FROGGY FEEDING FRENZY
• FROGGY FEEDING FRENZY
Here are 3 of the 5 new games recently illustrated and artworked for Interplay. The froggy feeding frenzy game is a new take on Hungry Hippos and a sheer coincidence that they chose Hot Frog for the job, well apart from the excellent reputation for professionalism and brilliant creative skills of course, : )
The great thing is I get six brand
new copies of the games when they appear AND they pay me for doing it!
The 5th game which has not been cleared yet was a mammoth job and features more detail and characters than I’ve ever included in a game, it rivals Hotel Las Vegas (one of the very first posts on this
blog) in complexity.
Hopefully early next year I’ll be able to feature it here.
Also new for next year will be a Hot Frog children’s book blog where I’ll separate all my children’s book work from the other illustration jobs that pass through this studio.
And since Hot Frog graphics will be celebrating 30 years in business in 2010 I’m planning a special anniversary blog too.
To see an enlarged image please click on it but remember that these are all strictly copyright protected.
PANDA POPS
• PANDA POPS
Finally I can unveil the three panda characters that I worked on earlier this year. They are still not fully ‘outed’ until November – to tie in with a film release, but since they now appear on the client’s web site I’m happy to let them loose.
I thoroughly enjoyed working on these and they took quite a few iterations to get right and capture the essence of each product in it’s new market positioning. There’s Panda Pops, the youngest member. He’s lively and enrgetic and already streetwise. Panda Spring is centred and contemplative whilst Panda Still is just so cool and laid back.
I like the fact that I’ve been successful in creating these Pandas, especially since I tried for months to get card and stationery publishers interested in Bamboo, my humorous Panda way back in the eighties.
Please feel free to supersize the trio by double clicking and remember that they are strictly copyright. ©
ROCK AND ROLL PIZZAS
•ROCK AND ROLL PIZZAS
Last month I completed work on these two games for Interplay in New Jersey. Immediately I wanted to fly to New York and visit Vesuvios restaurant (from the Sopranos) to take some reference photos. Seemed a bit extravagant, so I opted for creating the ambience in Form Z. I’ve included my 3D setting as it came rendered from Form Z, before adding a little Photoshop magic. Because it featured only ever so vaguely in the background I knew I could get away with a fairly ‘wooden’ table and chairs. (pun intended)
The first visual I submitted for the Pizza Pile Up was summarily rejected on the grounds that the mushrooms were too suggestive! Hence they are all facing downwards and not as excited in this final piece.
I wonder if they do liver?
Wok and Roll was much more straightforward, though I did feel a little worried that these luscious little chunks of plastic look a just too delicious and edible for small children, though an age range restriction is evident on the final box design.
Please feel free to supersize an image by double clicking on it and remember that they are all strictly copyright. ©
HAMSTAR
•HAMSTAR
Still waiting for the Pandas to be unveiled so meanwhile here’s a chubby little character just produced for Razamatazz Magic. He’ll appear in his very own Crazy Candy trick and hopefully entertain and amuse 1000’s of children worldwide. To supersize the image double click on it but please bear in mind that all these images are strictly copyright. ©
ps. I’ve given up trying to get the text to align UNDER the images on all platforms. It seems a forlorn task so that’s why I’ve now let the text run down the right handside.
LET’S GO NATIONWIDE
• LET’S GO NATIONWIDE
Well I’m still embargoed from revealing three of the nicest panda characters you’re likely to meet on a soft drinks bottle!
So, here’s some work that is on display right now and it’s nationwide, in Nationwide!
A nice set of three posters commissioned by Sphere Design in Liverpool.
They were big, I mean really biiiiiig. At one point, mid job, and with all the layers active, the file was hogging over 3Gb of disk space. To see them at their finest then pop along to your nearest branch, otherwise you can click on the image to magnify but remember they are strictly copyright©
HONEY POTS
• HONEY POTS
It’s been quite a while since I posted any new work up here – sorry to all my 1000’s of followers for the delay.
