Vamp Arrow Video DVD cover illustration

Here is the new illustration for the 80s classic Vamp!

When i was given the job the first thing they requested was that i incorporated a 'special' colour into the illustration. So colour became the big theme for this cover, it's also a representation of the films style too. when i watched it again i really picked up on the strong use of 'comic book' style lighting and neon colours used throughout.

It also really needed it to shout '80s' to people and i drew the title in a classic brush script (cornering the V and P into fangs, although this did get lost a bit lost behind the characters in the end), i then toyed with the idea of dropping in a green neon grid for the background but felt it didn't say anything about the film and instead i opted for some neon esque pyramid styling (a nod to the Vamps origins!) with stars and a full moon to set that 80's retro mood.

Finally i wanted to visually represent a more comical side of Vamp to let people know sort of film there getting themselves into. I felt going down a dark gory horror route wouldn't be appropriate for this title and would just alienate a load of potential viewers (its a extremely tame horror film by todays standards) so i was trying to sell it more on its strength of 80s teen horror nostalgia, appealing to any retro hipsters out there! or people just looking for a good ol' classic light harted horror romp! ... just like you remember them (before torture porn destroyed all that!).

For the layout i used Grace Jones for the main character to represent the horror aspect by having her literally lunging out of the cover to grab you! then i framed her with the other characters to show the more non serious elements with funny/repulsed expressions.

Twitch Film article on Arrow Video illustrations

I just wanted to post this awesome article on the Twitch Film site by J Hurtado.

It say's some really cool things things about the cover artwork and mentions the dude!

So i was quite chuffed (to say the least) when i saw it, its my first review on the work ive been doing here. Some of the game covers i work on have been on forums but this type of work is more personal and done out of passion rather than financial gain. On the whole the receptions been good and as this stuff grows its excellent to see some people are enjoying it and feel the same love of trash, grindhouse, pulp pop video art, that i do... Im not alone on this one!

Well anyway heres J Hurtado. article (and the guys at arrow assure me they didnt pay him!)

Video Home Invasion: Arrow Video Artwork and Cult Labs

hopefully some of my trash art will continue to works its voodoo!

.... and thanks to everyone!

Deadly Outlaw Rekka Takashi Miike DVD cover illustration

Hi, Ive been sitting on this one for about a month now waiting to post it, its the new illustration for Arrow Videos Deadly Outlaw Rekka directed by Takashi Miike.

DOR is more adult (and violent) film than Jaguar Lives, so it needed a darker vibe plus its also a more modern title (2002) so i couldn't have the same cheesy layout as JL obviously. But i still wanted to keep that classic looking VHS artwork style.So the first thing i did was to create the film title. I new i wanted the cover dark this time but with a vibrant title, so i immediately thought back to films like The Warriors, Repro man, Maniac with there splattered spray paint esque logos, which look great against a plain black background. Plus this film is all about bloody revenge so it was a bit of a no brainier what needed doing.

For the illustration itself i have always loved those dark to white style paintings so this would be a great opportunity to play about with that, having all the characters coming out and merging with the darkness would really set the right tone. As the painting was quite dark though i needed to give it that extra kick (so i wouldn't get lost on the shelf), so offset the black with big bold bloody red strokes and splatter it allowed me highlight the characters and incorporate the logo style into the illustration more.

There were not many assets to work with for this one. Particularly of the main character Riki Takeuchi, (he is one crazy mother! Just google him) but he has an awesome expressive face so i based him on a mixture of elements and the same goes for Yûya Uchida (the old dude) he has an amazing white main of hair, i had to drop him in on the cover (even though he doesn't last long on the film, he's quite central to the story and very iconic) his hair actually proved to be one of the most awkward bits to do. The only real image i had from the film was of the severed hand strangle (a brilliant scene!) but it was very dark (literally) with not much detail, so quite a bit of work went on for that one too.

All in all I'm really happy with how its come out, love the bright red contrasting with the black (i did use a similar effect on the Cronos which i did after rekka... but i just couldn't help myself!!). Well Hope everyone else likes it too.

These cards mean buisness...

I've been meaning to get around to it for a while so finally here is my design/illustration for the Dude designs business card. You can get wrapped up doing graphic design trying to say (and sell) everything about yourself (i used to work for a small design firm in Shoreditch that never actually got around to designing there own website as they just couldn't decide on what the perfect design was). So an ethos im slowly building with allot of the dude designs work... is 'f*ck it man!' im just going to do what feels right and fun! don't take yourself to seriously and some great things do come out!! (if you limit yourself being to uptight nothings going to happen).

Anyway i wanted something that would say a bit about the site and my style of work so this is it, you may recognise the photo i based the illustration on below with the cannon stuff, i was going for the gentle man designer vibe!

This is just the front obviously. I've done a similar style for the back but just with my contact details on but thought i'd just stick the illustrtation money shot on here.

Midnight Movies, Cronos Intorduced by Guillermo del Toro

Here's another poster design I've just created for a Midnight Night Movies Guillermo del Toro special, there screening Cronos and Guillermo is going be there in person to present it! (maybe even sign a few posters... if all goes well!!).

So I've done an illustration of him presenting the Cronos Scarab... enticing you in!!
I then need something else to tie the poster together. So i worked up a sinister old clock work cog logo, which relates back to the workings of the Cronos device from the film (I was going to re draw the logo by hand but after getting quarter of the way through it just wasn't working and didn't really add anything to the design). Well I haven't done a illustration for the Curzon flyers yet and i thought this would be a good opportunity to do it in honour of del Toro, so i hope he likes it !!!

