His drawings themselves are rich in contrasting textures and tones. Often showing vast natural scenes, areas of smaller, more precise detailing are set next to deeper, more expressive dark shades drawn with a heavier hand, giving a nice range or feeling throughout one piece.

In other work such as Vol. 7 of ‘Living Things’ by independent publishers, Little Otsu, Liam deconstructed his drawings and rebuilt them as these amazing dioramas.

They literally bring a new dimension to his work, with lighting bringing mood and atmosphere. We especially like the jaguar skulking in the shadows, while its prey graze in the softer light, unaware. He tells us more about how he works.

I predominantly work with my mechanical 0.7mm Pentel pencil, scalpel, paper and a little digital for slight adjustments etc. I keep a note book handy whenever I possibly can as I find ideas suddenly manifest at any time – It’s always good to make a jotting for future reference and work through them as and when. 

I have been working on an animated music video for a while now and that is due to be released soon-ish. So, my illustration work more recently has mainly been little visual experiments and one off pieces to keep my brain refreshed while I am engaged in this heavier, more time-consuming animation project.

At the moment I am trying to learn and sharpen my understanding of the animation process so that in the not too distant future I may be able to more confidently work towards a short I have loosely storyboarded.

The picture below is the view from my desk.

© Liam Stevens, 2012

The first and third examples here are from a series called ‘Krokodil’, depicting the physical and mental effects of the tissue damaging drug that is spreading out from Russia, Desomorphine. The images, which are at first glance are almost luxurious in their tones, beg more consideration when you understand what they are about— a recreational drug that can leave its users scaly-skinned amputees with a life expectancy of two to three years.

“I always use original material from old books. Before starting, I always cut up the whole book and sort them around me. After this, the collage making starts.”

“It’s possible that at the end I don’t use all of the images. I never use the leftovers images for any other project. So, each project looks different. All my collages are handmade.”

© Ashkan Honarvar, 2012

As you can see, her work has a hint of glamour and seduction within its photographic quality, which lends itself perfectly to fashion illustration, although she has worked across the field, in art direction, print design, web design and visual identity.

We like the mixture of real and drawn elements that have been blended together, a blurring of reality and fantasy that works well with fashion shoots. We think it’s also the stripped back palette and knowing of when is best to add or take away that gives them their strength.

 ”Cityabyss is about the modern city in general, industrial buildings, contemporary landscapes, combined with nature and humans being somewhere in between.

My images and ideas are transcribed quickly in sketch form. I spend most of my time trying to recapture the initial energy of the original sketch. I browse the internet for inspiration, magazines, books etc. I use a mixture of handmade and computer to create my images. 

First, I make drawings, handmade sketches and digital ones as well,  I sometimes take photos of things that I want to use in the image, then I scan them. Generally, it’s all combined and put together in Photoshop.” 

© City Abyss, 2012

Have a read of his interview with Ape on the Moon to find out about getting started as an illustrator and designer, and incorporating the things you love into the work you do.

Can you tell us a little about the kind of work you do?

I’m a freelance illustrator/ designer, I’ve been working in the industry since 2009, starting off working a lot in the music industry for bands such as Deerhunter and Yo La Tengo. I got these early commissions as I also run the Middle Boop mag which is a music and design site (in 2009 it was still a blog) so got a lot of contacts through the site. I now work for a whole range of international clients with projects including movie posters and DVD covers, editorial illustration, large scale illustrations and even a customised bottle of Malibu!

The work I do is pretty colourful. I’ve always had an eye for colour so that’s the first factor. A lot of my work has an old school look and used to contain a lot of found imagery from old sci fi comics and ‘How To’ books but as my work has evolved, I’ve found myself leaning towards stock imagery and using my own photography. On top of that I mix in a load of vectors, effects and filters to create a modern twist on organic collages …  or something like that. 

Would you consider yourself to be a purely digital designer?

I wouldn’t like to say I was totally digital, I mean, I still start off everything by hand, sketching things out and still consider a lot of my imagery by consulting old school magazines and books but I would say by the time the finished product is out there, the main bulk of that was done on the computer so … maybe I’m 70% digital designer, 30% hand rendered?

What kind of software/hardware do you use?

