illustration | this northern boy

Recent Commissions

I’m now happily accepting a new round of illustration commissions. If you’ve ever wanted to own some original art – and like my work – now’s your chance.

Commissions

If you would like to buy an original drawing, email me at rob [at] thisnorthernboy [dot] co [dot] uk , and you can request one of the following:

An isometric building
A robot
An Astronaut
A Spaceship
An imagined place
Something else entirely

What you’ll receive will be a black and white pen drawing, on an A4 or A5 sheet of good quality, 220gsm cartridge paper. If you would prefer a colour illustration – let me know and we can have a chat.

You can also request for the illustration to be landscape or portrait in orientation.

Any other requests – type of landscape, style of robot etc. can be made, but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to take this into account. I know this sounds a little strict, but I only want to accept commissions that I’ll enjoy drawing right now, and in return you get a lovely surprise when you open your finished illustration.

What will this cost?

For an A5 (148 x 210mm) commission I charge £50 + post & packaging.
For an A4 (210 x 297mm) commission I charge £80 + post & packaging.

When you email me to request a commission, if you can include the address you’d like it shipped to, I’ll work out the cost of postage and let you know. If you’re happy with the overall cost I can accept payment by PayPal.

When will you get your drawing?

I’ll aim to complete and post all illustrations within three weeks of receiving payment.

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April 7, 2017

Fancy some original art?

the-island-redux

I’m now happily accepting a new round of illustration commissions. If you’ve ever wanted to own some original art – and like my work – now’s your chance.

Commissions

If you would like to buy an original drawing, email me at rob [at] thisnorthernboy [dot] co [dot] uk , and you can request one of the following:

An isometric building
A robot
An Astronaut
A Spaceship
An imagined place
Something else entirely

You can also request for the illustration to be landscape or portrait in orientation.

What will this cost?

For an A5 (148 x 210mm) commission I charge £60 + post & packaging.
For an A4 (210 x 297mm) commission I charge £100 + post & packaging.

When will you get your drawing?

I’ll aim to complete and post all illustrations within three weeks of receiving payment.

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March 29, 2017

Updates…

It’s been a while since I blogged – work and holidays have both combined to keep me from doing so.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been working on getting some artwork ready to sell online as prints – should be ready to go in April – which is very exciting. I’ll be launching with five or six different illustrations, most of which will be available to buy at a couple of different sizes. When everything is confirmed I’ll post here about it.

I’ve also completed a couple of commissions and worked on some concept art for a couple of clients – I can’t share any of that just yet though.

For now, here are some of the sketches I’ve done over the past couple of months.

Sci-fi freighter sketch.

YelloBot.

Orange Bots.

Tick Bots.

Orange Ships.

Flyers.

Sci-fi freighter.

Sci-fi haulers.

Jellyfish sketch.

Flyers.

Fish sketch.

Sci-fi sketches.

Orange ‘things’.

Bug Bots.

Sensor Bot.

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January 16, 2017

Any ideas?

So far on my blog I’ve mostly posted images of my work – in progress and finished – some stuff about my process and bits and pieces about what materials I use.

What have you enjoyed reading? What would you like to see more of? Are there things you’d like to know about me, my work, my methods, or my inspiration?

Let me know in the comments!

4 Comments

December 13, 2016

Christmas Commissions

If you fancy one of my illustrations in time for Christmas you only have a couple more days to get in touch. If you can order by Thursday 15th December you’ll get your commission as a festive treat.

Drop me an email at rob [at] thisnorthernboy [dot] co [dot] uk and let me know what kind of thing you’re looking for. As a rough guide – A5 is £50, A4 is £80, including UK postage (overseas a little extra).

Day 31 of Inktober, featured twice in my top nine. 4854 likes on Instagram.

Finished.

Creature from the Dee

Day 28.

Griff Gristle

Day 23.

Day 30.

Day 29 of Inktober. 4112 likes on Instagram.

Day 12.

Completed illustration

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October 13, 2016

Isometricness II

A little update on this year’s Inktober project.

As I mentioned in my last post I’m drawing a month’s worth of little isometric buildings for this year’s Inktober project. I’ve started off with some medieval / fantasy type buildings, and I’m planning to delve in to sci-fi, WWII, and perhaps Victorian eras too.

Here are the first 13. All my Inktober illustrations go on sale as soon as they are posted on Instagram (a couple of these first few are still available) for the price of £31 (including UK postage. Overseas will be a little extra).

I’ll be drawing each building on Daler Rowney cartridge paper, using Rotring Tikky and Copic Multiliner pens.

Follow me on Instagram if you fancy owning one of these.

: Day 1.

: Day 2.

: Day 3.

: Day 4.

: Day 5.

: Day 6.

: Day 7.

: Day 8.

: Day 9 of Inktober (my favourite from the month). 4375 likes on Instagram.

: Day 10.

