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?