Wednesday 9 November 2011

(UN)DEAD FAMOUS - Monroe

Well it didn't take as long as I had expected to get the first one done. It's good to try different things now and then so I don't get bored :)

Here are the work in progress images and the final scanned completed drawing. Hope you like it.





Tuesday 8 November 2011

Monday 31 October 2011

WAR - Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

To continue with my of portrait pieces based on my imaginings of what the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would look like. I started out with the Death and now I bring you War.

I took some progress pictures with my Smart Phone and Scanned in the finished article later.

Here they are.









Wednesday 19 October 2011

Draw - Ahhh! Brains (Bisto Parody) - Done

And so I think that is me done with this one. I have actually started to enjoy doing it inbetween doing my pencil work.


Available here as greeting card / postcard

Monday 10 October 2011

Draw - Ahhh! Brains (Bisto Parody) - Part 3

Finally getting round to coloring this one. It's been a long hard slog getting my arse in gear to do this one. Mainly due to my work in pencils coming along nicely and me not wanting to stop doing something that feels good. This will more than likely be one of the last digitally colored projects I do until later on in the year or early on next year.

Here is the sneak peak of how the coloring is coming along.




PLEASE CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS POST!!

Friday 7 October 2011

Juha Arvid Helminen - My Inspiration for WAR

So I have been searching to find something to spark my inspiration to continue on my FOUR HORSEMEN set. In doing so I came across the wonderful photography of Juha Arvid Helminen. I fell in love with this mans style and composition and decided I wanted to see if I could recreate, in part, the depth and feel of his style in pencil.

Here is the result:






Needless to say I have been inspired and my WAR will be worked on this weekend :)

PLEASE Check out Juhas' work.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

DEATH - Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

So I have taken to creating a series of portrait pieces based on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I started out with the one I thought would cause most trouble and found it less of a challenge that first anticipated.

Drawn with 4H and 3B pencils.

I took some progress pictures with my Smart Phone and Scanned in the finished article later.

Here they are.



Friday 9 September 2011

Update....of sorts.

Much has been happening in my life that I shall not bore you with, but I have picked up my pencils again and have drawn one or two things I think are worthy of showing off.

Here they are.


The first piece was part of a larger tattoo design I was doing for someone. I have since stopped working on that and decided I wanted to try a more shaded version of what was part of that design. It's my first real take on glass. I was pleased with the results of this doodle.


The second piece was a test of my endurance and I am really pleased I took my time and worked on it over 3 days. The depth I managed to achieve in some places by using only an HB pencil inspired me to purchase a range of H and B pencils. So once I get used to them I should be able to get a great deal more depth :)

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Biffy Clyro T Shirt Design

I have designed a T Shirt for the Biffy Clyro Summer Tour Competition. Please take your time to visit the link and vote for the design below. Thanks.



Wednesday 27 April 2011

Current Site Offers over at RedBubble

As always, please check out my red bubble portfolio/Shop where you can find the following deals.

Buy 8 Postcards or Greeting Cards and get 20% or 30% off when you buy 16 - ( Example )

Buy 4 T Shirts and get FREE Shipping - ( Example )

Buy 4 frames prints and get FREE Shipping - ( Example )

Buy my t-shirts

Monday 25 April 2011

Draw - Ahhh! Brains (Bisto Parody) - Part 2

As a follow up to my original post (found here) I thought it might be an idea to let you see a final mock up. This is the last draft before I set to getting the final ink and colouring done.


I may do just a normal black and white of this, but I am not too sure. I really want to stick by the original colour scheme, but I am getting to the stage that this has been a long process to find the inspiration to finish this project.


I'll keep you all posted.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

Draw - Karloff as Frankenstein

After my last post I decided I should sit down with one of my projects and just draw it from start to finish. I can say that this is one of my favorite pieces to date.

I had seen some work at a tattoo convention by a young lady called Kara Kastanada - You can see some of her work on her facebook page. There was a walk-through of the technique she used to get the shading right on one of here pieces. I took some advice from it and applied them here.

For my first time using new techniques I am more than impressed and wish I knew these things sooner. Anyway, without further ado, here is my take on Boris Karloff as Frankenstein.

Tuesday 29 March 2011

Draw - King Kong (first attempt)

This is the result of me wanting to push myself further to see if I can do more art along the lines of the Zombie Embrace drawing I done. To be honest I really enjoyed working on this, but I have to admit that it was start 4 weeks before I managed to find time to finish it off.


It is based on this image.

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Draw - Ahhh! Brains (Bisto Parody) - Part 1

I have been working on a little Parody of an old Bisto advert involving, you guessed it, Zombies.

This is the first full design based on the original that you can find here. I have added some of the concept sketches at the bottom that I doodled while at work.

From here I began further development of the Brains based on the Bisto text used in the advert. From the basic outline in the above image and the sketches included I hope you can see the development process.

Here is the first inked version of the design. As you can see no shading has been done and only the outline is complete. I think it gives the design a bit more life.

With the text in mind may still change the R as I am not too sure about its final shape, but we'll see what it looks like when I put it all together and begin colouring. It may look better then.

Once I have began the colouring process I will add more scans and hopefully we will have a finished design in the coming weeks.

The Sketches that really started it all.

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Draw - Zombie Embrace (Finished) - CORRECTION

Okay so I recently discovered that this angle of this photo was NOT taken by Alfred Eisensteadt. It was infact taken by a man by the name of Victor Jorgensen.

You can compare the photos here. Same people, different angle.
So I finally got round to finishing off my take on the famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photo. 
Without further ado, here it is. Hope you like it.
See the previous post here.


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Sunday 30 January 2011

Draw - Throne o' Diablo T Shirt Concept

I am friends with the lovely lads in the band Throne o' Diablo and truly enjoy the music they produce. So while listening to them and messing around with my pencils, a while back, I got the idea of a "T Shirt of Terror". I decided from here that I would draw up a T Shirt for the band.

The one image that kept reoccurring was the idea of having something sharp stuck into my eye. From there I got the idea of having my eyeball actually tattooed. Give them a listen by clicking their name and you may get your own inspiration.

This is the work in progress images taken with my phone when I was working on them. I will post the final T Shirt design once I get a minute to redraw and ink it ;)









Wednesday 26 January 2011

Draw - Zombie Embrace

I have recently started work on modifying a wonderful piece of photography by Alfred Eisensaedt.


It is called The Kiss and was taken on VJ Day in 1945. The picture itself stirs up many emotions, but I have decided to make my homage a little different.

I have been working on the concept of a War sidetracked by Zombies and the Kiss is being transformed into more of a Zombie embrace rather than a passionate embrace of celebration/Welcome Home.

I will be posting my progress on here as well as posting the final article up on my redbubble site.

Here is the first sketch with some basic shading on the focal point of the piece.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Stickers Offer @ Redbubble.com

If you like decorating your own things with stickers or know someone who does, head over to my redbubble.com shop. At the moment if you buy 6 of any stickers, including designs by other designers, you can get 50% off the price.

So you could grab yourself one or more of the following and only pay for 3 ;)


Head over to my shop @ [ mikmcdade.redbubble.com ] The simply click the design and choose sticker from the options. Remember you can have 6 of the same or 6 different and can mix and match any designer to receive your 50% discount.

Buy t-shirts