: Day 11.

: Day 12.

: Day 13.

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September 30, 2016

Inktober 2016

Every October, artists all over the world take on the InkTober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month – Jake Parker.

The village and associated sketches and thumbnails on my desk.

Inktober is a drawing challenge created by the illustrator Jake Parker, and this will be the third year I’ve taken part. In 2014 I just drew anything throughout the month with no real plan. Last year I drew anything in terms of subject, but I limited myself to using just one pen – a Pentel Pocket Brush. This year I’m doing something different again.

31³. 31 Days. 31 Drawings. £31 each.

Each day of October I’m going to draw one isometric building on A5, heavyweight, cartridge paper. The buildings will all be different, all drawn in ink, and will be black and white, and they’ll all be for sale – for just £31 each (including UK postage).

Some of the drawings will be simple medieval cottages, some may be churches or castles, watchtowers or turrets – I really don’t know yet and I’ll just draw whatever type of building I fancy that day.

The illustrations will be available as soon as they are posted on Instagram, so if you think you might be interested in buying one you’ll have to be following me there. Any unsold illustrations will go up on the blog as an end of Inktober sale.

I’ll be drawing each building on Daler Rowney cartridge paper, using Rotring Tikky and Copic Multiliner pens.

I can’t wait to get started.

Details.

Initial doodle that sparked the idea.

Details.

Sketching.

A hamlet.

Progress.

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September 26, 2016

The Village

I’ve started a little side project, something to work on here and there between commissions, commercial work, and freelancing as a designer. It’s nice to have something on the go that I can draw with zero time pressure, or worrying about whether or not the client is going to like it.

So I’ve started an isometric drawing of a fantasy / medieval village. I haven’t really done any isometric stuff since I was at school, but it’s something I’ve always enjoyed seeing in other artists work. At college I discovered the work of Takenobu Igarashi, and not long afterwards I first saw the work of eBoy, entirely different artists but both working in that geometric, axonometric, 3D space. I’ve been a fan ever since.

The village is currently one sheet of A2 cartridge paper that I’m filling with little fantasy buildings, all aligned on a 30º plane. I’m going to fill the whole sheet and then after that, I might do some standalone illustrations.

It’s lots of fun so far, but I’d forgotten how complicated it can get drawing in an isometric view.

The village and associated sketches and thumbnails on my desk.

Sketching.

A hamlet.

Progress.

Initial doodle that sparked the idea.

Details.

9 Comments

September 17, 2016

The Inspirational Art of Jared Muralt

A growing Muralt collection.

Jared is primarily self-taught, and he developed his precision and skill through the careful study of books as diverse as those pertaining to anatomy, art history and comics. Muralt is co-founder of BlackYard studio, a Swiss illustration and graphic design studio.

That’s the simple text about the artist Jared Muralt that is printed on the belly bands of his two new sketchbooks, it barely tells you a thing about how astonishingly good an illustrator Jared is.

I first saw his work on Instagram, beautifully drawn images of angler fish, assortments of characters in period costume, floating ocean liners, and squadrons of WWII bombers. That precision, mentioned in the text above, really is one of Jared’s traits, but it comes with huge amounts of charm, and character, and interest. There’s nothing cold about the precise way he draws at all.

It would be easy, as an aspiring illustrator, to be daunted when you see the work of someone as accomplished as Jared, and to simply say – “I’ll never be as good as that”and throw your pencils away, but Jared’s sketchbooks, and his Instagram feed, really are testament to the value of practice. He draws a lot. He draws from life, out in the countryside sketching the mountains and meadows of Switzerland, he draws character studies fastidiously, practising the details from every angle. Rather than be daunted and overwhelmed, you should be inspired and enriched by his work. Stimulated to grab a sketchbook and draw.

If you draw or illustrate for a living, or just as a hobby, you really should buy one of Jared’s books. The sketchbooks are amazing, and Hellship is a wonderful graphic novel. The End of Bon Voyage is for me the real star, a magical, poignant, wordless story with the most beautiful drawings you can imagine.

In Jared’s new sketchbooks there’s one image in particular that grabbed me, this drawing of a man, curiously and noirishly lit. He looks like one of the characters from Fritz Lang’s ‘M’. Fantastically unsettling.

that-guy

Jared can be found on Instagram and on Twitter, and if you’d like to buy (you’d be mad not to) one of his books the BlackYard shop is here.

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September 14, 2016

Cloudtop

High up in the clouds, buoyed by anti-grav generators, floats the shanty town of Cloudtop. Scratching a living from processing rare elements from the atmosphere, or providing weather data, a community of brave souls lives at 55,000ft. Engineered through black market gene therapies to be able to survive in the super thin atmosphere of the stratosphere.

Drawn with a Carbon Platinum fountain pen, and Copic Ciao Markers, in a Moleskine sketchbook.

More of me here…