Update the blog why don't I...

Ok so it's been a while...

I've had a few projects on these past few weeks, filling the gap between finishing my last full-time position, and starting my next which will be later this month. It's been fun doing some freelance stuff again, and I've been super busy with life, applications etc., and now I'm taking a bit of a break, which after a hectic 6 months is quite, quite appreciated.

 The main plus has been getting on with drawing and painting for its own sake which has been great fun, I've been able to check out Dublin's 'Dead Zoo' for some sketching and also decided to update my blog image a bit (I never liked the old one much) detail above.

Kind of a homage to the wonderfully brilliant Adventure Time, and of course adventure game backdrops, i've been following the Doublefine kickstarter and have just finished Aminita Design's (quite wonderful) Machinarium, which I think must have brought out a hankering for adventure.

Anyway more news to follow soon!

Character continued...

A wee update on those character pieces I was working on was trying for a nautical themed cartoonish characters... I do like these but will need to go back to the sketchbook to really develop the idea more, think there's a rich vein to plunder for this one and i've jumped fairly quickly into rendered development so really needs re-concepting and scratch design I feel.

I was looking at stuff like Bastion which has a nice (as in really nice) painted style and wonderful colouring and lighting - but a great 'game feel' as each weapon and tool has a real strong sense of purpose and role in it's gameplay setting. It may be worth developing a mock game design document and use that to inform the development of these characters as i'm liking the game feel these have and it may be worth really pushing that approach as opposed to each image being a seperate independant illustration. Hopefully from there I can start to develop some environment stuff and further characters, devices and of course ships...

I'll try and amend this post with some of the sketches for the 'Anchor Man' image soon

Late night doodle...

Meh.

Mainly interested in the colours rather than the form or content - 40 mins doodle.  Haven't figured out what is and isn't working with this yet.

The Crayola Cruncher (and Creator)

Goodness two posts in one week?!

Yep that'd be a sign that portfolio season is here alright...

Pushing the more painterly character stuff, fairly playful and cartoony mind. Need to to develop my use of colour in general but there's some stuff going on in this image that I like.

It's character building..

Well by calculations I have about 15 days left with my lovely, lovely cintiq so i've been trying to rinse it as much as I can in the services of portfolio development. 

I always sketch out characters in my sketchbook, or on my notebooks, receipts etc. but I seldom push myself to render and produce finished pieces, so here's some new stuff.

 I've been working alongside some pretty talented art folk these past few months and that's goaded me to do some new character work. I'm hoping to continue the series with a few pieces of a nautical nature, I'm trying to avoid going too 'piratical' in my designs, so hoping future images in this series will be a bit more early 20th century in their influences.

Definitely drawing from games such as (the lovely) Bastion with this one, in content, style and colour palette (starting out as a learning exercise) but things are developing into more of a fusion of my own style which is gratifying. More should be appearing up here or on the Portfolio site in due course, so i'm hoping there will be some noticeable improvement over time...

New project whooo....

Ok so I've been pretty wrapped up in work and changing country etc. Fun but well, a bit mad.

 Finally,  I've been able to get some drawings toward a new project of my own, basically it's 'Where's Wally' style image as part of a comic project i'm hoping to develop in whatever stolen moments I have over the next few months...  Basically I have a very large digital canvas and each day or so I add another section of detail to until its basically crawling with stuff (or my computer explodes)

Detail bits...

 I've been experimenting with thickness of line and creating a super detailed piece thats not too precious, it's changing as I go but there's obvious (or should that be blatant?) influences from the likes of Scott.C and a touch of Raymond Briggs about things...

Key thing for me right now is not to dwell on things too long, I'm really enjoying playing with soft lines at different thicknesses, and with stain textures - a habit that I learned in GSCE art class, not sure if it was just my teacher's peculiar (or staff room coffee addiction) but any drawing smothered in coffee stain was almost guaranteed an A, and I guess I'm totally just seeking such approval in adulthood.

More to follow in coming weeks! (don't quote me on that one)

Nothing to see here...No wait!

Ok, so it's been a while since I've posted, so one might assume that nothing much has been going, however there's just been so much going on that it has displaced all other activities, and BIG NEWS, after 3 months self employment (and my mother's concerned phone calls) I have found full time employment with PopCap International, over in sunny Dublin!

 Should be a pretty exciting change for me, I've loved my time working as part of an Indie studio, and while I wouldn't wish to embark on a 1000 word essay on what makes indie indie, it's fair to say PopCap just ain't it, so it's going to be interesting to see how it compares. Seeing how the other half live aside, I'll be looking forward to developing my skills and experience as a 2D artist, so should be a great environment to learn a few new tricks. This is probably going to be my only PopCap related post, as I reserve this space for my general arty endeavours, and gubbins.

