Battle Books: Arnhem is available now!

You can now buy: Arnhem, part of the Battle Books range from Franklin Watts/Hachette Publishing's Edge imprint. I've just recived my copy and it looks rather nice if I do say so myself.  When I first received the commission I was concerned I was going to be asked to tone down the violence and make a sanitised version (as often happens in publishing), but thanks to the excellent senior editor Adrian Cole I was allowed to put in plenty of gore, blood and severed limbs. Drawing this book and it's sister title Iwo Jima was a real treat for my inner 14 year old.

We've provided the art for 2 books in the Battlebooks series, and the other 2 books have been illustrated by good friend of Cool Surface Ollie Cuthbertson go check out his blog to see more art from his Hastings book.

Buy Arnhem from Amazon.co.uk for the bargain price of £5.39 delivered now:

Have fun,

David

Preview Art for Battle Books: Arnhem by Gary Smailes & David Cousens from Franklin Watts/Hachette

Happy New Year! 

Here is our first official art preview of the upcoming book: Arnhem, part of the Battle Books range from Franklin Watts/Hachette Publishing's Edge imprint.

It's written by the excellent Gary Smailes and illustrated 100% by some handsome chap named David Cousens and will be released very soon.

We'll be posting some more preview art soon and will let you know as soon as the book is released.

Have fun,

David

twitter.com/DavidCousens

"Propaganda" - Digital PaintingTutorial for Digital Arts Magazine

In the November 2010 issue of Digital Arts  magazine (out now in the UK) you can find our digital painting tutorial inspired by early 20th Century Chinese Propaganda posters with a theme of "Inspiration". 

One detail we didn't have the space to explain in the magazine was what the Chinese text says, which is a loosely translated quote from Jack London: "You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club"

Have fun,

David

twitter.com/DavidCousens

Scarecrow's Joyride - Digital Painting tutorial for PSDFan

Excellent Photoshop site PSDFan has been relaunched this week, and we were asked to provide a brand new tutorial to help kick off the proceedings as part of their "7 tutorials in 7 days" theme.

You can see a sneak of the tutorial here and if you act quickly you can see the tutorial plus the full layered .PSD file and custom brushes (plus Premium membership to the website for a month) for just $1! 

The tutorial covers a whole variety of things from Photoshop techniques to design theory with my trademark silly asides and random trivia to make it that bit more entertaining.

Have fun,

David

Twitter.com/DavidCousens