Andrew Gardner's Digital Ramblings

Sorry, I was napping. For 4 months…

Well, another rather long period of silence on this blog - apologies! But that’s the internet.

I’ve been getting back into illustration recently and have a couple of exciting projects that will keep me busy for the next few months, but thought I’d pop up a couple of doodles I did today, after the hashtag #FantasyWorldProblems popped into my head. Oh, and a little warm-up sketch with a dragon :)

I’m tempted to flesh these out a little more, I am quite lazy when it comes to finishing off illustrations…

The year of the snake

Here’s my latest effort for the Proper English Academy in Osaka - a design for a New Year’s Card, 2013 being the year of the Snake.

There’s nothing like an Autumn onsen

Here’s a little Autumn-themed illustration I’ve been working on - click for a bigger version.

Autumn is definitely my favourite time of the year, and I wish I was in Japan enjoying an onsen right now! 

Oh, click here if you’d like to see a bigger version :)

Summer Peas - round 2

Here are a couple of illustrations for the Proper English Academy in Osaka for a couple of popular Summer activities - festivals (or Masturi) and water fights.

Colouring-in a gorilla

I’ve had some time to work on my first children’s picture book recently, and although there are some bits I can’t really show you *just* yet, I have been doing some more colouring tests, trying to establish the right look-and-feel, which I can share. 

These are still work-in-progress and aren’t finished by a long shot (for example, the face is still rough), but I’m enjoying the process and am pretty chuffed with the style that’s developing - hope you feel the same! 

Here’s a bit of a close up, again the mouth / ears / headband haven’t been worked on at all.

And here’s the original pencil sketch - everything starts as a paper-based doodle!

Summer Peas

Another season is upon us and that means some more P.E.A. illustrations! This time it’s all things summer, hope you like them! These are the first set, another will be coming in a few weeks time.

I’m still here!

I know there’s been quite a gap between now and my last update, but I took on a freelance design contract that just kept getting extended, and aside from the obvious financial incentive, it was actually quite good fun!

I was working as a ‘Reactive Designer’ for Lynx (the bodyspray brand) and essentially creating content for their Facebook page. It involved quite a bit of illustration here and there, and I got to make fun things like the image below! 

Springtime Peas

Another quick update (still freelancing, need more time to draw but have to pay those bills!), here’s a little seasonal scene I did for the Proper English Academy in Osaka - two peas enjoying hanami. It was a bit of a rush job and I wish I could have spent a bit more time on it, but that’s life sometimes! 

Valentines peas

A little Valentines-themed illustration I did for the Proper English Academy. I’ll put up a few more loved-up peas soon :)

***UPDATE*** Added a couple more designs, some are a bit crap (the chocolate peas in particular) but I like to show the rubbish stuff sometimes, not everything turns out how you planned!

Setsubun peas

Once again I’ve been busy with advertising freelance so haven’t had as much time as I’d like for illustration - that said, I’ve been working on some more seasonally-themed characters for the Proper English Academy, the latest being for the festival ‘Setsubun’.

Enjoy :)