 Hi how you doing? I'm perfectly fine thank you. Well it's an absolute pleasure to meet you really for the second time as we have bumped into each other at Phantom's event. Yes definitely and again thank you very much for the compliments on my artwork at the time. Oh not a problem I mean it goes without saying I can see one of my favourites to the side there and it's absolutely phenomenal the detail in it. Which one? Which one? Oh that'd be the Capoldi one for Jack, heaven sent all the way for me. Yeah I thought I'd have something out just well to anyone who's not who's watching this and doesn't know what type of artwork I what I'm responsible for shall I say. I draw an awful lot and this is the sort of stuff you would expect from me really. And if anyone at home has not immediately followed him after hearing that or seeing that they're wrong incorrect opinion. So I'm not asking you to follow me in any case if you want to go ahead but if you don't then that's fair enough. Well I highly recommend it personally so straight away a fairly straightforward question how did you get started doing art? Oh it kind of started towards the end of my last year of sixth form which was for the record as in 2014. So I've been studying art really in both GCC and in my A levels and I really hadn't thought of a particular route that I wanted to go down really because I was doing all sorts of different bits of artwork and on in April of 2014 10th Planet events which unfortunately which was a signing company that is no longer with us unfortunately they were holding an event in Barking and one of the guests they had was Colin Baker. So my mum said to me for the event Colin why don't you go ahead and draw a picture of Colin Baker because he might like it. Okay and in about four hours I did a very quick black and white picture of Colin Baker which I've got right here actually. Convenient. Which is this one right here. Oh yeah just a very quick just smacking it out yeah four hours Bosch done. It was four hours I timed it. Oh wow all right but yeah but yeah and pretty much ever since then I've been doing that sort of thing from then on and to further expand on this type of artwork as to why I do what I do I remember watching for the record before I go ahead and say anything that anything that might offend anyone I absolutely respect any and all form types of artwork but this is just from my personal perspective. I remember watching a you know those time lapse videos where you see speed runs of where you start on a picture and then what the final product would end up looking like. So I saw that and there was a gentleman I can't remember what the name of the channel is but he used multiple tools he did so it was watercolor pencil oil paint airbrush all sorts of stuff like that and what he came up with this absolutely beautiful picture believe it or not I believe it was just a Nutella believe it or not and I saw that I thought to myself I love what he's doing but is it not possible to draw that just draw something like that but just by using one medium so I resolved myself to thinking yes I'm pretty sure you can and so I've essentially done this primarily out of where I started from in terms of uh in terms of uh what under circumstance of me me going going to meet Colin Baker but also out of also partly out of stubbornness rarely it's kind of like you've set yourself a challenge yeah I've been adamant of sticking to my own my one set at all which for the record it's all in pencil for those watching nuts I mean Christ how many pencils do you own because the amount of different shades and different colors you'd need for alone well I've got um my main set of tools right here so for the record for what I use it's Derwent well they're called fine art pencils but on the on the sides of them they actually say if I just pull this up to the camera so it says derwent color soft and also it gives you the gives you the color on what I on the side there really what I what I typically use it's like show and tell yeah well I thought I thought it'd be best if I if I actually um if I had my I had items here to well because people would rather prefer to see it rather than hear me describe it really absolutely we're best to have visual aid so um the next question I've seen pretty much all of your pieces at this point and like you know I see the Madame de Pompadour and Colin Baker specifically and I have to wonder what's been the trickiest so far because they're my goodness okay I've got three but I would class as incredibly hard to draw um so I've got Madame de Pompadour was hard because of the detail in that dress that was so tricky to get right the and the other two are Peter Capaldi one-off monsters being the foretold and the Fisher King oh god yeah the Fisher King I'd that yeah wow yeah that was that that was incredible yeah um I did I did the Fisher King first then I did the foretold and then I did Madame de Pompadour um the thing is that I just like sitting myself a challenge really I know absolutely I mean is has there been a piece you start and then you go oh god oh I regret this um I normally the majority of the time I do end up scrapping it and starting again I do because it's a case of okay I see okay what I tried to do there didn't fully work so let's rewind it back a bit and try again with this I'm doing something a bit different I mean best example I've got is this one right here of my talents of which I am picture hang on there's