New website and a look to the future!!

Hey everyone! Hope we all had a great "Murray" Christmas....ok promise it's the last time I make that pun! The sentiment remains though! And here's for 2011 eh? I decided to give myself a head start and set up a brand new spanking website!! It's not 100% yet as waiting to sort out my domain so it will be set up to www.murraysomerville.com which should be in a week or so- but in the mean time check it out! -

http://cargocollective.com/murraysomerville

Also things to look forward to in 2011-

-My desktop illustration for computers/laptops/ipads/iphones through Just Us will soon be released!

-My contribution to I heart dot dot dot's zine will be unveiled alongside her new zine in the coming month or so!

-My intruder-tron tee design should be on sale alongside the launch of Intruder Records clothing label!

-Melon Shrub 2 will be released in february alongside a hopeful launch party at the end of that month which will include exhibition work/ live drawing from great illustrators / a rare one off return from the band that started it all: LEMON TREE and more!

-New work from Dazeray in the follow up to our exhibition at the "Here and Now" gallery in Falmouth!

-Toastie-o 2 !!!!

Not a bad little list, and that only takes us as far as June!!!! :O Gonna be an exciting year folks, and let me say a big thank you to all of you who take time to follow me, support my art and consider yourself a fan! you guys are LEGENDS!

Just Us Collective- IPhone Backgrounds

I've just had 3 of my designs made available for free on the Just Us Collective sit for iphone backgrounds! Check em out and all the other talented people involved too- remember they're FREE! Here's what they look like, and follow the link through to get to the Just Us site for the downloads!!! :D More like this to come!!!

http://www.justusdesigncollective.com/blog/?p=1883

MICRO SHRUB-UB!+other works!

HEY! Ok so new work is now kicking around! First up a quick shout out to my time travelling illustration being shown in the awesome Peculiar Bliss Magazine! So Shabba to that! Check out the illo I submitted and the link for the rest of the awesome mag below!

http://peculiarbliss.com/



And excitingly!! MICRO SHRUB is here!!! The small online magazine is the anticipated build up for the soon to be released and rather awesome Melon Shrub 2! But until Jan/Feb 2011 enjoy this all new and exclusive "Micro" expereience :D

http://issuu.com/melonshrub/docs/microshrub1?viewMode=magazine&mode=embed

UPDATE!!!!

Hello hello and hello! It's been far too smegging long since I've updated my blog- mainly due to the vaccuum of my life that is Micro Shrub + Melon Shrub! So let's talk about that first shall we? Yes ok, so I said Melon Shrub would be out by november...may have been a little wrong, BUT it's only because me and jack are striving to make it more badass than ever thought possible! It's all exciting though as "Micro Shrub" will be released in the next week- this will be a downloadable bite sized flavour of melon shrub, a digital sister will be free to shrub onto your screens and enjoy!!! Melon Shrub has been pushed back til the beginning of the new year...but trust me it will be an awesome way to start the new year :D

The bottom line on this is- be very excited as a MASSIVE amount of new exciting material is on it's way very very very soon!!!!!

Here's a little sneak montage of why...




Ok so what else have I been up to!? Well I took part in some live drawing courtesy of "Ballad Of" ( you know that cool magazine!: http://balladof.co.uk/ ) for their two year anniversary! The event was at Jaguar Shoes in shoreditch and I got to draw along side the following illustrative legends!! :

Tom Bates (yoamomonstruos)- http://www.ilovemonsters.co.uk
Sandra Dieckmann- http://www.sandradieckmann.com/
Jamie Mills- http://jamiemilk365days.blogspot.com/
Erd Octotoro (iamanoctopus) - http://yes.iamanoctopus.co.uk/
Natsuki Otani- http://www.natsukiotani.co.uk/

and here's a few pics of me on the night- still waiting to get hold of the pics of the finished wall/close ups of the work- was really awesome though and def hope something like that comes up again in the future!!





Ok next up some exposure- hurrah! Was featured in Art Box Magazine!! Which is awesome! A double paged spread mentioning my work! Here's a link to the issue- http://www.artboxmagazine.bigcartel.com/ and also a pic of me with the magazine in question!!




And Just Us Collective created zine with collaboration of 13 of its members ( me included) to make the snazzy, nifty lil E-Spam Zine!! An awesome lil zine for only 3.50! And I got issue numero 1 !!! :O Not sure how many are left but try and get one if you can, if at least to see my ridiculous "Spam-o-lop-a-gop" ! Here's a link for where you can buy the zine-http://www.justusdesigncollective.com/espam.html and also the collective link- http://www.justusdesigncollective.com/




Also I'll be in I heart dot dot dot's ( http://www.iheartdotdotdot.co.uk/)new zine coming out in jan...but no sneak peeks, you're gonna have to wait for that lil gem :P

My on going work for an appropriate series for arck clothing is finally coming to an end pending edits to the series- but just to give a heads up- it's Cakes and Balloons!! Check these lil guys out!

Toastie-O 2: Character Sketches for kids

Here are some playful character sketches of toastie-o and a host of new characters to help inspire the scheme of kids who will take a chance at writing the story for the next edition of Toastie-O (despite a possible cameo in the next melon shrub....) The list of villains was to give the kids some variety of who they wanted to use, they include buttertron, the bread brothers, microwave man and the carboninator! All stupid, all hilarious...yet EVIL! Toastie-o's new companion is hoov-ron, a canine vacuum packed friend always there to lend...some air?

Melon Shrub 2 Front Cover Sneak-a-Peek!

The last of the current sneak peeks of the up and coming Melon Shrub 2, due out in November!!! Gonna be awesomeness! Hope this gets ya good and thirsty, coz there's gonna be so much more!

