the deafening draught

Cover illustration for Cycle Lifestyle

2010-05-07T06:50:00.000-07:00

The second issue of the free London cycle magazine, Cycle Lifestyle is available, and carrying my illustration work on the cover. If you're able to get your hands on it, it's a very well put together magazine and an online overview of some of the content can be seen online at the Cycle Lifestyle website. It's worth getting ahold of if you can though, especially for the article on a revised cycle network map of London.

New self directed work

2010-05-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

A portrait of John Martyn and a little tribute to the cult phenomenon 'The Room'

Line illustration samples

2010-05-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

I recently worked on a series of line illustration samples for a pitch. Simple line work with 2 keyline thicknesses.

Dusting down some old work

2010-05-07T06:22:00.000-07:00

A few updates on the website have nudged off a couple of older pieces of work, so I thought I'd just pop them up here along with others and add to the archive. I think this might be happening a little more often from now on as I update the main portfolio to demonstrate a little more consistency in the styles I'm working with.

Further Fossil Collective Images

2010-01-31T09:57:00.000-08:00

Here are two further images created for Fossil Collective's upcoming EP release, to be printed on the inside left and right of the cd cover. The video created for the featured single On and On took inspiration from the cover image produced for the EP, and likewise, the characters of the wolf and the stag have been introduced more strongly to the cd sleeve design using the above two images.

These illustrations have now been released as limited edition giclee prints and are available for purchase at the online shop. Each print has been limited to 100 prints, each signed and numbered, and printed on high quality photo rag paper. Visit the KOLB illustration shop to purchase a print.

Don't mess with texas

2009-12-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

A commissioned piece for a group of friends with a strong Texan theme, and capturing the moment the winning hand goes down, as well as the questionable means of its win.

Guru Nanak

2009-12-07T12:45:00.000-08:00

I've just finished a private commission for a piece depicting Guru Nanak, the first of the ten Sikh Gurus.

KOLB interview

2009-11-24T05:46:00.000-08:00

Rude Retro's blog page has just published a nice little review of the KOLB t's as well as an interview with me on the t-shirt work.

Have a look at blog.ruderetro.com

KOLB t's support

2009-11-15T13:17:00.000-08:00

There's been some great coverage for some of the shirts on the site here at divine clothing and on the Spanish t-shirt blog 1001 camisetas.

Face of a Fousand Fists T in print

2009-11-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

At last the 4 colour print design 'Face of a Fousand Fists' has gone into production, and the 100% heavy cotton shirts are being sold on the kolbillustration.com website from today.

Fossil Collective

2009-10-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

I've just finished the cover design for the soon to be released EP for Fossil Collective (www.myspace.com/fossilcollective). Based on an older piece of work the band approached me with an interest of using the image for their release. Work was needed to make it suitable for print at a much reduced size (the original was scraperboard b) making it look more in keeping with the cover for a band.

The flames and a lot of extra detailing and line work was the result. A distressed leather surround fit the style and brought an old dusty fairytale look to the image.

Models for the September edition of Grazia

2009-09-01T17:55:00.000-07:00

To showcase an accessories special in Grazia magazine's September edition, I was commissioned to create a number of set designs using various frames to contain the fashion desirables. Black roses, black star lights, black acrylic and black artificial grass all lent a rather sexy tone to the final images.

Photography by Omer Knaz

Fashion by Anna Foster

Set design by KOLB modelmaking

Wild Rumpus 3 colour print

2009-08-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

Jim and Christina, dressed accordingly.

LEJOG 3 colour print

2009-08-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

A personal piece to commemorate the successful latitudinal traverse of the UK in 2007 on bikes.

Vib Gyor T-shirt

2009-03-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

The t-shirt design for the band Vib Gyor's promotional push, coinciding with their debut album release has been finally signed off. The illustration itself, although remaining pretty constant since the original concept, has experienced quite a few style changes along the way.

The first quick conceptual sketch proved to be popular with the band and subsequent development kept pretty close to this version.

The first coloured version proved to be a little too colourful and bright, which was the result of looking to present something very bold, using the kind of colour palette that was reminiscent of 50's sci-fi comics and created an other worldly vibrancy . Didn't hit the spot though so changed the focus.

The third installment was originally used and posted on this site, but has since changed. Clear sharp vector illustration and the colours were subdued, choosing a tighter palette with more complementary colours and using halftone effects for all of the shading areas.

During conversations with Jonny Hooker from the band, the overall feeling was that something that had appealed a great deal when seeing the initial sketch had been lost, so lets try to take it back and get some of that rawness and spontinaeity back. So I traced back to the original and stayed clear of clean lines and pretty much stuck to lots of distressed brush effects in photoshop to get the final image. Starting off with the

white background helped a lot as the contrast levels in the image started quite high, and once the black background was introduced, these were tweaked and taken down a notch or two. The flash of light in the figures face was a last minute bit of experimenting, which is always worth doing as far as adjusting layer settings and maybe trying out some bold textures. It worked well and all of a sudden the image finds a new visual through it.