Gala Bingo Calendar - Bingo Call Character Illustrations

Eyes down for a brilliant bingo based Project

I've recently worked on a great project for Gala Bingo. working together with a fab design company from Leicester called Work Design. We produced a fun promotional calendar to hang on peoples walls and help promote Gala Bingo for the whole year.

I was asked to create the 12 illustrations used on the calendar, and they are all based on the most popular bingo calls. Any bingo officionados out there will know the common and quirky calls used in bingo halls all over the world, but if you need reminding of the full list you can check out this extensive Wikipedia page.

The final twelve we chose needed to be fairly family friendly as they have to appeal to a broad audience of Gala Bingo regulars. The final twelve bingo calls chosen are:

Legs 11, Knock on the door 44, Lucky7, Kelly's eye 1, David's den 10, Droopy drawers 44, Unlucky for some 13, Clickety click 66, Two fat ladies 88, Key to the door 21, Doctors orders 9, Two little ducks 22.

You can see the final calendar design in the gallery above. Work Design have done a great job with the graphics and the colours and background details really make the illustrations pop! You can see the early sketches and all the character illustrations below with plain backgrounds (lucky 7 above).

Let me know what you think if you fancy leaving a comment, or feel free to contact me about this project or any other. Enjoy :)

Scientist Character Design - Empiribox Logo and Illustrated Cartoon Scientist

Mad Scientist - character design

If I asked you to picture a cartoon scientist you would undoubtedly imagine the white coat, big glasses/goggles and some crazy hair of some kind. Add in some bubbling, smoky liquid in a test tube and you've got your typical scientist (mad scientist) character.

This is exactly what the client needed, so who am I to argue with tradition?! I did create a choice of other scientist sketches following the similar theme, and a favourite was chosen and vectored up to final artwork. Let me know what you think or if you'd have preferred a different scientist from my sketches.

Empiribox Logo - design, animate and icon amends

Following the scientist character design, I also helped work on the company logo a little by developing the icons used amongst the text. As you can see the logo incorporates a rocket ship, a test tube and a bug. I designed a few variations of each icon and tried several colour schemes.

We also tried to get a bit of extra fun into the logo and decided to have a little play with animating the logo for the website. You can see the simple animated logo below.

If you have any thoughts, comments, suggestions or questions then please feel free to comment below or contact me in whatever way is best for you. Enjoy :)

Caveboy - Caveman Character Design and Illustration

A client needed a caveman, or to be more specific a caveboy character created. The character needed to appeal to kids and was to be used for learning and informational purposes in an environment that specifically deals with heritage and historical education.

Things to consider were that the character looked fun and friendly but not too cartoony. Also needed to be considered was that the character could have the potential to be dressed in different period costume to show the same boy in different outfits and therefore periods of time.

You can see my first stage of sketches, and following feedback from the client the final vector artwork for the caveboy is shown with and without a background. Any feedback is appreciated as always. Cheers and enjoy!

The Health & Safety Fails Collection - These 2 guy

I’ve been creating illustrations of these two silly, crazy, idiotic guys for several years. They’re two characters I created to convey a message about health and safety in the workplace, and basically how NOT to do it! I recently created a load of new illustrations which you can see in the slideshow below. I've also just added them to my Behance site.

Here’s a link to the project on Behance, and if you get a chance I would love to know what you think.

BTW ALL of these illustrations are also available to purchase individually via my iStock portfolio, or feel free to get in touch with me at nathan@antcreations.co.uk and I'll be happy to discuss selling them direct either individually or as a set.

Boardgame created for Northern Rail - Rambutan

"All aboard(game)!". I recently created this illustrated board game for Northern Rail whilst working with a great company from Market Harborough called Rambutan. The final vector based artwork was designed to replicate a generic roll the dice type of boardgame, with a beginning (GO - which represents now) and an end point (WIN - representing the future and beyond). The journey represents a train track and each 'place/square' represents a month of the year which also states a different company goal/target for that month. There were some success cards added to continue the boardgame idea which stated some important company targets etc. And to personalise the whole thing all the characters and surrounding artwork represents Northern Rail and/or the company in some way.

The end piece was printed up to A2 and used in their management conference to quickly and simply explain the companies journey for the next couple of years and beyond. Apparently it went down very well in the conference and hopefully helped explain the company vision in a fun and simple way.

The final artwork is below and some close ups to show you the details. I've also added a couple of the early sketches I created which were used to sell/explain the idea to the client.

As usual I would love to know what you think and any feedback you may have. Cheers and enjoy!

West Lodge Rural Centre cartoons and illustrations

I've been creating artwork for West Lodge Rural Centre for quite a while now. West Lodge is a great farm park for all the family, based in Northamptonshire. Working in partnership with PJD, we've created a whole range of characters that appear all over the company website and various promotional literature. The illustrations also appear on signage, helping visitors navigate their way around the farm park.

The latest characters are needed to promote the rabbit enclosure. You can see the final artwork below and the early sketches I created for the illustration. I've also created a gallery showing all the characters I've created over the years and you can see it here. If you get a chance to go then it's worth a visit, the kids love it there! Cheers and enjoy!

British and Irish Lions rugby playing lion on the charge

The British and Irish Lions have started their tour of Australia. I'm obviously biased, but it's great to see so many of the squad are made up of Welsh rugby players! I feel the Lions are in with a real chance of doing extremely well on the tour this time. So, to celebrate here's a new illustration depicting a rugby playing lion in full flight. Enjoy!

This illustration is available to buy in my iStock portolio

Happy Customers Illustration - JW Clark

JW Clark the Northamptonshire Groundwork and Construction company needed an illustration to explain a very simple message explaining how to create happy customers. Here's the final artwork which is hopefully very self explanatory. Enjoy!

Sports balls and school stuff

These illustrations were also created for Stanley Baker Studios (see previous post) and designed to be simple, colourful cartoons to appear as individual stickers. The final stickers will be cut to the shape of each image and given away to school kids to stick anywhere they please! Enjoy!

Olympic/sport/school themed runners

I've just finished these six little illustrations for Stanley Baker Studios based in Essex. The characters are to appear in a school scrap book for year 6 students. The theme is obviously school related characters but as it is an Olympic year they are all running and being generally sporty! We have a boy, a girl, a PE Teacher, a janitor/caretaker, a Headmistress and a good old fashioned dinner lady. Would love to know your thoughts if you have any. Enjoy!