I have just launched a new site which showcases some of my work around ‘Live Illustration’ and events. You can have a look here: visualthinking.chrisshipton.com and click on the images to see some of the info-graphics I have made for it!

I have become a ‘Corporate Cartoonist’. Readers of chrisshipton.com, which has been around in one form or another since 2006, will be used to the zombies, robots and cartoons that get posted here from time to time (mental note must do more robots). I have discovered that there is a growing need for companies, events, groups and the rest for drawing. And while these businesses tend to use less zombies and Orcs in their work they still make use of drawing. Think of it this way, people in business are dominated by powerpoint (or PPT) and constantly have to go to meetings. Nothing is worse than arriving in a tiny beige room with uncomfortable seats and being told ‘lets brainstorm’. Everyone starts to look at their shoes, ers, ums, and finally the meeting leader suggests all the ideas they had before it started and no one gets anywhere. Believe me I know what its like, thats why I had to do ‘The Business Park of Doom‘.

Detail from a live illustration of Marcus Du Sautoy’s presentation made at TEDx Oxford 2011

What I do is go into these companies when they are coming up with ideas and draw them. By doing this the cycle of relentless power point is broken, processes that use the analytical ‘left brain’ suddenly use the creative ‘right brain’ too. David Sibbett says in his book ‘Visual Meetings’ using drawing adds 80 IQ points to the room.

This work can manifest itself in lots of different ways. It can be grabbing ideas as they are conceived and coming up with quick fire cartoons. It can be attending a speaking event and recording what people say on huge whiteboards and pieces of paper. And it can involve actually running a meeting and using drawings as the focal point for progress, rather than letting powerpoint and clip art do the work (can you sense I don’t like powerpoint?).
So now I have founded Livescribes with Rikki Marr and James Huyton and we are travelling the country using drawings for business. You can check out the website here where there is loads more info about what we do.

Detail of from a live illustration of Rory Sutherland’s presentation made at TEDx Oxford 2011

Is it selling out? Definitely. I have always said ‘I plan to sell out as quickly as possible’. Whilst I am waiting for Hollywood to call to option Orc-tober or The Business Park of Doom I am am very happy drawing anthropomorphised cheese and talking pharmaceutical bottles for corporate entities. It’s a way of rescuing people from that beige room. But most importantly, it’s fun!

Full sized image of Kevin Warwick’s presentation at TEDx Oxford 2011

The process of drawing an Orc-tober Orc is relativley simple.

Research and Pencils

After doing some research (which typically consists of watching LOTR for the 100th time, reading the books, scanning my guide to Middle Earth or playing WoW for a bit) I am ready to plan a drawing. Typically I have at least two Moleskine sketchbooks on me at any time. Here I draw the Orcs in pencil or sometimes biro. I prefer pencil and think the end result is usually better, but sometimes a biro is the only thing around. These are relatively rough and ready drawings that can be processes and inked or redrawn in more detail on larger paper using quality pencils. The great Goblin was done in pencils on A3 paper, whereas the Orcs from the 21st were inked from a biro sketch in a moleskine.

Inking the Orc

Following the routines of a comic book inker I then take a print of the pencil drawing an ink it. The first Orc-tober Orc was hastily inked using my preferred pen the Pilot Sign Pen, so I have to keep using it to maintain consistancy (I am now on my 5th pen this month). I have started to buy them bulk as they cost £3.30 a pop in an art shop. The two Balrog pictures of Orc-tober were made in a large format using a proper ink dip pen. But my nibs are old and knackered and I have to wait for it to dry before scanning. When you are drawing 31 Orcs in 31 days time is not a luxury! Yet drawing an Orc a day is a great way to keep your hand in drawing wise and I’d reccomend it to anyone. It’s also led me to non-orc related research such as reading Burne Hogarth.

Colouring the Orc

I scan the ink drawing in and then colour it using the computer. I lift the black lines of the ink drawing out of the file so colouring takes place underneath them on a single layer – I can see the lines yet colour underneath them so they aren’t obliterated. I won’t go into the specifics of comics colouring in this post. I have been building an Orc-pallette throughout Orc-tober. Originally I had planned to do highly derivative work based on Warhammer, Lord of the Rings Films and World of Warcraft. But as Orc-tober has progressed I have become more interested in making my own Orcs. Basically what I would have done had I got a call from Bakshi, Jackson or Blizzard (listed in order of preference). So my work is only medium derivative..