Melon Shrub Promo Poster

Here's a poster to get you excited! Melon Shrub 2 is on it's way...minus one drumming bear :O

Melon Shrub 2 Sneak Peek!

Check out this new illo for the upcoming Melon Shrub 2- this one is gonna be sweeet! :D

First drafts of new tee series for Arck

Still working on my limited edition series for arck clothing- here's two drafts of the new idea "The Unlikely Ones" a misfit group of super heroes!! Super dough and captain cactus are first up!

New Intruder Tee Design

Intruder wanted me to do another tee for the voting to be selected in october for their limited edition launch of their new clothing label, so here it is!! Also Don't forget to get over to the website and look through the designs and choose your favourite, it's gonna be insane, the chosen tee of my design, the first 40 are gonna be sold for only, £1 !!!! INSANE!!!

http://www.intruderrecords.co.uk/author/murraythemongoose/

Happy Journey + Laters!

Here's my submission for the awesome Happy Journey project ( http://www.happyjourneycollective.com/ ) my piece is titled 'Laters!" haha :D Enjoy!

OutSmart Car 2010 Submission

Hey! So I submitted a piece to the awesome OutSmart 2010 (http://outsmart2010.blogspot.com/ ) and here it is! :D

I Would Be...

Here's a little something I did for this fun project pioneered by Tahgasa Bertram (Sweaty Eskimo)- the project is called "I would be" , the aim of the project is for illustrators/designers to simply create an image to respond to the idea of themselves being something if they weren't in their particular artistic field, check out more here at the link- http://www.sweatyeskimo.co.uk/iwouldbe.html The project at some point will materialize into something to showcase the work at some point, but for now it's just a really fun idea!

So here's mine, very stereotypically me= ridiculous

Intruder T-Shirts

Ok everyone here's the deal! I'm getting a limited edition design from my new "Game Over" series printed for Intruder Records new clothing label in october, lush high quality screen printed tees! There's no catch here, the tee shall exist, BUT the question is which one out of the four!? YOU get to decide, go to http://www.intruderrecords.co.uk/author/murraythemongoose/

and vote/rate your favourite design out of the four! The one with the highest vote/rate will be selected and printed, so get voting out of the four designs below! Boo-Yah! Did I mention the prices of the selected Tee is going to be Insane...but can't give it all away just yet :P

Game-Over Tee Designs

Hello! Yes it's t-shirt mania, I'm now working with Intruder Records (http://www.intruderrecords.co.uk/) designing t-shirts for the clothing label they're going to start! So awesome times, details of the promotions/exact t-shirts etc. and the rest will soon to come, but in the mean time enjoy these new designs based around the defeat from evil bosses in my "Game-Over" series, and imagine yourself and your excited sweaty hands in owning one! :D

Progress update on New A1 Piece

Hello hello! More work and more work! I've continued progress on my ambitious on-going project "Conversing" in which I'm drawing all types of bizarre drawings and characters in massive orgies of conversation and chaos!

(See the first piece, the A0 mammoth "A Dinosaur's Conversation" - https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGsXTMfUzrmDXv5HM8iGpMEEtWwTJFVFjDFTB25iaUrIauJs0_svd282AVEhFIyHFbgZqM9yq8YyC-drJZpl0JI0gFaCuN1SkwR9XV-_ZjTxM-SHHJ1usxf2edrW8oxfZy3WHLDPQZPfho/s1600-h/Dinosaurtalk.jpg )

So I'm about a quarter the way through the second edition to this series...they do take some time, optimistically aiming to have it finished this week, but in the mean time here are some pics I took of it, obviously they aren't hugely high res due to not being scans...the error of working large scale, but hopefully gives you an idea of how it's shaping and the madness to come!

Cheers!

TehBus Food Blog Header

I've just completed this quickly for http://www.tehbus.com/ an awesome blog on different places to eat in london! It won't be up for a while as the blog re-design will take a while, but you should check it out now anyway for all the useful tips on where to eat! It's great!

Anyway here is some more what I guess could be described as cute murray art, from now on we shall call it: Murr-ute............maybe not!

Guess who's back...

That's right, after a long suspenseful wait, Toastie-O is returning!! This cover is for the Comic landscape project currently happening in solihull, birmingham for kids aged 9-14! The program is combining comics and illustrative narrative with education (wish I was back in school!) They're wanting comic book covers for the kids to then create their own stories based on the covers on the inside- this is when I hatched a plan! I'm currently negotiating that I want to receive all the stories based on this toastie-o cover from the kids, and that the best one, I shall pick and illustrate into the second issue of Toastie-O! How could this not be fun, plus some youngster will have his credentials on my work! Regardless though, Toastie-O is on the return, crumb-tastic! Enjoy this teasing cover for now!

For those who don't know who toastie-o is (where've you been?) you can buy the first issue at my etsy and find out about all his adventures in the fight against Marmitron, the evil robot who puts the yeast in yeast extract!! Only 12 left though of this edition...!!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/53849029/toastie-o

It's a tad bit early....

Yes I too hate all those people harping on about christmas any time before the 1st of december, but alas I must eat my own shit sandwich! I've submitted work off to Ben Steers lovely "All I want for christmas is..." ( http://www.alliwantforchristmascards.com/ ) which from the submissions 20 awesome illustrators will have their designs picked and sold as a set together for the christmas spirit and all the proceeds go towards the charity "Young Bristol"! (Certainly feel I should represent seeing as I use to live in calne!) As per usual I like to jump into these things head first, so my design is done and finished, and here it is if anyone wants to have a gander of what I sent off!

...I warn you, this is alot "Cuter" than my usual work...

Simpler designs and possible finals!

In the ever battle to finish my designs for my limited edition of 4 t-shirt designs with arck clothing I now have a new improved list of designs, hopefully finished designs at that, people let me know which ones you would consider wearing!! :D