Saturday, December 24, 2011
Cheltenham road...trip
Just incase you haven't already seen it!The awesome new Boston's Cafe in Bristol
wheeere my t-shirts are currently being worn!
it's going to be interesting how they hold up in the X-mas rush and even busy days, still that's why its mostly dark colours!
Stay frosty
Xander Lee
Friday, November 04, 2011
...Curly and Mo'
Just finished up a poster for Costa's Exeter Princesshay foray into Moustache growage.Chalk this one up to a bad 'Son of Man' homage and too many Saturday morning cartoons.
I initially wanted to obscure the face with the 'tache but the physics of it seemed wrong, as did having the monster 'tache doing the hat tipping. Sure the 'Son' would be more similar in pose to Magritte's original, but it just kind of lacked life. That and I think it works so much better when each end is offering up and shielding the flat white.
Preamble/rhetoric aside, I still like how it's turned out, sort of. I learned what "doffing one's cap" means, not to mention some of my typeface work doesnt look all that bad! My first step in digitally altered ink washes as a different style of rendering also don't you know The newspaper's a tad contrasting in styles, what with it being more texture than details but you can't win 'em all.
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And as always, especially in these winter months, stay frosty!
Xander Lee
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Emerging from my secret bunker, twenty floors below sea level
And without further ado,The winning entry to the Bristol Boston Tea Party Competition, for their Cheltenham Road Cafe, recently opened in Bristol. Pretty chuffed with how it's all turned out :) Took awhile to get the right look of the wave ripples, placement on the tee (being my first foray into textile adaptation) and the ever thorn in my side, color palettes. Just for the sake of clarity, it depicts a whole bunch of crates, bundles and barrels being tossed into the sea in Boston, ie, the 'Tea Party', but with a slight Japanese twist, homaging Katsushika Hokusai's wave prints. I even got to watch some wacky American cartoon for historical research, though less said about that the better. I mention it for same reasons any survivor recalls their past trials/horrors.
Wish I'd done something with the shoulders, but I'm not the one incommunicado with the printers, so I guess it is best to have kept it relatively easy to produce. The same goes for having it wrap around the hips to have a barrel on the back. Pretty sure that's a saving grace for not having tea stamped just above the barista's bottom. Just saying.
Anyways, as usual here's some thumbnails, visuals, and finished piece images for you to peruse.
Definitely has me in the mood to design for some more '3D' formats, seeing as though I still have a naked Russian Nestling Doll and (separate) Wristwatch somewhere.
Stay Frosty, or well fed if you decide to check out a Boston Tea Party Cafe ;)
Xander Lee
Video [Games] Killed the Radio
Recently finished the second of my submissions for 16 Bit Fury, a weekly, Retro Video game themed Tumblr site run by my good friends Sam Rennocks and James Loram.The theme's I managed to do were the infamous Mario Brothers and Blizzard's Magnum Opus 'Diablo', though I do have some thumbnails for the Zelda and Megaman briefs I didn't get around to finishing; was a new experience creating weekly, square formatted art.
The Nintendo piece "Dames and Drains" has the brothers investigating a damsel's distress. The female thought bubble gals are Pauline/Lady from Donkey Kong, Peach from Super Mario Bros. aaand Daisy from Super Mario Land/the 'film'. Dig the Vibrant, Brash 80's colours, as I was going for a Video Arcade palette.
The Diablo piece "Fresh meat"
It's kinda a mix of Diablo I and the unofficial Hellfire add-on. Was going to go cow-mob crazy, surrounding the hero with heffers but didn't want to miss out on the fun with demons, (The Butcher, a Hidden, a familiar, aaand creative licence withstanding, something with tentacles ;p) plus the seeecret cow level is in a field (Yes, I totally love easter eggs in media, and in reality!) so that kinda doesn't bring across the dark dungeon crawl feel of playing the game.
Hoping to do a few more at a later date, but at the moment I have a few other briefs to take care of first. Still, without further
ado/for those lazy enough not to click on links!
Stay Frosty
Xander Lee
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Competition time
Currently in a secret location, scribbling away at something, though in the spirit of competitiveness, I'm not going to come right out and say it! How would that be sporting?!