a bit of a glass I'll just hold the camera so what happened was when I started on this is that the glow effect I've got around the time cabinet that was um that was actually much greater it came it came up to around about here it did really uh more like a circle it did and I looked at it uh at the time and I thought no this just doesn't work so I literally tore the paper up and started again oh god how much work did you rip um well thankfully I only I only pretty much done the bottom of that really so it really didn't fully affect it really so I hadn't done any of the top thank goodness for that so um I technically only had about maybe a quarter of it done by the time I went well maybe a fifth of actually by the time I scrapped it how how much like how many hours would you say that is um oh gosh um well just from just from when I started to when I scrapped it yeah I'd say maybe 10 hours I'd say the thing is the thing is though if again if I feel like I could I could have done better I will go ahead and yeah I'll just think I'll scrap it really if I feel any if I if I feel it necessary yeah um here's here's a sort of more random question because I mean I'm one of those people that tried art you know I did it for a good while and then I sort of tapered out and one thing I always struggled with was not necessarily the clothes or sort of body it was always the face would you say that's sort of a common hurdle oh oh yeah yeah um I am a stickler for getting getting people's faces right I will because I honestly because I know I take my stuff to conventions and I sell them I want it to look like the person I intended to look like yeah um so I get I get that it's because again uh again I just really want to get people's faces correct down correct really so it's just a case of looking looking at the because I've got the image in front of me I have and I'm looking back back and forth constantly thinking maybe I just need to adjust that a little bit just to get it right maybe rub that back a little bit in fact I've got I've got one golden I've got two golden rules I should mention regarding regarding my artwork um the harder something is the more likely I am to enjoy myself and no matter the circumstance whoever your favorite character is they are going to be the hardest oh god I can only imagine I mean that I mean mine's very amateurish it's been a hot minute since I've done a drawing so I mean kudos for getting as much as you have I mean how many pieces do you reckon have you done at this point goodness me I must be around I must be about be around but be close to somewhere around about the hundred mark I'd say I got again again I'm again unlike digital artists who again I don't know what they're I again I can't comment on digital art because I don't know what how quickly they're able to push stuff out but it seems like whenever I look on Twitter it's like people who I follow and who are pretty much nearly everyone who I follow with digital arts and they pump it out in in a matter of elite I probably see it probably see maybe one new picture a week or something again I don't know if that's the case for you whereas I can just about manage a new picture a month I can really. Circling back to the the fandom events for example how did you get started doing conventions and selling your artwork or giving away? Well okay so I didn't start going to my first ever convention I didn't start going to conventions until 2013 so my mum took me along to big finish day three which was in March of 2013 and then as an 18th birthday present for me I got to go to the 50th and then pretty much as my mum said to me only when you're 18 you can buy your own way and come over to the event so that's what I did really so I just started drawing just a four pictures of each person I was going to meet really when I went to events as was shown in that book I just pulled up eventually I did catch the eyes of the 10th Planet Company and just said just to have something a bit different they put my at one point they put my artwork out for fans to get signed in front of the desks I wasn't being paid for it but at the time I really didn't mind really and and to this day I still didn't mind because again people kept on saying they really like my artwork so yeah that was fine but I was very good very good on my end eventually 10th Planet closes doors to doing signings they've still got an online shot for the record so I eventually ventured over to Phantom who again shout out to Dex and Paul by the way who are the owners of Phantom Events so from what I remember it was I first of all started going to the signings and I started catching the crew's attention really with my artwork and also another item which I typically get signed at the events and eventually my mum came along with me she became part of the crew for Phantom Events and then eventually I got asked to become a member of the crew as well and so afterwards it was quite common knowledge amongst the crew and fans and that about my artwork and the fact how brilliant it was so it took a bit of convincing to get me to do to get me to do something because I was a bit skeptical about a couple of things such as copyright and whatnot um but I did eventually have my first stall in Pandorica of 2019 so just before the pandemic kicked in and that went right yeah that went very well for me for my for my first ever event I was I was essentially I was essentially a nobody just trying to flog off