Most of my work is done in Photoshop but I do integrate a number of tools from Illustrator, such as the Blend tool which is really useful. Also, if it’s for print, I always finish the artwork off in In Design. Apart from that, I’ve been known to use Cinema 4D and After Effects. Apart from that, I’ve got my Canon A3 scanner, Canon Sx200 digital camera, a Wacom tablet and believe it or not, I’m still a PC man despite having used Macs for as long as I can remember.

What would you advise someone was an essential piece of equipment if they were interested in getting into digital design?

Well, essential equipment for me involves my camera and scanner. Without those two things I would have a real hard time trying to create the type of work I want to create. So, a bit of investment in a good scanner and a half decent camera is a must! On top of that, depending on what type of work you do, a Wacom tablet is a pretty vital piece of kit. It’s a tough one to get used to at first but once you’ve got there, it can be a real help too.

You’ve worked with a lot of great clients since starting out in 2009. Have you been busy from the start or is self promotion something you’ve worked hard at?

I’m not sure any designer (successful or otherwise) can hand on heart, honestly say things have always been great and they’ve always been busy (even though I’m sure most would lead you to believe they were) 2009 was just where I was starting out, so I was busy but it wasn’t always busy with glamorous work, it was more, getting used to myself and my style and learning the hard way all of the rest of the guff that goes into freelance. 2010 was when things started to get commercially busy, for instance, amongst other projects out, I had a Digital Arts cover and Computer Arts tutorial out the same month.

This year has been generally tougher as budgets have been cut even more so but I’ve literally always got something on the go. Whether I’m busy or not though, the key to getting your name out there is definitely self promotion. If you can’t face the idea of picking up the phone and hounding prospective clients in a polite and memorable way than, quite frankly, you’re in the wrong job. Good self promotion and marketing is just as valuable as the work, if you can get the attention of the right people then you’re sorted!

I spend probably more time than I should self promoting my work and have certainly invested a fair bit of money in various promotional materials, such as my Middle Boop fold out promo packs which I brought out earlier in the year. This has won me numerous commissions and gained a lot of attention in magazines so was well worth it.

Middle Boop magazine seems to be going from strength to strength. How did it come about?

Why thank you! Well, this was one of the first things I did when I started out. I formed a blog, which was basically used to promote my work and write a little about albums that I had bought. Somewhere down the line people started reading it and the blog quickly became a popular starting point for new bands and some of the major independent labels. This was all down to developing trust that with labels and promoters that we would deliver great copy on time. As it grew, my role for the site changed greatly and we took on more writers.

Now I oversee everything that goes onto the site and concentrate on the design side, interviewing illustrators etc. and the music side is run by my deputy editor Freddy, who in the year or so he has been working with me, has been the crucial part in helping the site get really popular in a fairly short space of time. At the moment, we’ve just taken on a few new writers so have about 30 people reviewing for us. The Mag is a lot of work to keep running but the benefits totally out weigh the work. For one, I’ve met most of my favourite bands and subsequently ended up working for a lot of them. The idea from here is to re-develop the site over the next six months incorporating a whole load of new features and hopefully it will continue to grow in popularity.

Do you find it difficult to balance being a graphic designer and an illustrator or are they easily interchangeable?

I don’t find it too hard balancing them. I mean, it’s a bit of a different train of thought between the two, say for instance doing a full scale illustration or a full branding guidelines is completely different but in terms of balancing the two, they’re pretty easy to work with.

I think the hardest part of doing both is actually getting across to prospective clients the fact that I can do both. That’s why with my new website I’ve got that handy little bar on the right hand side so that you can filter the different types of work I do.

“A view of Epsom Downs which is about 10 minutes from my house. A very relaxing place (when the Derby’s not on!) a great place to chill out and think. Maybe even get inspiration.”

© Middle Boop, 2011.

I work with Photography but not really in the traditional sense, along with traditional photographic methods I use a modified flat-bed scanner to digitally capture things which gives a really unique effect.

I do this by deconstructing things such as flowers and various natural objects,  scanning them, then reconstructing them using imaging software.

I incorporate this scanned imagery with photography to create surreal digital collages… That are hopefully a bit original.

© Matt Walford, 2011. 

His ‘Make Something Creative Every Day’ project (‘MSCED’ for short), sees him force himself to create something new every day of 2011. Although essentially each being a one-day project, you wouldn’t know by the look of the work he’s done so far. You can keep up  to date with his progress on his MSCED blog. He tells us more below.

I pretty much design exclusively by electronic means. Although, I sometimes sketch. Unfortunately, this usually ends up as an incoherent scrabble, and I think, “why not just start making the thing?”

