The 'Salvador Dali' of Rave

Artwork by Junior Tomlin

Note: The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of RetoxMagazine.com

Today we'd like to take the opportunity to tune into an artist's art book. A while ago we bumped into Junior Tomlin, a graphic designer, concept artist, and design consultant, who's style is part sci-fi, part fantasy.

Junior began his artistic career in the computer games industry doing packaging artwork, although he started drawing a wee bit earlier. "I began drawing when my brain came on line and been drawing and designing ever since," Junior explains.

"I have done some of the best remembered and iconic images associated with dance, rave music, and the digital age and have created images that have inspired many to create art and to explore their artistic talents."

Over the years Junior Tomlin has created numerous pieces of art, including covers for leading dance labels, editorial illustration, rave flyers and posters, and was once tagged the 'Salvador Dali' of rave - a title worthy enough to be raving about.

Renegade Soundwave Cover Art

"This is a record cover that I did for Renegade Soundwave, at the time I was a lecturer at the London Cartoon Centre where i was working as an airbrush tutor. The manager of Renegade Soundwave came in looking for an airbrush artist for the band, well the rest you know is history. I got the gig and produced 3 iconic and best remembered cover art for the group, the first one was Space Gladiator. The second cover I did for them was biting my nails which in fact was a remix of their 7" single so I was asked to update the design. I provided them with a few sketches the one seen here is the one they chose. It was finally produced on A0 line board in airbrush."

Junior Tomlin: "This image came about when I was drawing up ideas for Renegade SoundWave, which was taken from a larger penciled piece. The original drawing is of the three members of the band, which I had a photograph of. Some time later I decided to do it in colour. This coloured piece has been used for two rave flyers; one is Ravealation and the other being Dream. It was also exhibited at the Ministry of Sound."

Over the years Junior Tomlin had done work for the film industry. The films include Nightbreed, Lost In Space and The Fairy King Of Ar. Another creative outlet has been digital colouring for titan books, 2000AD, Marvel Comics, and John Brown publishing.

"I have coloured in many of the worlds best loved comic strips works including Judge Dredd, Transformers, Mutant Ninja Ninja Turtles and Spiderman and have worked for the Bafta award winning Audio Rom."

We wanted to know what inspires such an artist and what fuels the creativity process. "I get my inspiration from many places art, photography, sculpture, architecture, science, etc., and I'm a lover of the film and comic medium."

Death of the Euro

"Death of the Euro is a political piece. It came about because of the current trouble with the Euro and the increasing failed back bailouts that didn't work. The roots of the piece came from a earlier piece I named the cosmic man which was done originally for a rave called Dream Zone.

Junior Tomlin: "Death of the Euro, this is a political piece it came about because of the current trouble with the Euro and the increasing failed bank bailouts that didn't work. The roots of this piece came from an image I had done a while ago. It was named The Cosmic Man, which was done originally for a rave called Dream Zone.

The Find

"The next image Is named The Find, I had the preliminary sketch for this one. This was done when I was working in Soho at a company called Amgfx, it was a production illustration; one robot finds another in the mountains it has long been non deactivated and he touches it tentatively as he looks into its non functional eyes. This was a digital piece."

Junior Tomlin: "The preliminary sketch for The Find was done in pencil in a lined notepad. This was done while I was working in Soho at a company called Amgfx - I was there as a texture map artist. The sketch was a production illustration for a project called Ergo.