I'm back!

Hello Everyone. I've been very naughty and I haven't updated this blog for nearly two years now! In my defense I have been very busy, but my aim it to get back on top of it all asap. The first step of this process has been to finally update my website, which after 6 months of tinkering I have finally updated it. Hurrah! Here it is http://www.thomasflintham.com/ So in the meantime please have a look to see some of the work I've been doing in the past two years, and hopefully things will getting go again on this blog. Eventually.... Cheerio Tom

Happy Halloween!

It's been a long time since I've posted anything on my blog as it's been a crazy busy summer. I've been super busy on various projects (I finally finished my first ever book last week!) and getting appendicitis just after my last blog post didn't help didn't make things any easier! Amongst it all, I've been meaning to post these pictures.

This halloween all the Marks & Spencers halloween range of packaging and in-store graphics have featured my characters and artwork. It was a project I did earlier in year, and it was hard to wait until the end of summer before the finished results started to appear in-store.

Here's a lovely picture my agents took feature a sample of the products that have been available:

Below are some examples of the different characters and creatures I provided them with:

I'll post some pictures of the packaging soon, in the meantime here's a couple of shots of some of the various items on the shelves:

The Cardturner

'The Cardturner' by Louis Sachar is finally out in the UK, and with the cover I did for it, it marks the first professional Illustration job Ive done since graduating thats actually out there all finiahed and printed and stuff. Im very chuffed with it. I thought I'd put up some better pictures now that its out.

Like a Pokemon game the book comes in two different colours, the red one above, and the blue one you can see below. In Pokemon the red version is the fire version, and the blue is the water version, for this cover though it represents the two different coloured decks of cards you usually get, as its supposed to look like the back of a card (see my earlier post for the full description, here)

Below, is the back cover. This version is different from the actual printed version as it doesn't have the barcode, and the text is hand written by me, rather than the typed font used in the finished version.

On the finished frontcover, the central blurb is handwritten by me, as is the bit of blurb at the very bottom. I although the finished cover uses typed font, I also produced two hand written options for the authors name and title. Below is the sans-serif version:

Here is the serif version:

Im really happy with the finished item, and it was really nice to go out and see something I've done out there, all ready to buy. Here it is in the big Waterstones (other bookshops are available) near Piccadilly Circus:

Here it is in the Waterstones (other bookshops are available) in Covent Garden:

Here it is up north in my home town in the Waterstones (seriously, other bookshops are available) in the fine cathedral city of Lincoln:

My version of the cover is only for the hardback version published by Bloomsbury in the UK. The American cover is quite a different approach, using a photography instead. Its interesting to see the difference. Here it is:

If you're interested in buying a copy its available now from all good book shops. The amazon.co.uk link is here (other online retailers are available).

P.S. this will be the last blog post about this now unless something super happens to do with it. Ive gotten abit carried away maybe, mainly because its nice to actually have something from the last year that I can show. Hopefully I'll be able to post about some other projects soon. Well soon-ish....

My First (Audio) Book Cover

Today I got a nice surprise in the post, the audiobook of the Cardturner, with an adapted version of my cover used both on the CD cover and the C.D.'s themselves. I'd not given the audiobook any thought, so it was an especially nice thing to find amongst the post.

If anyone is interested the book is out on June 1st, the audiobook is due on June 7th.

My First Book Cover

A few weeks ago, I received my advance copies from Bloomsbury of 'The Cardturner' by Loius Sachar, which I have done the cover for. In all the excitement of seeing my first ever book cover published, I forgot to post any pictures.

The idea was to create something like the design on the back of a playing card, with elements from the story turned into symbols in each corner, instead of the traditional hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds. I created a kind of road map pattern for the rest of the design, again in reference to the story (click the picture to see the detail better).

The book will be available in two different colours, like a blue deck of cards and a red deck of cards. Below is the back cover which I designed to look like the ace of spades. This is not in reference to the track by the band 'Motorhead'. I tried to work in a few more story elements into the pattern, can you see a compass and a car wheel?

Im very happy with the final thing, its really exciting to finally see some of the work I've been doing over the last year finished, printed and ready to show about. Im really looking forward to seeing it in the shops. The book is released on June 1st here in the UK (heres the amazon link). I'll put up some better pictures once the book is out properly.