I probably lack the patience for it somehow, or the drawing skills. So, my toolkit basically consists of a computer, a Wacom, and some jazz, usually. Either way, I like to experiment. Just to try a bunch of things, be it with shape, color or type … and ask myself questions like, “what would happen if I cut this up and randomly rearrange and transform this piece of work?”

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This mostly goes for personal work, like the ‘MSCED’ thing. For clients, I tend to be more straight forward. How would they feel if I’d cut up their corporate identity and invert everything? Whatever the case, I usually have some sort of idea in mind, go through a few books if I’m looking for inspiration, or just plainly copy something from someone else. Ultimately, I like to end up with something clean, energetic and often with some modernistic twist to it.

© Marius Roosendaal, 2011.

The difference, however, is that Ciara’s work is carefully considered design and has been sought after by big companies such as Orange, and been on more than one cover of well-know art and design publications. Below, Ciara tells us about herself and her work.

I am a freelance illustrator, I work from Open Studio in North London. My work is predominantly collage based, I like to mix vintage imagery found in old encyclopaedias and children’s books with modern geometric pattern and vector shapes.  

My collage work is mostly created digitally on the computer as I  find this the easiest way to manipulate the forms and create interesting composition. In addition to my collages, I also work with paper to create elaborate sets and objects that I then shoot in my studio before digitally re-touching.

© Ciara Phelan, 2011.

Can you tell us a little more about your background as a designer?

I graduated from illustration at Bournemouth Arts Institute in 2006, following that I moved over to Vancouver B.C,  I was born in Canada and always wanted to move back there after university.  After freelancing there for a year or so, I decided that if I really wanted to purse my career in illustration and design, I would have to head back over the pond and set up in London.

After a week in London, I landed an internship in the print department at Alexander McQueen, this was my first experience in a studio environment, it was an amazing experience and I ended up designing quite a few prints for the pre spring/summer 2011 collection. After McQueen, I moved on to an internship at creative agency YCN.  This then developed into a full-time job on the design team. During this whole time, I was still pushing my freelance work and making contacts with people in the industry.

It got to the point where my freelance work was taking over so I made the decision to go freelance on a full-time basis.  And thankfully the guys at YCN let me continue to work from their studio in Shoreditch, freelancing can be a pretty lonely pursuit, so sharing a buzzing studio with other creatives is really valuable.

Have you always had a photographic element to your work?

My work has come a real long way since I graduated, my final project did include photography but in a completely different way to how I use it now.  It’s inevitable that your work will change and develop, and the use of photography is the one thing that has remained constant. I have always shown a real interest in photography and I love being able to use it in contrast to the highly structured computer generated elements that I use.

How much involvement do computers have in a project from start to finish?

When I first read a brief for any commission I will sometimes draw a really rough idea of composition and certain elements that I will need to include to convey the intended message.  But most of the time I just write lists of elements and ideas and then build an image around this when im working on the computer.

Although 95% of my images are done on the computer, the process is still very organic, I don’t like to plan too much, I just get to work and see where it takes me.

What techniques or pieces of equipment have been most present in the development of your own style?

My work is created with two programmes, Photoshop and Illustrator. I have sat through endless hours of video tutorials to learn as much as I possibly could about both of these programmes. Once you have a solid knowledge base of what you are working with, it allows you to explore your own way of doing things, this is a crucial element in the development of my approach to design. 

I also studied technical 3D drawing at school and that was where my inspiration for using 3D elements came about, after discovering that I could replicate this process on my computer I was totally hooked on weaving this into my illustrations.  It’s hard to say how I developed my own style, but I think a lot of it was through trail and error, finding out what works together and what doesn’t.

What would be your dream commission?

My dream commission would have to be some form of ad campaign for Nike, they always work with amazing artists and have a great understanding of contemporary design and illustration.

© Mike Lythgoe, 2011.

As an artist, Holly doesn’t restrict herself to just her commercial work, as impressive as it is, having worked for BBC, Design Week, Fallon, Urban Outfitters, and many newspapers and magazines.

She also teaches regularly and has been involved with and taught at more than one university. Obviously being one who likes to stay busy, she set up OPEN last year, a London-based studio for illustrators, which also offers support and opportunities for others working in the industry.

Keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming review of OPEN in the near future.

© Holly Wales, 2011.

© Bryony Lloyd, 2011.