People Archives | Freelance cartoonist and illustrator

Dennis Nedry Cartoon

Just for fun, I thought I’d create a cartoon of Dennis Nedry, one of the principal characters in the absolutely amazing Jurassic Park.

Who is Dennis Nedry?

Dennis Nedry was a computer programmer at Jurassic Park. Due to a low salary and financial issues, he accepted an offer to smuggle dinosaur embryos off the island.

He wears a rather loud Hawaiian shirt during the start of the movie, so took full advantage of Illustrators ability to create editable patterns.

I first made a series of flowers and plant leaves and then brought them together to comprise his shirt.

I also added in his can of shaving foam, which was specially adapted to house and refrigerate the stolen dinosaur embryos.

Fun fact for you too – ‘Nedry’ is an anagram of ‘Nerdy’

The Dilophosaurs

Those who have watched Jurassic Park and know of the canon will be familiar with the Dilophosaurus!

Although he is killed by only one Dilophosaur in the movie, I felt that having him with one peering menacingly over each shoulder would be much more fun!

These dudes see the to the demise of Nedry, as he attempts to escape the island and make off with the dinosaur embryos.

Some additional lettering…

Just to keep true to the movie, I thought I’d add a quote next to my cartoon. This is the classic phrase that is uttered by his computer once the Jurassic Park team discover what he’d done.

I think there isn’t a more iconic phrase uttered from Dennis Nedry than the one used when the team discover his treachery!

Get yourself some Nedry merch here

Mark Hussey classical guitar album

A very exciting commission came my way recently in the form of a classical guitar album cover with a little cartoon personality on the front.

This was a cartoon design for classical guitarist, Mark Hussey, who wanted to inject a little humour into his next classical guitar album.

The title of the album was ‘Laid Back’ and contains many classical songs played in Mark’s unique style.

So with a brief and a few quirky ideas in my head, I set about getting started.

The classical guitar album front

Having seen several of my cartoon artworks, Mark approached me to capture a version of himself, playing live on stage, in my own quirky cartoon style.

He wanted to reproduce his stage environment, with a backdrop of a red curtain and a single spotlight above him.

I created a sketch of Mark first, propped up on a stool with classical guitar in hand.

My first concept had a ‘concentrating’ face, but looked a little too serious, and given the name of the album he needed to look more ‘laid back’.

I suggested that we could also include a crowd of people watching him, but not simply the backs of their heads and there should be a range of expressions and moods.

The classical guitar album back

There was also the requirement for a back cover of the album too. This initially started out as a plain coloured background, with the list of tracks presented to the side.

I felt there was something missing, and seeing as I have a love for cartoon rats I suggested to

Mark that we include an additional cartoon on the reverse in the shape of a team of rats, scurrying off with one of his prized guitars!

Development

Mark also queries with the idea of possibly including an artwork on the disc itself, to continue the theme across the whole project.

This added another nice dimension to the project, as I was able to simply take the existing artwork of Mark and add his to the side of the disk.

Obvious themes like typefaces were carried across and also chose a nice, rich shade of blue to work alongside the red used in the curtains on the front (red, white and blue – see what I did there folks?)

There was also a small space remaining on the front of the disc, and seeing as the rats went down so well with Mark, he requested that we add another cheeky little chap in.

Outcome

In all, a very fun artwork piece to be involved in and one that I feel came out really well. The colours printed nice and strong and being that it was all produced as a vector file, the linework was very crisp and vivid.

Why not pop over to my portfolio and view the final album sleeve artwork?

Client Feedback

I recently challenged Nick to come up with a design for my recent solo classical guitar album ‘Laid Back’. Nick listened to my requirements, was thoughtful, timely and produced exactly what I had been hoping for, a great album cover. I could not recommend Nick more highly for his artwork and design skills. A very talented man indeed.

Andover Big Network 2017

Last week I was invited to be a guest demonstrator at The Big Network 2017 event in Andover, which was attended by over 180 delegates and featured over 50 organisations.

This was a first for me, not only to attend a large business event such as this, but also showcasing some of my work and doing some on the spot cartooning was also very exciting (if a little nerve wracking!)

There was also a speed networking event, a guest speaker talk and a superb buffet too – talk about being spoilt!

So I set up my little table and banner and awaited the arrival of the delegates!

Luckily for me, I was placed right in the main reception area, which was ideal as many of the attendees could see me busy cartooning as they entered the building.

