BigglesArt

Yet another exhibition!

2011-01-18T12:41:00.000Z

Wow, it seems like the last one wasn't even all that long ago! It seems people actually like my paintings enough to hang them in their galleries, crazy!

If you aren't too far from south west London and would like to come and see the paintings again or for the first time, then drop me a line or just pop by on Friday. (RSVP would be preferred though)

Yes, I know I haven't even uploaded photos of all of the paintings yet and it seems like there hasn't been anything new for a while, but rest assured, I'm working away in the studio on a commission and a new series. I've taken on a few other jobs as well so it'll be a little while until things are ready to be shown, but I hope to amuse and delight when they are : )

For info on how to get to the exhibition and times and so forth, go to: www.bigglesart.com/exhibition

See you all there!

Open Studio and an Exhibition!

2010-09-10T14:39:00.000+01:00

I'm finally having an exhibition! You can find all the details at www.bigglesart.com/exhibition. It's really exciting, but also terrifying, what with it being my first proper show and all.

Also, if you live nearby and would like to come and see our studio, where I make pictures and that along side Dave and Zanny, well you can do that too! We'll be having an open studio from the 14th - 17th of October as a part of the Frieze Art Fair, so pop on in and say hi! Hey, if you don't like our stuff, then there'll be another few dozen artists all in the same building for you to come and have a look at. There may also be a small quantity of booze involved :D

Fulham

2010-08-20T14:58:00.000+01:00

Woohoo! Another painting! This one has been cooking for quite some time. It started life in the old studio and began as a study of the view looking west out of our window. Then it became something of an experiment in painting clouds and the sun and bleaching things out near the sun. Pretty happy with this one : )

Oil on canvas

St George's Circus

2010-07-27T17:15:00.001+01:00

That almost came out as "St George's Citrus", which was maybe my subconscious trying to comment on the palette used in this one. Not 100% finished, I don't think, but it's at a stage where I don't mind showing this one : )

Still trying to do my multiple paintings at a time thing, so I always have something dry to work on, but due to trying to do a couple of them on site, my workflow ends up being very weather dependant. Which is not ideal. Will hopefully finish them off though!

Still loads of pieces to finish, and a few new ones to paint! Think I'm going to try and do a couple from photos next, to alleviate that weather issue, and also just to mix things up a bit cos I'm like that. This one was started at about 4:30 in the morning, on site, but finished off in the studio mainly from memory and imagination. That building on the left (yes, yes, the part that probably needs the most work at this point... ) is my studio : ) It's great, I share with two lovely people and we have a huge north facing window (so the side that you can't see in the pic) although it does tend to get rather warm...

Also been thinking about my artist statement a bit more. Turns out it's really quite difficult to come up with something that isn't horribly pretentious. But then, I've never claimed to not be pretentious (that may also be a lie)

Oil on canvas.

A bench in South Africa

2010-07-12T13:40:00.003+01:00

Quiet around here lately! Apologies for that, I've been working on a bunch of stuff I can't show just yet. Hope I'll get to soon, but until then, you'll have to sit tight : )

In the mean time, I've decided to go back to one of my South Africa paintings which wasn't very developed at all when I brought it back. It's coming on nicely but I'm not quite sure whether I should leave it as it is, or start adding figures. I quite like the idea of someone lying on the bench, and kids sneaking up on them, hiding behind the trees. I'm sure it would make for a far more interesting image. What do you think?

I do quite like the crazy grass though : D

Oil on wood

Something a bit different

2010-02-22T17:54:00.000Z

If you've been following for a while, or browsed through some of my older stuff on here, you might have noticed I used to do a lot more of what I call illustration work. It's good fun to leave reality behind and draw things straight out of your head every now and then and it's something I'd like to get much better at doing. This pic here was done for an ArtOrder challenge and even though there weren't any prizes involved, I was up against some pretty tough competition.

I know my interpretation of the quote was a little bit literal (and well trod, it seems) but I kind of got the idea stuck in to my head and felt I had to follow it to completion. Towards the end, I really started to hate this piece though. I know that a lot of the circles aren't quite right in perspective, the forearm bugs me a fair bit, the bodies in the middle ground are only partially defined, the texture of the piece is rough and amateurish and the range of colors and tones isn't great at all, but I'm still glad I made an attempt at this and sent it off.

I used a bunch of new techniques for this one. A few preliminary sketches, posing for reference via PhotoBooth (lots of fun : ) and switching back and forth between pencil/paper and photoshop via Zanny's A3 scanner/printer. There's even some alchemy in there, though actually I kind of wish I'd left that layer out in the end...

I still have major difficulties in working digitally. Making the right mark in the right place just seems really difficult, especially if you are trying to create a non-digital-looking effect. In that vein, I'm doing some master studies to try and improve my photoshop brush handling as it does seem to be a pretty awesome tool in the hands of the pros.

Colored pencil, chalk and photoshop

Me again

2010-02-12T14:58:00.001Z

Wasn't really happy with that previous self portrait, so had another
go painting over it. Still not sure I'd want to use this one for a
business card (which was the original plan) but I do think it's
better...
Also, no idea what to do with the background. Next time, I really need
to work on the whole painting at once, from composition onwards.
Did have fun doing an underpainting first for this one, actually
helped a lot with keeping the light source really strong.

Oil on canvas board.

Ida's Valley

2010-01-21T11:38:00.003Z

So, this is another painting I worked on out in Ida's Valley. This was one of the many beautiful gardens surrounding Major Erskine's house. This was actually the first propper painting I started while I was out there. Quite looking forward to framing this one as I think it'll really make it look rather nice.

Anyway, if I'm updating my blog, I'm clearly not painting, so I better get back to it :D

Oils on wood.

Say cheese!

2010-01-18T22:36:00.004Z

So the studio is going really well. Zanny's great to share with, and I feel like I'm actually being rather productive having somewhere to go to just work. Of course, not every day goes according to plan, but it makes a huge difference. Still working away on that landscape, having some issues with the foreground, though hopefully I'll work it out sooner or later. Meanwhile, it's time to be moving on with other things.

I've stared planning out another painting which I don't expect to be finished for quite some time, but have a scene, some pose ideas and have even persuaded my house mate to pose for it. Yes she'll be fully clothed. Crikey, what are you like? Anyway, that'll be some way off yet.

Meanwhile, it's about time I started sorting out business cards as it seems like such a wasted opportunity when you meet people and they ask for one but you have nothing to give. Well, I think I still have some MX ones lying around, but it doesn't seem entirely appropriate to use those...

So, I'm working on a self portrait that I can shrink down and print out on expensive card with my name and phone number on the back. It's been ages since I painted a self portrait. It's very difficult to get a convincing expression on the face, I think I need to practice drawing expressions. Might be time to get that good old face book out again. Anyway, I'm not yet fully convinced by this, but it'll have to do for now.

Critiques even more welcome than usual on this one, I could really do with some tips on making this a bit more convincing!

Oil on canvas board

South Africa and new studio!

2010-01-08T17:34:00.004Z

Yo! So South Africa was cool. Stayed with a Major Phillip Erskine in a lovely Cape Dutch homestead in Ida's Valley. You wouldn't believe how beautiful it was, with an enormous garden to boot. While there, I painted a fair bit, and brought back four paintings I was relatively happy with, although I'll be the first to admit that they each need more work!

In other news, I've also moved in to a new studio in the gassworks in Fulham, which is awesome. I now have space to make a mess and get back in to painting "propper".

First up, I thought I'd work on one of those South Africa painings. This was done looking over the wall (and through the barbed wire) at a mountain next door. I kind of like the colors in this one, though my lovely studio-mate Zanny has rightfully pointed out that I need to at least push the sky back to pop out the mountain and the foreground. Still not finished, but figured I need to show something to give you guys an idea of what I'm up to : )

So... yeah... seriously expensive oil paints on wood:

(edit: have uploaded a more recent version of this painting!)

LARA

2009-11-29T19:18:00.004Z

Hey again! Past four weeks I've been studying at LARA, working on my drawing. Tiring, but oh so worth it. Definitely feel that this is the right track to be on. Below are the 6 pieces I did in that time, 3 cast drawings, 1 cast painting and two long pose life drawings. Really wish I'd had more time for the painting and I'm not as happy with the early casts now as I was when I started them, but apparently that's a good sign you're understanding more as an artist : )

Anyway, less talk, more art. HB pencil, various charcoals and even some oil paints on a couple of types of paper and a stretched canvas.

Am off to South Africa this week, really looking forward to seeing some sunshine and getting some landscape painting done. Will be staying with Major Phillip Erskine, who is quite the painter himself, so should be quite the trip! Woohoo!

After Rembrandt

2009-11-08T22:16:00.004Z

So much change since my last update, where to start? I'm now a full time semi-independant art student again, so have started putting a lot more energy into self training than I was able to than when I was working 9-6 at MX.

For those I haven't spoken to recently, my plan is to pursue three seperate careers, though each will be rooted in creating images. The first is simply 'representational fine art', so oil paintings, portraits, still lives, landscapes, that sort of thing. The second is more lighthearted illustration for magazines, books, newspapers. I'd love to get in to political cartooning, but I'm not sure anyone would understand my kind of humour. Lastly, I really want to get in to storyboarding. Working for films, adverts, or even just writers needing a little visual punch to get funding for their ideas. So lots and lots of different skills I'm going to need, but also a few core ones relevant to all three.

First step was to create a personal curriculum of the many many things I know that I need to improve on. This ultimately ends up with a series of activities to do each day, ranging from quick posemaniacs warm up drawings to anatomy studies, master studies, reading up on history of art or drawing theory and so on and so on.

I'm not going to show everything that comes out of these exercises as it would quickly become tedious (a bit like that deluge of life drawings that I've been putting up over the past few months, eh?) However, I will of course put up the occasional teaser. I quite liked the way the below image came out. It was a pretty quick study of a famous Rembrandt (probably my all time favourite artist at the moment) but in a more lighthearted style. I wanted to try and capture the variety of characters and expressions that he's so good at describing. Also, while I've cropped the overall composition, I love his distinctive way of combining light and dark shapes to really draw you in...

Tombow brush/nib pens on standard printer paper stuff.

Stay tuned for news of LARA and my first finished cast drawing soon!

V&A Statues

2009-10-11T19:21:00.004+01:00

So, there's a group of guys from conceptart.org who meet up regularly on Fridays at the V&A to draw the statues. Man they're good. Like seriously sharp drawings. And not just the statues, but their sketchbooks are full of great stuff. I'm incredibly jealous. Anyway, I pop by occassionally. While I missed them the other night, it's still a great place to go and draw. The best thing about statues is not just that they don't move, but you can sort of trace the artistic thought process that goes in to making them. It's like a living lecture. You hear all these guys talking about artistic anatomy, rib cage blocks, defining planes and masses and all that stuff, but with these statues, you're seeing all of that through another persons hands and eyes. In the case of the V&A, it's also the hands and eyes of someone that really knows their shit, too.

Anyway, I quite like the way these two came out. I actually went back over them for another 10-20 minutes after I stopped looking at the piece itself to try and strengthen the image independantly and I do think it helped. So often (especially with life drawing) you're working to a time limit and don't take the time to go back over an image and do that.

Anyway, not the most exciting update ever. I really need to branch out again, eh?

Also, apologies for not taking great pictures (gah, that shadow!) of these two or tidying up the colors at all. Just wanted to get them up here.

Charcoal and graphit pencil respectively on good sketchbook paper.

Soho Burlesque

2009-10-07T16:39:00.002+01:00

I really love how many opportunities there are in London to go and draw. Last night went to Zebrano's on Greek Street in Soho. Basically a cocktail bar, but Tony organises a regular burlesque drawing session there. There's some seriously good artists and graphic designers that go there too. Was very impressed by one guy next to me who made an awesome poster-style drawing and another who was doing really tight drawings in a sketchbook with bright coloured markers. Hey, maybe next time I go I'll actually learn people's names : )

Tatiana also cam along, which was cool and turned out some seriously cool work in between chatting to a mutual friend in New York on her blackberry...

While fun, I don't feel that very much of the work I got done was all that great, partly due to stupid stuff like not leaving enough space on the paper and not using a sharp enough pencil. I blame the antibiotics.

I liked the below one though which was a 5 min sketch and a longer pose from similar angles on the same page.

Dark brown pencil on paper

Lavender 2

2009-09-23T14:31:00.008+01:00

These are from my second session at the Lavender Hill Studios sketch club. Really nice bunch of people. Quite tempted to do a few days of proper studying with them, apparently they put a huge emphasis on fundamentals, which I could probably do with.

I was actually quite happy with all of these. I used the tombow pens for the 2 min gesture drawings and while not great, they look good, I think. The rest are good old trusty brown pencil and had mixed results. They seem to have suffered a little in digitising. At the moment I'm just using my phone to take a picture of each drawing, emailing it to myself, then using gimp to crop and adjust the levels to something that isn't really really dark. I could probably find a better way of doing this. In particular, it would be nice to have more even lighting so I don't have to be so drastic on the levels and ruin the shading so much. But hey, it works (ish)!

EDIT have taken down a couple of the weaker drawings as they were somewhat dominating the blog...

Tombow pens or brown pencil on nice thick sketchbook paper.

Lavendar nudes

2009-09-23T14:00:00.000+01:00

While searching the internet for studio space near home (anyone have any tips?) I came across Lavendar Hill Studios. Quick google for each of the 3 artists behind it and I actually really liked all of their stuff. They also do day and night courses which I'm very tempted by as having good tuition would be really really helpful. I thought I'd just dip my toe in though and try the life drawing class first. Unfortunately, it clashes with the doodle bar's, hence why I wasn't there on Tuesday if anybody missed me (do feel bad, that was the first one I've not been to since they started....)

It's a very professional atmosphere and the level of ability is actually very high. Nice few people too, so will definitely be going again. Only issue is that it is a bit further away so getting there in time after work is a bit of a challenge. Especially when it's pissing it down with rain. Grumble grumble.

Anyway, was a very sweet model and I like these drawings quite a lot. Been studying anatomy again recently and I'm finding it really does help with getting the general shape of the body to just work. I've by no means finished though! Ideally I'm going to go through every part of the body and memorise the names of all the bones and muscles and be able to draw them in my sleep. I wish! Ha!

They don't really provide paper at this place, but they did let me use some brown recycled paper, which was pretty cool, cos I got to use chalk :D

Pencil, charcoal, chalk etc on brown recycled paper

Faces!

2009-09-20T00:25:00.003+01:00

Ok, so if you've followed this blog at all you've probably noticed I have a lot of difficulty getting people's faces right. Man, faces are hard! Human beings are so good at analysing other human being's faces that if you get things even slightly wrong, it's immediately noticable. One of my biggest bugbears is when a line comes out unintentionally thick and you can't seem to take it down without just creating a big mess. I hate that. Especially when you're using pens. One of the reasons I don't often use them.

However, I'm a firm believer that if you want to do something and you've identified a weakness that might get in the way of you doing said thing, then you have to dive in and just do it and try to remedy that weakness. So I drew some faces in pen! Actually pretty fun. I also cheated by doing 2-3 takes in pens of varying darkness. For reference I used a great book my flatmate gave me for my birthday earlier in the month which just has hundreds and hundreds of pictures of different people in different positions making different expressions. Very handy.

So yeah, I rather like these ones. Does remind me though, I should be doing tons more of these!

Also, apologies for the zombie guy and the pencil one (which reminds me of the bartender from Privateer... I'm such a geek...)

Tombow brush pens on really good thick sketchbook paper.

Burlesque

2009-09-20T00:09:00.003+01:00

Went to Tony's burlesque drawing class today. Awesome session in a nice big pub function room. Very nearly didn't make it though, due to wearing the wrong trousers and not having a cash card on me. Lucky random 20 euro note to the rescue though. Did you know you now need to supply your name and address just to change cash at the bureau de change? Personally find that pretty offensive and wasn't really in the mood for bureaucracy so got pretty fuming, but I digress.

The model was also awesome, cool old school hairstyle and the costume gave some really good shapes and lines. Don't think she does much of this sort of modelling though, as she did move quite a bit. Not enough to be irritating, though.

None of these are excellent, I don't think, though do like a couple of them. All good practice, though : )

Various (generally brown) pencils on average quality paper.

Cups

2009-09-10T12:52:00.003+01:00

Ok, admittedly pretty boring one today. Got less to show from the past couple of weeks as have been quite busy with birthdays and partying and so on. That wall hit me pretty hard too. Anyway, still keeping it up!

I actually hate drawing cups. Mugs, tubes, anything vaguelly cyllindrical. Always get the perspective wrong, the curves wrong... It always just looks wrong. However, was lacking for inspiration last night despite having been to a fairly entertaining photo exhibition launch earlier on. So I drew the abandonned tea mugs on my table just as they were. Gotta fight against your natural urges to avoid things because you think they are 'difficult' I always reckon.

Anyway, they still look a little wrong, and some of that background shading is way over aggressive, over the top and not particularly well thought out, but as something that started as a fairly random doodle, I'm actually pretty happy with it : )

Also, I realise that the brown pencil thing is probably getting a little tired. Really need to get back in to colors again soon...

Some sort of warm brown caran d'ache pencil on actually really good thick sketchpad paper.

Doodled out

2009-08-19T09:53:00.004+01:00

Not sure why, but I'm starting to really struggle with my drawing. It just felt like I was fighting the pencil last night. Might be partly to do with that new pencil grip I'm forcing myself to use, but also how I'm becoming more aware of what I should be doing and finding it difficult to translate that into a satisfying end product on paper. Plus, I might just be over doing it with all these life drawings. Do need to introduce some variety again. Also finding that social commitments are eating up my evenings again. Still, I guess these are the walls that were bound to spring up sooner or later, it's just a question of pushing through them and hopefully coming out a better artist on the other side!

Sepia pencil on paper.

Angelnudes

2009-08-16T18:49:00.004+01:00

What's this? Life drawing at the weekends? Indeed. Went on an adventure yesterday up in Angel to a new life drawing group. Nice bunch, quite studious and very well organised. May well be going along more often when I have a lot of time on my hands again.

Anyway, I quite like the way these came out. I'm trying a couple of things with these. One is to hold my pencil the 'correct way', while the other is to pay a little more attention to the underlying mass, structure and anatomy of the model. I'm not quite there yet, but I think I'm getting a better idea about it. I think at some point I'm going to have to do that exercise where you just draw loads of cubes and cylinders and spheres and eggs and things from different angles and so on to try and get my head more solidly around 3D space. Critiques still welcome, as always.

Sienna pencil on paper.

Doodleteacher

2009-08-12T11:08:00.003+01:00

Slightly different doodlebar session last night, ended up drawing our teacher instead. Didn't quite manage to get in the zone, first isn't really finished and the second is overworked. Critiques always welcome. I still struggle with proportion slightly. Think I'm going to do a bunch of posematics anatomical construction excercises. Also maybe something a little different soon as a change from all this figure drawing...

Colored pencil

Daily sketching

2009-08-11T10:50:00.004+01:00

Trying to get into the habit of drawing every day before going in to work. Normally it's a self portrait, but instead of showing you my ugly mug, I thought I'd put a couple of Emma up instead. They're by no means perfect, I still struggle with drawing people in profile & generally getting proportions right. That's why you got to draw all the time, though, and go to the drawing gym. Practice practice practice.

Caran d'ache pencil on cheap paper

Anatomicality

2009-08-08T18:18:00.005+01:00

Got a little over exited in the art shop over the weekend and spent far too much money on new drawing things. Nothing too fancy, mainly new pencils and sketchbooks, but had to try them out as soon as I got home. This is a copy from a book of anatomical illustrations from the 18th and 19th centuries. This one, specifically is a copy from Giuseppe del Medico, Anatomia per Uso dei Pittori e Scultori, 1811, Tavola 16: The muscles of the neck as related to the skull.

Came out nicely. I still need to get better at positioning things though as a few proportions are still out and I think I actually managed to change the point of view ever so slightly. So far still to go. Drawing is hard!

