#gavin mcphail

[sosaysgavin]

Literary Schmiterary

Since February, when I last went home to Lancashire for the weekend and saw my new baby cousins for the first time, things have been different. 

I don't want to come over all sentimental - all that hard work suppressing (poorly) my true, soft-touch-self must not be in vain! - but there has been something transformative about that weekend. Whatever pseudo-profound causes can be suggested, the outcome has been one of renewed purpose and clarity, for which I am very grateful and which is long overdue.

The commitment I made to myself at the start of the year to write more has been upheld to some extent; nothing may yet see the light of publicatory day but that's not the point. As my father is fond of quoting, 'Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, writing an exact man.' (usually followed by 'Bacon. (a fat man)' but anyway...) This aphorism neatly summarises the inherent benefit of writing in addition to merely conversing and reading, and the subtle difference of application each form has. When I consider the way in which I have spent my life to date, it is obvious that I have done a great deal of reading and talking but hardly any writing, and I have come to believe that this goes some way towards explaining my general lack of focus. Squeezing the swirling mass of information we absorb daily through the piping bag of the written word forces us to introduce order into the chaos. 

So far this has not produced the next War and Peace, nor will it in all likelihood, but I will continue to pick away at this literary scab until I have something worth showing off. If even that never happens I still think it will have been worth it for the mental benefits alone.

In window display news I have tried hawking my wares a bit more than usual, mixed results so far, but to try and aid my quest I have gone for something a bit more elaborate than usual at LGC; for once I am genuinely pleased with the result:

Posca pen, paper and cardboard. All real plants no made up ones, all from the Amazon rainforest, some exaggerated scaling and colour but otherwise legit. Toucan by Becky. Jungle is massive. 

To the low bastards that have burgled us for the second time in six months - you can take my stuff but you will never crush my spirit. I am trying to take the philosophical view of this whole business, sometimes I succeed, sometimes the anger is overwhelming. Generally though I feel pity more than hate for somebody who would do this, by contrast anyone who doesn't feel compelled to turn to crime to get through life is extremely lucky as the system has not completely failed them. 

Finally, the drumkit arrived and is completely amazing. We haven't put it to work yet for our follow-up musical travesty to Summertime is Great, but I have been practising playing and recording. Turns out playing drums is all well and good but recording is nails; more on this to come.

[sosaysgavin]

'Finished' cover art

My friend Michael O'Keefe, a writer of considerable skill, some time ago asked me to do a sample cover for a script he was working on for a comic book called Finished. Ironically this has taken a long time to complete but here I can finally announce that I have finished it and here it is (click for full screen):

Whether this will go on to be made into a comic remains to be seen but I hope it does as it sounds awesome.

In other work I was pleased with my Halloween window display this year in the shop. A scene that wouldn't be out of place in some classic horror film was the intent, complete with pitchfork wielding villagers inside in the form of our long suffering mannequins.

Next up Christmas window and hopefully some new projects in the New Year. 

[sosaysgavin]

Tentacle Bird

I have been refining (ie. faffing about with) the design for my business cards for some time and lately have gradually settled on this design. 

For some time I have had a minor obsession with pigeons (my all time pigeon-related ambition is to have a band called Clueless Pigeons) and this has inevitably spilled over in to the doodles and compulsive drawing that occupies my down time. Likewise the humble tentacle has been a recurring feature in my drawings since I was a child.

It seemed appropriate to carry this over into compulsively hand drawing cards and using the stamp kit from work to do the text. Despite my love of repetitive tasks, the love of drawing these silly birds has finally palled so I am having a stamp made to speed things up. This sadly leaves me with uniformity - one of the interesting outcomes from repeatedly drawing 'identical' lines is how different they can end up. I will miss their weird little personalities.

This coming weekend there is a comic book illustration workshop at London Graphic Centre in Covent Garden that I have been helping to organise. Not being known as one to miss a trick in shoehorning my own work into a situation, I have been producing some 'how to...' style guides to drawing some characters from Trenchfoot. Here is one, not quite complete, for the Squirreller; looking if I may say far more heroic than his character usually allows. As we needed child friendly characters though they wouldn't accept my original submission (also included below)...

The last piece of recent work has been for my esteemed friend Michael O'Keefe, who has had me working on a comic book cover for his yet-unpublished story Finished. It is nearing completion as far as the physical element goes, I intend to digitally colour to finish. Here is therefore a glimpse behind the curtain, a dazzling, and no doubt stunning insight into the method (ooooooh).

[sosaysgavin]

Welcome!

So what does one write for the inaugural blog post?

Well, I begin I guess by saying thank you very much for visiting my site! I am very encouraged by the nice things people have said so far and I feel content at last to have all the various strands of my work in one easily update-able place. I have been working in many different media and styles for the last ten years or so and it all has a tendency to get a little fragmented and confusing. Let's hope I continue with this new found efficiency and structure.

The most exciting thing that has been happening lately is the fledgling success of our mobile game Button Up!, which has been a smash hit in China (60,000 users and counting!) and a bit of a slow burner everywhere else. For commercial purposes, owing to the extreme complexity of doing business in China, this does not help us a great deal at present. However at the very least it shows we have a game that people genuinely like playing, which is a huge relief!

Here are some sneak previews of the new chapter and tutorials that we will be releasing in a few weeks.

Something I have been doing simultaneously to building this site ('building' is a slightly strong word here as I am slave to the intuitive templates of Squarespace...) is making one for my father. As some of you will already know, Rodger McPhail is an extremely talented and prolific painter. His many subjects are predominantly wildlife but he can turn his peerless eye to pretty much anything. He has been an influence on me all my life in one way or another and it was a pleasure to have such great content to work with when presenting his portfolio. If you are interested in that sort of thing have a look here.

What remains of my salient news is mostly a small update on my recent adventure in the Netherlands and Germany. I drove around on my own without much purpose from Amsterdam to Berlin via Hamburg, and back again via Köln. I had a wonderful and slightly strange time, met loads of great people, ate loads of amazing, heavy food, drank profusely and saw many sights from the cultural to the banal. It was a terrifying experience learning Dutch and German on the fly from phrase books and I had a few low moments of cultural and linguistic isolation. These troughs were more than made up for, however, by the regular soaring peaks of joy. Here I include a very small fraction of the pictures I took (as I don't want to become *too* self-indulgent, this is only the first post - jeez!).

All that remains to be said is that this will now become my primary source for all social media and blogging things so keep up to date with my work here or via any of the links at the bottom of the page. If you have any questions about my work or want to get in touch about possible commissions or just to hurl abuse then feel free to contact me using the form on my contact page.

All the love

Gavin