One detail Im particularly happy with is this, my actual name, in actual print, on an actual published book! whoop!

Bologna 2010

At the end of March the annual Bologna Children's Book Fair took place in Bologna of all places. To quote wikipedia's description of the fair "It is the meeting place for all professionals involved with creating and publishing children's books, and is mainly used for the buying and selling of rights, both for translations and for derived products like movies or animated series". While I wasn't able to attend myself, this was the first year that some of my work was over there. One place it could be found was on the cover for Scholastic's 2010 rights guide.

The illustration on the cover is taken from 'Super Amazing Mazes', a book I'm working on at the moment with Scholastic, which was amongst all of the other tops things inside the catalogue. They even let me do the lettering. I was really honored that my work was chosen for the cover, and It was lovely to see the finished catalogue. It was really nicely printed, with a glossy varnish used on the bear and the ground, which looks particulary swish.

Today my agents sent me an exert from industry magazine The Bookseller's coverage of Bologna 2010 which even mentions my book! Im very excited to have gotten a mention! Click the pic below to take a closer peak.

Adam B WIndow

One of the problems with finding things that I can post on my blog is that there is often a big gap between me finishing a piece of work and it actually appearing where it is intended to appearing. Here is a good example, a window display I worked on last summer for Adam B, a printers near Tottenham Court Road in Central London. Here are some pictures I snapped on my phone when I happened upon it all printed and all put up, last week.

Here is a distant view:

This is what I saw when I walked a bit closer:

The image goes across two separate windows. Here is the left window:

Here is the right:

Now I'm walking away:

Im further away now:

They also used the picture on a window along the side:

Here is the original:

I also did a black & white option:

Here is a photoshop mock-up that I made to show how it would look printed and put up. Im happy at how close it matches the reality:

Here is another mock-up:

Im not sure how long it will be up for, I think it my be semi-permanent for now. If you want to go see it, you will find it here.

P.S. This is my 100th blog post! Hooray!!!!

EDIT: Here are some extra photos that the Swishly talented Mr Augustine Coll sent me (he's the chap in the photos). Point your eyes at them then point your eyes at his website too (here).

Yuki Wallpaper(here)=Yuki Wallpaper (now)

Hello there. I've not posted here since Christmas, and today its Easter which is very bad and naughty of me. So to make up for it I am doing a blog now. I have been very very busy, but its just not really stuff that Im allowed to be showing around at the moment. As soon as I can show anything I certainly will. Here is something kind of new I can post up.

The last blog I did was a Christmassy desktop wallpaper, and I dont have any Eastery desktop wallpapers, I do have some Yuki-ery wallpapers. Yuki is one of my super talented friends and I made a big picture for her birthday (see this blog post). I recently got round to sending a copy of the file and edited a couple of different desktops for her, and she said I could share them on my blog. I hope you like them. Also you should really check out Miss Nishimura's website to see her illustrations.

Cheerio :-)

Christmas Gift 2: festive wallpaper

Happy Christmas! Here is another virtual gift, a festive wallpaper for your desktop. The image is from the cover of the sadly unfinished Super Christmas 2009 (currently cover and back cover finished+a 50 page story with every page started but none finished, time has not been on my side, I need a super christmas miracle!). This image was also used by my agency on their christmas cards. Hope it helps your computer get festive.

Super Christmas 2007

Happy Christmas everyone!

As a kind of virtual present here is my Super Christmas 2007 book for you to read. I hope you enjoy it and it helps you feel festive! It is missing one page I'm afraid but it does effect it too much.

Merry Christmas you!

1 Month to go.........

Arena Illustration Agency

Although I might have mentioned it in passing in a previous blog post, I thought today would be a good day to specifically announce that I have joined Arena Illustration Agency. I chose today as their new website has launched with my page as part of it. have a look here. I have been working with them for a few months now and while Im not able to show you (yet) some of the things we've been working on, I will do as soon as I can. Hooray.

More Animations

I thought following the few animations In my last post, I'd post the rest of the animations I did at while studying Fine Art at De Montfort university.

Here are some animations from the second semester of my second year in 2002. The animations were projected on to larger sheets of fabriano paper alongside a series of similar pictures drawn on to fabriano paper to match. In these drawings and animations I was creating large detailed patterns using common elements from my doodles. This was the most successful of all my projects on my fine art degree and I'd still like to return to it at some point. Because the animations where supposed to work like the still drawings they were made of short loops so they could be constantly projected onto the sheets of paper.