Daler-Rowney sketching pencils (sepia drawing light & white) on brown recycled drawing paper.

Posematics!

2009-08-08T18:00:00.006+01:00

While browsing ConceptArt.org sketchbooks, I came across mention of 'Posematics' and lots of cool animation style pose drawings. Quick google later lead me to this website. It's actually really cool. Usually when you go to life drawing classes, there's a fast drawing warm up exercise where each pose only lasts 30 seconds or a minute or so. The idea is to get you to draw quick 'gesture' lines and get you to stop thinking too much and be more confident about making marks on paper. Thanks to posematics, I can now do this without asking a model to get naked and jump around the room in silly positions : D

It's good practice, and I got through half a sketch book last night. I'm only uploading a couple now though, as the real reason to do these is that when you slow down and take a little longer over a drawing you hopefully retain the nice fluid gestures, but actually get everything in the right place and can get some nice results.

*EDIT* The website is actually called 'posemaniacs' and can be found here. I'm leaving the above text though as it is as I'm currently the top hit on google for posematics and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside : )

These are all venitian red derwent drawing pencil on quite thin refill pad paper.

Doodlenude

2009-08-04T22:44:00.005+01:00

Carrying on the tradition of going to the doodlebar for life drawing every Tuesday night and I still love it. Some weeks it doesn't quite come out right and I'm not happy with the results, but today I'm actually pretty proud of this one. I know I've still got a long way to go, but keeping this up every week has really helped. Even if I did miss the Harry Potter premier for it once...

Caran d'ache pencil.

New Nues!

2009-07-29T11:30:00.006+01:00

Ok, a bit of a large dump this one. These are more drawings from Tuesday life classes at the Doodlebar. It's a great atmosphere, sometimes relatively quiet, other times completely full like last night.

Really good getting practice in every week like this, though it's interesting to see how much your mood can be affected by work and how that can in turn affect the way you draw. Some of these I like more than others, but they aren't so bad.

Caran d'ache pencil on paper.

Life doodle

2009-07-06T14:16:00.007+01:00

Finally found a cool life drawing group at the doodlebar near home. Really nice atmosphere and good to get some practice back in. Going to go every week I think so hopefully regular updates will start flowing again!

As for this piece... gah... got a long way to go before I'm back up to speed, even.

Charcoal on surprisingly high quality paper.

Poppy

2008-12-28T16:50:00.007Z

Finally another new painting!

This one was a last minute Christmas present as all the shops seemed to just be full of junk and I couldn't find anything appropriate to give. Plus I realised that I was stuck in a house with my parents for a few days and needed something to do other than just eat, cook and watch television.

The subject is Poppy, our dog who died a couple of months ago. We had to go through tons of old photographs to find anything where she wasn't hiding from or looking suspiciously at the camera, and this one was by far the best pose. Of course, it's nigh on impossible to get a completely accurate likeness, but it's ok I think. Was thinking of adding puppies all over the place as I do have quite a few pics from each of her two litters, but don't think I really have time.

Also, slightly worried that I may start to be typecast into painting pets all the time, so hopefully the next one will be completely different. Whenever that is : )

(Dad's) Oils on (new Christmas present) canvas.

Two more oldies

2008-12-28T16:43:00.005Z

Totally forgot about these two. Again from the first semester at Parsons. Hidden away at the top of the house. I think these were actually two of my favourites from that semester.

Oil on canvas.

A couple of old ones

2008-10-16T15:44:00.009+01:00

I went home last weekend to my parents' house and saw a couple of paintings I'd given them for Christmas 2006. That was before I'd started putting my stuff online, so they never made it up. These are from my first term at Parsons. Two of my favourites at any rate. There are some others with various relatives around the UK which I'll have to track down as well at some point, but these will do for the time being.

The one with the hat is called "Don't drink the water"

Oil on canvas

Kulu

2008-10-06T15:14:00.006+01:00

After a rather extended break from arting, I finally found some time a couple of weekends ago and managed to paint a picture of Kulu, my flatmate's pig, for her birthday (my flatmate's that is, not the pig's).

I also seem to be giving away paintings at an alarming rate. I should really go on a quick tour to find those that aren't up here yet and take some more photos.

