I recently received my limited edition copy of The Death Cap!  It is the second in the series of Professor Stubbs detective novels by R T Campbell, re-published by Lomax Press. The first story selected, Take Thee A Sharp Knife, was published in 2011, and I have been lucky enough to be asked to illustrate both dustjackets.  A very exciting project for me.

The design of TDC follows that set out with the first book, with a silhouette of the detective-in-question puffing away on his pipe at the crime scene – rather unhelpfully, but then everyone drinks and smokes constantly in the story anyway – and then appearing throughout the book at the end of each section:

I created a ‘death cap mushroom’ silhouette vector for the chapter endings too – last time this was a commando knife.  Nasty stuff!  I think the combination of these elements give a lovely continuity to the series.  The typesetting was again done by Omnis Partners, and gives an elegance and sharpness.

Excuse the ropey photograph but here is the jacket in full, next to the book itself in its nice black binding:

Well it has been a little while since I last posted – but hopefully the new site will give you an idea of what I have been up to!  I finally ditched my ‘hand-crafted’ site, which I had been trying to maintain and update since about 2007.  It was good when Dave built the underlying structure back then…  Now everything is in one place and running on WordPress, which should make it a whole lot easier to manage and vastly improve its appearance.

I’ve also been working on the next Lomax Press book cover – but for obvious reasons I can’t show the illustration yet as the book is still in production – and a drawing for the waxwork project so I could enter it in the AOI awards.  Not really expecting much to happen to be honest, as I imagine they are inundated with entries and decent illustration but it is worth the effort.  Here is the Masqued Ball!

It’s on A3 Canford black paper again which seems to be my paper-of-the-moment.   I have come to terms with the fact that for these coloured pencil drawings the physical appearance is way too dark – they need a bit more punch and contrast that I can give them only in Photoshop.

The next thing on my list is to add to my Etsy site with some lower-priced items like greeting cards.  I like the thought of making cards again so it will be fun to design some (or use/bastardise some sketchbook drawings depending on what I can find…).  I used Moo for my business cards so will go back to them as the printing is excellent, but more unusually you can get multiple designs in a batch.  I think my business cards are supercute, not because of the subject matter but because they are small and rounded!  It was a bit of an experiment and I think the negative images work best, and at this scale they remind me of little carte des visites:

I recently made this leaving card for my manager at the BM – he had been there 34 years so had a special send off.  I made a pamphlet binding (thanks for the tips and materials Mum) and hand lettered the front cover, directly on to the cloth.  With an indestructible and rather heady-smelling gold pen.  The ‘Alan Breck’ illustration was in pencil originally, scanned and digitally coloured, and then printed by trusty Photobox in a matt finish.  I wanted it to look like a reproduction, something slightly boy’s own and old fashioned, and I’m pretty happy with it.  Glad I took the time to recess the illustration by adding a piece of card with the oval cut out, to the front board.  I wish I had glued the cloth better as I had a few bubbles, but I don’t think it’s too bad for some late night guerilla bookbinding: