Spirou Spring Books Advert

Here's an illustration for this months Spirou magazine, advertising some of the new titles available this spring. Below are some images from the process of making the final illustration.

This was my first rough

Next, Etienne the art director made his thoughts clear

Then I sketched out my version

I got started on the background

A bit more colouring in

And the final illo

Bibendum

A few years back I was asked to take a look at reinterpreting the Michelin Man, Bibendum. One of the aspects of the brief was to imagine Bib as if he was being designed for the first time today.

The reason the Michelin Man looks the way he does is that back in 1898, bicycle tyres
were white. My reasoning was that if you were designing a character out of tyres today,
he might look more like this..

You can check out Tristan Eaton's 80's Hip Hop version of Bibendum here.

Ey up, lad!

This is based on the area where I grew up. Near Bingley in West Yorkshire..

(click for larger image)

LEE MOFO

A couple of months ago, my friend Lee asked me to design a business card for him.
Lee's a photographer. He mainly shoots girls. I said 'ok'.

I started off making a graphic version of Lee's tag.

Next I had a go at drawing over one of his photo's; A pair of stripy legs
Then I inverted the drawing, and added a clean font.

I added the 'Tag' lettering to one of Lee's photo's, and made a drawing over it in photoshop on the Cintiq.

Finally I made this one just cropping in and re-using bits I had already made:

When I showed them to Lee, he said 'It looks like I do drawings.'

I agreed.

Then, if I remember rightly, we went to the pub.

Spirou 'Le Petite Gazette De L'Insolite' Cover

This months Spirou has just been released, featuring a pull out section with work from Chris 'the Hobbit' Garbutt, Sylvain 'the Elf' Marc and Alan 'the Maiden' Kerswell, all former work pals at the Cartoon Network Studio. A big 'Merci' to Etienne Gilfillan for allowing us total freedom to produce the images and comics we wanted. The theme was all things Fantasy.

Here's a few close-ups:

And here's the full cover

Elliot's Zoo Short

Elliot's Zoo from Dave Needham on Vimeo.

Here's a short film I directed when I worked at the Cartoon Network's European Development Studio. This was made late 2009, and I went on to make a full length animatic based on this idea. 6 short pilots were made that year, but none of them were ever aired or put up on the web.

Now i've left CNW, I can finally show it to people! A big thank-you to everyone who worked on the project, including - Tim Bjorklund, Kwok Fung-Lam, Rich Wake, Matt Layzell and Lee Gingold

Copyright Cartoon Network 2009

3D Art Book

I was asked by Tristan Eaton to contribute a piece for his 3D Art Book project.
Tristan is the founder and creative director of Thunderdog Studio's, and the designer behind the Dunny and Munny vinyl toys. There's work by 100 artists from Jon Burgerman to Shepard Fairey all turned into retro 3D - the type you need the red and blue glasses for, and it's just gone on pre-order at Amazon.