Hughes-Illustration

FLAIR Win

Tom Hughes — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:30:32 +0000

Hurrah! I found out I won Creativematch’s FLAIR competition with my ZOO illustration “Under the thumb” this week which pleased me greatly. I won an ipod shuffle and a years portfolio subscription to the site. It’s actually a hat-trick because I won FLAIR twice back in 2006, but who’s counting…

Kev

Tom Hughes — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:57:57 +0000

It was his birthday, so he got a portrait. Looks quite photographic this one, but the likeness is satisfactory. He was chuffed.

More experiments

Tom Hughes — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:44:43 +0000

I’ve been playing around in Photoshop again and feel I’ve made some progress. I’ve realised the absolute critical importance of subtleties between your tonal values to create any sense of form and realism. It’s so hard to have tone and colour working together in harmony; mess up your tones and the form won’t be there, mess up your colours and the skin looks vile. I don’t want to make mistakes and say “Oh yeah, I meant for the skin to be green” I want to get it right.

Here’s a self portrait from a photo taken at sunset and a portrait of my brother in law, Chris, from a photo taken in flat light on a cloudy day. There’s so much more I feel I can learn by doing these, so there’ll be many more. I’m actually bricking it about getting the real oils out, because mixing colours will be a million times harder, take 10 times as long, but will ultimately be infinitely more satisfying

More digital paintings

Tom Hughes — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:10:51 +0000

So, yestrday I did Russell Brand and today Paxman. The style seems to be tightening up slightly which is good for likeness and detail, but bad for “flair” The ultimate aim is to make the most accurate likeness I can, with the fewest amount of brushstrokes. I want the image to be more than the sum of it’s parts so that your brain makes up the details from the blobs and strokes, but it’s hard to get the balance right. Still enjoying doing these immensely and have some more planned soon. Can’t wait to get the actual oils out and see if I can still do it with real paint. I know it’s going to take 4 times longer, but hey, it’ll be far more satisfying, ultimately.

Painting with Photoshop

Tom Hughes — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:52:18 +0000

I used to paint portraits in oils back in 2005/6 but quit when I realised how hard it is to make a living and switched to commercial illustration. I never regretted the move, but have missed painting over the years. It’s a hassle though, to set up an easel at home and have the smell (amazing though it is) linger throughout the flat. A couple of days ago I drew this caricature of Christopher Hitchens and when I was done I had a couple of reference photos open in photoshop, staring back at me. I have often wondered what it’d be like to try and “paint” with photoshop so I opened up a new blank A4 canvas and selected the default “paint” brush at 56 point size and started putting down some strokes. About 5 hours later I was still going. It was incredibly fun and I was amazed at how similar it all felt to real painting. The basic principles were the same; I “mixed” colours by moving sliders to add more white or more red, yellow, etc and using my Wacom tablet and pen, made brushstrokes. I didn’t use any layer options like multiply or soft/hard light and didn’t alter the opacity of the brush as I wanted to mimic really thick, opaque oil paint. The final piece took around 8-10 hours in total and I needed to drop the reference photo over the top of my “painting” at 30% opacity to check I had the features in the right place, then make some tweaks, nudges and adjustments before I was happy. It was great fun and an easy way to get back into painting. I think this process is an invaluable “mess-free” tool for practising painting technique at home and I’m planning to try a few more. Fine Art cynics may sneer, but these are not meant to be printed out and sold, they are experiments really, nothing more. Here’s to technology!

A question of style

Tom Hughes — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:35:20 +0000

There’s a school of thought that says one should stick to what one is best at and keep things simple. In illustration terms, this means having one, consistent, identifiable style from which you don’t deviate. That style can and should evolve, but filling a portfolio with 2, 3, or even 4 different styles has always been something I’ve tried to avoid.

However… sometimes people ask you to do things that do deviate from your style and you enjoy it. And it looks alright. What then? Put it in the portfolio and risk diluting the brand you’ve built up, confusing things, spoiling the consistent aesthetic? Or leave it out, filed somewhere on your hard drive, never to be seen.

When I first started out in 2005, my portfolio was a hotch potch of different approaches, it had to be, as I hadn’t built up a big enough portfolio with my character work. I also couldn’t have made a living from sticking to one thing, you have to spread the risk when you start out and have a few strings to your bow to pay the rent. It was always the plan to make the character work my main earner and slowly weed out all the other styles to make my portfolio more streamlined and focussed. It’s there now, so it seems a shame to take a step back and add a new section. Bah, best not to be too precious about things, I’ll see how it goes.

What do you think? Does it work? Does it clash? Should it stay or should it go?

Lecturing People

Tom Hughes — Tue, 17 May 2011 13:22:45 +0000

Every year or so, I go back to Swansea Metropolitan University and give a lecture to the Illustration students on “How to begin and survive as a Freelancer” It’s a talk I’ve been giving for about 3 years, detailing my work experience since graduating and offering some practical advice on how to manage money, clients & workflow. When I was on the course 10 years ago, “professional studies” were in their infancy, which meant little connection from the course, to the real world of freelance work. This element of the degree has changed dramatically over the years and lectures from visiting professionals is a much more regular and integral part of the students education. This is a valuable development, as many students can feel scared, un-prepared and lost upon graduating if they haven’t been schooled on the realities of the freelance world. They were a lovely group; attentive, interested and with numerous questions and aspirations, it was a pleasure talking to them. I hope they took something away from it and that I didn’t scare any of them off pursuing illustration as a career. I forgot to get photos of the students unfortunately, but you were all lovely Good luck now you’ve finished! The world’s your oyster!

CONTACT is out

Tom Hughes — Tue, 17 May 2011 13:06:38 +0000

There’s a huge gap of about 9 months (it seems) between submitting your artwork to the CONTACT Illustration Directory and actually getting the book in the post, but it’s finally here and looks tidy. I’ve had numerous jobs via CONTACT in the past, so it seems to pay for itself, lets hope the Art Directors out there reading this year’s book drop me a line…

Prints update

Tom Hughes — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:57:33 +0000

Just a quick post to say that my prints are no longer available in the Nails gallery in Bristol. They can still be bought via my online shoppe though.

Food, glorious food!!

Tom Hughes — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:29:03 +0000

I had an image pop into my head last month of a fat man bathing in a yoghurt pot. I don’t know where it came from, or what it meant, but it inspired me to draw a series of food related images. Weirdly, all the food I’ve drawn is wholesome, healthy stuff, the kind of things I like to eat. I guess the contrast of an overweight person gives it….something.

The series of images can all be viewed here.