And don't forget to floss

Seriously - don't! These rotating toothbrushes are all very well, but if you don't floss afterwards, you may as well not bother. Due to the inevitable gum-recession that comes with age, my lower set are looking like Christopher Lee's gob these days - lots of three-inch-long teeth!!!! As I've been typing this I have suddenly realised what the phrase "long in the tooth" means. How funny. God - I live in fear of dentures. My dad had all his teeth out when he was demobbed in '47 and he wasn't yet thirty. That childhood vision of the teeth in the glass on the parents' bedside table is a lasting and terrible reminder of what old age can mean if you 're not orally diligent. Vicar.

Credit Crunch

A few quickie frames on a script about a soppy tw@ who has lost his voice and wants to draw out some wonga from a bank. Cue hilarious misunderstanding and a SWAT team. My memory is hazy on this one ...

Petrolheaded buffoonery

A five-page comic strip done for the Big Book Of Top Gear 2010, featuring our hapless trio of petrolheads in yet more W.E Johns-esque shenanigans. I did few pages in 2009's book and I thought I did a bit of a weak job, but they liked the idea of the comic strips enough to offer me another bash. The bugger was that I was briefed just before Penny and I flew off to Paxos for our only week away all year, and I had to spend several afternoons of my holiday thumbnailing the damn script at the quayside whilst drinking coffee and supposedly having a relaxing break - knowing that on our return home, I would have 8 days to turn 3 pages of closely-typed script into 5 pages of loosely-inked mediocrity. I feel fairly happy with the result, and the deadline wasn't really the problem - it was having to adjust to using a nib-pen and black ink again, after so many years just using pencils and markers, doing storyboards and visuals. I really did enjoy using them, and wished I could get one of these jobs every week, as I'd become more fluid with the materials and inevitably the work would improve.

Just a coupla Tusssscan views, Brian

Just a couple of pretty marker visuals from some animatics featuring the ever-popular Tuscan countryside. They could always choose to film these ads in Hull or Romford, but art directors look for any chance of a jolly in the sun when it comes to shooting the latest 30-second blockbuster epic for bloody supermarket olive oil or somesuch! Damn their avarice!!

Aping the great Roy Wilson

Traces of some panels from an animatic done a while ago now. These were title cards in the style of Roy Wilson - one of the true giants of 20th century cartooning in this country. I knew and loved his work when I got the job, but what fun it was to ape his figurework and create a few new compositions (hopefully) in his style. The finished coloured-up versions are long-since lost as they "disappeared" (onto some art director's wall, I was told) before I was able to scan them, which was a shame as they came out rather well. But then with Wilson's art as a template, you can't really go wrong! If you don't know his stuff, check out The Comic Art Of Roy Wilson - a marvellous book by Alan Clark and David "Crown Court" Ashford, two hugely enthusiastic and knowledgable UK comic historians and collectors.

Freezation.

A dramatic little board done for an Insurance company a few years back, this one.
Cannot remember the storyline - it was basically just an opportunity to have a good time drawing moody storms and crashing waves!

Listerine Tooth Fairies.

I was fond of this campaign. It was about ten years ago now, and the Listerine boys were very keen on the idea of this bad-tempered Tooth Fairy getting frustrated at every turn by people insisting on Oral hygiene courtesy of the Green Gargle. It's hard to make a living when there are no rotten teeth to yank out, etc etc.... For the main character they were thinking of a Leonard Rossiter-as-Rigsby type, but with an even seedier edge, if you can imagine. I think they eventually cast Keith Allen.
Anyway, they went through loads of ideas and this was the most enjoyable to do. It was just a shame that the concept barely made it past a series of dull print ads, and one brief tv spot. Maybe Listerine just didn't want to be associated in the public's mind with such a scrofulous little git, but I notice that the Australians have recently revisited the theme, using a cheeky female tooth fairy doing a bit of car-jacking in the name of oral fluffiness.

