Paul Crump is a Graphic Designer based in London and a recent graduate from the BA Graphic and Media Design course at the London College of Communication.

Paul is a self-proclaimed ‘versatile perfectionist’ with a keen eye for detail and he produces clean, well structured design and graphics. Every element of his work is well informed and carefully thought through and he strives to challenge existing formats in an attempt to make them more engaging and eye-catching to the viewer.

During his time at university he also worked with Alexander McQueen and joined WhyNotAssociates as an intern straight after completing the BA course.

It (WhyNotAssociates) was a great experience working in a multi-disciplinary studio, any questions you had they were happy to help and let you work in the way that suits you best. The feedback given was very helpful to feed into my own practice.

At the moment I’m working on the identity for the textile designer Finchittida Finch who recently graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design.

I can vouch for his meticulous and strong work ethic and this has been recently rewarded with a First Class Honours degree and features on both the Creative Review and Grafik Magazine’s ‘Great Graduates’. Paul is pushing on with this momentum and has big plans around the corner:

In the future I would like to experience working in New York. It’s a place I love visiting and has a completely different atmosphere to London. A job at Pentagram would be amazing. Just working alongside some of the designers there would be a dream come true.

Paul has also recently setup partnerships with two other recent graduates as part of DIVIDEBYTHREE in order to push their work further as part of a team.

To find out more behind the projects featured check out www.paul-crump.com.
Twitter: @paul_crump

Rich.

New large illustration piece in the same theme of work I exhibited as part of my degree show.
“Nothing is more real than nothing” is a quote taken from Samuel Beckett’s 1951 novel ‘Malone Dies’.

‘Nothing is more real than nothing’
Limited run
70x100cm
by Rich Sheehan

Full passage: ”I don’t like those gull’s eyes. They remind me of an old shipwreck, I forget which. I know it is a small thing. But I am easily frightened now. I know those little phrases that seem so innocuous and, once you let them in, pollute the whole of speech. Nothing is more real than nothing. They rise up out of the pit and know no rest until they drag you down into its dark. But I am on my guard now.”

Take a closer look below:

You can check out more of my work in the art, design and illustration sections on SickManSick in the categories menu.

Rich.

In my first tutorial I’d like to share some of the techniques I use when creating a basic digital illustration in Photoshop. I hope what follows gives you a glimpse of my process and although quite straightforward you may find something useful. “You should be doing this in Illustrator!”, I hear you moan… I know, I know, but for me this process is more free and less fiddly for something so quick. I do a lot of digital based work and the software can open up unlimited avenues to explore but I prefer to keep it simple, so let’s start at the beginning.

I use OS X, Photoshop CS4 and a Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet.

Go Big:

Whatever the purpose for your illustration I recommend always setting up your canvas at a larger than needed size- this gives you maximum flexibility and control in refining your work and secures a higher quality finish to your final piece.

As the purpose for this is simply a demonstration- converted to a free desktop and iPhone/iPad wallpaper (Links at the end), I will set up my canvas at landscape A3 dimensions to begin with. I stick with 300dpi resolution as it’s the standard for print and will retain that quality.

Sketch:
On a new layer, I begin by sketching out the basic shapes of the composition. I use a basic round brush, Hardness 100%, Spacing 1%, with Pen Pressure control, Other Dynamics>Opacity Control>Pen Pressure selected and quickly sketch up the bird pose. This brush is a very simple set up and will essentially be what I use throughout, the Spacing and Hardness setting will give me smooth, clean and crisp lines to work with.

Once I have the basic pose laid out, I drop the Opacity of the sketch down to 30%, this acts like tracing paper and will give me enough information to then draw over more refined lines to better shape up the bird on a new layer (Shortcut Shift + Apple + N). This stage shows what is and what’s not working for the pose and you can begin to easily tweak the composition- I went through several to nail the ideal one!

Cut Backs:
I find drawing like this with the Wacom still gives me problems in executing very precise lines. My drawing surface is between A5/A6 in size and so traditional techniques like moving your pen across the page from the momentum of the elbow rather than the wrist still applies but can be awkward. Here I find cut backs useful, particularly in finding that ideal line and refining sharp edges as below.

Brush setup used again is a basic round brush, Hardness 100%, Spacing 1%, with Pen Pressure control and Other Dynamics deselected. I skip between the Brush (Shortcut B) and Eraser (Shortcut E) and draw then cut back (erase) to achieve the ideal line weight and finish- (this is where Adobe Illustrator is ideal and reduces this hassle, see next tutorial.)

I add detail by decreasing the brush size and rotating the canvas (Shortcut R) so I can find a better angle to work into.

Set up a Palette:
On a new layer, dropped behind the refined line work (Shortcut Apple + [ ), I select several greyscale tones from dark to light and paint them away from my work area. On another new layer, I begin to roughly add in the light values to give the character consistent tone values, using ALT as a shortcut for the Eyedropper tool whilst working with the brush selected, to pick the tones from the palette.

Colour:
I pick a blue colour for the bird and change the layer style to Overlay and begin to block in the bird.
Here I can just focus on getting the colour I want and not have to worry about tonal values as the work has already been done.

I switch the layer mode to Normal once completed and zoom in to tidy and check for any missing chunks or mistakes I have made before switching it back to Overlay.

I copy this layer (Shortcut Apple + J) and tweak the Opacity of the copied layer to give the right amount of impact I want the colour to have. Duplicating this Overlay layer adds vividness to your chosen colour.

I decide the linework is too dark for the piece and so by holding Apple and clicking on the layer icon of the Linework layer, I select all the information on that layer and it will only allow me to work within the line work area. I choose a dark blue and quickly paint over the entire area selected.

Final Touches:
I increase the Canvas Size (Image > Canvas Size) and tweak the composition.

