yep, so the artwork i was telling you about a while ago [link] has now been used on the front cover of good vibrations magazine [their website]

AND they’ve run a  little article on me inside too, with a whole bunch of artwork that (if you’re familiar with my stuff) you’ve probably seen before.

it’s a bit of a strain to read the text on the pic, so these are the words…

Monster Mash

by David Hazelwood

Liverpool’s resident Zombieking, Chris Fairrie, brought his brand of horror illustration to the front cover of this issue of Good Vibes magazine. After a long discussion on ideas, it was decided that he would do his take on two Liverpool icons fighting for control of the city. We caught up with Chris to see what lubricates his art’s gears.

GV: What influences you as an artist?

ZK: I have a pretty cynical and misanthropic view of the world.. I guess that permeates what I do. No matter how wonderful something appears, there is always an underlying dark edge. Though, on the flip side, I find beauty in the some of the more disturbing subject matters.

GV: What current projects are you working on?

ZK: Throughout this last year, my main theme has been ‘Death & Rainbows’ – placing dark imagery (skulls, dead babies) amongst vibrant colours. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but has been surprisingly well received!  Also, I’m working on an ongoing series of horror icons, primarily characters from the Hellraiser mythos.

GV: How would you describe your style?

ZK: I’m a horrific illustrator.

GV: If you could be any artist living or dead who would it be and why?

ZK: I suppose Simon Bisley is the one. His 2000AD artwork for ABC Warriors and Sláine was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I realise this may make me sound like a philistine, but absorbing and attempting to copy his style had more impact on me artistically than of the great masters. I know plenty other artists who cite Bisley as a major influence too – it must be quite something to have created such a significant and inspirational body of work.

-

i was asked if i’d do some artwork for the cover of good vibrations magazine – which is a liverpool based alternative culture magazine. they put out  a monthly mag, and have a lively website [link].  after some discussion with the editorial team we ended up going with this as the brief:

GIANT MONSTERS doing battle in the city of Liverpool!

if you know the city, it’s not as silly as it sounds.. as both are long standing icons of liverpool! if you’re not familiar with these creatures let me enlighten you a touch..

more info here: superlambanana [link], and the liver bird [link]

[NB the lambanana photo was a googlefind, but should be credited back to http://penguinsparade.blogspot.co.uk/ as it was borrowed entirely without permission. soz!]

anyway, there can certainly be deeper meanings discovered within the politics and significance of these icons doing battle, but i’ll leave that for others to discuss.. my only concern is GIANT fucking MONSTERS!!   raaaAAAAWWRRRR!!!

so i started out with quite a simple sketch – just trying to give a bit of life to the statues and mess with composition..

but tbh it was a bit tame. not really big shit kicking beasts tearing into each other and destroying the city as a consequence. indeed, i think they look pretty cute!

so with that in mind, i reworked it…

much better, no?

so there are more progress shots over on my facebook [link] but rather than reposting them all here let’s just skip to the finished piece!

SUPERLAMBANANA vs THE LIVER BIRD

[acrylic on A3 canvas]
by yours truly, chris zombieking!

some friends of mine who run good vibrations magazine [link] were putting on a techno night in liverpool. the idea was that it would be monster-themed to tie in with the cover of the latest issue [which i'll tell you about soon!]

there would be burnt-out smouldering wrecks in the club, evacuation tunnels linking areas, old B&W godzilla movies projected against the walls, and they drafted me in to help decorate the DJ booth.

they simply asked for teeth  at the top and bottom of the booth’s window. but we ended up going for this…

it’s pretty big – the chair should give you an idea of the scale!

here are a couple of photos of how it looked during the night. this first one is stolen from one of the DJs - sneakbeats [link]

and this one shot (which is stolen from good vibrations mag [link]), shows the view from INSIDE the DJ booth! turned out pretty cool eh.

if you’re interested you can even checkout the live set from sneakbeats [link]