Thursday, 27 October 2011
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Things I Love 002 - Bob Pepper
In the past few years I've really started appreciating and digging out paperback artwork from the 60's and 70's, specifically sci-fi/fantasy subject matter with psychedelic stylings of the period. Among great names such as Wilson McLean, Burt Forbes, Leo and Diane Dillon and David McCall Johnson, the artist that really stood out for me was Bob Pepper.
I absolutely love his bold, graphic outlines encasing unrestrained watercolouring effects.
In the 60's he created book covers for fantasy novels reprinted by Ballantine and a lot of album artwork (specifically for Elektra records), most famously for Love's 'Forever Changes' album.
Below is a selection of book cover designs:
In an interview found on this site dedicated to the Dark Tower/Dragonmaster board game series he created artwork for, he sheds some light on his working method:
'My technique is to cement down charcoal paper, float water into areas of the illustration, and border the area with dark gouache which spreads and settles in the warpings of the wet paper. After that dries flat, I float dyes on top to color the area. I love the whole process of illustration, but mostly the research and bringing together of many different parts to form a coherent whole design that I like. I also think that your state of mind, (what interests you) has, really, everything to do with it!'
I've never used gouache so in some ways I'm none the wiser how you'd go about recreating a bit of that Bob Pepper magic!
For me, a real high point of his output is 6 cover designs he did for Philip K Dick titles in the early 80's for DAW books.
The artwork of Bob Pepper and other commercial illustrators like him, were created for outlets such as the not highly respected, read em and chuck em paperback genre market, but the pre-digital craftmanship and singularity of the work has to be appreciated.
I'd really love to have the opportunity to pick up a collected edition of his work rather than making do with fishing out low resolution jpegs online.
I absolutely love his bold, graphic outlines encasing unrestrained watercolouring effects.
In the 60's he created book covers for fantasy novels reprinted by Ballantine and a lot of album artwork (specifically for Elektra records), most famously for Love's 'Forever Changes' album.
Below is a selection of book cover designs:
In an interview found on this site dedicated to the Dark Tower/Dragonmaster board game series he created artwork for, he sheds some light on his working method:
'My technique is to cement down charcoal paper, float water into areas of the illustration, and border the area with dark gouache which spreads and settles in the warpings of the wet paper. After that dries flat, I float dyes on top to color the area. I love the whole process of illustration, but mostly the research and bringing together of many different parts to form a coherent whole design that I like. I also think that your state of mind, (what interests you) has, really, everything to do with it!'
I've never used gouache so in some ways I'm none the wiser how you'd go about recreating a bit of that Bob Pepper magic!
For me, a real high point of his output is 6 cover designs he did for Philip K Dick titles in the early 80's for DAW books.
The artwork of Bob Pepper and other commercial illustrators like him, were created for outlets such as the not highly respected, read em and chuck em paperback genre market, but the pre-digital craftmanship and singularity of the work has to be appreciated.
I'd really love to have the opportunity to pick up a collected edition of his work rather than making do with fishing out low resolution jpegs online.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
New Empress Magazine - Maximum Overdrive
Here's a full page illustration created to accompany an article about the trashy 80's movie 'Maximum Overdrive' in the latest edition of New Empress magazine. This is, I believe, Stephen King's only stint behind the camera.
I wanted to emulate the great gore-carnage schlock of the 50's EC horror/crime comic covers, which were a defining influence on Stepehen King, right down to the main protagonists/storytellers depicted in stacked circles.
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
Stalking Elk Magazine - Riots
WARNING: Contains F-Bomb.
Below is a one-pager I created for the latest issue of humour/satire magazine 'Stalking Elk'.
It's created from a loosely scripted set up highlighting the long history of riots in England.
Hopefully, it showcases how much fun I had doing it.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Bad Luck Wind
Here's the opening page of a daft four-pager I've just finished.
I'm working on new pages for a new issue of my odds and sods comic 'Random' so I'm holding back on splurging all the pages out online.
Finally, I've got round to creating a logo for my recurring shaggy dog of a character 'Spaceman' (yes, I am a Spiritualized fan).
Below, is an early appearance of the character from waaaaaay back when with hand drawn logo. Around then I thought 'Photoshop' was like a branch of 'Snappy Snaps'. Image found on 'Irish Comics Wiki'.
Hmmmm, where did all that messy cross-hatching go to?
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