Decoy Issue 3 out now!!

The third issue of my fanzine Decoy is now available, and as you can see has made the jump from black and white to colour. I've reimagined my favourite male model Will Eustace in Dior Homme and Versace H&M for the cover.

Richard Gray's phenomenal exclusive illustration is the A2 centrefold for this issue, with an accompanying interview. It also has a fantastic full page exclusive by Jean Paul Thurlow, and interviews with Alex Noble, Akmal Shaukat and Sabine Pieper.

Above are two of my own illustrations for the issue, (I posted a different one a few weeks back) and the Richard Gray exclusive. To look at more info head over to my website!

Here It Is!

The new issue! (click to enlarge)

It's finally gone to print and will be available from tuesday 20th december at the latest. I couldn't resist drawing my favourite model again, Will Eustace, who is becoming something of a muse to me, this time wearing Dior Homme SS12 and Versace x HM.

Decoy has made the jump to full traditional colour newsprint with this issue and with a slightly increased page count too, I'm very proud of this one!

The issue contains:

four new illustrations by myself, a COLOSSAL A2 exclusive centrefold by Richard Gray, with accompanying interview, an exclusive illustration for Decoy by Jean Paul Thurlow, and interviews with Alex Noble, Sabine Pieper and Akmal Shaukat, all with illustrations.

To be notified the moment it becomes available, email richard@richardkilroy.com
Head over to Trendland to see the exclusive preview!

Thierry Perez

I made this post a while back but had to delete it because of a Virus scare. Thankfully, I still have all the images, and now a few new ones! It's super hard to find Thierry's work online. The book 'Fashion Illustration' by Nicholas Drake has always been the key source (and is wildly cheap on amazon now) but apart from that, I'm stumped. He was clearly drawn to super fierce women of the 90s, most notably, all the supermodels and Madonna, who he continuously drew, and as I saw in the book 'Madonna in Art' continues to draw Madonna in each new incarnation of her image. He worked exclusively for Gaultier until 1991 which shows in all the outfit illustrations for Madonna's Blonde Ambition Tour.

However, he will always be known for the fashion illustrations featured below. One interesting clip of an Alaia show shows a rare animated illustration feature worked into a clip of Alaia's spring 1991 show, including Neneh Cherry.








More after the jump . . .

George Stavrinos in Colour.

The above two are apparently for a German company that manufactured fabric.



'Rustler' for Blueboy Magazine.




'Racquetball'



Unknown.



Anyone who owns issue 2 of Decoy or have visited this or my own blog, I've been a big fan of George Stavrinos for a few years. Since Sue Tait Porcaro launched the Facebook group 'Fans of George Stavrinos' many more of his hard to find illustrations have been uploaded onto the page.

Given that George was primarily known for his black and white drawings, I thought it would be interesting to compile a post of all his colour work. There is a lot of work for the gay porn magazine Blueboy that appears to exist NOWHERE online, and the best I can offer here is what I have managed to source either myself or via the works that have been uploaded to the facebook page via other group members, including members Herb Greenwood and Robert De Michiell which I am infinitely grateful for.

While the illustrations here bare all the hallmarks of George's technique, it's the black and white work for Barneys and Bergdorf that really did set him apart. I guess with these being in colour, they become endowed with reality too much, and the black and white work allowed Stavrinos to play about with line and stylization more, playing on his accentuation of edges and strong angular shapes. Admittedly, I still prefer his monochomatic work, but these goes to show that George was no stranger to colour and in fact used it very effectively. I'm still desperate to see these illustrations in their full glory. Some of the drawings, particularly the one directly below, are studies for other illustrations and not final pieces.





'Study for Bather'



Unknown. Guessing for Blueboy magazine?


More after the jump . . .

Mel Odom, The Dreamer.

First and foremost, Mel odom is an artist, having worked on illustrations, dolls, masks and oil paintings. Yes, this blog is on fashion illustration, but while Odom has stated that he considers only one of his illustrations to be truly classed as a fashion illustration ('Shirts' for Playboy Guide, 1981), his body of work is of great style influence and his illustration can be quite easily placed in a fashion context. The surreal, often sexual and highly stylized qualities of the characters and creatures in his images lend themselves perfectly to the escapist nature of fashion.

As such, his illustrative work has inspired Nicola Formichetti, one of the most important and regarded stylists in the industry right now. Nick Knight and Formichetti styled an editorial based on Odom's work for Arena Homme +, and then featured his work (illustrations and masks) alongside an editorial for the latest issue of Vogue Hommes Japan.








I managed to buy his book 'Dreamer' off Amazon for very little as it was published back in 1984. There are more works in the book not featured here or online, including some striking pencil illustrations, and I have a feeling Mel's earlier work is about to go through a big renaissance from the likes of fashion students who will be coming across his work for the first time.

He illustrated for magazines such as Viva, Time Magazine, Omni, Playboy (winning 1980 illustrator of the year from them), multiple book covers for Nancy Collins and Ruth Rendell and, and most significantly, his work for Blueboy Magazine (for which I am DESPERATE to get ahold of - they contain super rare homoerotic drawings by George Stavrinos that do not exist anywhere online ), in some respects his work reminds me of the work of Tara Dougans and Richard Gray. The eye for such strong graphical compositions that runs through their work continues to amaze me, so make sure you check out their work too if you already haven't.

"Alex Sanchez at Blueboy Magazine would let me do anything I wanted, as long as it was gorgeous. So I did some very personal stuff for him, portraits of boyfriends and such, mixed into my illustrations. A lot of my best work from that period was done for Blueboy."

"My technique is basically lead pencil over dyes on a very smooth illustration board. I create the sketch initially in pencil on vellum."

"I think that's how you best approach commercial work, finding the personal thing within it that you can explore."

All quotes from an interview with TheArtPoint.
Make sure you read the fantastic interview on their site with Mel about his career and the evolution of his work. Anything else I would write would essentially be a rewrite of this interview. Another brilliant interview for showstudio can be read here.













More after the jump . . .

Glen Hanson for Andrew Mackenzie

circe 2003/04?

René Habermacher & Jannis Tsipoulanis

More after the jump . . .

Julie Verhoeven - 'Fashion Icons' For Ponystep Magazine

Julie Verhoeven created some original illustrations of the industries' top designers for the launch issue of Ponystep magazine. Make sure you grab a copy of the first issue while you can, the second is due out very soon!

Richard Gray - New illustrations

Richard has just produced 10 fantastic new illustrations for a perfume editorial in the next issue of Commons&Sense in Japan. Commons&Sense is a large format magazine, so grabbing a copy would give you ten great size images of his work. I hope they're full page! Via the Art Department Illustration Blog.






More after the jump . . .

David Downton - Couture Voyeur

Thursday 8th ended up being quite a profound day for me. Firstly, I received news (which I can't divulge) in regards to my own illustration work that will in no doubt change and potentially help define my career. Presumptuous to say so I know, or to even talk about it. So, straight after this news, I was off to attend David Downton's talk at the Fashion Illustration Gallery on Cork St, a talk that I jumped at the chance of attending the moment it was announced. On the way out of the tube at Oxford Circus I even noticed the new posters for Fenwick's Autumn Winter ad campaign, beautifully done by David himself. David's talk, coupled with aforementioned news, left me feeling almost emotional at the level of passion I felt towards fashion illustration, and how I'm absolutely confident in knowing I want to continue with it for as long as I can.




More after the jump . . .