Every element drawn in the piece is on a separate Layer and it helps so much in giving you the maximum flexibility in changing and tweaking your composition. I also have a habit of duplicating layers and hiding them in case I want to revert back to it later.

I add a block yellow background and then a gradient on a new layer. I also add some type which I’ve then Rasterized, warped the Perspective and then drawn and cut back into as previously shown to rough it up a bit.

I duplicate the linework layer and fill in to make it a block silhouette shape and through the FX menu on the Layers window I select a stroke at 32px and apply a similar stroke to the fly, giving them a white outline.

Again for the fly trail I draw and then cut back into it with the eraser to give it the appearance of a dotted line. At any stage you can freely select layers and work back into any aspect of your piece and what I tend to use a lot is hitting (Shortcut D), this reverts your brush colours to Black and White at anytime and (Shortcut X) switches between the two colours selected. The Lasso tool (Shortcut L) is also a neat way of selecting areas of your drawing that you need to move or rescale without having to redraw them again from scratch. Isolating every element of the drawing in it’s own individual layer allows you to easily tweak and change every aspect and detail of the piece with much less hassle than piling it all on one layer.

I add a couple of extra highlights and expressions on another final layer and there you have it.

Free Wallpaper Download:  1400×900  1280×800  iPhone  iPad

(Right Click > Save As)

Rich.

p.s I’ll be sharing some of my work processes in Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects over the coming months so if you found this useful let us know by posting a comment below.

I went down to the MA Publishing student’s exhibition at The Book Club in East London last Wednesday- ‘Publishing Challenge’ showcased new self-published books and magazines from the students at LCC.

The work on display was excellent and the night also coincided with the launch of the ABC Book Project.

There were some very interesting presentations, highlighting the highs and lows of making the work on display, including the painstakingly hand screen printed cover for each copy and this was followed by an auction of the final ABC book- the book, signed by the illustrators went for £75 and this will go towards the other great fundraising work ABC has been doing with the British Red Cross.

Keep up to date for more news on the ongoing project here, ABC Project.

Rich.

Next Wednesday is an exhibition by MA Publishing students from LCC- a celebration of the all things printed and bound.

As part of this will be the launch of the ABC Book Project which I was involved in earlier this year. I was one of 26 illustrators each contributing an illustration of a designated letter of the alphabet with a short written paragraph/poem to accompany it.

Really excited to see the finished article so please come down to The Book Club and check out the event!

From the LCC website:

Date: Wednesday 20 July 2011
Time: 6.30pm onwards
Venue: The Book Club, 100 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4RH

Are you a designer, illustrator, photographer or photojournalist who has created a book or magazine?

If so, LCC MA Publishing students – the New Publishers 2011 group – invite you to participate in an exhibition and Pecha Kucha night to celebrate new self-published printed books and magazines.

If you’d like to take part contact newpublishers2011@gmail.com or visit www.publishingchallenge.com for more info.

Rich.

The Private View was last night for the LCC Graphic & Media Design: Illustration degree show at LCC. It was packed out and I hope everyone enjoyed it! It runs until next Friday 8th July and a full post is to come on the show and about this new work.

I’m exhibiting four different framed pieces including a new illustration print.
Here is a preview of that new one, packed full of detail and referencing dreams, nightmares, western and eastern mythology and folk tales. I have produced a limited number for sale in the original black and white and four other colourways; orange, pink, green and blue on heavyweight 250gsm Parchmarque paper.

Thank you to those who picked up a print last night-

A new online store is in the works and hopefully will be ready to go soon, in the mean time drop me an email- rich@sickmansick.co.uk for more info about the show and the prints.

Rich.

‘The Obdurate King’

Indigo Print

Heavyweight 250gsm Parch Marque Brite White paper

420 x 300mm

Prints available to purchase, contact-     rich@sickmansick.co.uk

Rich.

I have just finished university and our final deadline was last Monday.
Here is the first of a series of prints I completed as part of one of the projects.

The image is made up of skull lollipops interconnected and supporting each other to create a complex but fragile structure.

‘Obelion Structure’, Indigo Print on Heavyweight 250gsm Parch Marque Brite White paper, 420 x 300mm

I hope to set up an online shop soon to sell the limited run of prints I have, (5 of each) so check back soon.

Here’s a little snap of the print framed amongst some of the other work- full post on that to come.

Email rich@sickmansick.co.uk if interested in picking up a print.

Rich.

Recently I’ve begun work on a short Comic Book with American writer Ben Kahan.

We’ve been fleshing out the idea for a little while now and are deep into the script writing. I’m beginning to build some visuals for how we might begin to imagine our characters and environments and so I wanted to share a couple cuts of the rough sketches I’ve started with- a mix of painterly and illustrative elements..

We’re loosely basing the story around Hernan Cortes’ conquest of Mexico and are also incorporating the legend surrounding the God of Death; ‘Mictlantecuhtli’ and the challenges and quests the Aztec people would undertake after death.

I want to mix a lot of dark imagery and action to create my own fantasy world incorporating much of the Aztec symbology and inspiration from the existing sculptures/artefacts in the British Museum and my previous historical research.

We’re looking to produce it both online in e-comic form and in a physical printed text series and hopefully have it scheduled to be completed in the Summer 2011.

Check back for further developments~

Rich.

Here is a preview of some work I have been doing for the ABC book project.

26 Illustrators and Artists are each illustrating a letter of the alphabet and have been asked to write a piece of text to to accompany the image.

I was allocated the letter ‘O’.

Still a few tweaks to go and still undecided on final colourways but I’ll post more images and info on the whole project once it’s all finished but hope that’s enough to get you interested for now  :)

Check out www.abc-project.org for artists profiles and more information in the mean time.

Rich.