inkygoodness Beermat Character

Seems like this was done ages ago but what you see above is a lino print that i had made for inkygoodness' beermat character exhibition which was held in London not too long ago.

The general idea involved here was to produce the work onto a beermat which did have some challenges due to its scale.

But because of this using a more hands on approach seemed to be the best COA and so when with a combination of using paint, a lino print and some posca pens for added effect.

Great fun and its got me thinking about maybe doing some more hands on type of work to mix things up a bit.

Tee Design for Made in the Now

I've designed a Tee for the good folks at Made in the Now which pits designers/illustrators to design a T shirt based around the popular current events that happened in the news that week.

This T shirt is only available for limited time, 7 days to be exact so get in there.

http://www.madeinthenow.com/shirt/380.html

And now, its mario's turn

Just as with the zelda items piece, this is based around the items/enemies featured in the mario universe.

(update March 2017) it's been over a year since these wallpapers were removed from my website, seems like it was not that long ago when I made this piece back in 2012 which gave it a run of about 4 years of being available to adorn numerous desktop and smart phone screens as a nice background.

I'm glad that there were people who enjoyed using these wallpapers as their desktop/phone backgrounds and I appreciate that. 

Though these wallpapers are never coming back, mostly due to their age but also (and largely) due to the people who thought it was a good idea to steal my work and sell it on whatever product they thought would make a quick buck.

 All in all, it had a good run and if you are still using my wallpaper as your desktop/phone background I hope you still enjoy it.

OpEd illo for the New York Times

Any Eagle-eyed NYT reader might of spotted this illustration in the OpEd letters section of yesterday's paper.

The Brief was basically about reader's responses to medical over testing.

Roller Skates

A personal piece done in the same way as the owl.

Classical Roman Head

A personal piece of a made up sculpture of a Roman head.

iPhone/iPad wallpapers now available from poogla

When I was thinking about what work to use as iPhone or iPad wallpapers for poolga and since I always like creating new things instead of sifting through pieces which could work as an iPhone wallpaper (besides, its better that the imagery is tailor made for the different formats rather than trying to find something that fits.) So both pieces where made with the iPad in mind while also considering the crop factor for the iPhone versions.

Since poolga were asking for the illustrations to at least have some sort of theme linking both works together, I had in the back of my mind of doing a fantasy/reality themed piece which just seemed the perfect match to base these wallpapers on. 

Conceptually, I wanted the figure to inherit the same stance while things like clothing, surroundings and the overall mood of the piece changes. its kind of like looking inside the character's head in that he sees himself as this battle scared warrior clutching his prized (and unusual) instrument when in reality he is some guy standing in broad daylight clutching a tablet.

talking about the wooden instrument, the idea there was to base on some form of mythical music device in looks but its more of an homage to the ocarina and funnily enough, on the reality side, there are actually quite a few ocarina apps so the tablet seemed to be a perfect fit.

Anyway both wallpapers are available for iPhone, iphone4 and iPad and can be downloaded from the poolga website.

Cagoule Magazine

Time seems to be whizzing by so here is a bit of a belated Happy New Year Message an a long overdue post for this blog just to say that things are fine.

Anyway, the two images above were done for the first ever issue of Cagoule Magazine who are responsible for its sister publication Anorak Magazine.

Cagoule magazine is more of an Anorak magazine aimed at adults but has the same level of design flair and content but for an older audience.

What i had to illustrate here was an article on a very brief history of the bra, but what made this a great and fun piece to work on was being unleashed to have as much creative freedom (within reason of course) to produce anything i felt was a perfect fit to the article.

I always try to keep some small parts in the unknown as it adds a certain thrill working out the problem in real time. I guess i'm addicted to having to think up things in a matter of seconds.

Cagoule should be available at your friendly neighbourhood creative book store or can be bought over at PresentJoy's online shop http://shop.presentjoys.com/product/cagoule

Designer Cocktails for Computer Arts

If you have a flick through of the latest Computer Arts magazine, then you may of seen the images I had made for CA.

