Eye Spy...

Loren's Tree

Teaser

And I was doing so well, posting something almost every day, then this weekend I was super busy and since have been working on an illustration project for my friend Andy's new book. I don't want to spoil the surprise for the release of his book so here's some snippits to get you titillated! I've always wanted to use that word.

Disco Disco Disco Disco!

A little something for the weekend. I love orange and yellow at the moment, I don't know where this love has come from. One day on Amazon, things just started looking cool in yellow and orange and I've been hooked every since! I think you need to be a red head to pull off this ensemble!

Pretty Penny

BOOOM!

Thumbnail for some illustration work I am par-taking in.

Jerry Loomy

This is the first image from my first assignment on Stephen Silver's Character Design Course, taught online through Schoolism. He sets a character profile with about 15-20 differents attributes and students have to produce a line copy and coloured copy of their design. This is my version of Jerry Loomy, grumpy, old, car salesman from New York. I'd go to another car lot if I were you...

Wendling Inspired

Kablooey!

Kung Fu Panda 2 is....frickin' awesome! Not a touch on the first one, obviously, but a great story about Po's past and some nice social commentary. GO SEE IT NOW!

Panda

Today, I chose to do some traditional drawing, inspired by several things. First of all, I finally have a scanner! It came in the post this morning, so I thought, what a better time to break out the water colours than now?

Secondly, I chose to paint a panda because tomorrow is my birthday and since I am all grown up, turning 25, I am having a very fancy, sophisticated outing to the cinema to see Kung Fu Panda 2, Ska-doosh!

Bloody Hands!

Hands are something I know me and a lot of my artist buddies struggle with. We spent all the time at uni doing Life Drawing, taking the time to learn anatomy, weight, form, rhythm, etc. but few of us took the time to learn all those things about hands alone! (...and feet...and faces...that's why a lot of people life drawings may be great but only great for faceless, amputees! )

Since graduating I've spent the odd evening here and there studying hands, but I never stick with it long enough for it to stick with me! So here is attempt number 157! If I can make 30 minutes a day just to study hands over the next few weeks I'll be chuffed.

As mentioned in a previous post, I got a portfolio review with Paul Briggs at Annecy and one story he told us was about a Vis Dev artist who spent a solid month drawing hands all day every day, so that he was able to draw a convincing hand from any angle. Inspiring stuff!

Even just doing this...handful...of drawings this evening, I could reallt feel the difference in my understanding from when I started and when I finished. ...Fingers crossed...I keep it up.

Dare I say Irishman?

Windy In Scotland

Does she have 'Appeal'?

As you may know, if you read my previous post, I was at Annecy last week with my new portfolio, ready in hand to be ripped apart by the PROFESSIONALS and I was lucky enough to get a review from PAUL BRIGGS, head of story at WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIOS. He was very kind and made my day by saying, 'Wow! You can really draw.......but.....your characters lack appeal".

Completely fair criticism, so help me out please, in my search for giving my characters more appeal! How does this chicky do? Does she look like someone you'd like? Want to get to know?

You can also look back to my first designs of this girl....embarrassingly! I may not be a super duper character designer yet but I'm definitely learning!

Annecy Festival d'Animation 2011

It has been and gone! But it was a wonderful week in France despite the groggy weather. We caught up with some old AIB-ers, (Ben, Mikey, Ash, Kayvon, Leo, Adrian, lecturers and colleagues from various places. The movies were a mixed bag but a lot of very impressive stuff. Here are some of my favourites...

The Backwater Gospel from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

The Monster of Nix / Teaser 01 from Studio Rosto A.D on Vimeo.

Another reason for Annecy being a great festival to attend, is the book shop in the Bonlieu. Oooooh what a treat for the animation and comic fan! We got some lovely booty!


The Bonlieu also provided space for meeting the stars!




NEEEERD!

Online Life Drawing

So now the new portfolio and show reel, are all done and dusted and ready to go off to Annecy, and the fact that I am between projects for a couple of months, I made a conscious effort to really motivate myself and collect lots of resources ready to really boost my learning and drawing skills.

I ordered David Colman's Art of Character Design DVD, (which can be purchased through his personal website) and watched that this week....and WOW! How it has opened my eyes. I had never before considered a character design to need composition like a painting or whole concept piece needs, I thought I was pushing my designs enough but he showed my how and why it should be done. I highly recommend this DVD to anyone interested in character design, it's on £18 including postage but priceless for the information he shares.


So, with this new found knowledge and inspiration, I wanted to get drawing again. New stuff this time. I really loved the tutorial he gave on drawing information from a life model in order to create a story an appealing character.

Pixelovely has a wonderful website, designed especially for gesture drawing. It has a stock of photographs of life models, male, female, nude or clothed, as well as animal photographs, which also allows you to choose an amount of time you want to view the model for, e.g. 30secs, 60 secs, 2 mins, etc.

The models are exceptional and if you can keep the poses displayed for a shorter amount of time you dont lose any of the spontaneity you get with a real life model.

With this awesome tool, I tried to tackle life drawing with all the things David Colman spoke of and I really did notice a change! Unfortunately only for the clothed models, I am still struggling adding character to the nudes!

Here is a selection of new sketches. Some stayed within the 2 minute margin but shhhh...I did pause some of them to get more details in!














Ill be excited to take some of these poses into Photoshop and create a finalised character based on them. I can really see a diffference in some of the drawing just since watching the DVD. If you've got time, go back and see some of my gesture drawing from a few months ago. Big step! Yey! I'm learneding!

After Annecy, I will be taking Stephen Silver's Character Design course, so hopefully this time next month Ill be shit hot!