James W. Hunter Illustration

Time for a little update on here then I suppose. Most excitingly, I'm becoming a relatively regular addition to the team at The Illustrated Game - a great football blog which shows off illustration talent alongside it's humourously written articles! Definitely worth checking out if you're a football fan, and they have a great weekly podcast too. The second thing I've done for them is this picture of the new talismanic midfielder, Mesut Ozill, who has arrived in the Premier League probably to terrorise other clubs. Fingers crossed he's not THAT good eh... Here's the first thing I did for them last season if any of you missed it! Pre Suarez-gate, the blossoming bromance of Luis and Danny. Awkwardly there now seems to be a little love triangle with the little guy Coutiniho, but we'll save that for another time maybe... In other news, I'm also working on some graphic novel-y illustrations for a novel my bestest buddy is working on. Not a ...

Storing data in DNA is a possibility for large amounts of files and documents on a small physical object.  Scientists have managed to keep a liver 'alive' without a human host for 24 hours, meaning that transplants can now be more successful.  And the global gene pool of the giant squid has been found to smaller than initially assumed. 

...advertising. Little editorial narrative thingy. First attempt at a very limited colour palette which has turned out pretty well, makes it much easier to read at a smaller scale.

"It would be spiteful To put a jellyfish In a trifle" Karl Pilkington This image will be appearing in Falmouth Illustration BA's 8th edition of the Quotes and Sayings book, which they publish annually alongside the degree show. 

A selection of this weeks work! First four are colour experiments for the Karl Pilkington poem rough a few posts down.  And this last image is a colour final panelled sequence for a Roald Dahl short story. 

This week I stumbled across this awesome football blog The Illustrated Game , and spoke to the lovely Alice (@alice_devine) & Joe who let me do a drawing for them. Great stuff! This is my (somewhat biased) depiction of the blossoming new strike partnership of Luis & Dan. YNWA. Check out their blog for witty posts and great illustration.

This first image is from an editorial about the evolutionary benefits of being kind and working together. A very interesting article in New Scientist actually which examines the idea that kindness and generosity - as well as extreme evil - are seen very rarely in other animals, only human.  This one is the basis of a small test animation I will be doing based loosely around an educational e-book about Space. 

This time, an article about the 'illnesses' that are outrageously blamed on wind turbines. What a load of twaddle. Dead sheep though, funny eh! Original link to the New Scientist article HERE First idea shows the reality and perception, and the second is a rougher idea trying to make the turbine seem to be accused. A suspect in a police line up. A bit more outrageous that one, so it's only little. 

Article from the Guardian's Word of Mouth blog - here!

Third image in the series for this project. Represents the end of the book where there is a very ambiguous death, represented here by the shadow of the spade making a cross - thus hinting at a grave. The bottom (very simple) animation shows how the shadow would move to make the cross less obvious, as I feel making it too obvious detracts from the whole point!

So, here's a first final idea for this project. I decided that too much action within the text would always distract from the story and immersion, so by adding it as a kind of prologue before the text begins I could add an extra element of story. I want to develop this to include interactivity and also hidden elements which could hint at what is to come in the story. A kind of teaser I suppose.  Btw, the .gif only plays once, as I thought it would be too over-the-top if it was looped. Click off and on the image again and it should start over if you really want to see it again, or missed it... Click on the pic to play!

Been a busy week or two in terms of actual illustration seeing as its the holidays and all! Just finished two maps for two different county magazines which will hopefully be seen in print soon, and straight on to a new project regarding an unfinished murder mystery! oooooh. Here's a little peek of the maps, and the rest will be up in a few weeks! Tally-ho.

Dad likes U.F.O.s, camper vans and Ukeleles among other things, so I put them all into one. 

A cookbook I did for Hatty, so she can write all of her incredible recipes in (and hopefully cook me some of them as well.) Just a little project this one, but pretty pleased with some of the bits, especially the pan with the flying ingredients. Totally loving my cooking at the minute, drawing things and then getting to eat them is always pretty good. 

Here's a few photos from our end of year exhibition in Falmouth at the Wellington Terrace site. It was really great to get a chance to see everyones work as well as the work of the first years, who we'd seen nothing of at all so far! Makes me look forward to our third year show even more! Here's my spot, only 4 images because my 5th looked really out of place so didn't make the cut.  This is the work of my friend Haydn Symons, check out his work on his site here:  http://haydnsymons.tumblr.com/  The graphic novel is definitely worth checking out! And Will O'Connor,  http://wdoconnorillustration.tumblr.com/ , who has some incredible portraits up among other things. 

Here is my most recent finished image - a self-initiated promotional poster for Radiolab, which I have been absolutely loving recently. It's so interesting! I feel a bit geeky, and sometimes I don't know what they're talking about, but the stories are great. If you haven't listened to it you're genuinely missing out. Get onto your iTunes now, and search for it or whatever, it's free goddamit! Make your brain full of strange and interesting facts like I have recently. Anyway, the work was inspired by the supposed importance of the white coat, which reassures patients, and I have used a neutral substance (water) and the doctors distance from the patient to show there is no physical treatment. The metaphor of the plant with little drug flowers is my favourite little nugget of knowledge from this episode - that medicine just prompts your body into making the cure. It's all in us already! Crazy. Makes me think I can just think really hard and heal myself. L...

 Another quick editorial about choosing your holiday destinations in strange ways. 

I'll be honest, I'm pretty disappointed with this one. The idea seemed good but the execution is poo. On to the next one. I'll call it a 'learning experience' or something.