Stigma Standee

Back in February I won a competition to design the character 'Stigma' for the NHS Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Foundation Trust and their 'Squash Stigma in Mental Health' campaign. They later commissioned me to re-produce Stigma for a 6ft tall standee to be used for scaring small children in local schools.

Here is the standee and the fella posing next to him is Tony Scott of Victoire Press

And more on the campaign can be found here

Think that's all the loose ends from 2011 sewn up...Happy New Year!

Nativity

A few months ago I undertook a commission to create illustrations for an activity card based on the Christmas Nativity. It was a really fun project to work on, kind of like a small picture book as the card has a tri-fold design and accommodates 11 or so spreads as well as stickers. Below is the front cover and a couple of spreads from it (words not included).

The card is due to be published some time during 2012 and will hopefully be available on the high street as well as on the official 'Cardooo' site at www.cardooo.com. Cardooo can also be found on Facebook.

Thank you for visiting my blog and site over the past year.

Happy Holidays!

Pirates!

I felt my portfolio wasn't as swashbuckling as it could be so hopefully this will do the trick. Pirates and humour always seem to go well together; I remember a clip from The Simpsons where a pirate suggests to his captain that perhaps instead of burying the treasure they use it to buy 'things we like.' Naturally, the captain puts a bullet through his head. Magic.

Hello World

Something for the portfolio in the realm of languages - if you can name the nationality (or region) of every character here then you'll win a telegram from the Queen! But you'll have to wait until you're a hundred to get it :(

Happy guessing!

Cretaceous Crater

Having recently watched the superb Planet Dinosaur series on BBC, I felt compelled to draw some dinos of my own...

Ghost Stories

This is a tribute of sorts to Halloween and the power of storytelling. Ah who am I kidding - I just wanted to draw a cat in a witch's hat!

Happy Halloween!

Sketchbook Scribble

A quick development doodle for a piece I'm working on which should hopefully surface around the 31st October...

Fishing Lessons

While at the Cambridge School of Art I worked on a picturebook project called The Sea Giant and I've always had an itch to create another spread from it. Here the pelican is showing the giant that "you need a big beak and wings to catch fish!"

The Fisherman

Face-off!

Dino Development

Bunny Balloon

Guardian Books http://bit.ly/oITYPs are doing a tutorial this week on how to draw Simone Lia Bunnies...I was powerless to resist their fluffy white charms:

The real Simone Lia can be found here: http://simonelia.com/

Feeling Chirpy

I can now be found roosting on Twitter, click on the bird man below and you too can follow my bleatings ;)

"Spooked!" Week: Luna

Last but not least it's Luna - a lively and thoughtful resident of Spookton who finds an answer to the town's Spook problem - scaring them back!



Age: 6

Likes: Nature, the night sky, bug collecting, cherryade

Dislikes: Dolls, baths, Curly's yodelling recitals

Sample artwork from Spooked! can be seen here: http://mattylongillustration.blogspot.com/2011/05/sample-artwork-for-picture-book-idea.html

"Spooked!" Week: Rex

Age: 36

Likes: Wood chopping, log rolling, camping, trapping

Dislikes: Having to use real toilets, squirrels stealing his lunchbox (this happens far too often)

"Spooked!" Week: Ursula

Age: 41

Likes: Knitting, gardening, Feng shui

Dislikes: The cats of Spookton stealing her yarn balls

"Spooked!" Week: Mayor Tashwhisker

Age: 54

Likes: Model railway, over-sized trinkets, waving his arms hysterically

Dislikes: Sticky foods, elections, power cuts, odd numbers

"Spooked!" Week: Daisy

Age: 3

Likes: Old Mother Spookton's stories, tugging at the Mayor's facial hair, Raisin the stuffed rabbit

Dislikes: Bad dreams, vegetables, things that go bump in the night

"Spooked!" Week: Curly

Age: 22

Likes: Yodeling, Ursula's knitted scarves, Old Mother Spookton's home-made apple cobbler,

Dislikes: Exercise, ant farms, yellow jelly

"Spooked!" Week: Old Mother Spookton

Everyday for the next week I'll be uploading a character from Spooked!

So to start off, it's Old Mother Spookton:





Age: 83

Likes: Cats, baking, telling stories to the younger residents of Spookton.

Dislikes: Spooks stealing underwear from her washing line, mice.

Spooked!

Sample artwork for a picture-book idea I've had rattling around in my head for a long time. It's great to finally get the story and art concepts finalised and on paper!


In Spooked!, the town of Spookton is being plagued nightly by mischievous ghosts. The townspeople try different methods of repelling them - all of which fail - until one little girl has an idea that saves the day (or rather, the night).

Spooked! Characters

A few characters from the sketchbook for a new project I'm working on...

New Website

I now have a website - click the eager aliens at the side of the page to check it out!

"Stigma"

I recently won a competition run by the NHS in Cambridgeshire to design the character 'Stigma' for their upcoming 'Squash Stigma in Mental Health' campaign. The images are going to be used on posters in schools, leisure centres, libraries etc in the Cambridgeshire area.



'Stigma'





To be used with the caption 'Squash Stigma'


To be used with the phrase 'Don't let Stigma get in the way of friendship'

MA Children's Book Illustration Graduation Show

A quick shot of myself next to my work at our graduation show which runs until the 10th February. The two books I'm exhibiting are A Busy Day in Big Top Town and Darwin's Garden Dinosaur.

My catalogue entry for the show can be seen on the website http://www.cambridgemashow.com/ along with all the other graduates, whose work is well worth taking a peek at as well :)

Sea Giant Characters

A Busy Day in Big Top Town

The following are spreads from A Busy Day in Big Top Town - one of my Masters projects - and will be exhibiting in London from February 1st in the MA Children's Book Illustration Graduation Show at Foyle's Gallery. Tell all your friends :)

The book follows the hapless clown Muddles as he unicycles his way through a hap-hazard circus-themed town in an attempt to get to his performance on time.