Every couple of months, I am commissioned to do some illustrations for Young Performer - a magazine promoted by Stagecoach who support young people aspiring to forge a career in film, TV and theatre. Each issue features a short story by Errol Murphy and I get to adorn his text with my scribblings.
Initially it consisted of a few small spot illustrations dotted about the text but a few years ago I was asked to make the illustrations more integral to the text so I began to create single pages and double page spreads that bleed off the page. The text then sits on top of that. Luckily for me, the magazine is only printed in English so I can have dark backgrounds which can then have the text reversed out of (in white or a colour). I am usually given quite a lot of freedom to illustrate whatever I like in the story so these are fun to work on. They don't get any exposure outside the magazine so I'm going to start posting the odd one or two here in future.
These are a few illustrations from previous issues. The large spaces in the middle of illustrations are to allow room for the text/story.
click on images for a closer look