illustration | this northern boy

November 28, 2018

Mortal Engines: Original Art Sale

If you’ve read my earlier post you’ll know that I worked on The Illustrated Guide to Mortal Engines during the summer. Now that the book is out, and the film has had its world premiere, I thought it would be good to make some of my original drawings available to buy.

The illustrations below all feature in the book, and are hand drawn in ink on cartridge paper. The size of the illustrations, and in some cases the paper varies as multiple illustrations were sometimes drawn on a single sheet. If you are interested in buying an illustration then you can message me on Twitter or Instagram, or drop me an email – rob [at] thisnorthernboy [dot] co [dot] uk

I’m happy to answer any questions you have about the illustrations.

: SOLD – Airships 2. £60

: SOLD – Bordeaux. £75

: SOLD – Kom Ombo. £75

: Piranha Fleet. £60

: SOLD – Boranski-Novi. £75

: Vyborg. £40

: City Cocoons. £75

: Anti-Traction League Fortress £50

: Sky Train. £40

: SOLD – Havercroft. £50

: SOLD – Caravanserais. £50

: SOLD – Northern Hunting Ground. £75

: SOLD – Marseille. £50

: SOLD – Venice. £75

: SOLD – Airship 4. £50

: SOLD – Landship and Ironclad. £75

: SOLD – Floemad 2. £60

: SOLD Paris. £75

: Sand Ship. £40

: SOLD – Nuevo Maya. £75

: SOLD – Runkelstein. £60

: SOLD – Floemad 1. £60

: SOLD – Airships 3. £60

: Water Carrier. £50

: City Cocoon – Ice. £50

: SOLD – Hamsterdam. £30

: SOLD – Traction Avant £60

: SOLD – Airships 1. £60

: SOLD – Alice Springs £60.

: SOLD – Snowmad Skate Town. £60

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November 5, 2018

Inktober for sale!

If you read my last post you’ll know I took part in this year’s Inktober project. Now the month is over, and I managed 25 of the 31 days, I’m making the illustrations available to buy.

Based on British folklore each drawing is a little over two inches square, on A6 (105mm x 148mm) paper. The illustrations are £50 each including UK postage (overseas is a little extra).

Have a look at the images below and if you’d like to buy one drop me an email – rob@thisnorthernboy.co.uk.

: A Witch Hare

: Mother Shipton’s Cave

: The Penhill Giant

: Black Annis

: A Knocker

: A Hobgoblin

: The Loch Ness Monster

: Jenny Greenteeth

: A Hand of Glory

: Jack Frost

: Nelly Longarms

: The Lambton Worm

Each illustration is drawn with Copic SP Multiliners and a Kuretake No.8 Brush Pen. Initial sketches are done with Palomino Blackwings and a Pentel Graphgear Mechanical Pencil.

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October 18, 2018

Inktober 2018

It’s that time of year again where illustrators, artists, and other pen-and-ink wielding entities take part in Jake Parker‘s Inktober initiative.

Last year I only got as far as day eight. A combination of work, and my Inktober drawings being just too detailed and time-consuming meant that I couldn’t complete the project. I will come back to last year’s at some point though. I think Asteroid Belt Blues deserves an ending.

This year I’ve chosen British Folklore as my theme, and each day I’m drawing a creature or a character from some of the wonderfully weird tales we have on the British Isles. Many of the tales I’m drawing I’ve sourced from a couple of great books by Katherine Briggs – British Folk Tales and Legends, and The Fairies in Tradition and Literature. I started with the Lambton Worm, and today (day 18) I drew a Witch-Hare!

Below are all 16 illustrations from the first 17 days. Obviously doing a folklore theme there was no way I was doing anything on the 13th! Each illustration is drawn on A6 (105x148mm) cartridge paper, using Copic SP Multiliners and a Kuretake No.8 Brush Pen. Initial sketches are done with Palomino Blackwings and a Pentel Graphgear Mechanical Pencil.

: The Lambton Worm

: A Screaming Skull

: Nelly Longarms

: Jack Frost

: The Alp Luachra

: A Red Cap

: A Hand of Glory

: Jenny Greenteeth

: The Loch Ness Monster

: Herne the Hunter

: The Knucker Hole Dragon

: A Hobgoblin

: The Black Hen

: The Barguest

: A Knocker

: A Wyvern

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August 14, 2018

Quiet, but not idle.

Well, I’ve been a bit quiet lately, sorry. I haven’t been idle though, I’ve been busy working on a couple of illustration projects.

