Charlie - Owen

Hmm, I've noticed a slide in the quality of my recent entries. The trend seems to be to leave it too late (in fairness, things have been hectic!) and throw together a hurriedly produced effort.

Well, Charlie was no different I'm afraid. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe. Unlikely though!

My first thoughts were to do with (a) Charlie Brown, (b) phonetic alphabet and (c) cocaine! I discounted the cocaine and worked out how to combine the first two with the least effort involved (sorry, gotta be honest).

So I made a picture of Charlie Brown, complete with zig-zag jumper, out of lots of letter 'c's. And here it is. Man, I'm ashamed.

'Speak up man'

July's theme was a slow starter but I really enjoyed it once the idea formed. I took my cue from the NATO phonetic alphabet, and after looking through some of the photo archives of the Big Picture, I knew what I wanted to do. The idea is you use the words to make sure someone at the other end of the line can understand what you're saying. It felt like this was a starting point and the project could go a number of ways so there's two versions here, see what you think.

Charlie - Gallusness

Ok so I'm posting this a day early. It's been a good month up here in the world of Gallusness. More info to follow about why that is at some point. July's entry is done and dusted so I thought I'd get it up and out there. It's worth also saying July has been such a good month that even May's - Tell Me A Lie entry got revisited. There is now an updated illustration that's been added to that previous post, it's now in a place I'm happy with.

But over to this months entry. Charlie as a title was an absolute gift, I knew instantly what I was going to do. Since setting up www.gallusness.com just over a year ago I had a number of personal projects that I had on the go that I wanted to finish and add. One of these was a t-shirt design involving Charlie Chaplin. It'd become something of a personal quest to finish this design but it has always been the one that got away. It's been mostly done for ages now and probably would have remained that way (despite it being a 2009 new year resoultion to finish it). My motivation and reason behind the t-shirt is the story of how Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest in Monte Carlo and came third… I LOVE that fact, it's genius! And I love the fact that he was up for entering in the first place.

This fact has always amused me and I fancied celebrating (and wearing) a tribute so I set about designing an appropriate image. As this was going to be for a t-shirt I kept the real Charlie C as a photograph. But then illustrated the other entrants in a pretty apt colour scheme and fashion that would give a better printed result.

Although I effectively had a head start on this entry I went back and re-visited it as a whole to tidy it up and get it to exactly where I wanted. One of the newer additions was working up how to best achieve the podium finish. The Monte Carlo text that appears was hand crafted before being traced over in vector work.

I've included a visual of how I imagine the final t-shirt looking below.

Yip Charlie as a title was about as close to perfect as you could get for me, top of my head think only the Stereophonics 'Looks Like Chaplin' could have topped it.

Overall I'm really happy with this one. It's so nice to see it finished and fully realised, just have to get around to arranging a print run now. Reeko, I salute your I-Tunes and it's shuffle-ability (well for now).

Untitled - delayed

Eeeek!

Nevermind that it's the 6th, better late than never. I actually did this at the very beginning of the month but have been caught up in lots of freelance work and forgot to post it. Sorry kids!

July 2009

Round and round she goes, where she stops no one knows!

...and the song for July is;

"Charlie" by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers from "Stadium Arcadium – Jupiter"

Another record I didn't even know I owned. Heads down and best of British!

Untitled - Gallusness

This months title for me represented an opportunity to do an illustration I'd been wanting to do for an absolute age now. I also felt that the song title allows me to not to have to give a fully detailed explanation this month. Lady and gentlemen, Untitled by Gallusness.

See you next month.

Untitled – Reeko

So, here's how the train of thought went.

Untitled. So he doesn't have a title. Who doesn't have a title? Do I have a title? Yes, I'm a "Mr". You have to be outside society to have no title. Who is outside society... A homeless person perhaps...

I tried to convey some of the bleakness of the song in the image. Oh, and the reflections in the pavement were a real experiment and I'm still not sure they quite work. Ah well, onwards and upwards!

Have a great month.