The finished Orc

I could spend all day colouring the Orc but the demands of doing a 9-5 job AND trying to do an Orc a day mean time is limited. I re-introduce the line work to create the finished article.
My Orcs have ended up green and wearing an array of pseudo medieval armour and wielding orc versions of ancient weapons, relying on Orc cliche to an extent.
I feel the Orcs in the Lord of the Rings films and other media come across as stupid cannon fodder. But re-reading Tolkien he invests them with both a moral dimension, intelligence and a sinister dark side, yet they have scope for amusement.
Questions abound over Orc origins as well an exactly how evil they are. I like them as they are horrible and disgusting, ridiculous and over the top and a great counter point to the slightly pious sword wielding heroes and wizards you tend to get in fantasy land.

Happy New Year Shiptonblog readers. And I bring you news that every second you spend reading this you are hastening the end of the world. It would seem Googling has the same environmental impact of boiling the kettle for a cup of tea. This spurious now corrected article that probably isn’t true first appeared in the Sunday Times.

In other news check out this Mashable list on how to make your online presence more environmentally friendly.

There has been a new twist in the drama surrounding ‘The Upsiders‘. A US punk band I designed T-Shirts for and never got paid,despite the shirts appearance at the gigs.

I recieved communication from one of the band members, Andrew, who pledged to post me 5 T-Shirts (which have yet to appear). He stated there were hardly any shirts left (despite an earlier blog post that mentioned they had plenty of shirts). Meanwhile the bands MySpace Blog has been re-written with some startling revalations. And a personal message to me! Which I will repeat here:

“This part is for Chris Shipton. Don’t believe the hype. Everyone knew the deal, 36 shirts in the sizes you specified shipped to you. As for you not getting yours, talk to andrew and tony once again. Ask them or pretty much anyone. The shirts were printed, counted and divided by four. Andrew/Tony hacked the myspace/email accounts, told me to fuck off and basically decided they were in charge of the band from that point on. If they decided that getting you 4 or 5 shirts was enough, then fuck it, thats what “the band” decided. Please contact our label (feeder fish records) its in our myspace friends and ask them if I didn’t call and specifically say that not a single upsiders robot shirt could be sold or given out because we don’t have any rights to the art until we give chris his shirts. Please ask him or call me and I’ll give you his number to verify that they made it impossible to get you the shirts AND that I notified our label that we were not allowed to do anything with those shirts till our dept to you is paid.”

Bryce – formerly of ‘The Upsiders’

Sadly Feeder Fish records were unable to give me any further info on the T-Shirts – stating the hadn’t even got any.

So No T-Shirts yet and I am wondering if I can get Watchdog interested…

So I am NOT from Bath. Check out the coverage of the Birmingham Comics Convention at the media node that is the Birmingham Mail!

In fact the journalist and I discussed what it was like to live in Oxford!

The Sax-Coburgs were never that easy on the eye
So thank god for princess Di
She held a special place in our hearts,
The one reserved for over privileged tarts
Throwing up breakfast and falling down the stairs,
Getting off airplanes and wearing dresses,
A posh baby factory with one GCSE
Diana adulation reached as far as we could see

That happy year of 1997
Was marked by Diana’s departure to heaven
‘A’ level results and Cornish binge drinking
Early morning waking up and blinking
At the photos of Dodi and Di on the med
Who’d have thought she’d soon be brown bread

Having moved out from home
Into a new flat in Banbury
Imagine my surprise turning on the TV
On the first day of my new found freedom
To see that most irritating vacuous waste of cash
Had been flattened in a tunnel smash

My grief began to swell
As I realized she was not only on the BBC
But on every other channel as well
My first week that would be parent free
Had its television ruined

Tony B.liar named her ‘Princess of Hearts‚’
Is just a shallow overpriced fountain her legacy?
Unapproachable due to security
Or maybe you thought Di was an oxygen thief
But she left us public outpourings of grief

In ten years my feelings have not changed
Diana is still plastered across the pages of the press
Still she is solely responsible for selling the Daily Express
Grief merchandise continues
Without her here would we give a stuff?
About that little paper shifter
Madeline sadly snuff’t

Chris Shipton, 2007

The Headington Shark – a famous Oxford Landmark – has suddenly been surrounded by scaffolding!

