NEW Valentine's Day Cards available on ebay!!!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270884540743

1950s style pin-up tattoo finished!

This is the final design for the 50s style pin up tattoo I have been beavering away on!
The red and black coloured version is the final design which will be used as the tattoo, however I also love the vintage look of some monochrome pin up visuals which has influenced my alternative version below!

50s pin up tattoo!

Marilyn Monroe

This is the completed portrait of Marilyn Monroe played by Michelle Williams.

Pin Up Tattoo Sketches

I have been working on a tattoo to be illustrated in the style of a 50s pin-up. My client has chosen number 4 so I will do further expansive research and begin working on a final design!

Marilyn Teaser

I have been busy working on a portrait of Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, it is a proposal I am working on that I hope to present to a film magazine soon.

I have retained a classic black and white look, whilst highlighting Marilyn's trademark red lips.

Paper Heart Christmas Cards

These still need a little amending here and there, but they are well on the way to completion! They will be sold in sets of 4 I'm thinking, one for each landmark set in the snowy christmas scene!

Dick Whittington!

This is a new piece I have completed for a small theatre company in London

My Week With Marilyn Portrait

I am working on a proposal cover for a film magazine, as they feature illustrated or artistic covers. The film My Week With Marilyn is due out in 11 days so I am illustrating a portrait which I will mock up as a cover and send to the magazine, or perhaps visit them in London! Exciting times!

Christmas Fairs 2011!

New Christmas Card Range 2011!

Here is a set of four new designs I have illustrated that I will be selling around the globe (okay the West Midlands for now), I will be selling them at £3.99 for a set of five different designs. I am also making up more of the Bee Santa Sleigh cards and the Bee Bauble card which were popular last year!!

Paper Heart Company Illustration

This is the first completed Christmas Card design for The Paper Heart Company.

The concept of the Santa Suit out and hanging up and ready is a different approach to the idea that Christmas beckons! I've tried to give it a vintage feel with the slightly off-colour fur and darkness in the red, on an old wooden coathanger.

It is a taster of a LOT more to come from Paper Heart!

Awesome Folky Gig Poster

I love The Tallest Man on Earth, I love this poster. I could definitely cuddle that font as well

Totem Exhibition at the Custard Factory Summer 2011

At an exhibition where my man-partner in crime Murray Somerville displayed his epically mental Totem design, I came across a table of treats involving a smug looking cat and a t shirt with a hairy luchador. random combination, love it.

Renoir painting

I might have already posted this but its beautiful so its going up again, it is a painting by Renoir of a girl with red hair and pale skin which I find so striking and it inspired my ideas for the Wizard of Oz piece I created involving Dorothy in the Poppy Field. I think I will use it as a basis for a new picture book character too!

Visit to the Nature Centre

I have been indirectly inspired by a baby meerkat struggling to find its feet. LOOK AT IT!

Old Valentine's Card

Again, I'm not sure of the Illustrator (apart from that its from Getty Images), but this has muted vintage-stained colours that I am highly loving. It is a little kitsch but the idea of a hot air balloon could be good inspiration for a picture book story. Or I am just blowing hot air and it isn't inspiration at all.

A New Venture - The Paper Heart Company!

This is a tiny taster of something big I am pursuing beside my picture book illustration.

It is an amazing coalition between myself and a Regina Spektor lookalike called The Paper Heart Company.

We offer wedding invitations, including an option in which we offer custom-made designs, specific to the client's wedding. Along with this we will have a wedding portraiture service (that's me) and baking kits (that's her). It is still in its embryonic stages but soon we will be taking our splendid designs to no less than FIVE Christmas fairs beginning in November.

EVERY SATURDAY leading up to Christmas we will be around in the West Midlands! Watch this festive space!

Kitchen Garden Cafe Exhibition

Another exhibiton I have recently put up is in the Kitchen garden Cafe in Kings Heath. A quaint little cafe which has somehow passed me by! I have discovered it now and it is bloody lovely.

My work is also being exhibited for a month, and I will be at both Christmas Fairs (November 29th and December 12th)

selling brand new CHRISTMAS CARDS featuring cats, bees, presents, and a gingerbread man!

Vintage Logos

I randomnly found this set of logos which I find beautiful and inspirational, I'm a sucker for tight and intricate art nouveau decoration, and these, although flirting with medieval, show great composition and further influence my approach to composition and design.

Egypt Illustrations!

A side project I have been doing is illustrated resources for pupils with learning difficulties. My first set of illustrations was for History, particularly Ancient Egypt! Tutankhamen is possibly the don, and my favourite to illustrate.

cut-ty out-ty illustration

this is AWESOME, i'm assuming its rob ryan or someone doing a really good impression of him!

Cat amongst the flowers

Here is another character illustration I hvae been working on, to expand my visual vocabulary and draw new and different animals.

A Thousand Suns

This is the illustration (without the text) of the final spread where the fairy receives her halo after competing her final task, granting someone a wish. She is also grown angelic wings and the mass white background also has heavenly symbolism. It was challenging piece as it made me work on my foreshortening, giving the impression that we are looking down on the fairy as a halo sparkles above her head. It also made me work on my expressions which are normally fairly muted, however this spread I felt should have a sense of awe.

Halo Cover Proposal

This is my cover for the fairy story Halo, I feel its the strongest image as it is hopeful and symbolic, also representing the subdued nature of the story places.

Title Page: Moon Fairy

This is the title page for my picture book story Halo. The moon surrounding the fairy is symbolic, in that it forsees the fairy eventually gaining her halo.

Moon Fairy

This is the first illustration on the title page of my story Halo. It shows the fairy without her wings, after not being able to find anyone who deserves a granted wish, she has hung them up.

I will illustrate the moon and place it in front of her, which will surround her like a Halo, forseeing that she will eventually earn her halo, in time.

Dorothy in the Deadly Poppy Field

Here is a piece for a design creative group, whose brief involved composing and sending an illustration to be used alongside a piece of text from The Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy in Poppy Field Sketch

The Wizard of Oz

This is my initial character idea for Dorothy which I will use as reference before I pick a particular page in the story to illustrate. Its interesting to see how my work looks in pen and coloured, more traditional, like an etching or a graphic novel illustration.

"We Carry On" Sleeping Bee Illustration

This is the first illustration in the bee story, showing how the bees live whilst the world has been torn down around them from human destruction. The matchbox is symbolic, questioning where the fading sun has gone.

An Article on Milan Topalovic Illustration!

http://www.lostateminor.com/2011/02/17/awesome-detailed-illustration-by-milan-topalovic/

The Boy New Illustration

I am currently working on a character sheet to send to publishers for the lead character in Piano and the Boy. Over the last few months the exact design and characteristic of the boy have slowly become more defined, this illustration is almost exactly how I want him to look throughout the story.

Character Study: Dakota Fanning

To re-capture the right details of a 7 year-old I researched character from films with children of this agegroup in, the more simplified, fresh features of a child this age were taken down and transferred into my fairy character, and I use this as an ongoig resource to make sure the central characters I create are relatable in both age and appearance to my target audience.