MARIO & LUIGI
Ink & digital colouring 

©benmay

BEHIND THE MASK is here!

The book all film nerds have been waiting for! If anyone wants a copy please get in touch.

Here is a link to a great Review by the Art Circus! With a few peeks at what's inside.

http://www.theartcircus.com/blog/behind-the-mask-by-ben-may/

©benmay

Travels through South East Asia, New Zealand and Fiji

This is a little video of my travels, Hope you enjoy. Cheesy music and all!

Travel Sketchbook

This is a collection of my Travel Sketchbook!

This was the very beginning of my journey and so I thought I'd sketch some people while waiting in Dubai for my flight to Bangkok. I felt pretty wired from too much sleep and so this was a good distraction.

This was from my first week in Bangkok and experiencing the WORST thunder and Lighting I have ever seen while in a tuck-tuck getting soaked. (loads of fun!) the anatomy sketches where just to keep up old habits.

This was a compilation page of characters, I wanted to work with different styles and details and see how they would look next to each other. I love using ink pens that are like brushes so that I can cover the page completely in black if I want to. This was a lot of fun to do.

 I watched 'The Hobbit, the Desolation of Smaug' three times while travelling (not by choice) and had to draw something about it.

 This was a great Gallery in Bangkok that hardly anyone seemed to know about but this is by far the best gallery I went to in Bangkok and had what looked like local artists work (very graphic novel, manga style used in a lot of the images which of course I loved but may not be everyones cup of tea).

 This was a period of 3-5 days wasted while in Vietnam trying to contact my bank about my card as it had stopped letting me take money out. Thanks Halifax, your customer service is beyond awful!

 This was just a collection of creepy images I did in the theme of Halloween. 

 Oh the joyous times I had with my bank ... Halifax... I hate you. I cancelled the card as soon as I got back, it's only through the kindness of people that lent me money that I was able to continue with my travels. Some helpful advice to anyone who's thinking of travelling South East Asia... ALWAYS take a second card with you and DO NOT lose your wallet the day after your birthday, cancel all your cards in a very hungover and drawn out call to your banks ... and then find your wallet under your bed 2 hours later!! ... This uhhh happened to a freind of mine :|

 I saw this poster in a bar while waiting for a train that was delayed by 7 hours!! in Thailand (everything works on Thai time). As we had lots of time on our hands I decided to sketch the image and then ink it in later. 

This was a design combining the fact that I love tattoos and being near to the sea.

 I was in Coromandel (New Zealand) for 3 days and it didn't stop raining the entire time! I didn't actually get to see any of the amazing sites that it's known for although I did get to meet a lot of Germans and had loads of time to do some sketches while watching movies in a nice dry hostel! The fella in the image bottom image was just a picture hanging on a wall in a cafe and as I was waiting for the rain to stop I decided to draw his EPIC moustached face! and I added some Maori tattoos as I was in New Zealand after all.

 This is more of a brain fart than anything. But I like his smile.

 Taupo (New Zealand) has so many great graffiti pieces that I had to sketch a few, this one was my favourite although I didn't have time to finish it off.

This was a sketch I did before and after the Tongariro crossing in Taupo. It wasn't easy but I'm so glad I did it!

These were a few that I did after seeing a very simple piece of work in a local Gallery in Napier (New Zealand. I decided to try and put a Maori twist into it and create a face with the patterns. The face is on the page to the right but you have to crane your neck sideways if you want to kind of see anything resembling a face.

These are all character designs for a book I was reading by Robert Jordan called the 'The Wheel of time: Eye of the World'. I highly recommend it! I only have another 13 books to go!

 This was a very cool design I saw in a skateboarding Magazine, not sure of the artists name...

Mario VS Bowser

Mario vs Bowser

Drawn, and coloured with photoshop.

Caricature of Will Gompertz/What are you looking at?
for Blackwell's Book Shop Event. Sat, Dec 8th at 12:00 PM

The BBC Art Editor is coming to Blackwell's Book Shop! If your in Oxford or strolling down the Broad Street area come along!

Blackwell's Zombie Night Poster Design

I like Zombieees!! This was for an event on Halloween discussing the relationship between Zombies and the materialism of our modern consumerist society ...? I think. I lost track of what was going on. Also had a great Introductory Lecture from Wickham Clayton on the history of Horror cinema. Bloody good night.

