Christmas!

Post-its are well behind, but I'm willing to excuse that because I've been doing masses of drawing anyway! Here's a little thing I threw together as an all-purpose gift tag/Christmas card design.

Not incredibly fancy, but it looks pretty nice all printed out. To anybody who didn't get one on a piece of card - MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hundred Days - Day 4

In a coincidental move, here's day two of a miniature Lebowksifest.

Hundred Days - Day 3

100 Days to Make Me a Better Person - Days 1 and 2

Spearheaded by the wonderful comedian Josie Long, the Hundred Days project is a splendid exercise in personal discipline and random acts of will. The idea is, you pick one task to perform once every day for a hundred days from the 1st December. I've chosen the task of drawing a birthday post-it every day for either somebody I know or some other personality (probably found via IMDB or Wikipedia). I've started a day late, but here are my first two days of cards: the 1st December for Stephen Poliakoff and Woody Allen, two of my favourite writers-of-Jewish-extraction-whose-work-has-recently-gone-off-the-boil, and the second for Heather Wilmot, a fine writer, actor, comedian and good pal o' mine.

Mostly Posters

One for a Dramasoc Open Drama night, a small, no-budget production of Doctor Horrible's Singalong Blog which went down pretty well, evilly masterminded by the marvellous Stuart Hall. Prettily-penned review here: http://www.theyorker.co.uk/news/theatre/3839

Another for a show happening tonight, a big double-header of two of Comedy Society's most popular events:

Fly Poster

Here's another simple York Uni Comedy Society poster I threw together. I'm acting in a couple of sketches for Sketch Hopper so helping promote it wasn't exactly a selfless action. Oh, it's tonight. Better run!

Campus Livin'

The University of York Fresher's fair was a couple of weeks ago and I produced promotional material for two societies - Filmmaking Society:

Pretty simple concept, pretty simple poster, but it turned out nicely. More exciting is the Comedy Society's events flyer, since the Chair knew about my fixation with The Comics, hence:

They both went down pretty well, now I gotsta do a proper poster for that Sketch Show event you can see listed up there. Have your people call my people, we'll do lunch, ciao.

Scribbly Niven

Hey, ever wonder what it looks like when I draw David Niven while I'm in a giddy state of glee having just watched A Matter of Life and Death and drunk several glasses of wine? WELL

This image was in part brought to you by Justin Richards and Chris Lean of excellent comedy group The Wogans whose film night, Liberty Street Films, is soon to take its rightful place as the swingingest celebrity hangout in the history of London town. The film even came with a free activity sheet (shown in small part above)!

Let's Rave On

I love the Raveonettes and their trip-hoppy rock-n'-rolly B-movie-y stylings. I mean, just look at this music video!

Brilliant! New album's out soon, and there's a song on it called Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed). I'm excited!

WHISKAAAAAY!

Matt Berry is the modern generation's quirky lounge Jesus. I love him in particular for the sometimes-slightly-mixed-but-mostly-just-a-barrell-of-laughs sketch show Snuff Box, but I've drawn him here in his sharp-suited role as a shadowy boardroom executive in the film Moon. It's not a big part for him, and you certainly wouldn't recognise him if it weren't for his sonorous bass vocal work, but it'll always be an important role for me. Why? Because him being in Moon is what first alerted me to its existence, all those months ago. Finding that kooky indie sci-fi Brit flick listed on IMDB was, for me, like finding King Solomon's sweaty, geeky mines.

Don't Go Breaking My Heart!

HEY! The good people at Threadless confirmed my design as Something That Is Worthy Of Consideration For Voting! As such, I now insist that every follower of this blog IMMEDIATELY goes to the button below and votes as honestly as possible, with no hint of corruption or nepotism (FIVE FIVE FIVE FIVE FIVE VOTE FIVE).

Paperclip Jones #3

You did NOT see that coming, oh no.

Junior

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted any drawings on this blog, so to make up for that I bring you what is WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT the best drawing I have ever done

of Sammy Davis Jr.

Heart Beat

In an effort to try and make money from pretty drawings, I've submitted this design to the good folks at Threadless, along with a punlicious title and description to go along with it. Find it here and leave some feedback! It's your right as a free-willed human being!

Paperclip Jones #2

I need a header. I'll get around to it.

Big Burgh Sketchorama

As in 'sketch panorama', not 'lots of sketches'. This is what happens when the hustly-bustle of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival becomes too much to bear and the warm embrace of lounging-about-in-the-flat beckons. There are a lot of happy memories hidden in these three pages! Enjoy them responsibly.

Paperclip Jones #1

Ha ha! Silly, right? Then why am I so DEATHLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS?

Bad Cover Version

Actually this is the best cover version I came up with. It's just a Pulp song. It's off We Love Life. The single was pretty big. Remember? Fine, here's the picture. Jeez.

I like how the way it's turned out it looks like I'm looking perplexedly at the weird little rant at the start of the post. I like that.

Concordant with my expectations

Just finished this this morning, as both an experiment in doing pencil line caricatures and using a number of blocky hand-drawn elements stuck together on the computer (example: the frames, initials and wallpaper were all just blocks of black on the original page). Also trying to find a more sort of 'complete' illustration style, hence the picture frame gimmick. BOOM!

Boris Karl Orff

And there it is - some of the best inking I think I've ever done. I've also been playing around a lot with style. I'm trying to cultivate something a little more personal from the ground-up, and I think I'm getting somewhere. What do YOU think?

Here's the clean inks as well, because I like 'em:

E-Din-Burr

I'm disappearing for a couple of weeks to do a show in Edinburgh. If you're reading this blog, I suppose you know already, but if not, CLICK HERE! And yep, that's my poster there. Once I'm back I'll post the artwork for it and another Edinburgh show I helped with such design stuff.

Before I go, here's the first in a series of experiments in design I'm going to do based on Another Drawing Of La Roux I did. A man wiser than myself once said that the best thing for a young artist looking for work to do is "grab an NME and get sketching". If you wish to commission the artistic services of Thomas Crowley Esq. then murble mumble crowleeey@gmail.com yeh?

Prepare to Meet your Marker

About a year ago I bought a bag of Letraset coloured markers.

Then I put them away again because I was afraid of wrecking my drawings with my inexpert colouring-in. Then recently I remembered I had them and started experimenting. Here's a page of the results.

Yeah, that's her from La Roux. She has good hair. The other guy's hair isn't as cool.

The Sketchbook of Doctor Caligari

Yup. Been studying some stills of the old shadows-painted-on-the-sets classic and drawing cartoons off the back of 'em. AS FOLLOWS:

The astute reader will notice I have favoured Werner Krauss as Caligari himself (OR IS IT???). This is because he is ace and amazing. There are a couple of abortive attempts at the soppy main character, and a little ink sketch of the lady which I quite like. Look close and there's also a drawing of a rabbit that I copied off Steve Purcell. I have no shame.

Salut Serge

Done for the excellent Jonathan Edwards' excellent Draw Serge! blog, and should be turning up on there sometime over the next few weeks - but go there NOW and look at all the lovely other tributes to the break-beatin' jazz-fusin' hip-hoppin' songster supreme.

I'm quite happy with this - I'm a fan of simplicity in colour schemes in finished artwork, but this I think falls more under 'I see what you're trying to do'. Still. Very happy with the inked source image. Someday I'll nail this whole colour malarkey.

Xavier's school for gifted Frenchmen

Okay, so there's a story behind this one. A friend of mine works in a cafe in the holidays, and there is, in this cafe, what she described as a 'grumpy French chef with the hair of a Native American squaw who turns up to work on a motorbike'. Then this happened.