bits and pieces of artwork I just and I was and I was sat next to Sophia who in another self is a fantastic artist yeah wow yeah and yeah but she is she is amazing she is in terms of so there's not only artwork but moral support to any and other people around her so so so yeah um I do hold Sophie in a high regard for that for that matter uh and eventually eventually spiralled into the fact where um where I then got commissioned by Dixon Paul of Phantom to do some artwork for them so um let me explain what happened so I this was in the this is it between uh lockdowns one and two so the the Phantom the Phantom's day signings are small enough uh to the point where they were they could happen safely in a COVID environment between pandemics one and two um lockdowns one and two sorry um and we had a I was it was the August signing if I remember rightly and a fan had come up to me because I was on the front table not selling my prints but I was selling pictures for for the signing and he said to me when are you going to draw a picture of Douglas camfield as the doctor because of the brain and morbid uh scene and I said to him if I'm I'm I'm thank you for thank you for speaking to me about that um if I'm going to draw Douglas camfield I'd rather draw him has as a director with all the stories that he um that he's responsible for directing so and after he left it just so happened that Dex was sat next to me when that happened so so Dex then said to me how long does it take you to generally draw something and I said oh it entirely depends on what I've got to draw because you think about detail tone color and so on and so forth really and we then got talking about other things related to Douglas camp on he said to me do you want to draw um a book draw the the new book front cover for Douglas for the re-release of Douglas camfield's biography and so naturally I said yes oh you would Douglas camfield no offence to any of the doctors who directed but Douglas camfield is my favorite director of doctor so I've got naturally I just jumped I jumped on that immediately so so again I again because because I'm obviously very concerned about copyright or not and they said to me no no it's go ahead and do it it's perfectly fine on you perfectly fine on copyright grounds because they said that if it if it does come to that they're gonna take the brunt I believe they said they're gonna take the brunt of it at the time um or something like or or something along those lines but essentially they said I was fine on copyright and so I just went ahead looked up all the stories that he was responsible for in terms of directing and uh I put together a picture for uh for it and the book was released in January of this year yeah I think I remember seeing that so I mean that's got to feel you got to feel pretty proud about that oh yeah definitely that is uh I was I was I was on a high in 2020 I was absolutely I absolutely joined myself in that year despite what happened well yeah I mean you've got to make the most of it but I suppose when you're doing artwork going out and about isn't really the biggest worry no it wasn't it just that yeah I will say 2020 just gave me the opportunity opportunity to a start thinking about what else I could do and b just get my head down and get some actual artwork done speaking of your fabulous artwork uh perhaps a small standard question but do you have a favorite so far that you've done oh dear I knew I know I get a question like this it was okay it's bad to happen okay I will immediately say I refuse to answer that question and I'll explain why do tell um imagine right if you had had let's say three or more children and I would to line them up on a wall in front of you and I were to tell you yeah could you do your favorite form and they were and they were listening very carefully could you answer that question yeah I think you've I think I completely understand your point and there's someone who works in the nursery and looks after about 16 odd children yeah it's tricky yeah that's yeah I essentially do my artwork in this all my artwork in a in the same light I do while I will I will say certain I will say certain things about certain certain pieces uh here and there but I view all of them I like all of all of the pieces all my final pieces as equally as much because um essentially they essentially they're helping me get to where I where I am at the moment and hopefully pushing me further beyond the barrier absolutely so you so you're considering your artwork your children you you rest them down into the pot every night you give them a little kiss yes definitely brilliant right um a couple uh two more questions to go uh if if if do you ever do commissions from uh people I know yours is quite uh large so it's easier for digital artists as you say but perhaps for your style it would be a bit trickier um I very very rarely take them on because um to tell us tell an old story I used to take art commissions for literally anything really at one point I had people from my place of work said oh could you draw could you draw this for me or could you draw this and this and I eventually said that uh I eventually had a long thought one day I said to myself am I genuinely happy drawing these bits of artwork and the the honest answer was no because um my worry was that I was going to put out something that would look shoddy and I didn't want and and it it's much easier to draw something that you're that you're