Travelling Animals (iii)
The third and final main character from Passport To Read—a rhinoceros train conductor!
Check out this work in progress here, and stay tuned for more soon.
Travelling Animals (iii)
The third and final main character from Passport To Read—a rhinoceros train conductor!
Check out this work in progress here, and stay tuned for more soon.
Travelling Animals (ii)
The second character from Passport To Read, a summer brochure I’m currently working on for Cork City Library’s Children’s Dept.
Socks and sandals y’all!
Travelling Animals (i)
I’m working on a brochure called Passport To Read for the childrens’ section of Cork City Library, which will feature a variety of peripatetic animals.
This is the first character, an Indiana Jones-style crocodilian. And I’m posting some progress shots of the various characters’ development over on my Béhance portfolio!
Summer of Science!
Cover design for the Summer 2013 edition of Walton Magazine, a quarterly Irish science and technology publication. The theme of this edition is A Summer of Science, and it will feature articles on science for kids, as well as many other interesting topics.
I had a lot of fun coming up with this concept and creating the astronaut and alien characters. I also kept a record of its creation over on my Béhance profile which you can check out here.
The issue should be out by the end of the month and will be available in print & digital formats in the Walton Shop.
Received a poster version of my NTA Leap illustration in the post. So I pegged it to the clothes horse and took some photos. As you do.
Save Big With A Leap
Some more Sminky silliness.
Sminky Posters!
I’ve been itching to show off this set of posters I made for Sminky Animation, a.k.a. Andrew James, advertising his upcoming First Birthday Bash at the Fastnet Short Film Festival 2013.
There are 6 posters in total (be sure to click through the set if viewing this on my Tumblr blog), each representing a different letter of the name SMINKY. The posters are designed to work on their own as promotional tools, but the cool part is—when joined together in sequence—they create one massive Sminky-themed board game that you can play with your friends (regular or animal, that’s up to you).
Mr. Smink has even been kind enough to provide downloadable player icons and dice on his website, so visit www.sminkyanimation.com/birthdaybash, input the code partytime and get playing! Oh, you will also need to locate and “borrow” each of the 6 posters from locations around Cork City, so good luck with that.
——-
This project was a blast to work on, especially as I was a big fan of Sminky to begin with. (Seriously, the extent to which these silly catchphrases have infiltrated my day-to-day life is ludicrous.) I think we managed to reference almost every short here, either graphically or in the text of the board game instructions … and yes, I got to watch them all again and call it work!
If you haven’t experienced Sminky yet, I suggest you start here, then try here, here, and here.
That’s right, that’s right, that’s right…

On Wednesday last I attended the launch of DISCORDIA, a graphic novel created by local Cork teenagers for which I was the art director / art workshop coordinator. The launch took place at Cork City Library as part of a series of events celebrating Teen Day.

The book was officially launched by Cork-born comics artist Will Sliney, who bravely—or foolishly—shared the podium with myself and story editor / writing workshop coordinator John W Sexton. Following a great speech, some photos, and some tea & biscuits, the writers and artists involved in the book had the opportunity to attend a “masterclass” with Will, in which he presented his work past and current, which includes Marvel’s Fearless Defenders and his own comic Celtic Warrior: The Legend of Cú Chulainn.

Will spoke about his creative process, gave handy tips and tricks on drawing comics, and detailed how he has made a career as a top-tier comics artist. He also allowed the assembled teenagers to ask plenty of questions and look for feedback on their own work.
It was a fantastic event, and big thanks must go to Cork City Library for organizing the whole thing, and to Will for delivering such an interesting and inspiring presentation. Colin from Irish Comic News was in attendance on the day, and has written a nice account of the event which also gets into the history of the project itself.

I’m thrilled with how DISCORDIA has turned out—it is a credit to the serious talent and dedication of all the Cork teenagers involved. If you would like to delve deeper into its pages you can download the PDF or view it in-browser below.
Here’s a photo of my questionable Black Panther-style salute during my speech. Don’t ask me…

Photo © www.irishcomicnews.com
Melvil Dewey
Because it’s World Book Day (or possibly that was in March … in any case, it’s definitely the start of World Book Fest here in Cork) here’s a drawing of Melvil Dewey, all-round swell guy (if you ignore the philandering and anti-Semitism?) and inventor of the eponymous book classification system still in use today.
File under 611.35 for Bad Ass.
(Or purchase a print here if that is the kind of thing that is your thing.)
Taken from Albrecht Dürer’s Underweysung der Messung, mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt, in Linien, Ebenen unnd gantzen corporen, 1525
(Instruction...
Thonis-Heracleion (the Egyptian and Greek names of the city) is a city lost between legend and reality. Before the foundation of Alexandria in 331...
CT Nelson
I :HEART: Harpies
20X20
oil on panel
ctnelsonart.tumblr.com
crystal clear hi-fi
© Alan Barrett 2013.