I’ve just completed a tutorial for 3DTotal publishing. They have a new book coming out – Beginner’s Guide to Sketching: Robots, Vehicles & Sci-fi Concepts, and I was delighted to be asked to contribute a walk through of how I’d illustrate a sci-fi habitat in my isometric style. The book isn’t out until February next year, but you can pre-order it here.

The project that’s kept me very busy for the last couple of months has been a real thrill. Jamie Gregory, head of design at Scholastic UK, asked me if I’d be happy to do some illustrations for a new visual guide to the world of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines books. The book is to be an encyclopaedia of all the incredible things to be found in Philip’s books – the first of which is being turned in to a film by Peter Jackson. Other artists working on the book include Ian McQue and Amir Zand – both artists whose work I absolutely adore.

If you haven’t read any of Philip’s books – you really should have a look.
The description for Mortal Engines –

In a dangerous future, huge motorized cities hunt, attack and fight each other for survival. As London pursues a small town, young apprentice Tom is flung out into the wastelands, where a terrifying cyborg begins to hunt him down. MORTAL ENGINES launched Philip Reeve’s brilliantly-imagined creation, the world of the Traction Era, where mobile cities fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic future.

You can buy Mortal Engines here.

You can pre-order the Illustrated World of Mortal Engines here.

IWOME

The trailer for the film looks pretty bloody brilliant too.

https://youtu.be/ucg9tajl3AE

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June 1, 2018

Cloud Mining

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I’ve been pretty busy balancing freelance design work with illustration, so haven’t had a lot of time for the blog.

I’ll try and post a little more regularly throughout the summer.

I drew this cloud mining station (think the dirty underside of Bespin Cloud City) a while ago, and it proved pretty popular on instagram, so I decided to add a little colour.

I wanted to keep the colour palette pretty muted, so just stuck to oranges and some grey tones.

Hope you like it!

Drawn in a Moleskine sketchbook, with Copic SP Multiliners and Copic Ciao markers.

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March 28, 2018

Sketchbook Spaceships

If you’ve been following my blog for a while (or following me elsewhere on social media), you’ll know I love to draw spaceships. I always have enjoyed drawing everything to do with space, ever since I was a little kid, but in the last couple of years I’ve begun to build a little fleet of ships to inhabit my Asteroid Belt Blues universe.

I’ve managed to fill a few sketchbook pages with ships in the last few days, and I dare say there will be a lot more to come in the next days, weeks, and months.

Pretty much all of them are drawn with Copic Sp Multiliners in a Moleskine sketchbook. Colour, as always, is added with Copic Ciao Markers.

If you like them you can buy them as postcards or posters over at my store.

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January 25, 2018

The All Father

Odin-final-inks

I was recently asked to draw Odin, the Norse god, for a commission. After a few tweets back and forth, between myself and the buyer, it was decided that a head shot of Odin, featuring his raven familiars – Huginn and Muninn – would work best.

I decided I’d try and make this illustration a little more graphic in composition, so right from the beginning I wanted to try and incorporate some Norse carving.

I’m really pleased with how the final illustration came out. I think the details, shadows and textures work really well. Tim, the chap who commissioned the illustration, was pretty pleased too – which is great, and always a relief.

Drawn, as usual, on A5 Daler Rowney Smooth – Heavyweight cartridge paper, using Copic SP Multiliners and a Rotring Tikky.

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January 12, 2018

An Ent of Fangorn Forest

Ent-Final

I’ve just started re-reading Tolkien‘s Lord of the Rings again – partly just because it’s brilliant and I always enjoy it, but also because myself and Jon Elliman are making a feature of it on our weekly (mostly) podcast – North v South.

The moment I started thinking about reading the book again, I had the urge to start drawing some of the creatures from it. I started with one of my favourite Tolkien creations – an Ent.

Described in the books as…

A large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. At any rate the arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating.

They are lots of fun to draw. Trying to convey all that texture and age is a really nice challenge.

Which Tolkien creature should I draw next?

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January 5, 2018

Available for Commissions

Instagram-Commission-Poster

I’m currently available for commissions, so if you’ve always wanted some original art now’s a great time to get in touch. Commissions start at £60 + postage, and I ship world wide. Whether you want a robot, a spaceship, a creature, an isometric building, a floating island, or something completely different, I’d love to work with you on a commission.

You can leave a comment here on my blog, or drop me an email – rob [at] thisnorthernboy [dot] co [dot] uk

You can also find prints of my work here

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Tag: illustration