This image had been brewing in the dark corners of my mind for a while but came to fruition after a call for artwork was issued on the theme “What would our country look like in 20 years if we did everything we could to help the environment.” I scoffed when reading it - yeah, in our dreams.
The way things are going, governments will only care about trees when there is only one left, and then their reaction to it would be to close it off - probably paying millions to a friend to carry out the project.
The last tree would live out its centuries in a scientifically perfectly controlled closed space away from the public - protected from the public (HA!) - and only accessible to the privileged few with the right contacts.

(October 2024)

This image started out as a small sketch reacting to yet another pointless email from a student beginning with these words. Generally, I might be well and those words just drop my mood.

The illustration itself tries to include as many items from my real workspace which tells the viewer something about myself.

I also tried to create a flat a viewpoint as possible to enhance the feeling of overcrowded, almost claustrophobic, chaos. There are many little details I feel are quite important. I’ll let you discover them.

(May 2023)

My favourite author is by far Sir Terry Pratchett, who’s most known works come from his Discworld series of novels (novellas, stories for younger readers, maps, diaries, boardgames and so on). His fan base is spread all round the world and, as one would expect, on social media too.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown, one such group had begun a weekly 10-minute drawing competition. On the anniversary of the Penny Black stamp, they gave the artists the luxury of the full day to create their own Discworld stamp. I created ‘The Winged God’ stamp, as the deity of the postal service in Discworld. This inspired me to continue the series for my own enjoyment and continued practice with vector illustration.

(May 2020)

'Not worth worrying anyone if they look a decent sort,' Quirke had said.
And he'd said: 'How can we tell they're a decent sort, corp?'
'Well, see how much they can afford.'
'You mean we let 'em go if they're rich?'
'Way of the world, lad, way of the world.'

from Terry Pratchett's 'Night Watch'

This work was not created as a comment on any one specific political figure.

(April 2018)

This year I’ve been trying hard to get more used to Illustrator, being more of a Photoshop man. I have put together a good number of projects which I’m keep hidden away for now, but recently watched James Acaster’s collection “Repertoire”. (I recommend it, it’s available on Netflix at the time of writing.)

Anyway, this shot from his last episode of the collection, called “Recap” captured my interest and I decided to create this rendition of it.

No deeper meaning than that really. I wanted to practice vectors more, and voila.

(December 2018)

A past lecturer of mine posted that he was correcting an assignment in which students were asked to illustrate the scene from Alice in Wonderland where Alice meets the Caterpillar. 
I commented saying I was tempted to attempt my own interpretation of the scene. A past university colleague expressed the same temptation and here it is. 
I tried something new with this, stepping away from including a lot of detail and texture, to a more mysterious silhouette of the caterpillar, who is almost backlit by some mystical glow. Influenced by the opening of the series "American Gods", I got the idea to draw the Caterpillar similar (ish) to the imagery of Hindu multi-armed gods.

(February 2018)

This picture was inspired, in a way, by the students of the Malta Visual Performing Arts School who are working on a derived piece. Someone mentioned cats and food and my mind wandered, thinking how so many people, even in Malta, would very readily leave out food for/donate money to/fight for the rights of animals, but wouldn't lift a finger to help another human being. 

(January 2018)

The idea for this drawing is from a novel I once tried to start writing. Don't ask, it never really got beyond chapter 1. But this happens in that chapter and the image has been stuck in my head since then.

If you like the rain, and live in a country like Malta, where summer means four months of humidity and heat, you know the this feeling of being outside during the first proper rain.

I tried drawing with white on black for this, which is something I had never tried before. I'm quite happy with the result. Maybe more of this in the future.

Maybe I'll even pick up the novel again for inspiration.

(September 2017)

This was another personal project. I was still exploring the creation of illustrations with a lot of detail. I also wanted to create something for the banner of my facebook page and this determined the lying position of the figure.

The girl dropping the king chess piece is a (somewhat on the nose) representation of youth's natural rebellion towards authority.

(December 2016)

At Media Centre Limited, we proposed a children's television programme featuring Pudinu, the weasel. These drawings were created to send to the puppet making factory, (yes, there is such a place, and yes I imagine it would be amazing to work there) to give them something to build the puppet on. 