The following animations are from the last semester of the third year. They are taken from a follow up project to the one mentioned above. I didn't get to project them onto paper and ended up just having a showreel playing on a tv alongside my other drawings that wern't really connected to the drawings. As a project it didn't work aswell but I still quite like the animations themselves.

Thomas Flintham vs Pixar

I recently had the pleasure of watching the new pixar film 'Up' and recomend it highly. It is swish, especially the first 15 minutes which have some great storytelling to go with the great story. 'Up's story of a flying house reminded me of a project I did way back in the second year of my BA Fine Art studies at De Montfort University in 2002 called 'The Flying house'. Below you can see both the series of drawings I did and my first brief experimentation with animation aswell.



click the area below to browse all the images full screen.




I can't really claim that pixar stole my idea as my version itself was not the most original idea ever, being inspired by books such as 'The House That Sailed Away' by Pat Hutchins, and 'Laputa Castle in the Sky' by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Also despite the fact that I did upload all the images onto a website in 2002 I don't think pixar would have seen them.

A couple of semesters after I did the 'The Flying house' project I created my first ever comic called 'Momo and the Little Bird'. Soon after I finished at the beginning of 2003 I started to think of ideas for another comic. One of the main ideas I liked was called 'ROBO' about a robot made by a scientist that outlives not only his creator but all of mankind aswell. So a story about a robot left all alone on earth carrying on its work all alone.......which is just like Wall-e, those pixar scoundrels!

Although apart from this detail my story was going to be quite different, but I was still abit annoyed by the similarities as I still had the idea in mind when Wall-e came out. I never got further than the cover for 'ROBO' the comic, I instead decided to animate it instead. I planned to animate the whole story to the song 'Eric the Gardener' by the Divine Comedy, matching the progression of the story to the changes in the music. I had the whole thing planned out but never got further than a very small section at the beginning showing ROBO being built. I turned the small section I did do into a small looping animation of a series of ROBOs being produced, using a sample of 'Eric the Gardener' within it. I also did an a brief follow up, another short looping animation showing lots of ROBOs called 'ROBO Parade'. You can see them both below:





Although I still like the idea I had for my ROBO story, following Wall-e I'm not sure if I'd ever do it the way I intended, but I might incorporate it into another story. Those darned Pixar people, always 120 steps ahead......

The Art Book 2010 Cover

The above image is a rough sketch/layout/doodle for an image I entered into a competition this summer, to design the cover for the 2010 edition of The Art Book. The Art Book is an annual illustration showcase produced and compiled by a number of agencies featuring a selection of the Illustrators they represent, which is then sent to a range of art directors and clients. You can look at the previous editions online at www.theartbook.com. (Just as a note the competition and the opportunity to have a page in the book is only open to illustrators represented by the agencies involved)

Im not sure if you can tell from this stage that the main part of the cover features a maze like what I did in 'The Amazing Giants Castle'. It even features the same boy and his dog. I appraoched this as a kind of re-interpretation/follow-up but at a more widely useful size.
From the basic sketch I expanded it to included the spine and the back cover too. See below:


To enter the competition you could enter an unfinished design, which due to a lack of time is exactly what I did. I sent the above sketch to give an idea of how the front and back cover would work. I also sent the image below, which is a more worked up version of the front cover, specifically the maze itself:


I was happy with the design at this stage, but I wasn't happy that I hadn't had time to finish it before sending it off, which made me doubtful of my chances. I was surprised however to find that my entry had gone through to the second stage and was one of the final six based on the voting to that point. All the judges then voted on the remaining six to choose the cover and although I didn't win in the end I did get runner up, which I was very happy with.

I was still happy with the design and decided to finish it so that I could use it on my page in the finished book. Below is the finished version:


Because the image was no longer going to have the back cover part, I decided to move the monster in the fog behind the island, as he was one of my favourite parts of the original design, and i wanted to keep him in. I also zoomed out a bit to both make room for the monster and to show abit more of the island and the sea. It was tricky to get right but I'm happy with the end result.

Below is a weird version that happened when I tried to upload a CMYK formated version for this blog post. I quite like it though!: