It's Quizmas! the Radio Times Big Picture Quiz 2025. Creative Retouching, Illustration with a bit of AI
A project I always look forward to. There are 50 clues to the titles of TV, streaming & radio programmes of 2025 here. Happy Puzzling!
Curious about how these quizzes are made? https://www.ianmckinnell.com/behind-the-scenes#/christmas-quiz/ a complex combination of photo realistic illustration, retouching, AI and lots of research.
Need help? There are a lots of forums of people trying to solve all 50. Try here. There are prizes to be won, so I’m not answering any questions until the competition has closed!
Yes, It does take ages!
BIPP International Print Masters 2025
A bit of showing off. It's the British Institute of Professional Photography, even though no cameras were used in it's creation (they know that) and I had to prove it wasn't AI by showing my workings. All 4Gb of 'em...
The Lionesses: Women's Euros Radio Times 2025
I wonder if anyone will notice that I changed the lion into a lioness? Three different covers for the same issue of the Radio Times. 3D and Photoshop. No AI, just me.
Artificial Intelligence, an illustrators view.
Artificial Intelligence is having a profound impact on image creation. Its rapid evolution is incredible.
It’s a highly controversial topic for illustrators whose work has been stolen and used to train machines to replicate their art without any compensation.
AI isn’t going away and a crucial aspect of my work is learning and adapting. Every project I’ve worked on recently has involved AI to some extent, sometimes to expedite retouching, sometimes to create entirely new images.
The biggest challenge with AI is control. AI has its own perception of the world. If you want an image of a beautiful woman amidst a fantasy setting, AI can generate thousands of captivating images. However, if you want a specific person in a specific location, the process becomes more intricate especially if it needs to look photo realistic.
AI image generation relies on words, but I’m a visual artist, not a writer. So, after typing in a few words to generate a starting image, I continue to create images until I get close to what I’m after. I then use that image as a reference to create more precise images, modifying it by adding or removing elements, manipulating the shapes of limbs, and so on, an ongoing process of iteration.
The images in this post are from a project with Matt Shelley of Pollitt and Partners, creating 22 enormous window displays for a renowned department store undergoing a transformation into new uses. The new images reflect the statues of the original 1911 building, the largest store in the world when it was built.
Repeated iterations with MidJourney consistently produced images that were often close to, but never quite what was wanted, so I was asked to refine and enhance them using AI, 3D modelling, and illustration, drawing inspiration from Renaissance statues. Coincidentally, I was in Florence during the time of working on some of the illustrations, surrounded by the most wonderful reference material. An article about the project can be seen here
Radio Times Christmas Quiz 2024 | Creative Retouching, Photo realistic illustration & AI
Merry Quizmas! There are 52 clues to the titles of TV, streaming & radio programmes of 2024. Happy Puzzling…
There are prizes to be won, so I’m not answering any questions until the competition has closed.
Curious about how these quizzes are made? https://www.ianmckinnell.com/behind-the-scenes#/christmas-quiz/ a complex combination of photo realistic illustration, retouching & AI and lots of research.
Need some help? There are a lots of forums of people trying to solve all 52. Nobody’s got them all yet. Try here
Radio Times Crime Drama Quiz
The visual Crime Drama Quiz in this weeks Radio Times, a combination of retouching, illustration and AI. It was fascinating to research. I always felt that Jason King was weird, but the further you delve the weirder he becomes. He lied about everything!
Radio Times Paris Olympics Cover 2024
It’s that time again. The medal is made with 3d modelling and rendering (Modo), but this time the background is mostly AI, Adobe’s Firefly, though with a great deal of reworking. The image below is the unretouched AI version. The official medal wasn’t very interesting this year, so we designed our own.
Wedding Disasters
Out today in the Guardian on Saturday. One of the most complex illustrations I’ve ever created, Modo 3d, Photoshop with a little AI. You can read the Guardian article here
Radio Times Euro Football 2024
I’m becoming something of an expert on footballs as they change for every competition. The background was very low resolution image of the the Berlin stadium, but the only atmospheric image we could find. It needed a lot of work by hand and by AI to make it useable. There are different versions for each nation. Wales & Northern Ireland didn’t make the competition so they got a generic Euro version, my favourite.
Boat International: I love magazines!
There’s still nothing like the pleasure of going to the newsagents and opening up a well printed double page spread. Even if there’s an embarrassing bit at the front…
Radio Times Christmas Big Picture Quiz 2023
It wouldn’t be Christmas otherwise. This is the first year I’ve been able to use AI for a few of the clues, such as the sausages. AI can be amazing, but It can also be laughable. Adobe in particular have a long way to go - I mostly used Bing Image Creator.
The background image is of Ledbury in Herefordshire, taken by Joe Daniel Price. No questions answered until February as prizes are involved!
The Radio Times 100th Birthday Picture Quiz | Creative Retouching
It’s the Radio Times 100th Birthday this week, so they commissioned me to create a new quiz with 100 clues to the titles of radio & tv programmes of the last 100 years. It was fun to make, and yes, it did take ages! I photographed the background; Broadcasting House, Portland Place W1A. The building in the foreground is All Souls Church. I used to pass by there everyday walking to school with my children. We called it Thunderbird 3, it shares the same shape.
Women's World Cup Football Radio Times Cover
I like women’s football because I now get to create TWO World Cup Covers every 4 years. I especially enjoy the challenge of creating 3d models of the different footballs for each competition.
Watercolour: the antidote to AI
Artificial Intelligence is having an enormous effect on my profession. I’ve been working with it, amazed at the quality & speed of the results. But I’m becoming disillusioned at handing most of the creative process to a machine. My response has been to go back to my beginnings, works on paper. I’ve been experimenting with watercolour and really enjoying the process. I miss command z though!
The Paper Shop in our building has sadly closed after 23 years. They were very friendly & helpful & stocked a huge range of magazines, one the of biggest in London. I’ll really miss them. We had a party on their last day & I made this watercolour for them.
A friends house in Norfolk. You can see it’s long history, doors blocked up, windows moved, small cottages joined together. I really enjoyed painting the flints in the walls, listening to podcasts.
AI
Like the rest of the world I’ve been experimenting with AI. It’s amazing and (as an illustrator) scary too. Fascinating & frustrating. I hope you enjoyed Valentine’s day. Notice that one of the images has a picture libraries watermark on it. I understand the controversy. A search through the AI databases has brought lots of my images…
Radio Times World Cup Cover Qatar
A big issue for the Radio Times. Every 4 years I get this 3d model of the trophy out from the archive & try and make it better, but it’s a tricky/ugly thing. And as it’s nearing the end of the year and another event…
Commonwealth Games Radio Times Covers
The Commonwealth Games are hosted in Birmingham this year and the medals have been proudly made in the City. The medals were designed by three students from the City’s school of Jewellery. What a great start to their career! I created a 3d medal in Modo for these covers. The medal is based on the roads and canals of Birmingham. There’s a video about the medals here:
Radio Times Women's Football cover
Out this week. The first Radio Times cover for women’s football and a new football to model. A helpful shop assistant in Niketown spent 10 minutes explaining the difference between professional and amateur footballs. This is definitely the professional NikeFlight.
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