Pictures of men all oiled-up. Vicar.

God, this is old- I think I did it about 15 years ago, and I only include it because I quite like the face of our hero.

Good pig

Who knew pigs loved cheese this much? I mean, who knew?? Well, someone thought it was absolutely hilarious to have a visual of a pig chasing a feller gripping a cheese-wheel. The failure of this concept meant that we never got to see the sequel, where the pig was probably sat at a table spreading runny Camembert on a Bath Oliver with a sterling silver knife held in his trotters. Pity.

A load of balls

Little storyboard for Aunt Jemima's scones ( or somebody's scones anyway...) where various enterprising chisellers gain sconage by lobbing their balls into the poor heroine's back garden and then asking for them back. Naturally, the soppy bint feels obliged to share her recent baking with all and sundry, as opposed to bursting their balls and calling the council. I think this is called cinema verite....

Wouldn't it be nice...

...if every time you bought something like a curry, you got a lovely free gift. Like a baby elephant. All courtesy of Visa. Cue the Benny Hill music.

Overpaid, over-sexed and over here...

I think this board was for the Post Office or a greetings card company - I can't remember which, and there were originally a lot more frames but they got lost. These were a pleasure to do as I was able to enjoy spending some time looking through all my WWII reference files to get the hairstyles and the uniforms right, and I was able to just pop This Happy Breed in the DVD followed by Way To The Stars and lose meself in scribbling. If only all jobs were like that.

Mwaah-Ha-Ha!

A couple of key frames from a Specsavers storyboard. NO reason at all to include these, because they're not that brilliant, but I got the chance to draw a lab based on the one created by Ken Strickfaden for Universal's Frankenstein, and that alone made me do a little bit of a sex-wee .

TimeSplitters Beware!

These were some ad concepts featuring the Sgt Cortez character from the TimeSplitters videogames. Apparently, TimeSplitters are aliens who like to create a bit of havoc with the human race by fartin around in time with big guns. Enter Sgt Cortez and others to save the day. These visuals showed just some of the hilarious and lethal ways they do it. Quite fun - but again there was NO budget, and, frustratingly, they just wanted these quickie thumbnails, so no real time to get into it. Still, at the end of the day, if you've seen Terminator, read some Judge Dredd and know how to draw a War Toy-style robot - you're pretty much sorted stylistically.

Ready Brek scribbles

At about the time of the Transformers movie being mooted, and with a hint of the then-recent Minority Report, the Ready Brek guys came up with this rather sweet idea about the all-seeing Robot Food Police, whose job it was to make sure people kept well away from unhealthy snacks in the future - even if it meant scaring the crap out of them. So, fridges are forcibly emptied of lollies, oven chips and fish fingers and the contents chucked into a "zapper" etc, but good old Ready Brek is the exception to the rule or something...

Sorry, Rene...

This was a rather nice idea for Citroen, featuring the car in a Magritte landscape - complete with scores of black cats and umbrellas in the sunshine - driven by a Belmondo-esque maniac.

More High Comedy

A large amount of frames for a BOOTS script from a few years ago -again, Moliere to the fore on this one...

Aping different styles

Copying the style of Ralph Steadman for these 3 visuals was a bit of a larf, and I think they almost come off, but are probably too neat and tidy, truth be told. At least the client was happy, and as I say, it's always nice to do something a bit different. The same thing goes for the visual done in the style of Leonardo da Vinci for VISA.

French New Wave? Bo***ocks, more like..

Just a couple of frames from a board for Renault Clio from a few years ago - where the English guy and the French girl debate which of their countries has contributed more to world culture. Of course, we all know the answer to that one, but here's a nice shot of the Jude Law-type proving it to the deluded Gallic popsie, anyway, whilst wearing what appear to be pull-on comedy hands.

Snappy, happy and seriously crappy...

