Recent Project: Garden Heaven Magazine

A couple of recent illustrations for the John Cushnie editorial in the Irish gardening magazine, Garden Heaven.

Production-line plants

Beware prairie planting

Broc the Irish Rugby Team's Mascot

I had this on an earlier version of my portfolio website, when I re-vamped it there didn't seem to be an obvious place for projects, so one good reason for getting a blog.

'Broc' is short for 'brocaire' the Irish word for terrier.
Here are a series of images that show the development of Broc from the initial early stages right through to the final design and execution of merchandising.
Stage1. Rough colour sketches. Three options were submitted, the wild boar, the Celtic warrior and the Irish terrier.

Wild Boar. The wild boar or wild pig, was a very important animal to the Celts. They were noted for their elusiveness and the speed at which they moved.



Warrior Chief. This character is based upon Irish mythology and in particular the infamous Irish Warrior Chief.


Irish Terrier. This true-breed has been around for about 2000 years. Bushy eyebrows and a reddish-coloured coat give Irish Terriers a Celtic look.


As a fourth option and after the initial presentation I designed a Leprechaun. I'm not sure if this was ever a runner but was quickly thrown out at the next meeting. The IRFU decided to go with the Terrier. They wanted a friendlier, less aggressive look however.



The revised terrier was starting to come together nicely. He was gaining more personality each time I drew him.




The 'First Draft' of the plush toy was worked up in China from my initial sketches and sent over in two sizes, 6" and 12".



I sketched up a sheet of amends to accompany a list of changes and a 36" version was requested to be sent out the Irish team for their tour of Australia.


The Broc Keyrings were produced to coincide with Broc's first public appearance on Ireland's tour of Australia



Broc arrives back from his tour down-under.





Stage 2 prototypes, 26",10" and a 7" version with a suction pad for car windows.



This is the final Broc Illustration worked up in Photoshop.

Recent interview with Macuser Magazine

This interview was published in MacUser Magazine in the 11 November 2005 edition
Name: Steve Simpson

Short professional biography:
I trained as a technical illustrator in Portsmouth but ended up working in animation on Danger Mouse and Count Duckula in Manchester. Moved to Dublin in 1990, worked as an an art director on several animation projects and creative director for a greetings card company. Had a regular strip in the Beano and was employed by Guinness to draw punters caricatures in bars all over Ireland (nice job) . Decided to concentrate wholly on illustration about 8 years ago, concentrating in the areas of advertising, design and character design.

What was your first Mac?
The original G3 Power Mac, 1997 I think.

What equipment do you use apart from your Mac?
I use a 12" G4 PB hooked up to a 19" Formac LCD monitor. I use an Iomega HDD 250gb external HD and I have an all in one epson CX3650.

What are your tips for success?
Hard work basically. If you can set yourself a series of small hurdles on the way to a bigger goal you'll always feel you're progressing. It's easy to get disillusioned when you start off in the illustration business. Always use a contract!

Talk us through these examples.
Shomera before and after pics. Taken from an A4 6pp leaflet for Shomera, a timber framed extra room designed for your garden. The two illustrations show how, with the help of the extra space, you and work can exist in perfect harmony.

Rocker guy, A recent piece for Beamish promoting a weekend pub music festival. I enjoyed this one, Will Eisner, the great American comic artist, once said "You are what you draw!", meaning you do your best work based on what you can relate to and have experience of. I think this is a good example of that.

Junior Mentalogy Board Game. This was a great project to work on. The brief was to take the existing board game and make a junior version that was fun, colourful and lively.

Broc, He's the Irish Rugby team's Mascot. We made a full size body suit to run around before games too.

What or who are your influences?
Many and varied, currently (illustrators) Jim Flora, Tim Biskup, Dan Yaccarino and Brian Grimwood.

How did you get your big break?
When I was 16 my cartoonist uncle, who had strips in the Beano and Dandy, gave me a summer job assisting him (I was paid a fiver a day).
I got to work on Banana Man and Desperate Dan amongst others. After impressing him ( no doubt with my the way I could ink boxes with rotrings and puddle large areas of solid black) he put my name forward for an interview at the animation company Cosgrove Hall. I started working there as a special effects artist in 85.

What would you regard as your career-defining moment?
I'm still waiting on that one... will keep you posted.

What's your ideal project or commission?
I like editorial work for the freedom but not the money, and I like advertising for the money but not the restrictions and certainly not the deadlines.

Is there any kind of creative work you would refuse?
Usually if there's going to be a lot of effort for little return I'd probably say no.

What's your greatest creative inspiration?
A couple of hours strolling around Dublin's National Art Gallery.

