Back in 2020, when the world turned upside down and a lot of people found themselves unexpectedly making new work and life choices, I was working in the US but in the space of a few weeks, I unexpectedly found myself permanently back in the UK with a lot of time on my hands.
After decades of creating art and content for others, I’d always wanted the opportunity to work on my own characters, stories and IP and lockdown was an opportunity to do that. So I spun up Whamblam.
The idea behind Whamblam was to create instantly iconic and dynamic super-hero art that would be great for licensing. My rationale being that I could work with small to medium licensees who found licensing from the big players cost prohibitive and give them the same quality but with realistic advances and royalties.
I spun up in a very short time, a series of artworks and entered the Brand Licensing Show’s License This competition. Okay, I didn’t win but I made the finals. And I followed up by grabbing as many meetings as I could via the virtual show and looked for my first licensing opportunities.
I have to say, every one I spoke to over the three days of the show was tremendously encouraging and supportive of my ambitions. That said, many cautioned that licensing is a long road. It’s definitely not a route to a fast buck. So in parallel to licensing I started a content production business with a long time friend and colleague to help with the annoying trivialities of day to day living.
I’m not going to lie, it’s been tough finding the time to dedicate to both but I’ve persevered. The business is in a good place and growing and I’m still hammering away at the licensing. I’m creating new artwork and content pretty much every week and I constantly try to learn from the bumps in the road I inevitably hit. I’ve still got a long way to go but I’m seeing positive results and there’s nothing cooler than seeing my artwork on product such as the hoodie from Freshhoods that I’m modeling so stylishly here.
So why am I yammering on about all this?
I’m back at the Brand Licensing show this September and I’d love to meet up with interested licensees.
