Our cover artist for the month, Raphael Achache, chats to us about his work...
Tell us a bit about yourself…
Hello, My name’s Raph. I’m a person that does drawings. I started drawing when I was pretty small, now I’m big and I still do a fair bit of drawing. About a year ago I went freelance under the name Raphic Design. Good ennit?
What was the inspiration behind the cover?
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was my favourite film when I was small. I’m big now and I reckon it’s still pretty much my favourite film. So when LeftLion approached me to do a Castle themed cover we had a discussion about the contents of the mag. I think I heard a whisper of some Costner related content and decided the theme would dominate the whole piece. The composition and style is loosely inspired by those vintage art nouveau posters but I sort of let my hand escape with it a little.
How does it compare with some other projects you’ve worked on?
Towards the tail end of last year I completed a 52 page, fully illustrated historical guide for Nottingham Castle. I love history so drawing stuff like this is a real buzz for me. Beats some of the work I do for my more boring clients.
What was the biggest challenge that you faced in creating the piece?
Getting the likenesses right is always a bit of a pain in the arse when drawing well known faces. I get to a place where I’m sort of happy with it, then I show it to someone and they’re like… “Nice, why have you drawn Pat Sharp as Robin Hood?"
Tell us about some projects you’ve worked on in the past…
Over the past six months I’ve been working on a project with Nottingham C.A.N. (Community Arts Network) to produce a series of illustration/storytelling workshops that help young males find a creative way to communicate their mental health issues. The pilot is about to be released, so keep your eye on my Instagram for that.
What have you got planned for the future?
Apparently I have to buy a house at some point so I’ll probably do a bunch more drawing, get some money and do that. Although the market is totally shafted so that’ll be fun.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell the LeftLion readers?
I hope you like my cover. Go follow me on Instagram, I’ve only got about 500 followers, if I had about 300 more I’d feel much more adequate as a human being.
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
