Mean Yob was probably one of the most successful creations from all of Emap's console magazines. It was Julian's sneaky way of telling the readers they were 'mentally challenged' and not take any flak directly. Yob was one of the first illustrations I did for Mean Machines and became a popular figure for contributors and other artists. For some bizarre reason I gave away most of my original Yob artwork when I left Images back in 1996. Luckily I held onto the first Yob painting I made and it's still in pretty good nick. This image was first sketched out onto CS10 paper and then inked with a .25 Rotring pen. For the life of me I cannot remember what I used for the colour but I was a complete amateur with brushes and avoided them as often as possible.
4 comments:
That's lovely that is. So iconic too. I grew up with Kamikaze Bear in Sinclair User who was another figure of anarchist. When Mean Yob surfaced in Mean Machines magazine I could relate to his insulting ways immediately.
Naughty Jaime Smith sold this treat:
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/9493/e7fa1ez9.jpg
from issue 12 of MM on eBay a few months ago. Sadly it didn't reach the price of a Picasso but we all know the love was there when this was originally penned.
I emailed Jaime when I heard about this. He seemed quite embarrassed that I had discovered his BETRAYAL but I was cool about it. Still, if it's in the hands of someone who appreciates it then that's a good thing.
It's probably locked away in a crazy old Japanese businessman's vault never to see the light of day again! lol
I love that picture of him - classic. There was also a mechaYob that I thought looked the biz, too. Somewhere in one of my many Big Boxes O' Crap, I've got pictures of Yob I drew in high school that I never managed to send to you blokes on the other side of the world. I'd dig them out, although I'm completely sure they're not half as good as I remember them to be.
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