BUG BELLY'S HOME PAD

A brand new website, home for my first book 

BUG BELLY BABYSITTING TROUBLE

Discover all you ever wanted to know about me, author illustrator Paul Morton!! And then download loads of cool free froggy crafts and collectibles.

• NEW LOGO FOR RUGBY CLUB •

I was approached recently by a local Rugby League club to give some strength and dynamism to their new logo.
Working from a few sketches I developed this graphic which will hopefully get them noticed and raise their profile.
Other jobs in the last few months have included multople games work with long lead times. So much so that I can't proudly post anything on here for a few more months yet.
I'm also working on a book which I shall certainly be promoting as soon as possible.
Please remember that these images are strictly copyright and may not be reproduced without permission.

• BRAND NEW WORK & SOME RECENT DESIGNS •

I'm pleased to be able to post these 2 great new games box covers for Wonder Forge. Commissioned by Forrest Pruzan in Seattle they required me to bring to life some of the smaller elements on the covers.

In the SpinGo game it was the spinning cards that needed illustrating and on the Minions Despicable Me game, just the linking plastic pieces.

I usually render, or am provided with the render, a basic 3d image, which I then bring into Photoshop and go to town on.

Please remember these images are strictly copyright. ©

• 99 brand new designer gifts •

I've also been very busy building my designer shop on Zazzle. It's packed full with all the best of my artwork from the last 30 years. Bears, Lions, snowmen, Santas, Peace Doves, Hearts, Aliens, Rock Stars, Ladybirds and of course, FROGS, have all been re-purposed by creatively designing them onto mugs, T shirts, posters, shoulder bags and giant fleeces. To name but a few of the more recent sales!

It's great fun creating these items and when Zazzle offer up to 70% discount codes there are some great bargains to snap up on my shop or elsewhere.

If it sounds like your kind of shopping then please take a look.

Hot Frog on Zazzle HERE

• DRIFT STUMBLE FALL •

A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to be commissioned to design and illustrate the new novel from M Jonathan Lee.

I'm really pleased with the resulting design and think it sits well on the shelves amongst it's competitors.

The road to arriving at this final look was an interesting one. Not least in that it was much shorter timescale than I would normally like, as this job came with a pressing deadline. Sometimes that kind of pressure can lead to a panicky creative block but fortunately in this case it helped me focus.

I'm including some of the early ideas that show how the concept was developed with the very helpful input and incisive feedback from Jonathan himself.

From the outset it was suggested that there might be a person in a window staring out after a bleak snowy downfall, so I felt this was a strong motif to experiment with. As you can see the figure featured in all of these early proofs. But it was this following, more graphic, layout that caught the authors eyer and eventually got pared down and led to the final cover design.

Too many houses and too much colour resulted in taking out all but the main two homes and the blank expanse then worked much better.

This design, above, became the 'almost' final chosen design until, we realised that a bleaker, colder blue tone to the snowy landscape would echo the mood of the story better.

So this, below, is the actual printed cover along with a detail and a selection of the marketing material produced to promote the book. Postcards, notecards, drip mats and tea bags. Pour yourself a cuppa and sit back and enjoy!

Please remember that all these images are strictly copyright. ©

Get a copy of the book ...

https://www.hideawayfall.com/latest-books/

• A BLAST FROM THE PAST •

You may have noticed from various recent posts that I've opened an online Zazzle shop selling quality giftware featuring my artwork and designs. A few weeks ago I came across this PreRaphaelite stained glass window illustration that was originally commissioned in 1982 as a charity card.
I still really like this piece and thought it deserved a second life. After scanning in the original which was illustrated about A3 size, I realised that it needed a bit of tidying up so it has been 'digitally re-mastered'. The design is now on sale worldwide and I'm even thinking of using it as our own Christmas card design this year. It feels rather strange re-visiting this artwork after all this time and as I worked on the tidying up it brought back vague memories of when I originally created it.