more passionate about than it is there's only you're being paid to do so um I so while I have to I while I have an occasionally do still take on doctorate based artwork commissions I I very rarely do and I very rarely want to because it's much easier for me to put something out like this where more people are going to be happy rather than the specific individual will be happy no again sorry sorry if there's anyone who wanted a specific piece of artwork from me but um but unfortunately I very rarely advertise the fact and again you'd have to catch me in the right in the catch me on the right time and it will be able to say yeah I'll go ahead and do that no absolutely I completely understand that so yeah community show uh fan art from Conor Adkins coming soon no I don't want to put your wrist out of action just oh that's too much pencil for the nose let and the eyebrows it would take too long I don't know actually the only pain the only pain I get from artwork is in my back really it's because I'm cos it's because I'm leaning forward yeah and uh again I can't help it but even though I've got a drawing table I do have to lean forward sometimes so it does help my back and on some occasions my chest oh your chest oh because of the angle right yeah because of the angle so I can't help that but that's a thing really wouldn't they no fair enough um but yeah no doing one of me would take too long again the nose but um so finally if people were wanting to find your artwork around if they wanted a piece for yourself I've said multiple occasions as soon as I get the money that I want that heaven sent one so where would people go to look at the moment I'm only selling at events at the moment this is unfortunately a small issue with me is that um again I'm going to use the doctor whose story is an example which is Nikola Tesla's night of terrors Tesla was a genius but he wasn't a businessman like Thomas Edison was so he was more in it for the science than he was in for the money and I like doing and while I do sell I'm more art orientated than I am business orientated right so at the moment I'm only doing events at the moment so and in 2022 I've already I've not I'm not telling you this out here anything but I'm only planning on doing four events next year so if you want to get a piece of artwork off of me the events you would you would be best best to catch me at uh uh and I'm going to try and even though I'm not spoken to the to the owners about this I'm going to try and get myself to these events so the events I'm going to be at are Bedford Hoocon, Hooverville, Utopia and Pandorica that's all I'm usually quite in the know I don't think I know those first two I didn't know the bed fine I'm going to write it down Bedford Charity Hoocon, so just if you type in Bedford Charity Hoocon on into Google you should find it you should uh that'll be in April of this year Hooverville is uh well again if you just type in Hooverville but it's a W at the beginning and uh you should and it's that's organised by the Doctor Who fan group Hoovers and uh and that happens uh if I remember right the after the second after the bank holiday in August the one at the end and then another August I get a bank holidays there are in August uh um Utopia and Pandorica are events that are hosted by uh phantom events themselves so if you want to know where Utopia is that's at White Boston Lakes in Bedfordshire and Pandorica is at the Bristol it is at the future in in Bristol. Oh terrific I might try and get myself down to those they sound like quite a hoot. Yeah and uh I believe I believe uh at the moment only if you're interested in meeting some of the guests uh only Bedford who has got some guests announced at the moment. No fair enough I don't have a gander. Yeah um I thought one final question actually that just sort of popped into my head um have you surely you've shown a lot of these artwork to the actual actors in in the show? Yes have you got any fun stories from that like a favourite? Oh I have got some fun stories I had I was hoping you'd ask it right um well first one believe it or not comes from Tom Baker believe it or not um so what yeah I'm gonna go with the big guns first of all let's do it um so what happened was that this I was still in sick form at the time this is one of my one of my one a very uh so a very old picture which actually three very old pictures of mine so let me just find them real quick for you open up the first two so these are the first two that uh regarding and the other one which is also my first one in colour believe it or not oh yeah I wonder if it's somewhere. That is such a thick book. Ah here it is. This one right here. Oh lovely. So what happened was is that I I was the last person in Tom's queue and I went up to him to to give him copies of them and to get them signed so um he was looking at me wondering saying did you do these? I said yes I did and for the record my mum was the one who was looking after him for the day so you know how sometimes you see people sitting next to um the guests yeah that's what my mum was doing and she was with Tom for the day so yes that's a thing that's a claim my mum hold that's a very good claim my mum hold really and so rather than uh so what Tom says to me is that he first of all he asked for my address so it's like okay and my mum being being being very much on the more on the ball than I was quickly scribbled down the address and uh so it's like okay that that