Time to make money - 26 jan 2009

After the debacle with the failed attempt at joining Her Majesties armed forces I decided to carry on and finish Art College, after all I had already spent 3 years there so whats another year. My original intention was to become an animator, in the Terry Gilliam/Wallace and Grommit thread, however this was 1983 and I was 'persuaded' by the college mafioso to go into graphics instead, looking back I wish I had stuck to my guns, just look at how successful Nick Park is now.....the SWINE!You owe me Park!!!!

Anyway it was soon after I left college I got my first job, as an illustrator in a govt sponsored project, it was crap work but hey I'm now earning £40 a week, I even bought an evening newspaper everynight after work to take home to show to my mother that I was now a grown man.....but I itched to do something 'proper', do something I was interested in that would give me more artistic gratification than the pap I was doing between 9 and 5.

It was one night at home in my box bedroom surrounded by the remains of my plastic models, hanging drearly from the ceiling, or on wonky home-made shelves that I had the spark of an idea. Why not depict one of them as an illustration or even a painting, first choice was a diorama of the bow and stern of HMS Antelope, sunk in Falkland Sound in 1982. However I decided against it as it was too adventurous for a first attempt, and decided instead to do a technical version side view of a model I had made up from different Airfix ships, HMS Eagle. It was the hull of the 'Fearless' with additions and bits from other british ships, basically it was my idea of a communications vessel the Royal Navy sorely lacked during the Falklands War, especially if the one they were using as flagship, the Hermes had been sunk.

My first illustration, HMS Eagle, its amazing what can be achieved if you have no distractions....

After this first one i did several other ships for my own delectation, HMS Oracle, (sub), HMS Swift (Patrol Boat), K15, (an early sub that had funnels!), HMS Dumbarton Castle (Fisheries Patrol Boat) and a real big one of another imaginery vessel I called HMS Agamemnon (a new version of the Landing Ship support). This originally started out as the hull of the Russian ship 'Moskva', and again i just added loads of extra stuff from my bits box.

The Hong Kong Patrol vessel, HMS Swift, probably a gunrunning boat now...still, a very handsome vessel.

About 1987, i came across several weekly publications, War Machine, Illustrated Aircraft, which were using the same technique i had been using for the past few years, so putting two and two together i thought, hey, i could make some money at this m'larky. So i wrote off loads of letters with copies of my work and waited for the offers to flood in. Oh how ignorant i was, i'd never heard of agents, commissions, art directors and the like and most publishers were nice enough to offer to 'keep my details on file'. One company however, Squadron Prints of Glasgow, gave me the break to do an illustration of any new project, they were well known for their hi-quality aircraft and ship prints and they wanted to do something different, F1 racing cars, so they asked me to do Nigel Mansells car for the pricely sum of £150, which at the time i thought was quite generous. However by the time i added up the materials and hours i think it worked out i was paying them for the privilege!! It did eventually lead to about 10 years worth of illustration work, covering aircraft, ships, steam trains, and cars.

My first Commission, I still own the original, but they never gave it back to me..... (click image for a close up)

One of my last commissions, and probably my favourite, a two seat Harrier, used for pilot training.

(click image for a close up)

After 10 years i got a bit fed up of working in the same format, and so i decided to have a break, plus the time spent on the artwork was leaving me very little, if any margin for profit, so i still had to work full time as well, this was tiring, too often i spent the whole night working to finish a deadline for the morning collection, only to have to get ready to go off to work straight after. The fun of doing it had run out for me. I still have guilty pangs of not getting back to my passion, and i'm sure one day i will start painting again, but this time for my own pleasure again, i especially fancy doing aviation paintings in oils or gouache, one day maybe....

A change for me was doing some figure work, i enjoyed doing these bacause it was closer to my original intention when i started off all those years ago!

(click image for a close up)