We were recently contacted by Fly Communications in New York. They needed an illustrator to work on a popular ‘tween’ book series. They had an existing style which they needed to follow but the original illustrator, for reasons unknown, was unavailable. Could we help? No problem. Omar Aranda’s talented team at Pulsar Studios in Buenos Aires love a chance to show us what they can do.

Within 24 hours, here’s what they came up with……..

Presentation sketch

The agency loved it and asked if they could show their client a colour version. So, 24 hours later……..

A happy client and a full series of illustrations on its way. Now that’s what being a professional illustrator is all about.

We’ve been lucky enough to acquire the services of Sydney based illustrator Marc Lynch. Marc brings with him a wealth of experience, having freelanced for the last 10 years under the guise of Digart Graphics.

Marc creates illustrations for editorials, advertising and digital media with contemporary character design being a strong component in his work. Working in both 2-d & 3-d, he has collaborated with many designers around the world and his illustrations have featured in various international illustration & design books, such as Pictoplasma and Semi-Permanent.

Marc lives on Sydney’s Northern Beaches with his wife & their 3 little budding creatives!

Here’s just a small selection of what you can expect from this creative genius….

Brisbane based illustrator Ron Monnier, was commissioned by the Sydney Morning Herald to produce a full page and two spot illustrations for their 25th Anniversary issue. Quite an honour!

The story was about bestselling author David Sedaris and his adventures in Australia. He always spoke fondly of his love for the Kookaburra’s, so Ron chose this as a metaphor to demonstrate certain impact moments in his story. As you can see, Ron loves to juxtapose hand-drawn and mixed media elements to create intrigue for the reader.

Shirley Chiang has certainly been in demand! Real Reads commissioned her to produce illustrations for ‘Journey to the West’ and ‘Dream of the Red Chamber, two of the four Chinese ‘classics’ and scheduled for release in June 2010.

She also illustrated the other two classics, ‘The Three Kingdoms’ and ‘The Water Margin’………

a book cover for ‘Terrible Tales’ by Jennifer Gordon……..

and the cover of a children’s picture booked called ‘Apples’ by leading Taiwan publisher, Linking Books.

And as if that wasn’t enough, she also found some time to put some new samples together. Come on Shirley, give the rest of us a chance!

Jerry Hoare! – This wonderful piece entitled ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ has been selected by the Association of Illustrators to appear in the non-published section of their upcoming annual, Images 34.

Created on scraperboard and using mixed media, it is just part of a series of illustrations Jerry has been working on for a book he’s producing on proverbs and idioms. Watch this space!

Never ones to miss an opportunity to promote a good cause, this month saw UK based illustrator Anna Godwin foster a greyhound from Greyhound Rescue West of England. The poor little chap, (now called ‘Malcolm’!) was in a right old state having lost his tail and most of his fur, but Anna’s heart went out to him and the rest, as they say, is history.

Unfortunately, not all the dogs at GRWE will be quite so lucky so please, click on the above link and see if there’s anything you can do to help. A small donation is all it needs to save a dogs life.

Daniel Morgenstern recently participated in a group show in Dalston, East London called ‘What Matters?’, with a selection of his unique paper portraits. Entitled ‘Friends from along the way’, each artwork was paper on paper at 46.5cms x 59.5cms.

Daniel was also commissioned again by Yediot Achronot to produce this piece for the papers Financial Section. The article was all about financial optimism in the region, the Dove representing peace.

Well known British illustrator and character designer Nick Diggory, has just been commissioned by Pearson Australia to illustrate seven book covers in their upcoming series of handwriting activity books for Queensland schools called ‘Scribble to Script’. The emphasis was on animals that would be fun and appealing to Grade 1 to 7 students and easily recognisable to Queenslanders.

Reef Fish

“Working with Pearson is always very straightforward. They tend to know exactly what they want and it’s really just a case of me ‘doing my thing’ and filling all the necessary spaces with pretty pictures. David Doyle, the designer on this project was no exception. A good tight brief and plenty of time to do it, well over a month in fact. But I like to work quickly to keep the characters ‘fresh’ so I turned all seven covers around in a couple of days.”

Common Green Tree Frog

“I always supply a number of roughs for each character first. Generally, I’ll sketch something out, live with it for a couple of hours, think about how it could be improved then sketch it out again and again until I’m happy with it. I’ll send the client all my sketches. Sometimes they’ll go for the first version I did which is fine by me. Sometimes it can take dozens of sketches before the final decision is made. I supplied over 120 sketches for one character a while back. The client (or should I say ‘Clients’, as there were a team of six designers all chipping in with suggestions) just couldn’t decide which version they liked. It’s not my job to say which one they should go for, but I did  make a few suggestions as to which one would probably suit their needs the best and we got there eventually. That was a bit unusual to say the least and a good character building exercise. It’s all part of the service and of course, the client is always right!”

Coral Fish

First drafts

Book 1, Draft 1.

“Retaining my enthusiasm has never been a problem. I did a lot of what you might call ‘unsavoury’ jobs just to make ends meet before becoming a professional illustrator and I really don’t fancy doing them again. Give me a nice warm studio and my dog for company any day!”

So what’s our excuse for showing off some of Jim Peacock’s latest offerings? Well, other than the fact that we like them, we don’t really have one.

Top caricaturist Phil Disley was given a pretty huge task just before Xmas – To stand in for cartoon legend Steve Bell at The Guardian! For those of you that don’t know, Steve Bell is a real cartoon heavyweight in the UK and has been illustrating for The Guardian for over thirty years.

How did Phil cope? Judge for yourselves….

Concerns over increased security following the failed terrorist attack on Flight 253

The English New Years tradition of opening your door at midnight to a tall dark stranger bearing salt, bread and coal takes on a whole new meaning with an election looming!

Peter Moore, one of five abducted from Iraq in 2007 by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is released. The others weren't so lucky.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Phil somehow found time to illustrate the cover of  Nature Magazine . The subject being the build up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit and trying to find a road map for all nations to follow. And we all know how successful they were at that which makes Phil’s handiwork all the more relevant.

The Copenhagen Climate Summit - Finding a road map for all nations to follow.