Tom Hovey

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0:44 I'm Tom hovi I live and work in Bristol I'm going to talk to you a little bit this evening about the illustration work I do for the Great British bov so I have a few passions in my life food being one of them sausage dogs been another oh it's the correct spelling but I can't really pronounce it so and drawing so it seemed that I was kind of destined to become either a pet portrait artist or maybe a foodie illustrator I did try Pet Portraits once doing a bit of a dry spell but with this guy why compete you know.

1:32 So there one thing I thought I should kind of highlight at this point is although I am a massive foodie I love cooking eating most things Just Not That Into cakes desserts pretty much anything that you might see on the bake off which I kind of only see as an advantage really I'm kind of staring at it for pretty much every day for six months of every year so keeps my weight down.

1:58 So I hear you scream from the back of the room silently how does the guy that doesn't like cake become the guy that draws all the cakes well it was really really a case of right place right time coupled with my kind of determination to become a fulltime kind of working illustrator so to take you back a little bit I was living in Bristol after uni wasn't getting much kind of paid consistent kind of illustration work.

2:28 But I was getting lots of were doing live drawing and group exhibitions thanks to one chat that I think is at the back drawing all sorts of kind of non food related kind of monstrous things all around the walls of kind of various places in SoHo and what I found I was spending a lot more time in London kind of sofa surfing than I was in Bristol so I thought it kind of made sense to come here and give it a proper go so being the kind of super organized girl that she is my darling fiance got a job earlier than planned which meant that we basically moved to London a month early so I kind of came here with no paid work luckily a friend of mine worked in TV and he basically told me about a job that was going in a edit of a new cookery show so with no real TV experience or idea of what you.

3:22 Actually doing an edit I went for it and blagged my way in and started two days later so it. Basically turned out that I was working in the edit Suite of what turned out to be the Great British Bake Off I was in a room with a really nice room actually edit Suite in a postproduction house in SOA with the series director and the editor and it both really cool chaps and within a couple of days I basically told them of my complete lack of ambition to work in TV and that I was actually an aspiring illustrator which really worked to my benefit because a couple of days later the director basically came to me and said that you felt there was a visual element missing from the program after kind of working through the edit of the first program and maybe I could come up with some ideas of what we could basically put in there.

4:13 So basically the brief you put to me was to illustrate what the Bakers plan to create for each challenge in the program and by making it look as though they'd basically sketched it in their kitchen notebooks I felt that the basically the black line work that I kind of use for all my other illustration work would be kind of perfect for this.

4:32 So this is one of the initial ideas I put forward it was rejected but you know it was a bit overworked and the line workor was a bit too thin for the Telly and we wanted it to basically look as if the Bakers could have sketched it themselves so it was a bit too detailed for basically amateur Bakers and let alone amateur kind of illustrat so this is basically the second or third idea I pitched and we decided that this style fitted a lot better we needed a thicker line just so it showed up better on the TV and a less de approach which you know kind of worked in my favor because it gave me a bit more artistic license to you know sometimes make the baks look at you know better than they actually were so we didn't actually use any color in the first series so I decided to use kind of big areas of like black shading and hatching just to kind of bring a bit of contrast to the bites and help the viewer kind of understand the different components that were you know kind of going on.

5:36 And I' kind of developed My Line work over the over the kind of years in the series but I've always tried to kind of keep this initial kind of brief in mind so I'll quickly run through my work in process and how I deliver the artwork because it's kind of one of the questions I get asked most and so during filming on set after the Bakers have finished baking they're kind of waiting around to start the judging process and it. Basically takes about an hour to basically clean up the set cuz they basically to Zone just throw and flare and everything everywhere.

6:09 So basically a couple of researchers run around and take photographs of all the baks you know close-ups lots of different angles just so that I can get a real idea of kind of how the bits are put together and all the kind of different elements so then I get sent a big folder after the filming of each episode of everyone's baits kind of categorized and you know named and all that kind of stuff and this is an example of the some of the photos I received this is Nancy's Baked Alaska from this year's series lots of good angles details closeups you know.

6:43 Basically everything that I kind of asked for and then this was the photo I received for Ian Bak Alaska and for anyone that might have watch the show or you know for some that hadn't this turned out to be bingate so this is actually a photo from the inside of been that he ended up throwing his bit delas in because it was ruined so you know as my job is to actually represent what the baker plan to create rather than what they actual their intentions were you know sorry what their actual intentions were I basically start to illustrate you know what he wanted to make because it's you know my illustrations are shown before they basically go on to ruin their cakes so oh so so I had to ask Ian to basically do me an illustration of what he planned to create so this is what Ian sent me it's you know one of the better ones I've received over the years to be quite honest so this was the illustration I did from his a little artistic license of course. And so I'll just quickly flick through for anyone that hasn't seen the show before.

7:55 This is basically how you would see my illustrations crudely animate on screen so you have the line work.

8:02 And then you have the color and then if you.

8:04 Basically can't see what the interior of the cake is light from the exterior we do like a little nice little slice and then we have some arrows basically pointing out what the ingredients are so just so the viewers basically got an idea of you know all the things that are going on within the bake so I wanted to give like a little visual guide just of how my kind of illustration style has developed over the years and through the series so the and you know the point for the change in the style is partly to kind of keep things fresh but it's also you know partly because I kind of learned better how to display the baks so this is an example of one of them from the first series and here's a few more I think you know.

8:55 I think they've got a certain charm you know it told Tau me a lot about kind of highlighting certain areas and C certain ingredients and it kind of taught me a lot moving through to kind of future series when I actually came to color the baks but you know we knew that the composition needed work it was all a little bit crowded on one page one page of the Sketchbook and you know we kind of knew that we need to bring color into the mix to kind of to really just help the viewers kind of identify what they were actually making so that's what we did series two we introduced color from the outset had a much nicer kind of photograph to kind of drop the baks onto which you know.

9:38 I think helped a lot here's a few more examples and I think immediately you could kind of see that the skill level had risen no pun intended of course. So it so it provided a lot of kind of new challenges for me.

9:54 But I think you know with challenges you know sometimes come better results and at this stage you know I honestly really wasn't that hot on Photoshop I you know. I was all about the kind of handdrawn illustrations but you know you know but obviously I said yeah of course I can color them no problem so it's all you know pretty new to me but you know due to the sheer volume of you know baks that I was working on you know purely had to deliver on a you know pretty much weekly basis you know I quickly taught myself the kind of tricks that I needed to just get the results that I wanted so moving on to like series three I became I started to become much kind of happier with the kind of illustrations I was producing I started to kind of develop a better understanding of how to use color to show off the you know the different components of the bits you know and how the kind of color worked in collaboration with my line work and you know sometimes kind of less is more this is John W's amazing gingerbread replicate replica of the Coliseum you know which is pretty amazing and it's no real surprise that he kind of went on to win the third series with you know stuff like this.

11:10 And I think it was kind of at this point in the series when I was kind of receiving you know the kind of the level you know the skill level of bits like this I kind of started to realize that this series might be a little bit different you know and differently received by the public and you know really felt like they were going to get behind it and you know the viewing figures reflected that with kind of 7 million viewers watching the final compared to I think three or four the year before and and we went on to win our first Bast that year in the best features category which was pretty amazing we also went on to win next year which is pretty great as well. And it felt like the skill level in series 4 again just you know went through the roof and it felt like I was kind of having to refer to like gcsc graphics to remember to like technical drawing for some of these kind of things it was all very new to me.

12:05 But this was kind of the first year that from a personal point of view I actually watched the show I know it's terrible but I'd always just find it really hard to kind of not find fault in like all of my work.

12:22 And so I'd kind of watch the first episode and be like oh God and so I just kind of wouldn't watch it again so and but with these year this year's Graphics I I really felt like I'd kind of figured out the keys to kind of unlocking the style that I'd kind of been striving for for the past kind of three years and you know I actually got into the show and realized what everyone had been kind of banging on about it was actually quite good so this year's series we made the move next door to bbc1 which was a pretty big deal for us. And it.

13:00 But I think it was pretty Justified we were pretty much the highest rated kind of TV show on BBC 2 for a few years so so it is nice you know.

13:09 I think with every kind of long-term project there should be a kind of visible kind of progression in like technique and and skill really and and I think as the contestants skills have kind of improved over the years I think you know so of mine and and in turn my kind of ability to display their Creations in the best possible way so 13 million people.

13:31 Basically watch ny's win this year's final which basically I think we were second to the World Cup in viewing figures for 2014 which is you know which is nuts and this kind of Bonkers red windmill cake thing was the 817th bait that I've drawn for the B off over the years in all its connotations you did Junior Bake Off current relief Bake Off sport relief bake off all the kind of marry and paor master classes so there's a lot of spin-off shows um but luck had a real big part to play in me getting this job.

14:19 But I think kind of hard work sacrifice and determination have kind of kept me doing it and and I'm standing here talking to you about it. So it must have all been worth it growing up all I ever wanted to do was kind of make art. And I never really kind of understood how you would you know get paid to do it and until I was actually doing it. So it's a real privilege that I'm kind of able to do it for a living and you know and actually be part of something that so many people enjoy so it was a real privilege talking to you as well this evening so thank you