1st Blog post

Long overdue for my 1st posting, not been the idea end to 2021 health wise but has certainly taken off creatively.

I fell with Covid 19 in mid October and have been ill with long covid ever since. To pass the time whilst signed off from the day job i turned to drawing on my iPad - I found solace in this, it‘s taken my mind off the pain and discomfort. Obviously at the same time I nailed all the worthy Netflix series etc.

Over this time I’ve become borderline obsessed with watching the NBA. So I had a stab at some fan art for the Chicago Bulls and then the Knicks. Honestly spent so so long on these 2 filling in the void of my sleepless nights, they became a complete tonic. Around this time I treated myself to a “paper like” screen cover for my iPad Pro (highly recommend them it’s a bloody game changer) and instead of filling in an area I’d spend hours colouring them in manually. Completely took me away.

I was asked, randomly, if I could create an illustration of a shark eating triathletes for my brothers’ friend. I had a bit of fun with this one. Being a runner (well very much a former) and my brother being a triathlete I had an understanding of the sport so threw a few relevant tit bits in the mix. I hadn’t grasped that the design would be wrapped onto a bikes wheel disc until later in the day. Giles, the customer, was happy with it on the 1st draft which blew me away, not used to no amendments and wacked it onto his Ezdisc wheel disc quickerty split. So glad it looked good, it was a bit of a shot in the dark regards resolution and the png’s quality but luckily nailed it. Giles and Clinton from Ezdisc have shared images of it on instagram lots, I’ve received a lot of positive comments from it following so am pretty chuffed.

As time trudged on with these after effects of the virus I became frustrated by the lack of information or understanding of long covid out there I thought I’d do a visual representation of how I felt. This started with a rough sketch of a sketch note type affair but to be brutally honest the words made it all pretty depressing! I changed tact and move to just a comic style illustration, I felt/feel like I was/am being squeezed. My mind jumped to a vice then to a giants hand onto Kong Kong crushing me in his hand. Took the type style from the original King Kong poster. Again got lost in this one, pretty chuffed with the way it turned out, including the style and shading etc.

Since then over the last month I’ve done a few illustrations for a couple of friends just for a bit of fun, random requests. Samurai jumping out of a Bourbon biscuit and a made up Jedi. I feel that I’m starting to fall into a certain cartoonists/poster style clean look we’ll see if this continues.

I hope in the new year to be back to full health, back to work and in the position to take on more commissions - be it bespoke illustrations, sketch notes, info graphics, logos or anything else creative.

Have a great Christmas and New Years reader.

Cheers

Alex.