After publishing my previous post featuring a slightly new illustrative direction for me, I was over the moon with the positive feedback I received for it.

Personally I was really pleased with how it has developed and really wanted to try another composition, which leads me to this post.

This new composition is very loosely based on the infamous photo of ex-England football manager Steve McClaren watching his side fail to qualify for the 2008 European Championships. I have always been intrigued by the shot, as it holds such emotion and portrays a man who is simply watching his reputation and career fall apart in front of his very own eyes. It was this photograph that earned McClaren his unwanted title of 'The Wally with the Brolly'.

When creating the image, I deliberately avoided branding it with the English FA crest and decided against making the character look like McClaren (apart from the hair colour), as I wanted to keep the illustration quite generic, but more importantly, I didn't really fancy getting in trouble with The FA or Steve McClaren.

This will be the last of my illustrations in this style that I post up for a while, as I have a few other illustrations and project that I want to show over the next few weeks which will be back to my more recognisable look.

This image will be available to purchase from iStock within the next week or so.

If you would like to see the original sketches for this illustration, just click here.

Thanks for dropping by.