the darkness

The Darkness White Tiger/Bat // 2004. Commissioned for T-shirts and the world tour programme cover with a White Tiger jumping through fire. During the band’s live concert, Justin Hawkins played a guitar solo while straddling a stuffed white tiger, which was elevated high above the crowd in arena shows they were playing at the time. The Bat/World featured on T-shirts.

The Darkness – One Way Ticket To Hell… And Back! 2005 // Justin Hawkins’ brief for their second studio album sleeve was for a rusty ghost train coming through the pearly gates of Heaven, hurtling down rail tracks over the rolling hills of a typical English countryside and ending up in the depths of Hell!

Justin Hawkins – Black Shuck guitar 2005 // A large black hellhound with a malevolent flaming eye. The most famous account of Black Shuck is at Blythburgh Church in Suffolk, very near to where Justin lived. He asked if I could create an illustration then airbrush it on to his guitar. Whenever I am asked to airbrush my work on guitars, or custom paint jobs for cars, motor bikes and crash helmets etc. I explain that this is a very specialised job, entailing a lot of preparatory work; rubbing the surfaces down, applying thin layers of special paint, and finishing off with many coats of varnish to seal the image. So I contacted just such a specialist, Beej Curtis, (www. organicimage.com) whose work I admire. He agreed to do the custom art based on my original illustration.

Justin Hawkins Solo Album 2006 // Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory – commissioned but unused cover for Justin Hawkins’ proposed solo album..