Stay Frosty
Xander Lee
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Making Foundations
As I'm not yet at that great period of life where, I've either won the lottery, or becoming a master draftsman and have paid work coming out of my ears, I alas have to seek other avenues for money to allow me to survive. That being said I'm a Barista most days.What's nice about this is you get to meet a whole bunch of different people and hear all their stories, much like a bartender though with much less drunken people I'm guessing. Preamble cut short, both my lives have nicely come together, albeit temporarily to create some promotional materials for my Branch's "Costa Foundation" Days.
First up...
COSTA CYCLOTHON
Using two electric bikes borrowed from god knows where, the hardy staff took to riding 3743 miles, the rough distance between Exeter to Ethiopia, where Costa source their beans from. Not the exact distance to one of their sponsored farms however (see the small addition of a road sign to Addis Ababa on the design, sneaky huh! Aren't spec changes fun!) so hopefully the design doesn't come across like I believe all people in Ethiopia live like the Ewoks :s
And if that wasnt enough, on the same day they also had..
COSTA JAM 2011
Which took all of half a day if that to make, but I kind of dig the grassroots aesthetic of it. (printed them out using a photocopier and all! Hence the B+W variant) Will try my hand at some more photo collage in the future :D Anyway, the event broke down into four different acoustic musicians playing live in store, which makes a change from the obscure easy listening and Metal and Rock covers. How they managed to run these both of these at the same time as serve people, I have no idea, (I was unfortunately on Holiday when all of these events happened!) guess it's just testament to having a good team there! Don't tell them I said that though.
Finally we come to the premiere day....
COSTA FOUNDATION DAY 2011
Ironically stemming from a design for the Costa Jam poster, the event had many different activities planned to occur (face painting, raffles, retro video game corner, balloon animals, and of course coffee drinking), so what better way to get that across than a multi limbed caveman! (Costa's summer promotional campaign ran under the heading "ICE AGE", to hock their Ice Blended and Poured Beverages) Goro and Da Vinci eat your heart out!
Originally I was going to give him more fur on his body, but it gave off a Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf-Man kind of look. So I'm ever so thankful that the Flintstones existed, as the "Fred's leopard skin" homage on the trunks give it that much needed 'authenticity". It's also one of my pieces where I'm actually totally happy on the multi-coloured colour scheme!
Hopefully this will lead to more opportunities, already have some thumbnails for Halloween and Movember, in any case, hope you all had a great summer!
Stay Frosty (especially now in the winter months!)
Xander Lee
Tis the season...
With the afore and briefly mentioned portrait out of the way, I've been doing some spot pieces for religious and cultural holidays, as what better way to celebrate than with a pretty picture. I drew them awhile back though with a few other projects taking over, I haven't had chance yet to finish. So far on the "ready to be inked" table I have...
Independence Day (#236) as it's kind of fun to look into other countries' holidays too!
...and X-Day, the annual religious holiday/rapture of "The Church of the Sub-Genius" for satirical giggles, Bob be with you.
Need to find some nice colour palette's for these, maybe some E.C comics ones for X-Day, as I already have the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" vibe going, maybe too injokey, but heck, at least its subtle!
Keep frosty and all that!
Xander Lee
Friday, May 27, 2011
...that's fit to print
Two pieces, one a sketch of a news vendor in Liverpool Street Station, London, the other a study for a portrait I'm doing, Chick hair is vexing me though! Ahh for everyone to be bald!
Stay frosty
Xander Lee
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Plymouthian Man
Greetings y'all, and welcome to the first post of the new year, sickening I know.Finally finished a few tweaks on this, so without further ado, I present "Plymouthian Man" a piece created by myself and Oliver Butcher.
If Vimeo isn't your cup of tea, it's also up on Youtube
It tells a cobbled together story of a man washing up at the Lion's Den area of Plymouth Hoe that used to be a changing area many maaany moons ago, though now is pretty much used as a canvas and a shelter for people. Ollie did the great stop motiony Silhouette Animation at the beginning, and the dark as heck Shadow Play of Act 2 is all me. If you want evidence of this, click here and you should be whisked back in time to some nice photos of the shadow puppets I used.
Tempted to do another Shadow/Silhouette Play but just got to find the right story first. Then a couple dozen extra limbs to hold all the puppets, lanterns and camera remotes. Ah to live in a shared house of youth again.
Stay frosty and all that
Xander Lee
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