A creepy little script for Citroen featuring an even-lower rent version of the Addams Family than appeared in the third movie, let alone the bargain-basement fourth one. As usual there was a ridiculous deadline and so little time to do it justice, but it's jobs like this one that make you realise how lucky you are getting paid to draw this stuff, however inconsequential it may be.

Ohh - the smell of it....

Here's a couple of b/w/ tone visuals done at A4 for Renault featuring famous drivers in heroic poses - a la any pretentious French fragrance you care to name.
I've posted them as they came out quite well, and it was a nice change from colour work!

Some lookalikes

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Lookalikes are always a bugger, but they crop up quite a lot in advertising, and to be honest I always enjoy the challenge of trying to nail the likenesses. The storyboard is for Jameson's whiskey, where drinking said product turns rivals into the best of pals, and I thought using Ron Jeremy and Hugh Hefner was inspired under-the-radar stuff. For the record, the other frames feature Castro and JFK, Scorsese and Hitchcock, some other boxer and Chrith Eubank and finally Bjorn Bjorg and John McEnroe. The rest of the people on show here are just culled from various jobs, and show Robbie, Timothy Spall, gorgeous Zoe Lucker, John Lydon and Nigella. Buffy and her mates was done for my daughter and Terry-Thomas was done for Toyota for some reason...

Pop down to Specsavers...

...and get shot or possibly bummed, by the look of it. This is a selection of frames from an animatic for Specsavers, believe it or not. The creatives were very nice people who were clearly Robert Rodriguez fans, as the brief was to give the whole thing a look of the then-current Sin City (this was late 2005) - a film I have only guarded admiration for, despite my love of comics. Naturally enough, by the time the idea hit TV, it had become so watered down that any gritty or "dangerous" references were predictably absent. Still - it was nice to do a job that at least had the potential to be really dramatic and different.

Satan, Ziggy and the Shawshank Redemption...

Three visuals that I quite like. Satan was done a couple of years ago for yet another job that I can't recall, while Ziggy was one of a number of gag visuals for HMV- all showing the company jack russell dressed as various icons from Bowie to Bogart. The Shawshank poster rip-omage was an idea for the Guinness sponsorship of Irish football, done for an Irish Agency.

Clubbing in Narnia

A selection of frames from a storyboard for a Coors commercial. The A/D on this wanted a very stark feel, and the story (as far as I can recall) was about a scary Narnia Ice Queen-type delivering beer to a shedload of winter clubbers, with a lycanthropic DJ thrown in for good measure. Look- don't ask me - I only had a day or two to draw the thing, but it was a nice change just using black and white -no greys. Plus I got to draw a fella howling at the moon. Sweet.

A fresh batch of kak...

Just a selection of odds and ends. A few moody posters for Western Union, some visuals for DHL, a batch of frames for NTL with a housewife "experiencing" the delights of cable tv ( this WAS several years ago...) and a board for Slim-Fast, where the heroine sees food everywhere she looks, and is of course as thin as a rake and most definitely not a porker. Oh yes - she REALLY needs to drink Slim-Fast.
The DHL frames were drawn at A5, and pretty much everything else on this blog was done at around A4 size, with some of the posters going up to A3, but nowt bigger, really - just in case anyone was wondering!

Edna the Inebriate Woman

A little storyboard in gaudy seasonal colour for NatWest - the tale of dear little old Edna. Poor Edna is caught out in the middle of the Christmas Eve rush, trying to locate a branch of her bank, so she can draw out her pension and buy her weekly crate of whiskey or ketamine or whatever. However, she discovers that all the branches are being sold-off by her greedy bank and getting turned into coffee shops and winebars. You see, if only she'd moved to NatWest, who never do such things , she'd have had her money and be happily muntered by Boxing Day, with a bit of cash left over to pay for a rent-boy for the New Year. Result!

ANNO 1503 or summat...