The Headington Shark as it has been for years…

Appearing as if it has freshly crashed from space and embedded itself into and ordinary Oxford terrace house the Headington Shark has wowed tourists and residents alike for over 20 years. Placed there in secret by local Oxford eccentric Bill Heine and his crazy artist buddy John Buckley in 1986 the Headington Shark has attracted worldwide attention ably competing with other Oxford features such as the Bridge of Sighs, the Radcliffe Camera and The Bodlian Library. But on the morning of Teusday 3rd of July 2007 scaffolding started to appear around the fallen fish!

One morning the scaffolders appeared…

In recent years the house has become increasingly run down and damp looking with wildly overgrowing front garden, vines climbing into next doors window and the top two floors were infested with pigeons.

The hole in the ceiling was sealed and the newly blocked out pigeons sat on the roof of the sharks’ house forlornly waiting to be allowed back in. A few were run over but the rest swooped the street continuously. One advantage of Britain having the shittiest summer since 1998 is that the skyrat plague appears to have been rained off. And it seems things are on the up for the weathered wet thing as news has just reached me that this is all part of a great effort to clean the beleaguered beast in preparation for its 21st birthday celebrations on 9th August 2007!

Having a Blog seems completely normal, it has become one of my main activities and they are increasingly popular world wide (75m and counting). We have carbon footprints, leave administrative footprints for the government to spy on you with and blogs are the focal point of the digital footprint. Everyone has a virtual presence, many will say ‘it’s sad’ or down the pub pretend not to understand what it all is. A virtual presence starts with email addresses, then various log-ins and accounts with dozens of websites. In my case it progresses to bulletin boards and websites where I become part of an online community – by my mere presence. World of Warcraft and other online games all form part of this virtual life. Having my own webspace and this blog is where I can take control of this footprint.

A common feature of a virtual life, and possibley a danger, is a ‘Troll’. Typically a Troll can be a malign presence in a community, an outsider with an agenda or a rebellious member stirriing it up. If you are reading, and contributing to an online community such as Urban75, you will sometimes find a thread which flies in the face of the common consensus of opinion there, which will subsequently agitate all the readers and result in a multi page argument. Going to a right wing gun nut website and saying ‘Bush is a Cunt’ is beginner Trolling and usually ignored. Recently someone posted a thread on Urban75 whereby he confessed to working as a debt collector. This resulted in a lengthy argument and rant fest, perpetuated by mildly inflammatory comments from the original poster. This was an excellent example of the art of Trolling, not too offensive, but contentious enough to get everyone going.

The word is cropping up in mainstream press at the moment as people discuss O’Rielly’s poncy blogging code of conduct ideas from self appointed Web2.0 Gurus (as soon as I work out what Web2.0 is I will appoint myself a Guru in it). People don‚Äôt realise being a Troll, a good Troll, is not an easy task. It requires preparation, studying and stamina. You will need an ability to ceaselessly argue your point no matter how many people prove it wrong. The world needs Trolls to keep things interesting. Bad Trolls are an irritation I’ll admit, rentless moronic spamming can ruin everything. The idea of ‘enforced civility’ just sounds nauseating¬†- like school rules. The outline O’Rielly has looks unworkable and wimpish. The problem with net geeks that have made pots of money in Silicon valley is their tendency to build ivory towers for themselves. The last time this happened there was a vicious cull, the dot com crash, now the ‘blogosphere’s’ apparent movers are trying to make a nice little self congratulatory bubble for themselves to backslap in. I think the code of conduct is doomed, its like a troll magnet. Nothing can bring greater satisfaction than a load of easy to break rules ready to be flouted by sarcastic bastards with far to much time on thier hands. The websites and blogs are going to get¬†Trolled to death at a rate beyond that of the moderators frantic clicking the delete button. Yet the worst outcome will be no one reading¬†them anymore due to boredom.