Hello hello. I’ve long since finished my contribution to Steve Rack’s Toe Fluff project. All in all it took around a weeks worth of evenings cramming in some time here and there to get it complete.

Steve Rack has invited illustrators from all around the world to customize his Toe Fluff character as they see fit! Go and have a look at the website to see some amazing artwork from some very talented peeps. I’ve already discovered a few new favourite illustrators through browsing the gallery myself!

A select amount of the submissions will also be exhibited from late July until Early August in Swindon.

I shan’t go in to more details than that on here. If you want to find out more then you may do so by visiting the Toe Fluff website!

My toefluff has also been mentioned in this article too!

On a side-note. I do apologise for the general quietness on my blog as of recently. I don’t have much access to the interwebs outside of work at the moment so uploading new artwork to share has been a little troublesome. Internet access should be rectified soon so fear not (as I know you have been fearing lots), I shall supply the goods. Eventually.

This has to be, without a doubt the most time consuming and complex piece I’ve done so far. It’s taken just under a week to finish.

I actually made myself a little bit ill yesterday forcing myself to stay awake and work for as long as I could. It’s amazing how quick the hours go when you really get in to something.

I never did manage to finish the picture that night, but I did manage to give myself a massive head, neck and back ache that wouldn’t go thus resulting in another bad nights sleep. Thankfully, I managed to complete it today. The amount of shading and layers I had to work with made colouring the artwork very laborious.

Although I complain about how long I’ve spent on this, I really enjoyed the process of creating the picture. My biggest problem this time round was dealing with colour. The artwork looked really nice as just a 2 tone outline, and halfway through colouring, the picture started to lose what I felt was it’s impact. Maybe I’m using too much colour, or mixing too many pastel colours with strong primary colours - I don’t know. I’m still experimenting. But what I do know is my next picture won’t be as time consuming as this. Simply because this one physically exhausted me!

I think out of the 3 most recent pictures I’ve done, this one really deserves being printed up big as shrinking it down really doesn’t do it justice (hah!- get a load of my modesty!). I’m going to see if I can get this printed professionally. Maybe just a few copies at the moment around A2/A3 size to give away.

Okay, well that’s me done for tonight. I hope you’re enjoying my artwork as much as I am enjoying it.

Speak soon.

I’m happy to let you know I’ve finished my latest drawing! It’s called First Try.

I would say that this is another example of how I’m still finding my feet in terms of how I like/prefer to draw. About 5 years ago, almost all my pictures were started and completed using a computer. At no point did I ever use a real pen, pencil, paper or paint. I’m now spending a lot of time sketching on paper to the point where I would say the actual line work I’ve drawn in my notepads will be 98% what is then brought through on to the computer.

I think the transition from not depending on the computer so much has definitely improved my drawings! It’s also really nice to get away from a screen and to just relax while drawing!

I really like the busyness of the image. I do wish that I had filled the rest of the artwork area more, but this is a step in the right direction and overall I’m still happy with what I’ve produced.

I’ve already started work on my next illustration. It’s going to be a lot busier with more going on!

Right. Better get on.

Update: Comments are now enabled on the site! YIPPIE!

This is what I was working on over the latter end of last week for my girlfriend. It started out (like a lot of my recent illustrations) as a pencil sketch that I added bits to over the span of a few days.

I spent quite a while on shading this image. You won’t notice at such a small size, but I tried out a more natural, subtle shading technique for the baby’s face.

In relation to some other pictures I’ve got in the works, this image is relatively small, but was good practice for me! I’m still playing around with colour, stroke weight, and other effects to see what works and won’t doesn’t.

It feels good to have something to show everyone as I know I havn’t been updating my TOLI blog in a good long time (July to be exact).

I hope you enjoy it, and please post comments and let me know what you think if you feel you want to!

Speak soon! BYE!