I was also prepared with my super new ‘doodle pads’ (created especially for this network event) which were custom printed with my website address and the links to all my social pages too!

The best bit of course was the commissions that I was able to undertake – great challenge cartooning on the spot, as you never know what you’re going to get asked for!

A little cartoon welder…

We’ve recent acquired a new client at work and they have a requirement for a cartoon welder.

The idea being that this cartoon welder would be based on the company owner and would appear on the new website.

The welder may also be used on business cards and other materials going forward, so he needed to be bright and attractive and also work well at a small size.

Initial cartoon welder sketch

So my first sketch of the welder was a rather portly little character, with a torch in his hand and a raised mask on his head.

I chose the raised mask, as this would allow his face to be seen and give more character than a lifeless mask. The client was pleased with this, but had a few requested amendments – namely to make him a little ‘slimmer’.

They also requested that we lost the belt and the turn ups on the trousers.

Of course, working digitally the sketch was easy to change. I made the welder slimmer by moving one of the legs in and changing the whole shape of the torso.

Digital outlines…

So with a couple of spare hours this afternoon I went about adding in all of the digital outlines, along with the base colours and shading.

This was also the opportunity to try something new with my cartoon work – the creation of some custom brushes.

These were very easy to create and added a new look/feel to the standard solid lines I use in my work, so shall be using these again in future!

A splash of colour…

Next I added in some nice, bright colours for our cartoon welder. The client wears orange overalls and so complimented this by giving him heavy grey boots and gloves.

The welding mask I coloured with an olive green, again just to give some contrast and an all important third colour into the mix.

Final details…

Just to finish off our cartoon welder, I’ve put in some shades and highlights. These have been added mainly along the edges with out light source to the left and therefore the majority of the shadows are added to the right.

Hot Tub Cartoon Commission

So as cartoon commissions go, I had an interesting one this week – a request for a hot tub cartoon!

A friend of mine’s husband was turning 50 and as a special gift, his wife was buying him a hot tub (not bad if you ask me!).

So to accompany this was the requirement for a cartoon version of him to adorn a custom birthday card.

Hot tub cartoon concept

The basic idea and concept behind this being that the cartoon would contain a characature of him in his hot tub.

He is very keen on animals and his pets in particular, so these would also need to be included.

There was also the inclusion of the obligatory beer in hand too.

Cartoon characature

As a rule, I don’t usually (and have never done) characatures of people, as I’ve always been worried that I’d offend someone by drawing their nose too big or making them too fat.

So this was an interesting challenge for me and decided it was time to overcome this fear and give it a go!

Initial sketches

The first step in me creating this cartoon was the usual pencil sketch. I always work in pencils beforehand, as it allows me to try and get a good composition from the start.

I started with his head, as getting as good a likeness as possible would be key to this piece and the focal point.

The saving grace with this sketch however is because he is sat in a hot tub, he has no need for a lower body, so that would speed things up.

Some cartoon pets

This was the other fun part of this composition – two Bengal cats and the cutest little Dachshund you’ve ever seen!

Initially I had the idea of having the Dachshund in his other arm (unoccupied with beer) and then the two Bengal cats riding up on his shoulders to stay dry.

I wanted convey two completely different personalities in the cats and have them not only interacting with each other, but also the main characature.

However, upon running the rough sketches past the client, they said that the cats would be more likely to avoid the water. So to get round this, I simply re-drew them at the foot of the hot tub – one looking pretty and the other getting ready to pounce on a mouse!

A splash of colour

The colouring process was relatively quick on this one, as we only really needed skin tones for the characature and a nice pale blue for the hot tub.

I used a slight inner shadow on the ‘ribs’ of the hot tub walls too, as this added a little more of a realistic shading and also wouldn’t overpower the details in the main cartoon characters.

The Bengal cats were great fun to colour, as they have a mottled pattern all over. This was easily attained in my style however by simply finding two colours – a tan and a charcoal grey – and simply drawing straight in on top.

And just to top him off, I added in a pair of sunglasses with a slight opacity and highlight.

Finishing touches…

As this piece was to be used on a custom birthday card, it would also require some textual content – namely a great big ’50’ (might get there myself one day if I’m lucky!) and adorned the remainder of the piece with a blue backdrop and an array of balloons and other party-related confetti shapes.