Freelance Illustration and Graphic Design
Christopher King - Illustration and Graphic
Design
Freelance Illustrator
Freelance Graphic Designer
SELF PORTRAIT -
I wanted a nice friendly picture for my
profile page and ended up drawing myself as a chain smoking
50’s throwback.
I’ve been deep in noir land
recently. I’ve just finished reading Raymond
Chandler’s ‘The Big Sleep’ (which was
excellent) and have also been watching lots of 50’s
Hollywood noir movies including the Bogart version of The Big
Sleep as well as Sunset Boulevard, Maltese Falcon, and Double
Indemnity. You could say I had something of a genre overdose.
The result is a slightly skewed self portrait that started of
looking like me (beard and tash) but evolved into a vision of
myself as some sort of Philip Marlowe detective character.
Added to which the series ‘Madmen’ has become
rather popular and it’s influence has snuck in there too.
Inked using only brush work this time, I
actually rather like the outcome. The original drawing itself
ended being rather large (two A2 sheets sticky taped together)
thanks to the introduction of the hand holding the lighter and
had to be scanned in bits and put back together in Photoshop. I
kept all of the shading elements separate to allow me to
experiment with colour which would be done in Adobe Illustrator
after everything had been brought back together.
I’ve kept the colours minimal in keeping with the
noir aesthetic and added a very subtle pin-stripe to the suit
to bring it out from the background. I do rather like it. One
of those un-intentional but worth sticking with drawings.
All the roughs, un-used and layers that
went into the finished piece.
I like the look and I do wear those
‘geek chic’ glasses when I work.
Me, with a beard. This is actually what I
look like normally. I feel weird without a beard!
Christopher King is a freelance illustrator
& graphic designer based near Bristol, UK. He specialises
in traditional, digital and vector artwork along with design
for print and web. Please call or email for more information.
Images may not be reproduced or reprinted
without the artist's sole permission.
