The Newcastle Herald commissioned Dickinson to illustrate the cover of Saturday's edition to celebrate Surfest and he needed a model to show how to stand on a board correctly.

"I took about 40 pictures of his hairy legs in a classic surfing pose before I got the perfect angle to put on the board," he said.

"I rarely draw people, but this was an exception."

Dickinson said he was inspired by the artists behind the two previous Surfest covers, Mitch Revs and Daniel Joyce - "the standard was so high that I had to make sure I kept the quality up!" - and spent about a week on his creation.

He used photographs as the basis for drawings on paper, which he then scanned into his computer.

He used Photoshop to apply colour and work out composition.

"I wanted to have one picture that would also work as two when folded, so the front cover showed the surfer's eye view of Merewether and the back cover shows the underwater Surfest crowd," he said.

"I included the view of Merewether Baths from the ocean because it's such an iconic landmark that surfers have been looking at for the past 85 years or so."

Dickinson said underwater elements - all 60 fish, the surf sign and the Mark Richards statue - were borrowed from his Merewether Aquarium mural.

He found the 'All I want to do is surf' words pasted to the back of a sign.

"I like to get my work out to the public in as many forms as possible, but the Surfest cover feels extra special, as it's becoming a tradition that people will look forward to every year."

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