London buildings - Royal Albert Hall

One of 20 plus significant buildings to be added to a giant poster of London sights.

Mears Exhibition Stand

Steve Best of Mears UK was kind enough to send me this photograph showing how my artwork was used in their exhibition stand.

The busy town image appears at the back of the stand, and I also did the cartoon illustrations of the people, supplied as single artworks for Steve to incorporate into his design.





“We have hired Richard for several projects and are always impressed with his professionalism and creativity, he has a great ability to Interpret our ideas and concepts into amazing pieces of work. Richard is very easy to work with and his talents always shine through, I look forward to the next project we will get to work with him on.”

Steve Best, Mears UK

IIlustration portfolio complete!

The illustration portfolio section of my new website is complete. It will soon be going live. One thing that will feature there is downloadable Ebooks so you can browse through categories of images. So they'll be titled 'Caricature Artist' Cartoonist' 'Commercial Artist' 'Book illustrator' - so versatile am I. These Ebooks can be updated with new work more frequently than the website itself.

William Heath Robinson

A bit of nostalgia in the style of cartoonist and mad inventor William Heath Robinson, one of my heroes.

Political cartoon. Not much has changed!

I'd forgotten I still had this. This cartoon illustration with cruel caricatures of world leaders and Arthur Scargill in 1991 was such a lovely job to do for a magazine cover for a lovely client. Their regular contributor was a famous cartoonist "who couldn't do it this time". I soon found out why. Never mind. They did send me a proof which was very kind.

New caricature illustrations

Christine is helping me get images and helpful copy together this week for my brand new website where more cartoons and caricatures will feature. It's always nice to be able to finish something the day I start it. These jobs make a welcome break from the epic illustrations that Christine and I work on together. The current 'epic' is a giant poster of the sights of London, like the one we did earlier of Dubai. We'll be posting sections of it soon on the blog.

New cartoons from photos

It was Cheryl's birthday this week so she was treated to a very personal birthday card. Of course these surprises have to be kept under wraps so a photo comes in handy. Richard is currently completing a lot of cartoons in this style using photos taken of guests at a wedding.
It seems though that he might have set a precedent. Everyone else in this 'cropped' group photo will feel deprived if they don't get a Richard Deverell cartoon birthday greeting!

A city scene

The brief was for buildings in less subtle colours than is usual for the Deverells' illustrations. This image will be on my new website, with new portfolio headings: under "Marketing" because it was for a website design. If you are looking for cartoon strips, this style would work well.

Townscape illustration for Mears Exhibition

This illustration will be enlarged to 4 metres wide to fill the back panel of an exhibition stand. It was created in Adobe PhotoShop using more than 100 layers. Richard Deverell is in demand for his maps, aerial views and busy pictures of towns, cities, theme parks and events. Were it not for his humble assistant at the G5, he would never be able to keep control of the layers.

Detailed and challenging illustration work

Can you see how it works yet?

Mears is a social housing and maintenance provider across the UK. They commissioned a 64 page illustrated book to be their promotional brochure to market their services. It's all pictures within pictures. Huge fun to do, and very intensive over 2 months.

Dubai - illustrating tourist attractions

More Bible Story Illustrations - Jonah

When illustrating the Bible for children, special attention must be paid to details. So often in the past artists have trusted their predecessors’ work. Research is needed. First, it helps to read the Bible. Not just the story that is being illustrated, but also the background to that story. For example, a long time ago Richard was asked to draw the Ark of the Covenant being carried. What does it look like? There’s a great description of it in the Bible, but what he failed to notice was that no one, on pain of certain instant death, could look at it. Therefore it was covered with a heavy cloth. Even the publisher got really excited at the accurate and magnificent depiction of the ark that Richard illustrated for them to their detailed brief, and it was their US partner who pointed out this error. Whoops!!

The most important thing is that the stories are presented in a fun, contemporary style.

Design and illustration for the self publishing author

Richard Deverell is the ideal choice of illustrator for a self publishing author. The client wanted to produce a few printed and bound copies of a beautifully written and highly amusing early years autobiography of her late father on the occasion of her wedding. These were to be presented as special gifts for her mother and other relatives.

Richard passed the management of this project to his design department. The book was designed, a brief prepared, and Richard produced pictures loosely in the style of Ernest Sheppard’s early illustrations for the stories of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, books that our client’s father had read to her as a child.

The budget allowed for a colour cover and six line illustrations within the text, and the client and her family were delighted with the result.

TEFL illustrations for hispanic adult English students

Books and courses to help people all over the world to learn English will always need many clear, detailed illustrations no matter how old or young the students might be. Freelance illustrator Richard Deverell has completed many TEFL illustration commissions for publishers in this field, including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Letts.

Various types of illustration are required for TEFL publications. Richard’s style and strengths as an illustrator make him the ideal publisher’s choice:

Strong figure drawing, all ethnic groups : Clear, clean line work : Colour, black line, and line with tone : Specialising in detailed, busy pictures : Picture sequences – graphic novel : Specialising in aerial perspective : Can adapt style for any age group

These artworks were commissioned by Oxford University Press in the USA. The language course was for teens and adults (mainly Hispanics) living in the United States to help them to learn English. The briefs for each picture or group of illustrations were very specific. All language teaching materials feature many such sequences and small illustrations.

The town illustration had to include each of the buildings and features depicted, with no possibility for misinterpreting any one of them. The supermarket scene had to show all these food items so the students could clearly identify each one.

Illustrations in the best selling Childrens Bible

The freelance illustrator Richard Deverell is probably best known for his illustrations of stories from the Bible. He is the artist for the best selling English language Childrens Bible first published by Word, now known as Authentic Publishing. This is a translation FOR children – “The Bible that children can read and understand” and not a paraphrase or an existing “adult” translation with a special cover and plates for the younger generation. This Bible contains 32 pages of colour plates in traditional watercolours, all of them by childrens illustrator Richard Deverell.

Hand lettering for business stationery and websites

When a company, band or charitable organisation wants a logo for stationery and a website to look a bit more exclusive the ideal solution is to employ a freelance illustrator with a background in and passion for graphic design and typography. Richard Deverell can provide a complete service for a corporate identity package – logos, business stationery, websites, brochures and flyers, all at competitive prices.

Illustrated map of the world

This illustrated globe with icons and hand lettered logo was commissioned by a client in Bahrain.

Richard Deverell's detailed illustration style is highly suited to these maps for education purposes, editorial, marketing and advertising.

His background in Graphic Design gives Richard the edge when it comes to incorporating his illustrations into a logo, especially when hand drawn lettering is required.

Cartoon for a party invite

Angie contacted me because she had seen my custom cartoons on my website. She and her partner, Ben, were leaving Hong Kong and throwing a party to say goodbye to their friends.

Angie confessed to being a bit OTT when it comes to parties. They wanted a picture that would go on an invite, a huge canvas block print, and on the top of a cake!!

A super photo was emailed across to me with details of how they wanted to be dressed. A Hong Kong skyline and boat were in the brief.





The couple were delighted with the result, completed within a week of our first contact. The cake has all been devoured, but Angie and Ben have a lasting memento of their life in Hong Kong.

Get in touch with me if you would like a custom cartoon for your special event or a unique gift.