Cartoon Animal Pirate Ship

Cartoon Animal Pirate Ship

This digital painting illustrates a Pirate galleon ship, manned by a crew of cartoon animals, out on the ocean.

The Captain is a proud Lion with an eye patch, peg leg and fetching outfit, brandishing a sword. Other members of the crew consist of a Rhinoceros eating an apple, an elephant with a hook, a Zebra mopping the decks, a giraffe and a collection of cheeky monkeys up to no good playing around the ships rigging. Finally, in the crows nest is a pig on look out duties. The Galleon has its cannons at the ready and all the sails in use for a quick get-away, the fluttering flag, with the skull and cross bones motif, indicating the crews intentions.

The picture was done to A3 size and painted in Photoshop, during summer 2013.

Cartoon Animal Pirate Ship

Animal Office

Animal Office

This was painted in january 2011, in photoshop to A4 size. I have used a horse before in this position (1 2 3) but it is always funny,but this time I have added some lipstick! The 6 key keyboard and hay sandwich add some fun.

from the website...
This was painted in photoshop in 2011 to A4 size. As can be seen in my work I like to place animals in mundane human situations. An office is a good location and I'm sure I will visit this theme again. Its fun to have such unlikley animals in these roles, such as the Hippopotamus with dress and bright red lipstick and the horse typing at the six keyed keyboard, with her hay sandwich to hand. In the background some office gossip is in progress. An image like this is drawn on the computer, then painted in a traditional, layered way similar to conventional painting media. 

Animal Supermarket

Animal Supermarket

This was painted in photoshop and completed in oct 2010. It is a follow on I suppose from the animal underground commute illustration done a few years ago. Some of the animals are the same,in particular the crab and snake, but there are a few additions that were noty in the previous one. Doing all the packs on the shelves does take time, even using cloning,etc tools in digital painting.

from website...
This image is painted in photoshop at a size of 29cm x 21cm. It is a follow on from the animal underground commute painting done the year before, by picturing animals doing a very human mundane activity, and features a collection of animals enjoying their weekly supermarket shop. The animal customers featured are elephants (and daughter), Lion, Cow, Bull, crab (carrying stuff on his shell as on the tube journey picture), Lioness and son, Pig, Snake, Bear, Crocodile, Zebra, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Tiger, Giraffe, and Monkey. Horses are again featured serving the customers at the checkout as in the supermarket horse illustration, else where on this site.
Producing all the packs can be a bit tedious, even using photoshop, but it is important for the setting. Also for the setting it is important to have boards with prices around, so time was spent creating graphics that look like numbers but are not recognizable as numerals.

racing animals and vehicles

racing animals and vehicles

Racing Car Animals
people in car chasing fox
Go cart animals

These are largely variations on a theme I suppose. Two animals are used twice,fox and elephant. And all three images are 'old fashioned', and use old fashioned wheeled transport. The 'racing elephant' was painted in march 2009, 'people in car chasing fox' dec 2008, and the 'go cart animals' also painted dec 2008.

from the website...
Racing Car Animals
Two animals, a big Elephant and a small Fox, are tightly squeezed in to an old fashioned racing car in this digital illustration. The old vintage racing car is rushing along a mud track, and is slightly tilted to provide some action in the scene. The Horizon of the forest setting is tilted the opposite way to further the effect. The elephant is painted to be impossibly large for the car. Painted in 2008. 

Animal Train

Animal Train

A train journey for an assortment of animals.A pig is driving, with passengers made up of a lion,giraffe,elephant and monkey hanging on at the rear. It is set, apart from the animals, in a very english setting with english railway equipment. My original intention was to repaint an earlier image featuring cute pigs traveling in a train. The earlier image was painted quite small (link) so the intention was to redo it on a larger scale. But things sometimes never quite work out, and I ended up doing a different take on the subject matter. Painted in late 2008 in photshop.

from the website...

Cartoon animals on a railway journey was digitally painted during 2008 in photoshop, to a A4 size. It features a pig driving, lion reading, bear listening to gramophone, snake on chimney, elephant and giraffe. A monkey is hanging on to the end of the train. Finally a blackbird guard is timekeeping and has just been dislodged from the falling signal arm. The image is in some ways quite realistically painted in terms of the foliage, reflections and general tone and colour qualities. But the perspective is quite (stylistically) distorted, in particular the track, to show and clarify the overall scene. But the occupants and in particular the engine are drawn as solid objects in a 3 dimensional world. This illustration is a development from this earlier illustration. The intention was to redo this earlier image to a larger size, but once you start drawing different ideas come out!
Painted in 2008. 

pigeon post

Post bird and elephant in plane

This digital photoshop illustration features a 'postal pigeon', complete with mail sack, flying in the air and startled by an elephant piloting a small plane close by. The horizon is slightly tilted to give extra dynamics to the action, as do the letters flying out of the postal bag. The pigeon is painted quite realistically, whereas the elephant is cartoonised to a point to allow his anatomy to fit within the small airplane, and also has a large head! A river was added to help break up the landscape and add some from, helping to creat distance and height in the artwork. Painted in 2009, to a small size of 1200px X 1600px.

Come back to update/ 3d lightwave images

Come back to update/ 3d lightwave images

Images created in 3D
After a long break I'd thought I should upload some more images and notes up here. This image of the aeroplane was done during august 2009, and is different in that it is created in lightwave. It is resonable successful, but it took about 2 weeks to do and I think its too long to be practical. I did two other 3D images, one of which is the lion on the skateboard. I received a nice email from and authour in USA saying how much they enjoyed it straight away!
It is quicker to draw them in the usual way than create 3D models and I think they look better drawn and painted, in photoshop. The only upside is that the characters can be reposed or even animated as all this has to be built in to the model/scene set up.

from website...
 Created using Lightwave 3D,then finished in photoshop.As an experiment, I created two images in this process, one after another, and both are visible on this site. The point of the experiment was to see if it is practical to do this type of work in 3D modeling. I have done lightwave work in the past (animation) but not for this type of subject. Usually I would draw this type of thing, in photoshop and then paint fully in photoshop as can be seen from most of my work on this site. Sadly doing the '3D' route for this type of imagery is too long, taking about 7 or so days, whereas directly painting it would be 2 days, and probably a better,more rounded illustration would be produced! 
 

Animals On A Tube Train Subway Commute To Work

ANIMAL TRAIN COMMUTE

Painted in photoshop at A4 size, this is an entertaining collection of animals going to work. The interior of the train is based on a central line underground train. I wanted the passengers to do normal things that commuters do, ipod etc, and liked the horse with hooves operating a laptop. If the scene was slightly wider I would have had water on the floor around the base of the seals tail. Painted dec 2008.

from the website...
Traveling on the London Underground was something I did for over ten years. It was a only a matter of time before I decided to put animals in to replace humans in this normally mundane routine for many. Over half of the underground system is overground but an African savanna view like this outside would be very rare. The illustrated cartoon animals seen on their daily commute here are lions, an elephant, seal reading newspaper, cows, crab, horse typing on laptop, fox with ipod,rhinoceros reading paper, monkey hanging from hand rail, giraffe and a crab carrying its briefcase on its shell. It is painted in photoshop to A4 size and took about a 5 days to do. The original drawing is done on the computer using a drawing tablet, and then painted electronically using traditional painting techniques. The inside of the carriage is based on a central line train.