Maurice-Mechan.com now online!

Please take a look at this blog's Big Brother, my new webpage! It's at Maurice-Mechan.com (don't forget the dash) and it features a whole lot more of my artwork than this blog does. I'll add new stuff to both sites as time permits, though, so please bookmark both! The quick link is on the right...under "Links", strangely enough.

Hollywood's darkside for "VIASAT MAGAZINE"

Fresh off the press, here is yet another illustration I was commissioned to do for "Viasat Magazine". This time the AD wanted a more serious look, to match the serious tone of the piece - murder in Hollywood. The magazine was running a story on true crime in Tinsletown, and the brief was to show the darker side of the glamourous Hollywood we know from the big screen. I sent the AD these first roughs:

She liked 3 and 4 best, so I was given the choice of developing the one I liked most. After a bit of deliberation I went for image 4. I felt the illustration had more potential - the dark world of murder juxtaposed with the bright Hollywood life outside, the police crime scene milieu, the Hollywood icons looking on..
To get the realism I wanted for the murder victim, I had myself photographed as I wanted the corpse to look in the finished illustration.


Using that photograph, I drew up another sketch upon which I built the final artwork:


The view out of the window in the final artwork, below, is actually a collage of photographic elements from various Hollywood street scenes - I took quite a bit of licence with the famous Hollywood sign, for example - it's not that big! I used a filter on the final image, so as to retain as much realism in the final artwork as possible and yet not have part of it looking like a photograph. I think it worked out well, and the AD was very happy with the final piece :

Cover illustration for "FOKUS" magazine

Earlier this year I was asked to illustrate the cover of "FOKUS" magazine, Sweden's answer to "TIME". The magazine's cover story was about the imminent election of Mona Sahlin as leader of the country's Social Democrat party, and of the marathon journey ahead of her before the next election in 2010. Leader of the ruling Moderate party, and Mona's man-to-beat, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt also featured heavily in the story, so the AD wanted the cover picture to illustrate the two-person race that was about to get underway. The piece was called "Mona's Marathon" and I was to draw the politicians in running gear as they braced for the start of the race ahead - Sahlin looking confident and Reinfeldt just a little apprehensive. My first sketches looked like this:My preliminary sketches always look very rough - I don't see the point in doing terribly detailed pencils only for the concept to change as soon as the AD sees them. In this case I was asked to give Reinfeldt a somewhat healthier appearance, and swap their positions. The next sketch I submitted was a lot more worked-up:


This was the first time I had actually drawn Fredrik Reinfeldt, so it took a few attempts to get him right.


Sahlin came a lot easier, but then I had drawn her dozens of times before. Finally I was happy with both caricatures:

The next sketch featured pretty much finished pencils and I wanted an OK on the layout:


Finally I coloured the image up and the final cover came out looking like this... As for who wins the race, we'll just have to be patient and see what 2010 brings!

Vampires for "VIASAT MAGAZINE"

Another commission for "Viasat Magazine", this time for an article on vampires in modern-day film. The brief was to illustrate how celluloid bloodsuckers of the 21st century are more likely to be found stalking their victims in the local night-club than in the dark & dingy graveyard of yore. My first sketches looked like this:


The AD, who wanted the kind of colourful, comic-book style of illustration I've had success with in the past ( examples of which I'll post at a later date!) went for the third sketch, which was also my favourite. He quite rightly pointed out that my vampires were looking all Goth-like and traditional, though, so I updated their attire (and hairstyles) for the subsequent sketch:

I tried to have the disco's mirror-ball echo the full moon of the traditional vampire environment, and in the final colour version added dry-ice swirling around like graveyard mist. Our vampire couple each got an indeterminate bloody drink to suck on too. Bloody Marys, extra-bloody!

Humphrey Bogart for "VIASAT MAGAZINE"

These drawings were made for "Viasat Magazine", to illustrate an article on Hollywood's changed attitude towards smoking on film. The AD wanted to use Bogie - once tobacco's poster-boy in Hollywood - to show the detrimental effect of all those years of smoking on celluloid (and in real life). The idea being that we would see the young, healthy star alongside how he looked shortly before his death. My sketches looked like this:

The AD thought they were fine, but stressed that I needed to take the old Bogart further; he was dying of cancer, but I had drawn him old & craggy as opposed to old and sick. I worked up the artwork in pencil - we wanted a slightly retro, old-school film poster feel to them so I didn't want them looking too flashy. I scanned the drawings into my Mac and coloured them up in Photoshop:

The AD thought Bogart still wasn't looking sick enough, so I aged him further and gave him a green tinge in the final version, with bloodshot eyes:

Carolina Klüft for "AMOS"

The Swedish magazine "AMOS" commissioned me to draw a caricature of the Swedish Olympic champion athlete (and winner of the 2007 World Athletics Championships heptathlon event for an unprecedented third time) Carolina Klüft. The AD wanted me to illustrate the apparent effortlessness with which "Carro" attains her goals.
My first sketch, it was agreed, hit the nail on the head - whilst others labour to achieve their aims in life, the athletic Ms.Klüft seems almost to defy gravity itself sometimes as she floats from one success to another.


I worked up her face until I was happy with the caricature


I coloured the pencils in Photoshop with the following results:

Why a Blog?

Problems with my domain name - MauriceMechan.com - and a reluctance to go with a completely new domain, have resulted in this: me sitting down and finally, some might say, creating a blog.
Whilst I work out how to proceed on the domain front, I'll be using this blog to post samples of my work, old and new, along with sketches showing my working process and the odd comment or two.
I'll be keeping this site updated on a regular basis too, so please drop by from time to time and see what I've been getting up to!