Anyway, while this one still bugs me in 101 ways every time I look at it, I'm still kind of proud of it.

Oil on canvas, from photograph.

Two more wedding sheet pics

2008-04-24T11:22:00.007+01:00

These two are (I believe) for the morning service sheets, door on the front, mermaid on the back.

Same technique as before. I don't know whether they should stay in black and white, or something warmer, like a sort of cream and beige combination. Anyway, it's not really up to me. Got another quick gig doing a map for the pub I work in's business cards, but it's not massively exciting, so probably won't bother posting it.

All digital (from photo reference)

Been a while...

2008-04-12T14:59:00.008+01:00

Apologies for not updating or doing any art for almost a year now, I accidentally got a programming job (in the games industry, yay!) shortly after the last update so have had my crappy attempt at mobile phone game tiles sitting up here as the first post for far too long.

So... it's time for an update. Plus I've finally got something to show off. This is an illustration I'm doing for my brother's wedding service sheets. By the end it will be a series of 4 (for some reason he's having two services and wants images for the front and back of each book). Still, it's good to get back into and I'm really enjoying doing something a little more visual again. Hopefully I'll get the other three up before too long and then I can show off something else I've been working on soon too.

All digital.

Game art: first attempt

2007-06-22T00:26:00.003+01:00

This was a quick attempt this morning at creating a few high-detail tile examples for an imaginary mobile phone game. They are currently completely un-optimised for tiling or color range. Trying my hand at pixel art at the moment, watch this space for more soon!

Digital.

Top Secret: Character Concepts

2007-05-21T00:12:00.002+01:00

Right, so now that term is over, I've got a whole lot of spare time on my hands. And seeing as the weather's pretty shitty, I've been spending a fair amount of it working on topsecret. So I present to you two character concepts! The first is for ArthurSA, the first person to place a request on the brand new Art Department website, which I'll write about another time. Anyway, he wanted a gardener sort, with regular garden equipment but also a vaguely spiritual link with plants. Seeing as they generally encourage submissions to have 3 stages of progression (I refuse to call them armour), I thought, how about she starts off as a regular gardening type, then becomes progressively more in tune with nature, discarding her boots and spade in favour of natural magic and whatnot. I may have gotten a little carried away with the third one, though. In terms of style, I'm getting a little more comfortable with this clean line inking business. After sketching on paper I now use Paint.Net to get a fairly clean outline. Then I scale it up and go over most of the lines again in gimp, using a soft brush, before setting the layer to multiply and going in with color. Usually at some point I mix line and color up on a third layer if something's not quite right, or to add an extra detail here and there. Special effects and glows and whatnot have a final layer to themselves. Anyway, I kinda like the results : )

The racer gentleman guy was left over from another piece which again had 3 levels of progression. However, they weren't particularly interesting (he just gained a smarter suit and larger carnation). Plus, seeing as TopSecret is also going to be a card game and I found a card template on the forums that was pretty groovy (thanks mairsil), I thought I'd play around with presenting the guy via a mock-up of a card. Anjel did something similar, but I prefer mine :)

Anyway, I've been working far too hard on TopSecret and this blog post is much too long, but what the heck, I seem to be turning into a workaholic! : )

All digital.

Sold my first painting!

2007-05-16T15:59:00.002+01:00

I think I sold my first painting ever last night, a truly momentus occasion : D

It was of a small clump of trees on the street actually very near to where the lion painting was done. I walked past getting some lunch and thought the flowers and blossom, while kinda cheesy, would make a pretty cool painting. Also, started working on a bigger canvas size, and I think it makes quite a difference, and looks really good when photographed and shrunk down : )

Oil on canvas.

Can't stop here... this is koala country!

2007-05-10T10:24:00.003+01:00

Another piece for my illustration final. Might have got a little carried away with the lighting effects, not to mention painstakingly attempting to spell out the title in the international phonetic alphabet...

McDigital.