This detail shows the before and after versions of the artwork. The extra Photoshopping was all done by hand using a Wacom styles and various pastel and water colour brushes.
Please remember that all the images featured on this blog are strictly copyright. ©

• TOBY TAVERN CHILDREN'S ACTIVITY SHEETS •

If you happen to be in A Toby Tavern over the next few weeks and need distraction for the kids .. here's a double sided entertaining activity sheet I recently designed and illustrated. Commissioned by The Allotment Agency it's around the 7th or 8th time I've produced these fun jobs.

There really are all 26 letters of the alphabet used for objects on the front illustration. Can you find them all? And even if you click on the images to supersize them I wonder if you can find the cheeky mouse as well??

Please remember that these images are all strictly copyright ©

Can YOU find the cheeky mouse?

• SUMMER CIDER & MORE •

One of the most enjoyable sides to my commissioned work is designing and illustrating beer clips. I've now clocked up well over 300 pump clips and labels for a handful of breweries, both large and small.

One of the most recent is this cider clip designed for Holden's brewery in the midlands.

Watch out for the distinctive shield shaped clip. The name and story comes from the ancient nobility that were given special self-ruling privileges in exchange for their guarding and protecting the border 'marches' that separated Wales from England.

Also shown here is my Toffee Porter clip also for Holden's.

• A LITTLE BIT OF BLING FOR CARS •

About 6 months ago I worked on a small, but significant, portion of this new game box for Disney Pixar's 'Cars' franchise. Again, another great commission from Forrest Pruzan in Seattle. Thanks guys.
I made use of some of the chrome filters available via Photoshop and blended a few results together as well as working over th top of these to get a softer silver/chrome effect.

Firstly here's the version that I was sent. It needed 'beefing up' but in a style that would match the 'Cars' franchise logo.

And here's a small selection of the versions I submitted. Getting feedback from the client as we honed in on just the right look. Some were too dark, some had too much reflected colour. The chrome filters in Eye Candy for Photoshop are excellent but often need a little tweaking.

My minimal notes accompanied each visual and version K was the chosen logo.

Can't wait to try out the actual game when I manage to spot a copy.

Please feel free to click and enlarge the image but remember it is strictly copyright. ©

• PHOTOSHOPPED TEXT - DISNEY PIXAR • 

• PHOTOSHOPPED TEXT - DISNEY PIXAR • 

Earlier this year I was commissioned by Forest Pruzan in the States to illustrate some elements of a new game for the innovative toy creators - Wonder Forge. 

Amongst their other exciting new releases were a couple of pre-school science based activity games. This one explored slime, ice, heat, bubbles etc and so the name of the game box needed to reflect this in the eye catching typography title.

Please feel free to click and enlarge the images but remember that they are all very strictly copyright. © 

• TOBY CARVERY MENU'S •

• TOBY CARVERY MENU'S •

Have you ever wondered who designed and illustrated those fun activity sheets for children, in various restaurants? Well I used to wonder about this, and now it's me that creates them! Well, at least for the Harvester and Toby restaurant chains.

I'm currently working on one right now and this is the previous version for the Toby chain earlier this summer.

Due to holidays and embargoed work I've not had chance to post anything on this blog for a whole month! Not very often that happens.

Any time now there'll be a bunch of work for a very famous cereal character, until then, please feel freee to click and enlarge these images but bear in mind that they are all strictly copyright. © 2015

•LE TOUR COMES TO BARNSLEY •

•LE TOUR COMES TO BARNSLEY •

On the 6th July the mad cap circus that is the Tour de France flashes through the western edge of my home town. I'm a keen mountain biker and have never ventured over to the 'dark side' but this road race will definitely be one worth celebrating.

Excellent website with all the details ...

http://letour.yorkshire.com/

I've been involved in a few marketing and promotional spin-offs for Le Tour and these 2 designs are amongst them.

The top image is a T shirt design that's been entered into a competition and exhibition at the Millenium Galleries, Sheffield.

The bottom one, a pump clip (beer clip) for Wentworth Brewery, who have brewed a special celebration race ale.

Please feel free to click and enlarge these images and remember that they are very strictly copyright. ©