music fan stuff — 2017
Music fanstuff.
Drawn for no client and no brief — two runs of illustrations made out of fandom in 2017: Fergie's M.I.L.F.$ in white, Beyoncé's Drunk in Love in black.
01 — the pose
02 — rings up
03 — over the shoulder
04 — the beehive
05 — straight at you
06 — three steps
07 — the loop
series two — beyoncé, drunk in love
The second run flips the light: white paper becomes black water, and the line stops being the subject.
The Fergie set is drawn as line on white — poses read as graphic shapes, colour kept flat. Drunk in Love needed the opposite: a black frame, a single source of light, and the figure emerging out of it instead of sitting on top.
Each frame is the same drawing pushed through a different grade — grain, bloom and contrast changed until the mood matched the song rather than the reference.
08 — the mix
09 — grade 01
10 — grade 02
11 — grade 03
12 — grade 04
13 — grade 05
14 — grade 06
series three — rihanna, anti
Rihanna arrives with the colour taken out — ink only, and the collar doing the talking.
After the Drunk in Love grades, the pencil wanted the opposite of atmosphere: one figure, white ground, no shading to hide behind.
Three passes of the same portrait, each keeping fewer lines than the last.
15 — anti, first pass
16 — anti, second pass
17 — anti, final line
series four — robbie williams, live at knebworth
Knebworth is a crowd record before it is a concert — so the drawings are about the room, not the man.
Each plate takes one colour from the stage lighting and floods the whole frame with it, the way the field actually looked from the back.
The figure stays loose and unfinished; the colour carries the noise.
18 — knebworth, the field
19 — knebworth, red wash
The first of three lighting states, drawn from the same pose and repainted rather than redrawn.
20 — knebworth, teal wash
Same figure, cooler room: the wash decides whether the night reads as triumph or exhaustion.
21 — come undone
I'm scum.
And I'm your son.
I come undone
22 — three frames
23 — knebworth, last song
series five — beyoncé × lady gaga, telephone
Telephone is two performers in one video, so the set is drawn as a duet: one page each, then both in the same frame.
The video's pop-art palette does the work — magenta, cyan and yellow laid flat behind ink, with the handwriting kept in as dialogue.
Half the plates are captions and props rather than portraits; the joke is part of the drawing.
24 — poison tv
25 — stars and stripes
26 — gaga and beyoncé
27 — the phone call
Stop callin', stop callin', I don't wanna think anymore.
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.
28 — the beehive
Tonight I'm not takin' no calls 'cause I'll be dancin'.
29 — dirty mouth
A detail crop kept as its own plate, because the handwriting finishes the line better than more drawing would.
30 — three frames
series six — eminem, venom
Venom closes the set the way it should: one plate, no palette, nothing left to explain.
Two heads and a tongue on black — the only drawing here made after the fan-art habit had turned into a working method.
It is also the last one drawn for nobody, which is why it sits at the end.
31 — venom
Venom
Six records, six ways of drawing — fan art is where the hand gets honest — no revisions, no approvals, just the pose that stuck.
Each plate is built the same way: a fast ink pass to catch the attitude, then flat pastel colour laid behind the line so the drawing stays a drawing.
Kept on white and printed at poster size, the set became the reference point for how faces get drawn in later, paid work.
Let's make the next one.
design with guts — art with soul