A very welcome to return to Sci-Fi-O-Rama for contemporary Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fashion Illustrator Barnaby Ward definitely one of my favourite featured artists. As is clearly demonstrated here, Barnaby’s capable of drawing extremely beautiful female characters whom he vivaciously mixes with the surreal and bizarre, such a cool inspiring style that always makes me want to grab a pen and start scribbling… In fact I’d go as far to say that’s there’s really only one other contemporary Illustrator capable of drawing quite such gorgeous, stylised characters and that’s Britain’s Jason Brooks.

Ok so to the notes on the Images, the top four here I’ve cropped into from a series of large Illustration intended as desktop backgrounds, there’s a full set of 9 available via Banarby’s expertly presented portfolio site: somefield.com, the final Illustration is a teaser illustration for his next major Illustrative project “Leavetaking” – all very much under wraps at the moment!.

Finally If you’ve not had a look before I also highly recommended checking Barnaby’s past Graphic Novel Work and the superb “Sixteen Miles to Merricks“.

Here’s a refamiliarization with the infectious & frenetic drawing style that is Barnaby Ward – super cool stuff that’s a real quirky blend of Fashion Illustration, sci-fi, horror and more….

I’ve featured Barnaby a couple of times  before on Sci-Fi-O-Rama  so you may well be familiar with him… If not, your in for a bit of treat – check his site: http://somefield.com definitely one of my favourites.

A selection of Illustration by Barnaby Ward, taken from his portfolio website http://somefield.com

Barnaby’s drawing’s feature a playful mix of pseudo Manga babes, weird looking robots, freaky animal-humanoids,  and often mad tech fetishism – all rendered in a loose but  frenetic style that blends svelte Fashion Illustration ala Jason Brooks (Puscha/Head Kandi) and obsessive detailing ALA Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira).

With regards to the examples featured here, I’ve tried to feature a good cross section from a straight forward classy Fashion Illustration at the top; 2nd down is is similar but warped with an Alien Fish head! – it’s this mix of innocuous and the bizarre the really give Barnaby’s work an edge.  Third and Fourth are pure stream of consciousness doodling and have a more stylised vivacious feel. The fifth and final example is a slick demonstration of character study – I picked this especially as I know how tricky it can be to draw expression variation’s!

If your interested in seeing more of Barnaby’s work be sure to check his online Graphic Novel “Sixteen Miles to Merricks – Will be running a bit more on Merricks and Barnaby soon!

Following on from Dan McPharlin here’s two samples from another contemporary Illustrator Barnaby Ward, Dick Hogg’s put me on to these examples so I’ll add his notes here:

“This is one of those illustrators who pops up on ffffound every now and then. Not strictly a science fiction illustrator all of the time but the stuff that I like are the ones that have strange robot-like things going on in them. And, erm, girls. Always girls. This bloke has got a one track mind! I love the girls in his drawing. as someone who constantly draws quasi-porn in my sketchbook it makes me sick to find someone who is better at it than me. Ah well, good luck to him. Apparently he lives on an island. Perhaps he is somewhere with a low female population like Alaska!”

See more of Barnaby Ward here: http://www.somefield.com/

and Dick’s work here: http://h099.com/