Trainspotting #5 Renton
Pen and paper.

Breaking Bad. Season 5

I saw the new Breaking Bad trailer and was very excited so created my own little BB themed works to celebrate the new season ... still not out for like a month though.

 

Wizard of Odd

This was a little idea just twisting the characters of the Wizard of Oz a little for my own warped world.

Fan-Art - ManBearPig is real!!
inspired by Pierre Tositti

These are the Caricatures I made for a book called Sketch Artist - The drawing game (by Sam Branton Quintet) Available in Oxford, Blackwell Art & Poster now!

See if you can guess who they are...

Just a doodlin... 

The Night of the Hunter

I love poster design and The Night of the Hunter (1955) is also one of my favourite films. I think I'll be creating more alternative film covers soon ... maybe some Fight Club (1999) or 12 Angry Men (1957)?

NANANANANANANANABATMAN!

I wanted to mix up the old school Batman costume with the more aggressive and gritty attitude of the Dark Knight. Drawn in Pencil with colouring in Photoshop essentials.

After reading I am Legend by Richard Matheson I wanted to create my own piece of fan-art inspired by the novel. So here it is ...

Green Lantern

Some more fan art in the form of the Green Lantern. This is the piece before final touches and background lighting. I think I'll start adding some Avengers Assemble characters soon what ya think?

And this is the piece with all the final touches, toning and shading.

This is a sketch up of some character designs for a comic strip I'm in the process of putting together. Its basically old school vampires ... no glitter/six-packs.

Stag

 

This was a piece created through drawing the image and then inking with a Japanese Pentel brush pen (model GFKP) they are awesome for creating uneven lines and whilst having full control. I then scanned the image and completed the colour off with Photoshop.

Venom

 

I was soooo tragically disappointed by Spiderman 3 that i decided to draw my own version of the classic bad ass Venom

Ru-puppet Murdoch

This was my final piece for my 3rd year Contemporary Media Arts project in which I created a Website, portfolio and interactive exhibition whereby I handed out printed leaflets to the audience. The leaflets had 3D scissors on one side and what I'd like to call 'truth hurts advertising' (i.e. two beautiful models smiling and laughing with a speech bubble "fill that void of emptiness! Consume More!! "). I then gave a short introduction to the audience and asked them to participate in cutting loose the "strings" of Media control above their own heads. I then asked them to collect a real pair of scissors from the front desk and to destroy the final piece (image above) It was printed on three A0 pieces being around 1.19m x 2.53m in size.

This image was taken while a few of the audience members helped cut up and destroy the final piece.

If you look at the final piece closely you may be able to notice certain patterns and ideas I intended to construct through the general concept of the piece. The strings do not just lead to the 'all powerful' figure of Rupert Murdoch but carries on upwards leaving a question mark of how far the control goes? whether the control can be stopped? as we go down the chain the strings become weaker ... stronger in the beginning and slowly decreasing in control becoming less and less until it reaches the public who have the ability to cut these "strings" of Media control. The structure of the image and size of the individuals involved is in the shape of a hierarchy ... again, pointing to the control and presence over the messages we hear constantly through our daily lives. The conveyor belt is there to represent what the general public are to media companies ... a product of their creation. They choose what shows we watch, how we should dress or even feel. They hold all the information we receive on a daily basis and can fill us with fear or or peace ... but fear brings more profit. If you havent seen it already I highly recommend Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004) or the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) , both are very interesting takes on media control and how too much power in the wrong/right hands can be used as an immense force. The broken television on the right hand side of the image is a representation of the eventual final stage of blindy following the media, conforming to all its messages and becoming a passive viewer. A lot of the public will happily sit back and accept the media to be truthful and unbiased or as the Fox News slogan put it "Fair and Balanced" ... The purpose of the project was to hopefully motivate the audience to ask themselves what intentions the media they watch has and where that came from.

This is the link to the Website I made:
http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/ztwf/072/HOME.html (apologies if it takes a while to load)

Spiderman Vs Nemesis collaboration

I decided to do this after having a Spiderthon of all the movies (I forgot how much the third film sucked!)

Breaking Bad