Ho Ho Ho!

You've Got Mail

Illustration Friday

Mail is the word of the week

so I thought I'd use a altered version of the illustration I did for my contact page on my website

Pelicans would make good mailmen

their beaks are ideal parcel-containers

now just to train them to do my bidding

(parcel bombs would be pretty messy don't you think?)

And now for something completely different...

...my freaking website!

www.stephenpeterarthur.co.uk

here's my finished site - well for now

and check out some of my pals and their sexy pads

Gary Nicholson

Elly Carthy

Jenny Cox

Jen Bows

Claire Wood

Peace out homies

perhaps one more post before christmas?

who knows

x

And to all a good night

Crack open the sherry love...

I've had meself a corking year with plenty of hard graft and fruitful returns. It's been tough but by gosh I've loved every bloody minute (sort of)

It's been a while since I posted anything but then again you can look at the whole shebang on my brand spanking new website. I'll post that in another post (that I'll post in the post to your post)

As for now I'll show you some blog-exclusive sketchpad sexytime

Cut, Stick, Paste

...no scissors needed

Collage is ready for the digital switchover. Are you?

It's a paper caper!

...buttons to follow shortly

I decided to go a bit wild with paper and scissors and glue and that lark. Unfortunately I only have so much paper and my fingers are getting frustratingly sticky! (no rude jokes please... oh go on then)

How very dapper eh?

Little button nose

...big button face

I wonder how many button puns I'll have to come up with and how bad they'll get...

same old story - button collection, imagery, playing with photos

this is WAY too creepy for a button catalogue

I think I'll back out now before I poop my pants

Button it!

...or I'll cram a sock in it

New project begins moments after the old one ends. We just don't get a break do we!?

My my... Well I have some books from the library to wade through for imagery and intel, and in the mean time I thought I'd piddle about with some pictures and type.

Oh, and the project is to make a 'catalogue' of a collection. Jenny was kind enough to lend me her button box.

Give her a hand!

...or maybe two

Well here's the finished piece, I hope they like it (you can like it too)

I'm enjoying sexy brown newsprint for printing on. We had a lecture all about the printing process and it just opened my eyes to the joy of the 'artifact' - paper type, inks, emboss... oh how we love to touch and feel (and smell in some cases - Gary!)

Well enjoy it you aesthetaholics

Get a hair cut!

ya hippie!

It's time for the edinburgh fringe festival (apparently)

We've been told to make some pretend leaflets for long-gone events of a past edinburgh fringe festival (I can think of thousands of uses for this baby already)

Anyway these are the illustrations I've done for it (there are more but loading times suck) and I'm pretty pleased with these lovely lovers.

I like... I like DYNAMISM! (try saying that with a mouthful of doritos (or anything for that matter))

Spread eagle...

can he say that?

First project of the year and it's a good 'un (I think)

Here's a lovely spread giving an insight to the lovely work of Arthur Rackham. I will immediately apologize to a book for stealing its entire body copy on Mr. Rackham but apparently the body copy was not important as long as it was lengthy, meaty and tasted just like old bacon.

A Post of a Poster

that I posted

Inspired by my trip to the cinema to see the re-release of Metropolis, a 1930s sci-fi which has, for decades, been missing around 30 minutes of footage until last year and has now been digitally restored (woop woop!)

Anyway, this being pretty much the birth of sci-fi and my commission being a Night Of Debuts I got the idea of Frankenstein's monster nad such like and eventually moved onto this

so fazzam

kazoo

papow

fapooo!

how bout dat mate?

If God had wanted us to fly, he'd have given us wings...

...like Ostriches, yes, makes perfect sense.

I had an idea for Illustration Friday under the title "Equipment" but the process kinda got delayed. I've brainstormed for that site tons of times but never finished anything... partly because the site doesn't hold any prestige when it comes to choosing a "winner" of sorts. It's more like "let's have fun drawing friday" which I have no problem with other than the fact that that isn't what the website is called.

phew.

rant over.

Well hope you like

I really should post my origianl sketches here once in a while.

Well I will if you will.

Bloody Hell...

...you've got red on you

Well here is some experimenting with ink and brushwork. I have been toying with the idea of loosely drawn knights for some time and so I decided to give it a whizz.

Enjoy.

Are you feeling lucky punk?

...and I'm well aware that quote's not from a western

But Clint Eastwood's been more than just Dirty Harry right? Let me have that one.

Thought I'd incorporate some analogue work in this one... see that little bandit man? Nice little bit of collage there that I rather enjoyed, hope you do to.

And so we end up with a rather nice western themed Pictionary advert... pictionary being the game of "quick draw" and all. See what I did there? Yeah I'm real clever and stuff, you should probably send me a letter saying that.

ahem.

well that's all folks!

adios amigo

Working 9 til 5...