What excites you professionally?
Being given the freedom to solve a problem creatively and then being given money for doing something I enjoyed doing. Some times it's incredible to believe that you get paid good money to just have fun.

What's wrong with design today?
Royalty free stock images.

Tell us about something good?
Working in my studio with my slippers on and never having to sit in rush hour traffic.

What frustrates you?
Traffic jams and....erm... mental blocks

Shufflesome

24 artists from 10 nations co-create Shufflesome

These are laminated stickers for the iPod shuffle. Some really excellent work here. If you have an iPod shuffle you should check it out.

This is my design, barbaloo, produced in Adobe Illustrator.

Recent Project: Caricature

Corporate leaving gift.

Scanned pencil line with high contrast, coloured up in Photoshop

Recent Project: Sport is Religion

My work comes from many varied sources, ad agencies, design studios, editorial and animation houses. Quite often I'm asked to produce something outside of my usual styles. This is one such job. Coincidently it's on a stained glass window theme.
The job came in Tuesday afternoon. A pencil rough was required that evening and finished artwork Wednesday evening. Had a couple of small changes, make logos bigger and add new scroll at the bottom but all was finished by midday, approved by client and has gone to press. It'll be on banners and sandwich boards for the 6 nations clash this weekend between Ireland and Wales.


Update 02 March 06: Client sent me this photo of the promotion crew prior to the match

Harry Clarke 1889-1931

I've just finished designing a 48c stamp for the Irish Post Office ( An Post) commemorating the 75th anniversary of the death of Harry Clarke. The stamp will be released next month.

Harry Clarke was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1889. He apprenticed to his father in stained glass at the age of 16. From 1910 to 1913 he attended the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, where he won 3 gold medals and 2 scholarships.

He was an illustrator of several books including:

• Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge, 1913.

• Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, 1916. (Colour illustrations, Black and white illustrations)

• Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Poe, 1919.

• The Years at the Spring, lettuce DOE Walters, 1920.

• Fairy Tales of parlayed, 1922.


• Faust, Goethe, 1925.


• Selected Poems, sunburns, 1928.

He also designed stained glass windows in the British Isles, Australia, and Africa.

He died of tuberculosis in Switzerland in 1931.

SteveSimpson.com

I may as well give myself a plug. I've just finished re-vamping my own site.

www.stevesimpson.com

Have a look around, there's quite a mix of stuff. Having trained as a technical illustrator I spent my first 6 years working for an animation company before getting back into illustration via greetings cards and comics. Hence the contrasting styles.

Feedback always appreciated

The Illustrators' Guild of Ireland

About 4 years ago myself and 3 other illustrators met in a pub in Dublin. At that meeting we decided to create an organization to promote Irish Illustration. Today the IGI has over 60 full and part time members.

The Illustrators' Guild of Ireland is a non-profit organization established to support the development of illustration in Ireland by showcasing illustrators' work and by fostering links with similar organizations at home and abroad. The IGI has established a community of illustrators and provides a means by which artists can at once show their work and respond collectively to changes in the marketplace and law.

For the first time in Ireland, there is now a permanent centre for the craft of illustration to which clients and illustrators and students can refer to find relevant information.

As communication between illustrators improves, standards will be set for both the work and the business practices of members. By setting these standards, clients can be assured that members can and will provide work of the highest quality in a professional way. The IGI provides the means through which the industry can develop and through which illustrators and clients can profit. As an organization, it will exist in perpetuity, educating members and non-members alike and promoting the craft for succeeding generations.

Jim Flora

The wonderful world of Jim Flora. You can't help but be inspired by this.

James (Jim) Flora concocted dozens of diabolic and hallucinatory album cover illustrations, many for Columbia and RCA Victor jazz artists, in the 1940s and ‘50s. His designs pulsed with angular hepcats bearing funnel-tapered noses and shark-fin chins, who fingered cockeyed pianos and honked lollipop-hued horns. Yet Flora's wondrous, childlike exuberance was subverted by a sinister tinge of the grotesque. He wreaked havoc with the laws of physics, conjuring up flying musicians, levitating instruments, and wobbly dimensional perspectives. He also took liberties with human anatomy, evoking bonded bodies, mutant appendages, ghoulish skin tints, and misshapen heads. He was not averse to pigmenting Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa like bedspread patterns.

John Ireland

One of my all time favorite illustrators.
John Ireland
During the 80's you couldn't walk into a pub without seeing a whole wall of sports caricatures, usually rugby or snooker players of the day by John Ireland. Expect a resurgence in ink and wash illustration. He had a huge influence on my early years as a cartoonist/illustrator. Check out his site for some of those saucy seaside postcards too!