Just a few boards I did today for a Stacy Wall NFL commercial…

I finally got round to reading all six volumes of Katsuhiro Otomo’s ‘Akira’. I’d bought them all over the last year, they’re quite pricey so I had to do it over a long period, but I finally got round to reading them over this last week… a volume per day.

It’s amazing.

I knew it would be, I’d read chunks of it in the past, I had quite a few of the old 80s ‘Epic’ collections from when they first came out… And of course I’d seen the film and loved it… but really, it was great to read all six volumes in a row like that.

I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed at the task in hand with regards Nao… so it was the best possible tonic. My ambition of completing roughly 200 colour pages is completely dwarfed by the immense achievement of Otomo. Ten years in the making, a two thousand-plus-page epic of staggering beauty and detail. For anyone interested in comics, it really is an essential read. And now I’m full of confidence again… a year doesn’t seem like a long time at all.

Was digging through some old files today & found these stills, they’re from the only pop promo I ever directed – for Stina Nordenstam’s Lori Glory. I’m really pleased with them, Steve Blackman the DP was great & so was Dan Betteridge the art director.

This is the first rough character design for Tara Greene, Nao’s best friend and flatmate. She’s very much a strong, able, no-nonsense kind of woman. A nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and she’s a great believer in the medicinal qualities of a good cup of tea.