Sparklefish Illustration

Little Red Riding Hood

2011-02-03T17:45:00.000-08:00

Mucking about (and having a blast doing it) with some new brush options on Adobe CS5. Really trying to integrate a more atmospheric quality with this one. A limited palette, analogous color schemes, dark/light contrasts of value and a bolder use of texture were some of my aims with this piece.

A fistful of New Images

2011-02-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

@ TurboTax / Daily Ideas

Alligator

2010-09-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

This illustration could be taken in one of two ways: whimsically encouraging children to engage with reading material OR teaching children that, yes, it's completely safe to just crawl right into an alligator's muddy habitat, snuggle up to its scaly side and listen intently for a bed time story.

Pop-Up Solutions

2010-07-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

There's a first time for everything. A few months back, I had the unique opportunity to create a series of pop-up greeting cards for Pop-Up Solutions in the United Kingdom. Available at Save-on Foods and other big box type outfits–

Avatar

2010-01-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

Just spent the last couple of days in-house, story boarding a television commercial for the Women's Network, over at Corus Entertainment here in Toronto. In order to keep my creative sanity, I spent some evenings putting this Avatar illustration together.

Although, both the thematic use of a popular caricature and the stylistic use of hard black outlines are a rarity within my commercial work, I think I may have picked up some great new tools that I hope will expand what I can offer my clients in time to come.

* Also on the ispot news blog

January 2010, North American Promo

2010-01-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

Featuring projects with (from right to left): Chickadee Magazine, Scholastic, Oxford University Press, Highlights Magazine (via Hey Kids! Design), Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health & Reckitt Benckiser (Dettol Detergent). All copyrights apply.

Holiday Promo

2009-12-10T10:34:00.000-08:00

With a towering stack of nearly three hundred layers and a series of inter-weaving selection paths, this holiday promotional image that I just finished, at moments, felt like a game of ‘jenga’ against my adversary: the imac processor. Obviously things worked out and I have an image that I’m proud to use in this years email promotion in both the UK (Meiklejohn Illustration) and the USA (John Brewster Creative Services). If you have time, there are lots of humorous details that are buried within this image; much easier to see if you double-click to enlarge.

If your path of clicking ended up here, and started from the promotional mailer itself, I’m glad. I wanted to provide a little more transparency with my working process with both this particular image, but with also all my other commissioned work. Obviously my goal here is to evoke a sense of repeated visitation to the website, also serving as a virtual diary for ongoing Sparklefish projects. On that note...I hope you come back often!

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"Ken Gamage takes a kid-in-a-candy-store approach to his Holiday promo image" -theIspot.com

Featured in today's theIspot.com 'Art News'

Highlights Magazine Cover

2009-10-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Although this image was ultimately not used to print, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Creative Director, Marta Ruliffson at 'Hey Kids!' on this cover image. Kids, a park, a one-kid band member and a spattering of random puzzle pieces ...all the usual wacky fixtures.

Hooked on Phonics - Itsy Bitsy Spider

2009-10-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

Hooked on Phonics package includes DVD animation of the above illustrations and many others, Directed by Ed Wiseman of Onscreen Entertainment. The DVD is accompanied by a read along board book (a simplified version of the animation images) published and designed by Educate Products.

Dettol Detergent & The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health

2009-09-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

This project was actually done quite some time ago (last December), but I wanted to let it sit with the client before I posted it publicly. The above character designs are to be used in television commercial animations in Saudi Arabia, with the purpose of educating children about hygiene and of course, implicitly market the Dettol Detergent brand. What is displayed here is merely a snapshot of the varied sketches and color designs that I provided for my client, Reckitt Benckiser (Dettol Detergent) & The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health. Special thanks to Alice at Meiklejohn Illustration in London for handling all the back and forth dialogue (over three different time zones!)

The unique challenge here was visually navigating through a cultural framework that is obviously different than what one would find in North America. For instance, because the color green is the symbolically the color of Islam, artwork created for the middle east must be highly sensitive to exactly what shade of green is used. It was a bit of a tightrope walk here, considering that I used quite a bit of green to depict the Dettol brand color, as well as to signify some of the germ villains that are the arch enemies of the muscle bound hero character.