okay so maybe something good might come over I don't know so it's a couple of days later I'm coming home from school after doing my part-time cleaning job and I look I so I look on the freezer to see there's a letter from uh letter for me and by the time I register who's handwriting is I hear upstairs from I hear from upstairs my mum and she's yelling you bloody bastard so I just asked myself oh gosh I've managed to annoy my mum so much and it turns out the handwriting was Tom Baker's writing and I've got the letter right here so I'll just read it to you so it's dated 1st of June 2014 so it says dear Connor thank you for the two copies of uh of my face aged 40 and then 40 years later not just copies not just copies you catch something special something else sorry not special I have written you written your name and email on the back of both pictures and I shall send them both out sometime soon and hope they may lead to an inquiry best wishes to you and many and more thanks to your mum for looking after me Tom Baker oh my god this is my this is my prized possession that I own and I absolutely am enthralled by that that is incredible um another so I'll get a lot of tons of other stories another one coming from the other baker Colin Baker um so um so this was a bed for her I believe it was bed for who con four this was the first time that they'd actually managed to get hold of a doctor for their first one and I was there just as just as an actual punter just going up and getting what I want going up meeting the stars and getting what I wanted signed yeah and um and the first thing of the day um before anything else was Colin Baker's panel and um so um Simon Danes that was the guy that's trying to remember his surname who was hosting the panel um didn't really have much questions he just very much let it open to the audience really which again that's again again it's very nice of Simon to do that so I wanted to ask a question naturally for the record by the time I'd already met Colin and so I the question I asked him was was there any big finish that he would recommend to fans to listen and instead of answering my question he essentially just stops in the middle and he goes and says he goes I think gives me a shout out to the audience so what happens he says he says many artists who draw picture draw pieces of artwork of of people normally only get it 99 percent of the time accurate but he said to me that man there gets it 100 percent of the time accurate so it's like that is a massive compliment from him and um so I just so essentially so essentially essentially he just essentially encouraged people to essentially he then asked what's your Twitter handle to well we're in the middle of the panel and he says um Conor Jay and Ken's and he says go and follow that man I'll stand I bet if there were any other artists in that room they were like oh this this is like an enemy this day in fact I've gotten multiple stories with Colin um the last event before lockdown was valiant in Sheffield and this was in March of 2020 so this was just before the pandemic kicked in um and again Colin Colin was also there and I'm I've actually got a stall this time and I'm sitting in the middle of the room and behind me is the signing area where where the autographs take place and to the right of me is the auditorium where the talks are taking place so Colin had just finished his talk and everyone was bustling out and then Colin was following shortly behind us making his way through the credits with table and Colin in order to get through he ends up coming past my table he sees um sees what's on the table sees it's me and then he makes a loud announcement to the to the crowd saying everyone look at this artwork buy it and so and he's not done so towards the end of his signing session he's walking out because he's finished for the day he's walking out towards the exit because and he asked me how many I've sold and at the time I believe I never sold 14 at the time because again not many people were interested which is fair enough and and his reaction was what and then he turns to me again and he says what's wrong with you and I had to say two times to the to the crowd saying I did not pay Colin Baker to say that because people were thinking it could be because I imagine people would have thought what so yeah absolutely brilliant Colin is probably my biggest support um it seems like it like a town crier um it's what else so I think I've got I've got a few other stories if you if you've got time to hear them we've got time for another story why not um okay uh all in technically involves this one actually oh do tell um so I've got a 10 of your two stories actually um so it goes first of all it comes up when I finished this picture um so for the record uh when I scan them I have to scan them in bits I do you know because I don't have access to an A2 size scanner in high quality I only have access to an A3 scanner so it has to be stitched in it has to be scanned in bits it does and shout out to my friend Angus Glenn who helps who helps me put them together because my my knowledge of Photoshop went out of my ear when I finished um when I finished sick form so he's been very kind enough to help me out and we put this together so um so when he sends me the final version of this um I then tweet I essentially just decide to essentially I want to essentially fire this in all directions on Twitter this is my this is my equivalent of