretty well.

 Here are some goblins, the typical troop character of the game. I was going for a cute but deadly vibe.

This ogre would be the more defended muscle character. I was messing around with textures but the sprites would have been minuscule in game so you'd have never seen such detail.

 I really like this mangy feline warrior. I don't think anyone else on the team did though.

The most fun was designing traps for the troops to blunder into. The garden level was a particular favourite.

Squire McIntyre's Travelling Mythical Petting Zoo

I'm so over illustrating. I've decided writing is the way forward. And to that end (I don't think you're supposed to start a sentence with 'and) I'd proudly like to present to you loyal blog readers my first book.

It's available for your E-Reader from Amazon and it only costs around £3. Don't worry there are a few pictures in it but the story should go down well with the 9-11 demographic as the all the publishers that rejected me, soullessly told me.

If you like ghosts, mythical beasts and a healthy mix of adventure and humour then this is the story for you. It's set in the merrie days of the Elizabethan era too, so give it a go if you're a fan of historical fiction too.

I am dead proud of this endeavour and I hope you'll like it too. Please download and read and let me know what you think.

Griffins I Adore

Here's some griffins. I adore them. Griffinadore...

Suit yourselves.

Aaaaarrrrrgh it's 4 monsters!

Monsters! Aaaaarrrrrgh it's 4 monsters!

Frolicking Fiends

Here's a little image I did to try and make myself more appealing to hirers of kid's illustrators in my agent's catalogue.

Meet the band

If I was in a band it would have to be full of aliens, robots, cat-suited super heroines and beehived ladies. A bit like this one. We'd just play lounge and super cool covers of cartoon theme tunes. I'd probably need to learn an instrument too.

Top secret projects

It's hard finding work to post up on here as the nature of the industry requires that I'm always signing NDAs so I can't show anything until it is either out or canned. However, I did this picture for a potentially exciting project which I can't talk about but I notice that they've put the image up on the web so as it's now in the public domain I'm putting it up too.

Ben 10 Alien Force

I'm afraid that today's post is just me touting my wares for commercial gains. If you're after zombies and kittens come back here later. Otherwise, here's a bit of corporate work I did with Waste Creative for Cartoon Network. I designed some Ben 10 style aliens for the CN site's Ben 10 Alien Maker. I've posted this so you can see that I don't just draw zombies and kittens (although I usually do) and so that any creative agencies can see what a versatile and reasonably priced artist I really am. If you are such a creative agency check out the rest of my work and get in touch. Look here: www.philcorbett.com

Day of the Triffids

I'm a big John Wyndham fan and I really enjoyed the BBC's version of 'The Day of the Triffids' that was on yesterday and the day before. But as I was watching it I was thinking that the Triffids didn't seem to be as scary as the terrifying 80s version and that it is really hard to make a plant scary anyway. The plant episode of 'Life' did it well when they were covering carnivorous plants but then you knew their insect prey was really doomed.

So I decided to design the perfect Triffid. Like the BBC, I ignored how Wyndham described them (you can see his original sketch here) and just went for pure terror. I think you'll agree that I've achieved that. So if there's anyone from the Beeb design department reading this, feel free to give me a shout for your next big show! And you lot, get down the library and read all of John Wyndham's books as they're ace.

Hallowe'en

Hallowe'en is a strange festival. I like the spookiness of it and what it stands for in the ancient ways - but somehow together it all seems wrong and really tacky.

Never mind - I drew a few monsters and that to celebrate and I'll be dressing up tomorrow to scare children.