•EASTER POSTERS These giant posters (the vertical one is 5 metres tall) will be seen in the shopping mall at Milton Keynes over the Easter break. The Mac slows down a bit when processing such large images so in order to keep working efficiently I had one job ongoing on the iMac and the other on the G5 and between them they coped admirably. I suppose there’s a good argument for working in vectors on such mammoth illustrations but over the years I’ve moved away from Illustrator and work almost exclusively in Photoshop, Painter and Form Z. I think it’s easier to ‘paint’ realistic forms rather than trying to create them mathematically with blended vectors. But then you’ve only to see some of the best vector artists’ work to realise that if you’re at the top of your profession and you know what you’re doing it is possible to achieve almost any effect.
Between commissioned work I like to find time for using my sketchbook/notebooks. I’ve always carried one of these with me ever since leaving college and it sometimes becomes my second brain.
Ideas are jotted down and developed, stored – like in Dumbledore’s pensive – and surprisingly re-discovered and used years later.
At the moment I want to draw children, and in particular one little boy. This is for a wordless Picture Book I’m working on, set in a garden.
I need to draw and draw until the shape of the limbs, the folds and bulk of the clothes and the expressions, come naturally to me.
These are some early examples from the last 2 weeks, I’ve a long way to go before becoming close to Shirley Hughes!
I’m in the process of creating a widget on this blog that will take viewers over to a sketchbook section on Flickr. Meanwhile should anyone be interested (or actually be reading this) here are some of my older sketchbooks
This fun set of magic game cards was illustrated for my favourite children’s magicians – Razamatazz Magic. Check them out at www.razamatazzmagic.com they have some fantastically wonderful games and tricks and it’s a veritable showcase for Hot Frog too.
•PUPPIES & KITTENS Here’s a novel take on the classic game Connect 4. I illustrated this just before the end of the year for Interplay in America. When I say ‘illustrated’, I expect many of you think this is just photography, but there’s a hell of a lot of retouching goes on with a job like this. Each of those individual tiles has to be drawn as paths so that their perfect plasticity can be achieved, as with most of the cut-out holes in the rack. The kittens and puppies themselves needed no retouching as the artwork for these existed already from the previous iteration of the game. The are very cute I think, I wonder who did them. I am just about to launch my portfolio on Play.com, where I should pick up more of this kind of work. Please feel free to supersize the images by double clicking and remember that they are all strictly copyrighted.
I know it’s going to seem odd posting a Santa character so far into the new year, have a Happy One, by the way! But this traditional Father Christmas for a top chocolate brand, was one of the final jobs of 2010 and I’ve just received release for him, so here he is – minus the branding! In doing this job for Futurebrand in Milan, I learnt the charming name for him in Italian – Babbo Natale.
So far this year I’ve worked on a new game for young children and been practising my magic act after a fairly successful 2nd gig on NY’s eve.
•MORE MEDS following the 50 or so pack fronts for medications at Asda I produced recently, here’s a smallish job to illustrate some (potentially) new contraceptive pills. Form Z and photoshop once again.
I can hardly believe it myself but I have now been in the business of illustration for three whole decades! To celebrate I’ve created a new online blogfolio to showcase some of my best efforts. Here’s the blurb I’ve been sending around clients etc. 2010 is the 30th anniversary of Creative Review, also of Walker Books and Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
It’s also 30 years since Paul Morton created Hot Frog Graphics.
As the world lost John Lennon, the UK lost the sixpence and the first fax machines appeared in Japan, Paul started his (non-digital) illustration and design studio in the centre of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and has never looked back.
If you’ve heard the name, but imagine that you’re not so familiar with the artwork of Hot Frog then you might be surprised to learn that some of the best known illustrations on thousands of chocolate packs originated from this busy studio, along with countless postcards, greetings cards, advertising posters, characters, children’s games and beer labels.
As a successful ‘airbrush artist’ in the 80’s with top notch clients of the day, such as Athena, Scandecor and Verkerke, Paul says …
“I’ve never given up the pencil, but making that digital switch and swapping paint for pixels was the best decision I ever made – I now move light around for a living.
These days commissions arrive from across the globe and it’s always exciting to hear from new clients in Dublin or Dubai, across Europe to the USA, Australia, Turkey, Japan, Hawaii and many still back home in Yorkshire.
What is the top most frequent thing that I’m asked to illustrate?
Easy, it has to be fruit. Every supermarket carries thousands of packs featuring fruit whether it’s cereals, yogurts, soft drinks, sweets, washing powder or medication, and you can bet there’s orange, strawberry or blackcurrant in there for sure. I thought I’d illustrated most fruits, and yet just last month I was asked to illustrate rhubarb for the very first time, featuring on a yogurt crumble.
So if you ring and find yourself speaking to my answerphone I’m either hard at work pushing those pesky pixels around; or, because I get to sample all those cakes, cereals, chocolates and sweets, plus gallons of beer and soft drinks – (and if the weather is favourable) – I’ll be out working even harder pushing mountain bike pedals, as I desperately try to burn off some of those calories!”
Paul has now showcased a broad selection of Hot Frog’s most entertaining work spanning his ongoing 30 year career, with examples ranging from posters for rock bands, campaigning fund raising postcards, mini-magnetic children’s books to board games, advertising campaigns and also featuring a peak into his personal collection of hundreds of sketchbooks.
