Andrew Rae

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0:13so my name is Andrew ray I'm an illustrator as as Irene said I'm member of a collective called Peep Show who we're a company we kind of work together but essentially where individual illustrators working on different projects for different clients so this is one of my drawings this was drawn with a pen on a piece of paper and I'm just going to do a this is a little film.

0:43So I'll just show you a little a few bits and bobs on my work.

0:45And then I'm going to talk about one particular project ♪

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3:16thank you very much. So that just shows you a few little bits of my work and stuff a lot of that comes from some films I did with Wacom recently they kind of film me I did some packaging for them. And I won't go through a list of clients and stuff if you're interested you can look on my website that's Andrew ray info so this talk is entitled Fear and Loathing in the time of so there can't be many people whose face could be replaced with a butt and you'd still know who they are it's maybe a shame that I had actually wrote Trump on there cuz you'd be able to tell anyway.

4:01So the project I'm going to talk about today is something I do for the New York Times did for the New York Times I a regular contributor to the New York Times the ye ol the New York Times so this is the cover that I did last month this was the the email that they sent me was entitled what they asked me to create sort of Fear and Loathing in the time of Trump and this was the double page spread that I did inside the magazine as well.

4:33So I'll come back to this but a little bit of background so I've been working as illustrators since the early 2000s and this was I did bits and bobs for the New York Times back in going back as far as 2006 and this is something I did in 2013 this is about the science of happiness and I did I've done some other bits and bobs this is a cover about creativity I'll just flick through these this is about the dime. And this was a but for the assignments set forth for the science section.

5:12And I was quite happy with this because Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips tweeted it out. So that was quite a nice little thing this was from an all comics issue of the New York Times that was commissioned by Matt Willy who recently redesigned the magazine and this is from my regular column the piece that I do every month which is the on money article about the economy so this one is about the power of the dollar this is about banking I think we can all feel that.

5:51That's how we feel about banking and at the time. There was a regulation going on.

6:00But this is probably these we need to cut through these strings now probably so this was about the end of Thatcherism that's the Federal Reserve that's like an evolution of technology and then this chap started turning up quite a lot there's another one he's kind of hollow back ground this was the first this when I read this article the first time I thought maybe this guy could actually win because he was you know appealing to the Rust Belt and this one is my favorite so last month I got this email from Gail ler at the New York Times just pointing out the little bits of standout cover story - New York Times Magazine it's a nice nice subject to get so I was out at the time.

7:02So I just kind of quickly oh and so this was the image that they referenced something I did in 2014 they liked the fact that. There were lots of little things to look for within this image so I got back saying thanks looks amazing I'd love to I haven't had a chance to read it all.

7:22But I'll have a look and get back when I get it and when I get in and then suddenly I was like oh crap there's loads to do and two weeks to do it.

7:29So then. I had a call with Gail and we'd started just talking through different ideas and they started sending this was a list of some of the things that they wanted to see they were interested in it being symmetrical they wanted monuments Sean Spicer hiding in the bushes I mean there's just so much stuff there's just so much stuff that it was just like how where the hell did we start with this.

7:56So basically so I just did this really crappy little sketch just trying to get the layout sorted out oh yeah. So one of the main things that they they were interested in was this line at the bottom a giant malevolent version of the Twitter bird blocking out the Sun with people fleeing it Mothra style so which is great but it's going to take over the whole image so I decided just to make it lots of little Twitter Birds kind of escaping from the the White House there.

8:28And then to have like one of trumps aides trying to catch them with a net you know just other little bits you can see there there's Obama on on a kite surf kite surfing there's you'll see more in a bit there's Sean Spicer down the front there isn't it crazy like he's he's not even there anymore so I sent this with it.

8:49This is some little bits of some best piece of my work on the left and then the battery kids I've always loved these busy kind of images where you can follow the follow the action and around so then their response this was the email I got there's a lot of information to process so little bits turning out they didn't want to see a gun on the cover originally we were talking about maybe having a gun shooting the Twitter birds down.

9:21But they don't like guns on the cover which is a nice thing the worrying thing was where it said one general note is that I think the people should be a bit smaller okay. So and this was the working out the schedule so we knew it's two weeks and also I had to mention that my wife and I made this little person recently thank you.

9:45This is Rita so I had her to look after as well. So it was all a bit like ah great job but so much work.

9:56So anyway so this was the worked up drawing starting to get a little bit more detail in there we've got some Saudi Arabian princes trying to go to the Trump Hotel we've got some golfers and other bits and bobs in there there's and then.

10:10So this was the first little rough I sent them these are so all of these images I'm sending I'm showing you are the roughs I sent them.

10:18So there it is coming together that after a couple of days oh and then this was the email about the next image I had to work on coming in while I'm finishing that one so this was there is things to think about.

10:36And so there it is so I'll focus in on a few details there's the aide trying to catch the Twitter birds there's over on the right there you can see Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin and Kid Rock getting a selfie there's there's a whole load of protesters in hats trying to fight with Pepe the Frog the racist frog I feel bad for Matt fury who designed that character it's a sad thing I managed to get a little swamp creature in the back there as well which I was happy at the top left there's some senators in there there's a Turkish fight going on there's people stealing cameras there's a little Sean Spicer down there in the bottom and and right there in the front is Steve Bannon now he's gone and Kellyanne Conway is funny with Steve Bannon how like the the thing that makes him distinctive is how ill he looks so this was a I accidentally ended up putting myself in because I thought one of the guy the protesters should be should be a guy so I added a beard and then it sort of ended in being me afterwards I was I was really disappointed that I hadn't added a little sling with Rita in there you know.

11:54So this was the rough for the other one so I'm thinking about coping mechanisms like keeping it simple lots of characters overlapping so I don't have to draw full bodies that's going to be a nice sculpture of of trumps head there in the end this was all in Trump in the Trump Towers but they didn't want that they wanted the characters to be smaller and they wanted a lower angle so that meant perspective and all that difficult stuff so Oh at this point we had to think about the third spot illustration as well.

12:29So then this was the when I started working it up getting a little bit of a little bit more detail and then his oh here's the final of that one so here you can see Steve Bannon again with a swamp creature there's computing with a bear there's a whole load of shady deals going on in the background then nigel farage being a in the front there justin trudeau helping some some refugees some SWAT creatures again some protesters being kicked out Oh diggin and that lot all kicking around as well the ice sculpture and here this was the final little spot that we did this chat Roger stone is a lobbyist and also literally actually does have a tattoo of not of Trump but of Nixon yeah yeah like the bad guy of politics he chose to have a Trump have him tattooed on there so again this was we were worried about whether you could tell this was Steve ban and but you know you just make him look girly enough it's fine and so this was the final email I got thanks from Gayle freaking amazing that's the kind of thing you want to hear and then this one was from the editor-in-chief who sent me a little email to say how happy was with it and thought it was a classic so that's nice and then just after that I did cover for a Taiwanese magazine and I did manage to get Rita in there in the slaying so that's good and that's that so thank you thank you [Applause]