These were done for the manual section of CA magazine for the Drinks by Design article about if certain designers were cocktails, what would they be.

illostribute: Mary Blair

Here's my tribute illustration for latest illostribute post based on the works of Mary Blair and her fantastic conceptual work she had done for Walt Disney.

This one in particular is from Blair's concept paintings of Peter Pan with Hook and Smee Lurking around in the dark.

As usual, there are some amazing tribute illustrations to behold from other contributors to illostribute.

Check it out:

illostribute.com/2011/09/mary-blair/

Privacy

just felt like creating a personal illustration based on a more editorial-esque manner.

this is loosely based around the notion of internet privacy, with more and more people sharing things on social networks private or otherwise. This image depicts a tablet as a window with the viewer pinching open the blinds in an anonymous fashion kind of like a nosey neighbour watching whats going on.

Its a bit cheeky but also a lot of fun, i think i might venture with some more experimentation with photos within my work.

Brand Spanking New Website

This has been something which was long overdue, but now i present to you the new and improved website full of new work and a slimmer design.

Plus it should be easy as pie to update :)

http://scottbalmer.co.uk

And not only has the website been updated, i have also added an new online store to buy prints and other things of my work. Right now there are only a few things available but this will grow over time.

go here if you want to go directly to the store:

http://scottbalmer.bigcartel.com

illostribute - a tribute to Ernesto Garcia Cabral

here's my contribution to the latest illostribute tribute post. Based on the illustrative works of Ernesto Garcia Cabral.

Personally, all the tribute illustrations are fantastic and i would urge folk to go and see for themselves.

here's my contribution to the latest illostribute tribute post. Based on the illustrative works of Ernesto Garcia Cabral.

Personally, all the tribute illustrations are fantastic and i would urge folk to go and see for themselves.

illostribute.com/2011/08/ernesto-garcia-cabral/

illostribute: a tribute to David Klein

Here's my contribute to the latest illostribute tribute.

This time its the fantastic works of David Klein.

I was really drawn in to the wealth of expressive and varied travel posters that Klein had produced in his lifetime. I was debating on whether to recreate the rome one which focused more on buildings or the greece one which all the mythos captured so colourfully.

well i ended up doing the image above. had a really good time trying to capture the essence of Klein's piece.

illostribute.com/2011/04/david-klein/

intergalactic protect-zoids

This was done for society6's SuperHeroes San Fran exhibition and is available to buy not only as a print but also as a laptop/iphone/ipad skin for here:

http://www.society6.com/studio/scottbalmer/Superheroes_SF

illostribute: a tribute to Al Hirschfeld

illotribute has now put up the 5th tribute post, this time based around the masterful pens strokes of Al Hirschfeld.

I have to admit this one was a bit awkward in the sense of working out how to combine the simplicity of the shapes with confident strokes. Should i go like Hirschfeld and do this completely in line form? Maybe a mixture of strokes and shapes? what about some colour or adding some texture? in the end it was mostly all of the above to create my tribute illustration way up there. Based on Hirschfeld's drawing of Clark Gable, i had so fun with this one since its been a while since i've done any form of caricature based drawing, though i think my version i need to make the head a bit fatter in places.

As always, there are some fantastic illustrations done by Steffi Schuetze, Sol Linero, Freddy Boo and also some new contributors have entered the fray including Jon Boam and Jonathan Edwards.

http://illostribute.com/

uneasy rider

what s it about this time of year that i draw severed things.

owl laser cut for NB studio

This laser-cut was done for NB studio's This Year 2011 promo.

A set of limited edition laser-cuts, based loosely around what will happen this year, in this case, the cuts in 2011 will us sharper.

these limited edition cuts were laser-cut on 10" x 8" 350gsm Colorplan.

i initially came up with the concept while playing around with a pair of fold up scissors, after i started doing roughs of birds with the scissors acting as their facial features, even experimented with different types of scissors and how they could relate to a species of bird.

In the end, the fold away scissors offered the most flexibility in how they could be manipulated into various different forms which lead me to create the owl after working around the scissors.

here's the original vector of this owl before being burnt onto paper