Beach

Illustrator. Drawing pictures for children and grown-ups.

Here to follow interesting people and post work in progress. Most posts auto-delete after a few weeks.

FR: Illustrateur. Je dessine principalement pour l'édition jeunesse.

Portfolio: https://www.beachy.co.uk
Newsletter: https://www.beachy.ink
Links: https://www.beachy.org

Last Notes

2026-06-24 15:17:21 UTC

Current mood:
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/116/805/742/903/665/723/original/eaa29bb9888032f8.jpg

2026-06-13 08:08:27 UTC

I have discovered that most AI bots cannot distinguish between strikethrough and non-strikethrough text and I intend to have some fun with this on my website

2026-04-26 09:00:33 UTC

Something I realised this morning : mastodon is full of makers. My feed is bursting with potters, painters, quilters, bloggers, writers, cartoonists, photographers, coders...
Mainstream social media has content creators. But mastodon has the makers.

2026-03-23 17:08:10 UTC

Dutch friends! May I borrow your eyes?
I am making a typeface and including a Dutch 'IJ' for the first time. Would you mind looking at these samples and telling me if my IJ makes sense or looks wrong in any way?The font is all uppercase and there are two versions of every letter, including the IJ, hence the two images.
Thank you so much!
#IJ #DutchIJ #wip
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/116/279/581/442/352/268/original/830c7dac0a5cf70b.png
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/116/279/582/019/824/752/original/1cf4da5f3a252c7a.png

2026-03-07 10:44:14 UTC

As regular users we take this for granted, but it is kind of miraculous that mastodon enables pretty much anyone to set up their own social media platform.

2026-03-01 19:37:46 UTC

I don't mind seeing empty profiles on mastodon. I get it. Trying to sum up a life in a few pithy phrases can feel pretty futile.

2026-02-19 11:53:16 UTC

Excellent. Just found an old to-do list with 'Write a new to-do list' as the top item...

2026-02-14 13:28:38 UTC

- reply

UPDATE: In my quest to replace Illustrator CS5 as a vectorisation tool I have now tried Illustrator 2026, Affinity 3, Vectoriser.ai, and Inkscape.
The Verdict:
Illustrator – still not as good as CS5
Affinity – basic
Vectorizer.ai – poor
Inkscape – Excellent! (although baffling)

2026-02-11 13:24:51 UTC

The hard drive in my long serving 2011 iMac died last night. May it rest in peace.
Day to day I use a newer model but I kept that one going so I could continue to use an old version of Adobe Illustrator.
Software companies like to pretend their products improve over time but that version (CS5?) had far better image trace tools than any of the subsequent ones.
Not quite sure what I will do to vectorise drawings now – perhaps give Affinity a try. Or maybe just get a new HD for the iMac!

2026-01-29 17:40:38 UTC

One month to go on the comic book so I'm going to try posting a panel every day to keep myself entertained.
(I might not feed all of them through to the website though)
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/115/979/607/194/053/219/original/f0bddc6052df57ef.png

2025-11-22 11:14:52 UTC

#illustration #cycling #illo
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/115/593/033/376/278/373/original/0a7a92398368ef73.jpg

2025-10-26 10:58:37 UTC

I'm looking for a non-amazon reader for e-books. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Open to all suggestions but ideally something that doesn't tie me into a particular platform and lets me read indie-published as well as mainstream published books.
I'm an author so have no issue paying for ebooks through online bookshops. While I am trying to avoid giving money to amazon, I am very happy to keep paying authors and publishers!
#ereader #bookstodon #books #reading

2025-10-22 19:33:14 UTC

'Unlucky for some' for Baker's Dozen. There are 13 bad luck omens hidden in this illustration. Can you spot them all?
A prize for the first person to reply with 13 correct answers!
#illustration #cartoon #superstitions
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/115/419/470/274/079/445/original/d9a1b604c06820fc.jpg

2025-10-17 09:56:49 UTC

Another one from the vaults #illustration #cartoon
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/115/388/898/865/987/348/original/211c467b6669431d.jpg

2024-11-13 14:09:06 UTC

- reply

OMG it works!
People on bluesky can now see my mastodon posts (should they want to). All I had to do was follow @npub1pqr…2sck from my mastodon account. That's it. I haven't had to touch bluesky or create an account there.
Amazing.
https://cdn.masto.host/illosocial/media_attachments/files/113/476/027/771/619/829/original/07d40c9e3d109973.png

2024-11-13 14:04:00 UTC

Testing 1 .. 2 .. 3 ..
Testing to see if my account now bridges to bluesky (posting from mastodon, bridging to bluesky)