Jaguar lives Joe Lewis, Donald Plesance, Christopher Lee Arrow video DVD Cover illustration

A recent commision i recived from Arrow Video to create a cover illustration for the lost classic Jaruar Lives Staring Joe Lewis, Christopher lee and Donald Plesance among many others.

They wanted a classic vintage illustration style montage for the cover quite 'Colourful' and 'bright' so i had to tone down the aging and weathering on this one without loosing my over all style to it, so I went with a yellow hue for the colour palette which allowed me to give the illustration that punch vibrancy on shelf, yet still conveying that classic 70's/80's martial arts pulp poster dude designs vibe.
Hope you like, ill look forward to seeing it in store. The film looks killer too check out the trailer here: JAGUAR LIVES! and you can buy it here: ARROW VIDEO




The cover been also getting some great feed back on the Cult Lab forum for Arrow Video here . Which is great especially as people seem to be liking (and getting) the idea around the whole Retro Video illustration style... Death to nasty photoshop montages!! and thanks to every one for the kudos on the forums.

Midnight Movies, Vampires V Werewovles : The Lost boys v Teen Wolf Flyer

Here is another flyer design for The Curzon's Midnight Movies, Twilight inspired night with an 80's Twist on the whole Vampires vs werewolves.


It's a bit of a departure to the film poster style, i thought about the concept of it being done better in the 80's... reminiscing about the films as a child and thought it would be a great to have the whole thing illustrated in a real rough almost school boy drawing esque illustration, with the fantasy element of Vampires V Werewolves.

I love the rough and ready style of Benjamin Marra and Jiro Bevis so took some influence from the freedom you find in there work, to quote Benjamin Marra:
"I try overcome self-doubt with regards to my work by drawing as I did earlier in my life: with a naive passion and intense enthusiasm for the subject matter."

The icing on the cake was to have it all on 80's computer paper, i remember my dad bring reams of it home from work and me always drawing on it.
Then just played about with it so it looks like some ones just re-discovered it in the back of there old draw.

Kim Newman's Video Dungeon

This is a video nasty cover i designed for empire movie magazines Kim Newman's (horror guru) regular Video Dungeon page.

They had some images of Kim which i chopped up and then re-illustrated, complete with generic scary house and screaming girl, plus the three chainsaw swipe, which is a bit of a homage to the pranks cover. (What's better than putting one chainsaw on the cover... THREE chainsaws!!).
I then chose to have the Video Dungeon title as the film distributors name rather than the film title itself, i felt this would be a nice twist and allow me to emphasise the whole cheesy video nasty cover more, its also massive nod to my personal favourite film distributors of the 80's Video Movies from Hokushin so i couldn't help referencing them on this one.

Excellent news emailed by empire magazine saying...

"incredible work!" and a "Big thumbs up from Kim"

So my design was selected to appear in the July issue of Empire Magazine:

CANNON

This the last in the CANNON series, so aptly its the much later 1980's video release design.
I painted the picture in photoshop using a selection of acrylic style brushes to give it that real rough illustration feel and as this would be a few years down the line I wanted a different more 80's feel to it rather than my previous 70's covers, so i went all metallic silver with an electric/neon typography for this Vigilante Video release.



Here is a screen grab i made for the title screen. I designed it in photoshop then imported it onto VHS and ripped it from that, i do like the rough grain and bleeding colours which you get with video tape that we have lost with DVD and even more so with BluRay now, it wasn't perfect but something about the rough quality of it all made it more fun as a kid, especially if it was a pirate of an 18 rated film which you shouldn't be bunking off school watch...


These are the second two posters in the series, this time promoting CANNONE which is more inspired by the brilliant 70's Italian Poliziotteschi crime films of the time so giving me a different angle to work on.



Here is a rare lobby card for CANNON not in great condition and quite sun bleached.


This is the first poster for CANNON a homage to the old American Cop,Vigilante films of the 70's/80's. The title is a nod to the Deathwish/Dirty harry 'Cannon' films of the time and it also tribute to Cannon its self who brought us many... many... many awesome vigilante films of my youth (mostly staring Bronson).

Midnight Movies, Sci-Fi London Barbarella, Candy Darling, Andy Warhol, Film Poster, Flyer

Here are the new designs i have just finished for the Curzon's Midnight Movies.

Featuring Andy Warhol 'Factory' favourite Candy Darling in 'Beautiful Darling: The life and times of Candy Darling'. So i wanted to give a it that Warhol flavour but bring it up to date more with a modern twist, so i used the Candy's portrait in the iconic Warhol portrait style, then looked at complimenting this it with the use of bold typography. I then dropped on big washes of colour to bring it all together.


The Second billing is the Sci-Fi London showing of sexy space romp Barbarella with Jane Fonda:

As Barbarella is such a iconic 60's film i really wanted to push that side of it and go for a whole psychedelic poster style but keep it space age, pop culture and feminine. So i took some visual inspiration from Jane Fonda amazing hair in the photos where she's laying down and expanded on that.


They also needed an A4 Portrait poster producing for the front of the cinema, so i played around with an alternative design, going for the old screen print hand painted 60's poster feel.