I remember I did these for a role-playing game - just as visuals, nothing more. I ended up doing quite a few of these - always featuring an all-singing, all-dancing cast of thousands like these two, and always with a short deadline. I had 3 days for this one - a day to get references and then do the traces , and a couple of days to produce the very busy finished visuals. The clients were very easy to deal with though, and I enjoyed referencing all the historical detail - ships, clothing and so on. The concept was that at this crucial period in history you can choose, as a player of ANNO 1503, to either to make war or make trade. Not being a gamer myself, I couldn't give a monkey's but like I say - they were a lot of fun to do.

On the beach

A little ad for Persil, I think, with the kids making a lovely whale piccy out of beach detritus - avoiding the used condoms and wodges of bog-roll, naturally - whilst at the same time ensuring they'll get shouted-at by their mums come tea-time cos the little swine can't resist wiping their sandy mitts all over their very expensive kit.

Timing's everything...

I just thought I'd throw this visual for McDonald's on here because it makes oi larrf...

Take my Mother-in-Law. No, really, take her...

This is a fairly self-explanatory storyboard sequence - we follow the camera down into the ocean to close-in on a Visit Malta.com sign imperceptibly photoshopped onto the bow of a sunken ship. No fabulous idea here, just a chance to draw the rotting, listing hulk of a once-mighty leviathan, now battered, scarred and pockmarked with the passage of time , grimly awaiting slow, grinding and total deterioration - alone and in silence. Something I hadn't had the chance to do since the mother-in-law asked me to do her portrait...eh? eh??

NOW what??

I cannot recall what this was for - but it made me smile doing it. Just a day's work drawing people in various "Oh-No..." situations, from dropping your biscuit in your brew to Gordon Ramsey not being able to find the right spoon or some-such. Maybe it was an ad for a Ramsey tv show? Anyway ... I just finished watching "Deep Rising" again. Great cast - Famke Janssen, Beni from "The Mummy",Hannibal Lecter's psychiatrist and Magua himself, Wes Studi. And of course, the unsung-est of unsung movie action heroes - Treat Williams as Finnegan. To quote my daughter - seriously, you have to see this film.

Recruiting Ethnic coppers.

This was a storyboard for the Police - done via the ad agency of course - in an attempt to recruit more coppers from different ethnic groups, using the idea of a multi-generational Asian family talking to camera, saying how they used to be so worried about the youngest son, how he had always been good-for-nothing, getting into trouble etc etc and then suddenly a copper comes in, and we think what we're supposed to think . Of course, it's revealed that this is in fact the son , who has "made good" by joining the force but still wants his tea. Cue are smiles all round. Looking again at the size of the gameboy the sister is holding, makes me realise this must have been done sometime in the last century.

Junkyard drumming.

This was a poster concept for Rolex, of all things. I only include it here because I like the feel of the pencils. They asked for it to look gritty and that it be sepia-toned - which I did on the mac afterwards. I think it looks OK for a day's work.

Storyboard for N-GAGE Gaming.

Quite an action-packed quickie storyboard this one. Panic on the streets of London as gamers experience what they put their poor characters through , or summat! This basic idea comes around again and again in gaming advertising in various forms, and always works.

A real quickie for Orange.

Now this was a fun one - drawing the Orange boys and George Lucas for a prospective cinema ad. (Did they ever DO this one?) It was about 5 years ago, and I was given barely any refs of the characters and I only knew Steve Furst from Lenny Beige and Little Britain, but I did the best I could in the time. That was the other thing - I think I was given an afternoon to do the lot, ( and there are only 7 frames actually) so it looks a tad slick!

Oh, the shame...

I don't remember ever seeing a tv or cinema ad for Viagra when it first came on the market, but here's the proof that they were thinking about it. I remember I had a day from brief to delivery on this job, and I was shaking my head the whole 24 hours, thinking "I can't believe I'm doing this...". OK - some of the little sequences are funny - but the whole idea of sitting in your living room, with a tv dinner in your lap,watching old people getting fruity and then some old feller giving the V for Victory sign because he managed to keep it up ..... well it was always going to be a difficult sell, wasn't it?