Nik Chinook | Multimedia Artist

The Garden Inspector - work in progress

May 20, 2016

The main nine illustrations for the Garden Inspector are complete and the manuscript is at the proof reader's.
So now I'm working on the secondary illustrations which I plan to be interspersed amongst the text and bring to life some of the other features of the story that aren't 'in the gardens', so to speak. So for example, this 'work in progress' is going to be the 'Town Hall' from where our hero sets forth on his adventures.
Yes, dull, yes grey, yes bleak, yes Kafka-esque *

Pastels and pastel crayons which will possibly have some digital work in photoshop or Painter.

*"The terms Orwellian and Kafka-esque are not permitted" - Superintendent Chalmers

Posted by Nik Chinook.

Weird Events in Suburban Gardens

February 26, 2016

In the spirit of David Lynch and born out of my love for William Heath Robinson's illustrations, mixed with a little English murder-mystery fiction and then shaken with chilled Giles and crushed Adrian Tomine....

This is the delightfully lush and creepy world of leafy suburbia in a dream-like 'Britain between the wars'. A place where Garden Inspectors from the Ministry call on you unannounced to check your Dahlias and eccentric boffins are building time machines in the garden shed while listen...
Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Chinook.

The Fishermen of Cornwall

February 8, 2016

And here is the final image of my Fishermen of Mousehole illustration. Although I've already had a lot of Cornish residents pointing out similarities with Falmouth and other Cornish locations! So maybe is is going to have to be Fishermen of Cornwall instead! "Proper job" as we say in Cornwall.

Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Chinook.

Fishermen of Mousehole

February 5, 2016

I have a tiny little sketch of memories of the little Cornish fishing village or Mousehole. (For those of you who don't know it's pronounced "Moawsul" if you want to avoid looking like a toursist). The drawing in my sketchbook was near to the first image I did for the 'Edna at the Window' piece and so it has sort of cross-fertilised into this project.

The other influence as you might have spotted is MC Escher. The idea of the continuous staircases is translated into the trawler men making th...
Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Chinook.

Copic Marker Stand for £3

February 5, 2016

This is all about distraction and procrastination. What I really should have been doing is working on the art; what I actually did for a couple of hours is make a little box/stand for the small selection of Copic markers I have (and love).

You see, even with the small selection I have, it soon gets annoying as the roll off the desk, under the drawing board, get colour order/tones mixed up etc. I'd had a look at some ready to buy stands by copic and others but they're all silly money. And fra...
Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Chinook.

City Life

January 26, 2016

The 'Edna at the Window' illustration is just about finished! I'm gonna contemplate it for a few days yet but I think I'm done. The trickiest part at the end was working out the colour balance and depth of shadows. On the low res image above the contrast is much flatter than I'm going to have in the final Giclee prints. Those will be much darker with some of the shadow areas reducing the brickwork detail but adding deep blue/purple tones. Very atmospheric!

It's all come on a long way since...
Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Chinook.

Ideal Homes

January 21, 2016

I found a little pen and ink drawing from last year and I thought I'd add some colour and finish it off. It from an idea about a series of whimsical 'ideal' homes for different jobs or professions.
The one I'm drawing at the moment is a house on 'rockers' for an old Sea Captain!

Watch this space :)

Pen and Ink, watercolour, pencil and Photoshop

Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Chinook.

The unfortunate Traveller

January 1, 2016

Revisiting my 'occassional' series with this piece. It started with improvised acrylics, then into watercolour, guache, coloured pencils, bananas, then into digital. So pretty mixed media I would say. The original is pretty small so you get a nice feel of the texture of the paper.
Hope it gets a smile. Made me laugh - but then I'm easily amused; especially at my own jokes; and my sisters. Must be genetic I guess.

Strange world.

Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Chinook.

City Streets IV

November 27, 2015

Moving this image on again and there's a lot of changes; some obvious but many quite subtle. At one point my notepad had a list of 25 changes to execute.
To name but a few; lights on in cafe, add moon, thin the drainpipes, reduce the railings scale, add steps / windows at end of tunnel, details of edna's room, add bicycle... and so on and so on. :)
Some of the details aren't so visible in this small jpg but on the full screen original the subtle colour effects and lighting is really working we...
Continue reading...

Posted by Nik Heap.

City Streets part 3

November 9, 2015

I've taken my initial drawing and in planning for a painting, I thought I'd build a 3D CGI model of the composition so I could play around with the lighting and details for a while. Technology huh.

Any way, here are some pics of work in progress!