All the trimmings!

I spent the majority of October feverishly working away on a project which is now starting to appear in some rather swanky places but I thought I’d wait until it was at least the same month as Christmas before sharing it.

Luxury leather goods brand Smythsons of Bond Street commissioned some unique displays to promote their seasonal merchandise, and I was asked to produce a series of illustrations that could be used in a variety of configurations in many of its stores around the world, including their flagship store on Madison Avenue in New York!

There were two parts to the project; the window display areas – one each for the ladies and mens ranges, and some additional illustrations for use specifically on the Madison Avenue facade.

The two display windows depicted a victorian style puppet theatre, with objects and characters set within that could be positioned according to the scale of the window. Each was set within an elaborate stage complete with draped curtains.

The images were created using a mixture of digital composites and hand drawn elements, composed in many, many layers and at a size that really challenged the processing power of my mac!

Working with the creative concept from the JoAnn Tan Studio, my role was to produce the majority of the backgrounds and objects in way that could be rearranged to fit a variety of window formats to display additional characters and real merchandise.

The facades were also digital composite, with the buildings made from a number of source imagery and a fair bit of hand rendering, and all produced at full scale – over 6 metres tall!


The digger and hot dog stand don’t particularly enhance the view but certain help to convey the scale!

Credits:
http://www.joanntanstudio.com/
https://aciertaretail.com/

Last Image: Smythson
all other external photography by christianbirdnyc 

Sing Along!

All together now! Who doesn’t love a good sing song! Especially when we’re young! My friend Jon Lawrence (also known as The Music Man!) has just released another collection of original songs for children – with illustrations by yours truly!

Here’s just a little taste of what’s inside…

Published by Eyrie Press, this is the second book by The Music Man, which even comes with a CD with recordings of all the songs so you and your little one can sing along!

You can buy your copy directly from Eyrie Press and all the usual online book retailers, but you can also buy directly from Jon himself, who will even sign your copy – bonus!