26 replies to this topic

[marktmurphy]

Zencat has been kind enough to feature my new fan art on his excellent Young Bond Dossier website and I wanted to share it with you guys.
I've never been too enamoured with the Young Bond book covers as they are and I've always wanted to try one in the style of a proper 1930s adventure novel, which is what they're supposed to be, after all!

So here it is; I hope you like it!
There's a slightly bigger version available on the Young Bond Dossier link above if you do.

[DamnCoffee]

This is brilliant! Very nice indeed. Excellent work.

[zerominus]

Excellent work, are you an artist/designer by trade?

[marktmurphy]

Thank you; yes I am- always open for offers!

[Icephoenix]

Very nice, I love it! The style and the dynamic - nice work!

[[dark]]

Gorgeous, markt!

More, please!

[zencat]

It's a REALLY great cover, and one that I think would work very well here in the US. As much as I like the Kev Walker covers, I think this works much better conceptually, and would fit in nicely with the Harry Potters and the Charlie Bones. Kids would "get" this (and the fact that it's a kid driving a car hits right in an adventure sweet spot). And that title has never looked better in print. Brilliant work, MarkT.

[MkB]

Very nice cover artwork, marktmurphy!
I, for one, would be very interested to know more about your other fan art!

[marktmurphy]

It's a REALLY great cover, and one that I think would work very well here in the US. As much as I like the Kev Walker covers, I think this works much better conceptually, and would fit in nicely with the Harry Potters and the Charlie Bones. Kids would "get" this (and the fact that it's a kid driving a car hits right in an adventure sweet spot). And that title has never looked better in print. Brilliant work, MarkT.

Wow thanks Zen, you're very kind. I think this sort of approach would have been good to see, but perhaps they thought kids wouldn't go for something unless it looked modern.

Anyway, here's a version with less of the aging:

[sharpshooter]

I love it. Really good job, you've got the retro design down pat.

[zencat]

Remember this quote from Charlie?

“When I started working on the Young Bond series I always pictured slightly retro covers with the feel of 30s adventure stories (something like the Indiana Jones posters) with great illustrations...”

Yep.

[Professor Dent]

Great cover, Mark. The aged version works perfectly.

[marktmurphy]

Remember this quote from Charlie?

“When I started working on the Young Bond series I always pictured slightly retro covers with the feel of 30s adventure stories (something like the Indiana Jones posters) with great illustrations...”

Yep.

Oh excellent- great minds, eh?
I wonder if he's seen it; hopefully he'd like it.

[jimbo bond 007]

Great work, I really like this and it gets over that whole 30's vibe.

Have you had a go at any of the other books?

[Simon]

Really splendid stuff fella.

How did you do this; is it a paint type program? I am aware of your photo manipulation in past projects.

(Please be generous in your answers; mine is an appreciation of with none of the knowledge of just how it is done.)

[Zorin Industries]

This is the first time that any 'fan art' has been good enough to actually be used on a Bond related product. All of the fan art signposted on fan sites tends to be fairly shoddy with its font choice and campy designs masquerading as graphic art. However, this YOUNG BOND effort is classy, energetic and completely "gets" the title and world it emerges from. All Bond fan art and fan music tends to not "get" the product and uses tired nostalgia and bored homage rather than class and style.

Have you the scope to properly run this by the right people? Having a collection of all the YOUNG BOND covers in this style may just help your cause too - as evidence of a unity of style might work wonders - especially if the books are to be re-branded in times to come.

Just a thought...

[marktmurphy]

Really splendid stuff fella.

How did you do this; is it a paint type program? I am aware of your photo manipulation in past projects.

(Please be generous in your answers; mine is an appreciation of with none of the knowledge of just how it is done.)

Hello; I firstly drew all the elements by hand from scratch, scanned them all into the computer and traced over the lines in Adobe Illustrator which is the sister program to Photoshop but deals in vectors. Once I'd coloured it all up and laid out the text in Illustrator I brought the image into Photoshop where I added the book canvas texture and aging effects. A fairly straightforward process, but some of the stages took a little while!

It's the only one I've done so far (after a quick flitation with the style for Blood Fever, but I was never happy with that), and I'll definitely have a bash as soon as I can think of a dynamic enough image. Glad you like it!

[Mister Asterix]

Stunningly fantastic cover, mtm. I prefer the more aged version. Could be the best Young Bond cover I’ve seen, fan or official.

[marktmurphy]

This is the first time that any 'fan art' has been good enough to actually be used on a Bond related product. All of the fan art signposted on fan sites tends to be fairly shoddy with its font choice and campy designs masquerading as graphic art. However, this YOUNG BOND effort is classy, energetic and completely "gets" the title and world it emerges from. All Bond fan art and fan music tends to not "get" the product and uses tired nostalgia and bored homage rather than class and style.

Thanks man; much appreciated. Of course there's a large element of nostalgia in there, but hopefully it works within the context of the book.

Have you the scope to properly run this by the right people? Having a collection of all the YOUNG BOND covers in this style may just help your cause too - as evidence of a unity of style might work wonders - especially if the books are to be re-branded in times to come.

Just a thought...

