Joy of joys.. I was lucky enough to get my boxers into the New York Society of Illustrators annual exhibition. Thanks to SooJin who commissioned it for Plansponsor Europe.
It depicts a bunch of small plan managers flexing their combined muscle and vanquishing a bigger company.

Come along on Tuesday if you are in Sydney and share a little Christmas cheer with us before the silly season sets in for real.

I'll be whipping up an illustration live on stage and giving away all my secrets along with a whole bunch of very talented practitioners at the Sydney Field Trip.

Check out all the details here. It should be an excellent day of revelations.

TICHY ice cream posters in Vienna

I was overjoyed to be commissioned by TICHY ice-cream in Vienna to produce their annual and much anticipated poster series. They produce three every year to coincide with the beginning of spring.

Working with Christian Satek of Satek design, the brief specified the background colours and the products to be depicted. There needed to be a theme or story in common with all three which will be seen individually around the city and as a group of three. Great fun!

The brief was 'Top 100' plan advisors. Leaders of the pack. So I had trouble going past wolves as an image, but there had already been a wolf illustration commissioned for inside the mag so the horses won in the end.

I knew this one was too silly for words but I popped it into the mix just in case.

Here is the final:

Here's one for the Law Institute Journal of Victoria, where the final is about as close as I can get to the original sketch. I like it when the thumbnail can be used for the basis of the final illustration because it retains an element of spontaneity which can easily be lost if it is overworked.

Despot cover

Here is the Colonel for the cover of The Week. This was done before he was captured so he needed to look shifty and nervous. Once again it was an overnight job. He has such a distinctive face and fashion sense that it could easily be kept super simple but still recognisable.

A couple of spots

These two were for Popular Science magazine; what happens to your digital data when you die? and a very grumpy Android lamenting some apps not working on some phones.

This guy has not recovered enough before exercising again and is paying the price; Men's Journal.

ipad Jungle Book goes live!

We have officially launched the Jungle Book app on itunes. Here's a promo vid which gives you an idea of how it works..
http://youtu.be/AdPcG9ukJ6M



or if you care to purchase it here is the link.. The Jungle Book
and here is a look at behind the scenes.

Popular Science

I've tended to keep my sketches very rough lately. Trying to be a bit more spontaneous whilst rendering. Here's one about which bits of hardware will be obsolete in the near future.

New covers for Money Week

I tried to keep this one as simple as possible.. harder than it sounds. I was aiming for a very graphic image to maintain some impact on the cover. There are always a few copy lines which need to go on there so the image can't get too busy. Fun job.

Jungle Book for the ipad

After a few months of work we are nearly ready to launch the ipad version of the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. The good folk at Electric Type have put together a highly interactive book with all sorts of animation and bits to move and jump about. They are hoping to get it onto the Apple app store in the second half of April. Stay tuned.
Here is a sneak peek of a few of the scenes.

The Economist

This shows the contrast in experiences between a English businessman in China and a Chinese businessman in England. The Chinese man has a rather lonely and meager existence whereas the Englishman has a far richer time in more ways than one.

New Work for US mags

Two commissions recently needed illustrations for 'Team building' stories. These bees were used on the cover of Associations Now magazine based in Washington and the image below was for SooJin Buzeli at Plan Advisor magazine in New York. The story was about putting together the ideal team; these guys have a particular advantage.

EFII podcast

My new friend Thomas James, the man behind the website has posted an interview we recorded last week. I met Thomas at ICON6 in L.A. in July. EFII is the most useful resource I know of for any illustrator, helpful links, podcasts, interviews, books and much more.
Here is the link to the podcast:
efii-podcast-episode-51-nigel-buchanan/

Plansponsor magazine

The excellent art Director SooJin Buzelli asked me to illustrate an article in Plansponsor magazine about executive's pay packets being scrutinized more closely. It was thought the zebra in the original sketch may be checking out more than the flip-top lion's paypacket!

Shanghai Expo / Screen Australia

Another booklet cover for Screen Australia, this time for a China / Australia co-production event at the Shanghai Expo. I was very mindful that this was pushing the boundaries of cuteness, but it went down well in China.

Money Week Cover

A new cover for Money Week in Paris. Investing in Nuclear energy still has a stigma attached to it but investors can invest in suppliers to the industry, stigma free, or so it is argued.

Screen Australia

Screen Australia has kept me busy during the buildup for the Cannes film festival. We came up with a whole marketing look which needed to stand out from the rest. From huge banners to tote bags and menus, the designs had to be adaptable to them all. Great fun.

Artbox

The good people at Artbox invited me to be a part of the New Illustrators File Vol. 8 to be on sale very soon. They are having an exhibition in Japan of all work of the overseas contributors.