 It's been emotional Newcastle, bring it on Dublin. I'm assuming that being an English guy brought over to Ireland's abundant job market, is going to be a real source of endearment across the Irish sea, but I've negotiated Byker Metro station at 10pm on a Thursday so I think I can deal with it. 

 More seriously though, I'm very much looking forward to discovering another country, should be an enriching experience!

Oh yes and one more thing;  'all views depicted on here are entirely my own', (as if anyone else would lay claim to them... )

League of Extreme Gentlemen

Introducing the 'League of Extreme Gentlemen' , an international team of gentlemen Snow Boarders, Base-Jumpers, Parkour specialists. Fully able to take things 'to the Max' (providing there are no ladies present, and everyone is in appropriate attire... )

They may also use their Mad Skillz in defence of Queen and country, and to defend the right minded people of western Europe from the threat of the anarchistic machinations of miss Pankhurst and her kind... Nothing will get between the Gentlemen, and their mission to live fast and die young, while entirely in upstanding male company.

POSSIBLE TAG LINE:

Not even Bromide can stifle this Bromance!

an old sketch I dusted off, primarily as I wanted to brush up on using pen tool shape artwork in Photoshop, I guess it's not true vector art, but sure is less faffy than Illustrator. Quite like how it turned out, original biro sketch below:

Monkey Business

Hmmm, been a bit of a bitty week in terms of getting stuff done, but one of my objectives was to delve into flash a bit more and learn/relearn a few bits. Mostly it's been boring stuff, but here's quite a playful little sequence I did in about an hour today, I'd forgotten how much fun hand drawn animation is! I quite like this as although it's digital, the white on black reminds me of animating with scratching bleach on film much like the amazing and utterly touching work of the 'home brew' animator Helen Hill

(To all those who don't know about Helen's life and works, please do take a few minutes to check it out -utterly spell binding and unfortunately touched by tragedy.)

Anyway - back to the monkey!

Biro doodlin'

Phew! Been a bit of a mad week, mainly pre-occupied with interviews for a couple of positions, both contract and full-time. Has been a great experience (as it's always nice to be asked) but I've spent the past week and a half either prepping for interviews, or travelling to and from meetings... Anyway due to this madness I was massively enjoying having a Sunday reading the paper and doodling in the sketchbook, while listening to some old 90's compilation tapes and drinking coffee. Definitely should do this more often...Life permitting.

I love biros for drawing they really occupy a place between pencil and ink for me, great for construction like a pencil, with some of the permanence of ink. I suppose the flip side is that the biro ink is slightly iridescent so doesn't scan so well, and it's never as crisp and clear, but for sketching I think they're brill. I think i'm going to experiment on scanning and seeing what I can push with biro sketches in Photoshop.

Fun game: take the Sunday paper pick a few faces, from the sickeningly aspirational lifestyle sections. Turn them into monsters/mythical beast!

Iliara continues!

Been trying to put in a bit of a push toward getting some more sprites together for Iliara, the mobile/browser game I've been developing with Total Monkery, currently it's maze, rpg game, based around a living cave painting. (More info here and here.)

Over the past year (its been a side project) we've been getting sprites and functionality in all higgledy-piggledy, and the art direction has subsided somewhat SO I've been trying to re-infuse the art with a more organic style as we hope to get a wee promo video together soon.

Anyway I've been doing lots of traditional media stuff and scanning and dropping into the build to see how it's working, think it's starting to get there plus i've really enjoyed actually getting my hands dirty (plus my scanner...argh) More below;

Can't wait to get some builds out to people...Or get it finished.

And it it to be good.

Man we've got a lot of work to do...

Hmmmmm...Pi.

Filo and Friends

Library girl and her filing cabinet chum.
I liked this piece as it's a bit different and was trying something new with painting the skin it's kinda painting but also acknowledging the lines in the drawing, which I think works for me better than some other styles - anyway I quite liked how it turned out, shall try a few more pieces in this vein I think... (although that hand's a bit dodge...)

Feburary - Concept project

Earlier this month I'd been doing a bit of concept work for the chaps at Remode Studios, fun little project a few images for a pitch document. Been fun creating top down apocalyptic scenes (which for this game artist is actually quite unusual) and was based on an interesting IP which is always nice.

As it was only a 4 day project for a range of images, I'd been using some basic 3d mesh renders to work from to speed things up a little - actually should do a bit more of this for backdrops on more dynamic pieces as it saves a *lot* of construction lines.