The puppet turned out quite similar to the drawings, although we decided to remove the glasses at a later stage because we felt it made him look too old

(October 2016)

My girlfriend (now wife) was studying. Long, long hours of studying. The dragon began as a bored doodle, until I saw the possibility of creating one large image out of all the parts.

The dreamcatcher was then created for a friend of mine, Dana McKeon, who had released her first EP at the time, with one of the songs called "Dreamcatcher". The words included in the centre of the catcher are some of the lyrics of the song.

(April 2014)

Belliegha, is a Maltese mythical monster that dwells in wells. Using her tentacles, she is said to pull children who wander too close to the well's edge into the darkness.

DLS Productions put on a musical in September 2016 featuring Belliegha, although they gave her a sexy, mischievous, seductive character. This intrigued me, and this drawing was produced. 

It eventually made it's way into the musical's programme.

This was a personal project, in which I was studying detail in areas like hair and clothes. I feel some parts of the work is quite flat, but I was extremely happy with the hair, the stitching in parts of the trousers and mask, and the reflection of the rose. 

Malta encounters a large number of immigrants coming to our shores by boats across the Mediterranean. These people, mostly women and children, will be escaping war ridden countries. This image is what came to me as I reflected on the beautiful things in life that children in war forget, or never even have the chance to experience. I tried to show the child grasping the flower without really understanding what it is or what it is for: looking at it with curiosity. The idea that it might smell nice, doesn’t even occur to him.

(August 2016)

Boats is another personal creation on the theme of refugees arriving on our shores by boats. The dangerous journey has claimed countless lives and yet many are still desperate enough to attempt it. 

Through this image of a girl in a life jacket, dirty and barefoot, pushing out a small paper boat, I tried to create the juxtaposition of what is a toy to most children with a reminder of a scary and dangerous time to others.

When prints of this illustration are created (soon hopefully, I'm doing my homework, watch this space) all profits will go towards helping the refugee situation across Europe.

(February 2017)

This illustration was a piece of concept art for a video project that never got made. The intended feeling was one of mystery and magic, curiosity with a bit of fear, but safety and happiness too. I particularly enjoyed creating the hair of this young girl (I added the colourless version to show off the hair a bit). I find it calming to draw strand by strand. An I.T. friend of mine keeps telling me that he could “write a script for that”, but that would remove the fun, don’t you think?

This was also fun for me as it was the first project created on my Cintiq tablet. (Thanks to the wife)

(August 2017)

I married my beautiful wife on the 14th of May 2017.

We were lucky enough to be able to add many little personal details to our special day. This included the guest book, which I got to design.

We wanted the guest book to not only hold messages and well wishes from our friends and family, but also to hold memories from our relationship up until then. 

The simple cartoons are snap shots of special moments in our relationship.
We love them.
The guests thought they were cute. 
Someone asked me to design theirs.

Most things I create start as a sketch or scribble. No matter how far technology goes in terms of digital tools feeling like a pencil or pen, nothing replaces feeling the texture of the paper, and the way the ink (or graphite) is transferred to it. 

Plus, carrying my cintiq tablet around is a bit of a hassle. It's easier to carry a pencil, and you find paper practically everywhere.

So here are a few of these scribbles. As you can see, most of them are on any old piece of paper that I happen to find in front of me at the time inspiration hits me.

Our world, our reality is just beautiful, awesome, and sometimes very very strange. Why then would anyone want to take photos of this wonderful world and twist them into these strange surreal images?

No idea.

And yet... 

I can only thank Dr Gorg Mallia for this section. 

The man introduced me to graphic novels, and through the number of ones I've purchased, began to really appreciate graphic narrative.

Here are a couple of ones I had created as assignments for Dr Mallia's course. 

I wish I had the opportunity and the time to explore this art form more.

I attended a course in 3ds Max.

We were asked to create a room.

I created a loft space including kitchen area, living room, and instruments, from scratch. 

Once again, how else was I supposed to learn if I don't push myself?

(September 2014)