Wacky racing illustration finals

2007-05-10T10:11:00.002+01:00

Ok, some of these may be familiar. Finally got around to inking these. Was a shame I can't really use them for TopSecret anymore, but I did quite like the whole crazy wacky racing theme, so kinda ran with it. I think I like the one with the bunny the most, but the two vehicles came out ok as well. I'm still not too pleased with my line work, but trying to improve on it : )

Initial sketches in pencil, final pieces all digital.

Master and Margarita

2007-04-27T23:49:00.001+01:00

Well, the first master and margarita illustration is finally done! Started this quite a while ago, but didn't get around to doing the finishing touches for quite a long time. This is the scene in the moscow theatre with the audiance thinking they are watching a magic show. Faggot (yes, that is his name in the book) fires a gun in the air and money starts to fall from the ceiling. Hillarity ensues. Can you spot the cossack?

All digital.

Lion painting

2007-04-18T16:35:00.002+01:00

Well, it's been a while since I did a propper painting I was happy with. What with all the sunny weather and everything it seems like a shame not to paint outside, but all the hassle of actually getting to wherever it is tends to eat up time, so I rarely come back to the studio with anything remotely finished or good. For some reason today was different, even if we did get kicked out of the park by the warden! Not entirely sure if this is finished or not, I may go back and touch it up a bit, but overall, I think it came out pretty nicely.

: )

Oil on canvasboard.

Yet another TopSecret pic

2007-04-15T20:26:00.002+01:00

Ok, well, the TopSecret project has decided to go in a manga/anime direction, so am trying to adjust my style accordingly. Here's the first full image I've done. Using this as the image for my pitch:

Ink/bamboo/digital

More Top Secret stuff

2007-04-01T10:05:00.002+01:00

This was done as a poster/title screen image for my world design pitch. Annoyingly, I started to lose a fair bit of the detail in the inking. If I had time, I would re-do it on much larger paper and really go wild with the detail, but i don't : (
Senelier ink and bamboo on crappy excercise book paper.

Top Secret Project concept 1

2007-03-29T10:05:00.002+01:00

This is a quick sketch to illustrate a potential direction the Top Secret Project might take. The influences are mainly victorian and steampunk, though with a lighthearted and humourous approach. This is really more of a mood/style piece, it features a sort of flying race vehicle (the seat is at the front, on the left), but some sort of wheeled vehicle, crazy rideable mount or even spaceship could also work.
Regular old 2B pencil and paper.

Old Paintings

2007-03-21T17:31:00.002Z

These are from my A-Level days so they may be familiar to some. Thought I'd put them up here for completeness, and to bide the time until I get some more recent paintings up. They're each rather large too at 2'x3', 3'x2' and 4'x3' respectively. What do you mean colour relation? Acrylic on wood.

Yet more nakedness

2007-03-19T16:53:00.003Z

Ok, this is the last lot of life drawings for now. These were my first 'good' drawings using just ink and I'm quite proud of how they came out. The hardest part is making sure you leave the lighter areas relatively clean otherwise you end up having to darken the whole thing and it loses that dynamic quality. Senelier inks on good paper.

More naked people

2007-03-19T16:48:00.001Z

Now in colour! This guy was kinda irritating as he moves all the time and whistles when he gets bored. To give him some credit, he had pretty well defined muscles which are good for practicing anatomy and muscle structure etc. Caran d'Ache watercolor pencils on paper.

Naked People

2007-03-19T11:14:00.001Z

Some life drawings from drawing class. We only had the model for half the day as mid term critique took up the afternoon so most of these are just quick 3 minute sketches, with some slightly more developed drawings at the end. Pencil on paper.

Old Lady and a Dog

2007-03-12T18:38:00.002Z

This was a homework assignment for last week. Kind of a combination of painting and illustration as it's all made up. Not entirely sure it's finished yet and the photo quality's not great. Oh well! Oil on Canvas.

Painting

2007-03-10T18:35:00.003Z

This is by far and away the best painting I've done so far. It was a really hot day in the studio, and I really liked the angle. Oil on canvas.

Odd couple

2007-03-10T18:34:00.001Z

This was a project for illustration. Again, wacom.

Wacom sketches

2007-03-10T18:12:00.002Z

Some random self portraits and a sketch of Kate from christmas hols and the start of the term. Was still very much just getting used to the wacom tablet.