A 2 week holiday in France and the fact that I’ve been working on a new set of characters for a soft drinks co for the last 4 weeks resulted in a paucity of available new work.
However, here’s the cover of one of two games I completed recently for Interplay in the US. I really enjoy producing these ‘facelifts’ for existing and popular games and in fact there’s another waiting to be finished this week, for the same company.
It’s been a month for bees. I watched an excellent programme about the vanishing of bees, I managed to vanish one myself as it stung my foot when I accidentally trod on it and then friends of ours have just asked us over to see their 20,000 new bees!
More reference shots!
See ya.
Remember that you can ‘supersize’ any of these images by clicking on them but bear in mind that they a`re strictly copyright. ©
PIMP MY FLOAT!
• PIMP MY FLOAT!
Whatever floats your boat! I was asked to supe up an ordinary milk float, and turn it into the kind of milk monster that every milky dreams about. Well, that’s what my milkman said, as I explained why I needed reference photographs of his vehicle.
This is another in the series that I’d previously produced the go-faster Snail and hot-rod Tortoise for.
Please double click the image to see it enlarged but remember that all these images are strictly copyright. ©
WALLY WOPPAPOTAMUS AND THE TREE OF SOUND
•WALLY WOPPAPOTAMUS AND THE TREE OF SOUND
I told you there’s be more Wally to come and here he is proudly holding a horn from the Tree of Sound.
I’m hoping to work on more Wally images for the talented Helen Bonney, so watch this space!
At the moment I’m juggling the design of a new range of bottle beers and the first illustrations in my own picture book, more of which shortly.
Please double click any image to supersize but remember all my images are strictly copyright. ©
MILK SPLASHES
• MILK SPLASHES
No ‘supermarket’ packaging work for quite a while and then three show up at once!
Following the chocolate coated fruits I received a commission for milk splashes on cereals and then this one for a new range of flavoured milk drinks. Here are 3 of 5 milk splooshes produced for FLB in Cheletenham.
Please double click and image to supersize it and remember that they are all strictly copyright. ©
CHOCOHOLIC HEAVEN
• CHOCOHOLIC HEAVEN
Imagine being briefed to illustrate rich molten chocolate dripping silkily and smoothily over luscious fresh fruit. Then, dream about having blocks of the finest pure connoisseur chocolate delivered to your door for photographic research!
Well, none of this happened to me, I merely constructed these illustrations from various chocolatey sources and illustrations of fruit, and voila! you have strawberry and orange pieces covered in chocolate.
It did make me go out and buy a big bar and wolf it down,though.
Double click the pic to supersize but please remember that these images are strictly copyright©.
WALLY WOPPAPOTAMUS
• WALLY WOPPAPOTAMUS
Wally, as many people will already know, comes from Titan, a moon of Saturn.
I met Wally for the first time here on Earth, in Winchester last year, when we were attending the SCWBI conference. He introduced me to his creator Helen Bonney and I agreed to help bring him to life so to speak.
More notes will follow, but for now, say hello to Wally yourselves and prepare for his next visit to planet Earth – it promises to be a tumultuous one!
Please double click Wally to supersize him but remember that he’s ticklish (and strictly copyright ©)
RACCOONS AND SPLODGINESS
•RACCOONS AND SPLODGINESS
I wonder just how many times this phrase has appeared on the www?
Do you ever do that? imagine the most bizarre sentence, crazy whilst still making sense, and then think that even though there are only 26 letters in the alphabet and billions of people on earth – that you are the only person to have ever come up with, say, “The most gregarious of all ginger Llamas are still quite insular by nature”???????
What? there is a web site dedicated to ginger llamas? I don’t doubt it.
Anyways, enough of this rambling.
Here’s a cute little Raccoon that will soon be helping American schoolkids with their Math. It’s not easy resisting the final ‘s’ is it?
The luscious paint and splodgy colour is for an utterly ingenious magic trick courtesy of Razamatazz.
Please double click an image to conjure up a biggie, but remember that they are ALL strictly copyright. ©.