Well that's very flattering- I'd like to put some more together but I don't know how receptive they'd be to submissons like this. Don't ask, don't get, though I suppose!
Who knows- they might even look rather nice on the wall...

Stunningly fantastic cover, mtm. I prefer the more aged version. Could be the best Young Bond cover I’ve seen, fan or official.

Cheers fella- that means a lot.
I know you'll understand this- I forgot to change the colour mode when I reposted the cleaner image: I uploaded a CMYK version to photobucket which seemed to convert it to RGB itself: hence the rather vivid blues which have appeared in it. It's not supposed to be quite so eye-bursting! Whoops!

[Zorin Industries]

This is the first time that any 'fan art' has been good enough to actually be used on a Bond related product. All of the fan art signposted on fan sites tends to be fairly shoddy with its font choice and campy designs masquerading as graphic art. However, this YOUNG BOND effort is classy, energetic and completely "gets" the title and world it emerges from. All Bond fan art and fan music tends to not "get" the product and uses tired nostalgia and bored homage rather than class and style.

Thanks man; much appreciated. Of course there's a large element of nostalgia in there, but hopefully it works within the context of the book.

Have you the scope to properly run this by the right people? Having a collection of all the YOUNG BOND covers in this style may just help your cause too - as evidence of a unity of style might work wonders - especially if the books are to be re-branded in times to come.

Just a thought...

Well that's very flattering- I'd like to put some more together but I don't know how receptive they'd be to submissons like this. Don't ask, don't get, though I suppose!
Who knows- they might even look rather nice on the wall...

Stunningly fantastic cover, mtm. I prefer the more aged version. Could be the best Young Bond cover I’ve seen, fan or official.

Cheers fella- that means a lot.
I know you'll understand this- I forgot to change the colour mode when I reposted the cleaner image: I uploaded a CMYK version to photobucket which seemed to convert it to RGB itself: hence the rather vivid blues which have appeared in it. It's not supposed to be quite so eye-bursting! Whoops!

The blue works though. It's not an obvious colour for Bond either. Perhaps a different primary colour could be used for the other designs... and not red for BLOOD FEVER (!). But that's completely up to you. You know what you are doing and there will be people who know people to approach with such artwork. Charlie Higson for starters....

[Hitch]

Beautiful.

[Bondian]

Excellent stuff, Mark.

[Double-Oh Agent]

Very nice, Mark.

[Simon]

Really splendid stuff fella.

How did you do this; is it a paint type program? I am aware of your photo manipulation in past projects.

(Please be generous in your answers; mine is an appreciation of with none of the knowledge of just how it is done.)

Hello; I firstly drew all the elements by hand from scratch, scanned them all into the computer and traced over the lines in Adobe Illustrator which is the sister program to Photoshop but deals in vectors. Once I'd coloured it all up and laid out the text in Illustrator I brought the image into Photoshop where I added the book canvas texture and aging effects. A fairly straightforward process, but some of the stages took a little while!

It's the only one I've done so far (after a quick flitation with the style for Blood Fever, but I was never happy with that), and I'll definitely have a bash as soon as I can think of a dynamic enough image. Glad you like it!

Thanks for this.

Is it the 'vectors' side of the program that offers the really clean lines?

But really really good. Agree with zorin who says it could be passed to Higson - along the lines of 'don't ask don't get'.

Cheers.

[marktmurphy]

Is it the 'vectors' side of the program that offers the really clean lines?

Yeah, that's right: vectors are computer-drawn lines, which mean that any image you draw with them can theoretically be enlarged infinitely and never lose resolution; unlike when you zoom into a jpeg or other bitmap image which goes all blocky and nasty looking if you zoom in too far because they are just a collection of coloured pixels: a vector image is basically a set of co-ordinates which the computer uses to draw the image perfectly. Of course when I took it into photoshop to add the aging it became a bitmap, but generally I can produce it at any resolution. And it gives you nice clean lines and gradients, as you say. It's generally just nicer to draw that way on the computer- it makes everything easier to colour up etc.

But really really good. Agree with zorin who says it could be passed to Higson - along the lines of 'don't ask don't get'.

Yes, that would be nice! Although I'm sure they would have explored this route if Mr Higson himself has said he'd like a 30's style cover, but you never know.

[Simon]

Yeah, that's right: vectors are computer-drawn lines, which mean that any image you draw with them can theoretically be enlarged infinitely and never lose resolution; unlike when you zoom into a jpeg or other bitmap image which goes all blocky and nasty looking if you zoom in too far because they are just a collection of coloured pixels: a vector image is basically a set of co-ordinates which the computer uses to draw the image perfectly.

Ah, very interesting. Never knew of this capability or method of computer drawing / design.

For me; who I must confirm has not actually read the Young Bond series or indeed buys multiple copies of existing Flemings, but who was also contrastingly inspired to buy the Fahey covers for their brilliance; I would find these covers (if completed as a set) far more interesting and book-purchase worthy than the current crop.

[Mister Asterix]

...Of course when I took it into photoshop to add the aging it became a bitmap, but generally I can produce it at any resolution...

In CS3 I now keep my Illustrator vectors as Smart Objects. that’ll make it so you can apply aging and such without losing the ability to resize it way up. I love those smart objects.