Ooga-Booga-Man, Droopy Head King, Horn-Head-Weird-Arms...

2009-09-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

Obviously, very, very different than the usual digital work that I do. These hand sculpted characters (from top to bottom: 'the droopy head king','ooga-booga-man', 'horn-head-weird-arms') were a fun little experiment that I did years ago when I was living in Vancouver. It's always healthy to breathe some new inspiration into your typical working discipline, through a not-so-usual medium. Lots of fun, maybe I'll do some more in time to come.

Purple Fish...Yellow Nose

2009-07-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

Alright, are you ready? I've conceptually created the unimaginable. I've embarked on a modernist expedition through Freudian psychoanalysis and positivist-materialism.

...I drew a fish.

The Story of Grump (Cambridge University Press)

2009-07-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

These still shots were developed for Cambridge University Press and were later animated in flash by a private firm. The end result was an interactive educational story for children. Although I usually work in photoshop, these images were created solely in Illustrator as vector images to accommodate the flash software.

The Amazing Dino Bus - Animation

2008-12-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

A collaborative animation project with my talented animator friend, Paul Parvulescu at Loaf Heads Animation

Lemonade Stand Comic

2008-12-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

Lemonade Stand is A comic that I illustrate off and on, when I have some spare time. Unfortunately, most of these have been collecting dust on my hard drive. Thought I'd give them some time to see the light of day.

Trace Broadcasting Concept Sketches

2008-07-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

Case of the Gasping Garbage (SRA/McGraw-Hill)

2007-07-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

Backtracking a bit and retro-blogging some noteworthy projects. “Case of the Gasping Garbage,” commissioned by SRA/Mc-Graw-Hill, was one of my first full-length book commissions, compressed into a short production time line. I remember, really wanting to push my creative muscles in creating images that were dense ‘total environments’ for children to really get immersed into. By chance, the project’s timeline coincided with my planned move from Canada to the United Kingdom. So amidst packing and moving to another country, I was grappling with moving from the comfortable working environment of my Vancouver studio, to drawing at coffee shops, on the plane...wherever really. I always had a portable scanner and laptop in my backpack. I’ve inserted a few photos to contextualize my quickly changing working environment over the course of three month. Special thanks to Art Buyer (at Pronk & Associates) and personal friend, Thao Lam (Little T) for being so patient in dealing with my changing phone numbers and addresses!

Above: Preliminary book sketches . Completed from my Vancouver studio

Above: Secondary sketches created in Toronto, days before flying to the UK.

Above: Final Artwork created from my 'portable' London, UK studio.

Booooggeeeers!

2007-05-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

Lemonade Stand Comic

2006-04-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

Fantastically Fun Crosswords for Kids - Cover Art

2006-04-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

by Trip Payne, Ken Gamage (Illustrator)

Product Details

Pub. Date: April 2006
Publisher: Sterling Publishing
Format: Paperback, 96pp
Sales Rank: 23,438
Age Range: 8 to 12
ISBN: 1402721633

Synopsis

Puzzle master Trip Payne is back with more Mensa-quality crosswords for smart young word lovers. His brain-busting collections--including Awesome Crosswords for Kids and Clever Crosswords for Kids have all become bestsellers, and in these puzzles Payne's devoted audience will find the challenges it craves. Each crossword offers plenty of variety, with questions about sports, food, movies, geography, colloquial sayings--anything at all. And to make things even trickier, the same word might recur in different contexts from one puzzle to the next: Bat might be the answer to "flying animal" in one instance and to "baseball club" in another, so watch out! From "Homer Simpson's exclamation" to "The calm center of a hurricane," these crossword clues offer plenty of intriguing enjoyment.

Available at: Barnes and Noble, Amazon, WHSmith (UK)

Lemonade Stand Comic

2006-02-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

Lemonade Stand Comic

2006-01-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

Basketball Valentine (Peaceable Kingdom Press)

2005-07-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

Fold-out Valentine's day card (1 of 3) for Peaceable Kingdom Press