Daily Robot: Robocow

This'll be the last daily robot for now because I need to learn to draw some new kinds of buttons and switches.

Daily Robot: The Remotes

Between them there's nothing they can't do.

Daily Robot: ibot

He can see into your soul.

Daily Robot: The Roux-a-tron

Recently I have been watching far too much Masterchef.

Daily Robot: The Massive Robot of Mystery

What does he do? I haven't a clue. What is for for? I'm not entirely sure. What actually happens when you press that big red button? Nobody knows. All we can be sure of is he's big and he goes beep.

Daily Robot: Business Bot

He'll do your tax return and wear a tie but draws the line at shirts.

Daily Robot: Rocket Toaster

Rocket Toaster. Need I say more?

Daily Robot: Swiss Army Bot

I'm a great believer that there's a robot for every situation and the multifunctional wonderment that is the Swiss Army Robot has an attachment for almost any eventuality. There's so much you can do with an egg whisk. To indulge my love of switches and buttons over the next couple of week I'll be posting a selection of robots with a variety of purpose which I firmly believe would benefit society dramatically.

Pirates! Arrrrrggh!

Children's Book Rally

I'm thrilled to be able to tell you that I've won the Illustration Rally's Children's Book Rally with my book Weasels. Woo! A big thank you to the Illustration Rally and all the judges!

Halloween!

The creepiest time of year is upon us once again so I'm taking full advantages of this as an excuse to use a lot of orange/black/green while drawing bats and skeletons which I love but just aren't appropriate for other holidays. No one wants a Christmas bat, well, apart from maybe me.  

Oh Hector.

You can never have enough monkeys.

Father Christmas activity card.

I've noticed the shops are starting to display their Christmas stuff so I've decided to jump on the unseasonable band wagon and put mine up too. Here's a couple of spreads from an activity card I did recently for the wonderfully named Best Publishing Ever International Ltd. Alas it won't be in the shops until December 2012 but fear not I'll be demanding with avengeance that everyone should go out and buy it when the times comes.

Monkey Bus

There's just something about Transport for London and chimps that seems to go hand in hand so for a while I've had ideas about doing a book about a group of resourceful monkeys that borrow a bus. Only recently though have I found myself spurred into action by the Illustrations Rally's Children's Book Rally. It's early days for my monkey based plans but below are the couple of spreads I'm planning to enter. I'll be working more on this banana fueled mayhem more in the future so watch this space for further monkey bus delights.

Waterstone's Picture This final round

Here's a selection of images from the ginormous amount of work I did for the final round of the Waterstone's Picture This competition. For this second round all the 7 finalists had to do black and white roughs for the whole book, which is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast written by Michael Morpurgo, plus at least 2 more colour spreads. 

Tayori: Postcards for Japan

You may or may not know Cambridge is stuffed full of illustrators and they've decided to use their powers for the forces of good (not that there's very many of us illustrating for evil) by putting on an exhibition to raise money in aid of Teachers For Japan in light of the recent disaster.  Postcards have been submitted by the great and the good, and also me, and all will be sold anonymously at a set price so you could end up owning some famous person's work for a bargain. Sneak previews of the postcards can be seen here and I strongly encorage you all to come along on the 5th September and buy stuff. 

Cambridge News

It seems I'm taking the papers by storm this week as a big and dubious picture of my face has been printed on page 2 of the Cambridge News today. Featured below is a very poor scan of the aforementioned article.

Waterstone's Picture This shortlist announced officially!

The Picture This shortlist has been announced today although I did kind of ruin the surprise by posting on here that I'd been selected a couple of weeks ago. Oops. Anyway, my fellow finalists can be seen here on the Waterstone's website where my images are looking oddly pink and it was also printed in today's Telegraph on page 26. For those of you who don't read the Telegraph there's a scan of the article below.

Monkeys n' marching bands

A couple of commissions destined for the bedroom walls of children. I was going to do a process post for one of these images because I've seen them on other blogs and thought they were snazzy but suddenly I'm pretty busy so haven't got my act together. If I remember I do it in the future.

Waterstone's Picture This

A little while ago I entered the Waterstone's Picture This competition to illustrate a version of Beauty and the Beast written by Michael Morpurgo. I'd just about given up hope of ever getting anywhere with this and was feeling pretty dismal about the work when this evening I got a phone call which sent me scrabbling about to find my phone and alas I failed to locate it in time despite it's disembodied ringing. When I eventually stumbled upon it I found I had a voice mail telling me I'd been shortlisted as one of the final six. Woo! I'm now in an illustrative duel to the death (okay possibly not quite to the death) with 5 other hopefuls for a 6k contract with HarperCollins. I'd better go and sharpen my pencils. 

In celebration here's a couple of images from my entry for your viewing pleasure.

Twitter

Loads of people have been telling me I should be on Twitter recently and I'm no match for peer pressure so as a result I'm now on Twitter. I'm in two minds as to whether I'm going to say anything or not but if you want to find out if I ever do click here.

Can't go wrong with monkeys.

Look what I spotted...

Yesterday I was in the foyer of the Macmillan offices and I was shocked to spot my dummy books up on their display shelves not two books away from the likes of Emily Gravett. I shall be having this photo framed and keeping it by my bed. 

Pigeons

Macmillan Prize Private View

Here's a few snapshots from the private view of the Macmillan Prize 2011 where my book Weasels was awarded second prize, woop woop!

Here's Axel Scheffler making an interesting face...

... and here's the side of Emily Gravett's head.

Macmillan Prize 2011

I'm beside myself with excitement to be able to announce that I've come 2nd in this year's Macmillan Prize (that's nearly 1st you know). I feel incredibly shocked and lucky especially as I know for a fact that a good few people who are so talented it makes me physically sick also entered this year.

The exhibition runs from the 24th to the 27th of May at Foyles Gallery, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB.

And here's a few weasels that are almost as shocked as I am:

Pet Shop spreads

For your viewing pleasure here's a few of the finished colour spreads from this pet shop malarkey.