firing off a flare gun it is so I fire it off to 10 Twitter accounts in general on Twitter and I get five responses uh on Twitter um but first of all I the tweet currently has it's my pinned tweet on Twitter has around at least over 250 retweets well over 1200 likes and I couldn't believe it when I saw this at least over 200,000 people had seen it so that was that was a very I was like wow this is this is really done well for me and the responses I got were from Ray Holman who was the costume designer for the for the story ah uh he he didn't say he didn't say anything he just indicated his approval by liking it which again really happy with that uh both the doc two Twitter accounts responded to me so that's the the official one and the American one nice responded to me nice and and also I noticed that the the official doc two Twitter every tweeted it and the last thing that they'd read that they tweeted out was in relation to season series 13 promotional material so and that was about a four night ago yeah this is yeah I've got this in front of more people now so let me wear it and the American one I just wondered and both of them is quite the the infamous gift of Peter Capone saying modern art brilliant um uh the fourth person that I got response from was from Kate Walsh who was the prosthetics producer who works for Millennium Effects and absolutely loved it as well very so essentially what high approval there but the best response I got on Twitter was from Rachel Talalay who was the director yeah and she was absolutely blown away by this thing and I actually because people have been liking because I put pro-aggress tweets of my artwork throughout on to anytime I get a bit further on on a picture and she could and I actually had to say in my tweet uh please see the finished piece of artwork that I've done in pencil and when she saw that she thought she was absolutely blown away but and she couldn't believe that it was done in pencil and the and the best thing about it is that she now follows me on Twitter so nice yeah and he and even though I didn't because I never got he never saw it on Twitter but I got to show him in person Jamie Rhee Corral who plays you can't see on camera who plays the veil as he has seen this in real life as real life himself and I did give him a copy of it and he because he'd signed a few on the day that I that he was signing autographs and he was absolutely blown away by what I'd done and I like I like a tweet a picture of me and him with the artwork saying and I end up quote end up saying Jamie Rhee Corral approves so so yeah that's a didn't he very well this picture's done me very well no absolutely it has I mean I can only imagine I can only imagine what amazing pieces you'll be able to do in the future because if your previous works have shown anything it's absolute quality as Colin Baker said a hundred percent right and that's the biggest review ever you could ever get yeah I think that I even ended up with a believe it or not a piece of Doctor Who television because of my artwork at one point really I'm not kidding I'm not told this story because but I'll tell it now um so it was an it was another phantom day signing and an actor called Richard Seig was there so if you don't know who he is he played a Vok robot in Robots of Death and at the time he had he had with him his original script and all the rehearsal schedule that was with it so I've done a picture of Robots of Death um a number of years ago prior to me and so I rocked up and I just uh I wanted to give him a copy as per usual he loved it I mean he said he didn't say to me in return um like he was he was right from the script he's like do you want this and what he handed me was an original copy of the rehearsal schedule for Robots of Death what brilliant but it happened I was like oh my god I thought to myself oh my gosh that has never happened so yeah I was like I was jumping and it was even better because I know I knew how my mum would react because Robots of Death is my mum is my mum's all-time favorite Doctor Who story well that's gone well then hasn't it so I told her what happened um she was the only person I told and I told her what happened and she and when she and once I finished told her to her face just dropped did she know how you bastard again no she didn't she did not she did not yeah she just she just felt quiet oh my god that is terrific we audience forgive me if I'm making you jealous or anything like that but this is stuff that's just happening out of my control yeah I mean look you you put your stuff out there you hope for the best and sometimes you're luck out that's I think that's the moral of the story in my case in my case I'm extremely lucky out absolutely well yes thank you so much for coming on the show Conor it's been an absolute pleasure chatting away to you thank you as well jack and again um again for the record this is being recorded after after Pandorica 2021 and is and you've already tweeted out the um your your poll for best uh actor or yeah drama or whatever um again uh I'm not voting because technically I am eligible for what for one of them I am so I'm going to keep myself out of that but yeah good luck to all of the Doctor Who community very well done for the year you've made 2021 a much more bearable time oh that's terrific and that's everyone everyone in the community uh yeah thank you uh good enough reason thank you now the robot lady is going to tell us that it has