...There're worse ways to make a living

Now todays pictorial panache is inspired by, believe it or not, a facebook status update. One of those people in my facebook (I could swear they're not real people) who declare themselves as my friends made this exact quote, perhaps to demonstrate their misery of a 12 hour shift. I decided to interpret it as more of a hero-meets-villain exchange.

so here we are

I believe this is the closest to "style over substance" I've ever got, which is a dangerous route to take but I just went with it this time.

thoughts?

An old fling...

...in a galaxy far far away

Well this idea was envisaged long ago when I was still on MySpace and my voice was walking the fine line between a school choirboy's and a chronic smoker's. I made an very rudimentary attempt at photoshopping it up and then, just last year, stayed up until about 1 or 2am perfecting a more sophisticated piece of design (which you see right here!).

So this is it, the game we've all been waiting for; Harrison Ford Monopoly! Play as the Millennium Falcon, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard or that guy from 'Working Girl'. Buy up properties, make your millions but be careful not to get frozen in carbonite! Harrison Ford Monopoly is a game for the whole family (providing your family like Harrison Ford) and will have you screaming, wanting and clawing for more.

Ages 18+

Remember, you must choose wisely

Sun, sea, sand and...

...well just sand actually

Reading Frank Herbert's 'DUNE' inspired me to make my own cover for the book (my cover being from around 1978 I think). Well I'm fairly pleased with this and have done it over since the first time (this morning at 2am) so I think it's time to close the book on this one (pun pun pun!)

Ciao guys

(or girls)

Sequels are rarely as good as the originals...

...but there are some exceptions

Why? I don't know why... but why not?

Two of my greatest loves... COMBINED

luckily I don't love chainsaws and ice-cream as much as this

Give me your milk...

...your boots and your motorcycle

Well it's good for your bones and teeth and stuff... I'm pretty sure Arnie prefers it to all the Californian Orange juice he's been drinking

freakin' bits

milk don't got no freakin' bits...

Much like sonic the hedgehog...

...I seem to be on a roll

I love puns, no matter how bad they are... and that one seemed to be appropriate for the proactive, prolific and productive days I've been having of late.

This is a possible splash page for my illustration website for next year.

Lap it up boys and girls

lap

it

up.

He Who Must Not Be Named...

...laughing in the purple rain

For reasons beyond my understanding I've been a little obsessed with Prince (or the artist formerly known as such) of recent days. Not entirely sure why but it was probably a link through from Batman (figure that one out movie buffs)

anyway, just shitting about with photoshop and voila

I think I like it.... I reckon it just ain't retro enough though.

If you go down to the zoo today...

...you'll probably meet these guys

well to take a break (if not end indefinitely) this lengthy process of chronicling my work of 1st year I have actually managed to do some new work!

(queue gaps of astonishment and one swooning lady*)

I recently went to edinburgh zoo (with my lovely lady) and had a joyous time, however it is now apparent that San Diego zoo is the only zoo I could find that matched the animals in my composition (should've done my research first!)

*the lady was rescued by a dashing man with a tremendous moustache

A Year Older...

A year wiser

or so they might say.

And if I was to be particular I would say this was barely a year later, in fact it was just a semester between the two projects. But enough with this meticulous study of the lexicon! Onwards to the point my man!

I have had two Infographics projects (you know, signs and symbols and whatnot) so far and I think there is a distinct improvement in terms of the personality inherent in each.

This being "how to use an elastic band" for people of any (or no) reading capability

and this being a "scale" of "dog training"

The second being the better, nay?

Take a look at my girlfriend...

...she's the only one I got

Just decided to send you a link to my beautiful young lady-friend by way of my ridiculous ways of wasting time.

I kindly defaced her project work but feel free to check out the originals here

or here

(it's the same link but I'm just using strong suggestive power seeing as my midichlorian count is fairly weak)

ba-na-na-na, ba-na-na-na

Oh me, oh my...

...What a really swell guy

I've just made stains on my pants from my discovery of Mr. Mcbess, my new favourite illustrator of the moment and, perhaps, of all time!

Frolic among these images

you can take a peek over at his site if you can bare leaving me...

*sniff*

I'll be waiting for you

Every dog has his day....

...female dogs are burnt in a fiery abyss

A project of ridiculous magnitude followed the Christmas Holidays. (That's right, we're only up to Christmas in this insane chronicling of past events!)

There were eight dogs to portray in the wonderful format of illustration. Provided with a mere sentence or two of description we had to develop ideas for depictions of dogs with extraordinary traits - from transforming robot dogs to baby-safe playschool dogs.

A simple illustration of a dog as I learnt to draw doggies before embarking on further tasks. (don't run before you can walk right?)

I enjoyed the project thoroughly although I missed a trick when I was told my final piece should have been one of my sketchbook trials

Et voila! the finals!