Saturday 8 December 2012

With Love

Commission of my dog and her best friend. Purdy and Lua - a great dane and a boxer in their younger years. Merry Christmas!

Saturday 1 December 2012

A Father's Love

Archer lost his arm saving Elao, his infant daughter, from his enemies. He had to step down from leadership as a result of his new found disability, but he'd do it again. Battle scars are nothing to a father's love. Also! I have put up one of my short stories on Wattpad, online publishing. It was a big deal for me...I have so many stories and this is the first I have had the guts to post, because it was short and complete. So if anyone would spare ten minutes to have a read, perhaps with a cup of tea, and send me feedback it would mean so much. The cover is temporary, I will do a new one soon! http://www.wattpad.com/story/2095923-tailbone

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Gold wip2

Gold wip continued. Still battling with a complimentary background, but he's coming together alongside uni projects, when I have the time for the poor thing!

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Miles (adult)

Miles as an adult. His arms have grown more muscular then his legs, and adapted to being more like hands, but he still uses them to walk on. By this point he is head of the household: you can see how his posture has grown to be more upright despite his limitations. I also wanted him to seem a little more bendy, or agile.

Miles final design (age 12)

Miles - finally reaching a final design! I studied the skeletons of rhebus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and dogs, as well as chimps, but the best and most fitting for him was the lemur - monkeys have a shoulder blade placed across their back, like humans too, and of course hands and thumbs (of sorts). They also seemed to have shallower ribcages. For him, I wanted a dog like approach on four legs but whenever I drew him with the body of a more four legged animal it lost the strange whimsy I wanted for him. Lemurs were perfect: they retained the hands but had a sort of weighty ribcage and lowered shoulder blades like you would see on a dog. His anatomy took much influence from them, though in the end I kept his shoulder blades upright. His hands are like a lemurs, resonably dextrous, but their main function is still for walking.

Saturday 8 September 2012

Miles designs - refined

Further designs for Miles Dormer. One older, one younger, I took influence from rodents and monkeys for the shape of the body and tail.

Miles Character Designs

Concept art for Miles Dormer, a main character in my short story, 'Tailbone'. He is a Four-Leg, a slang term given to hybrids that walk on more then two legs and resemble animals more then men. I played with a lot of ideas trying to make him more animal or beast, using dogs, cats, monkeys and squirrels as some influences to his personality. In truth I wanted him to be more like a monkey with his tail and hands, and I went from paws to hands, to try and illustrate his dexterity. It's tough to decide on a design without making him too ugly - I find that I always find lovable critters out of these monsters, but its not to everyone's taste!

Tuesday 28 August 2012

The Death of White

Still working on 'Tailbone' a series of short stories, starting with the near completion of the first, that see a future where humans and hybrids are forced to live side by side. This is a slightly morbid picture of White, a hybrid who died during the first discovery and capture of hybrids. Her death was the catalyst for the first hybrid rebellion. As the government who stole her prepared to dissect her remains, it was said that even some of the hardiest scientists could not bare to perform the autopsy. Her human appearance was too much for their morality. However rumor claims that her human face was what caused the immediate destruction of the hybrids to be put on hold - for the government to consider their humanity. Photoshop Speed Paint

Monday 13 August 2012

Gold wip

Work in progress for Gold from my short story, 'Tailbone' which is due for completion in the next week or so :) Here I am playing more with what I learnt from painting Black. He will be brighter, with light from the side of him to show illumination in his hair and eyes. Playing with Burning layers and Overlay, too.

Friday 3 August 2012

Updated Black

updates with more highlights, shadow and contrast. In my effort to learn :D

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Black

Tailbone is a short story I will soon have completed as part of a month summer project: i.e. write a story in one month. It doesn't matter how long but it must be finished! So I started to work out the fine points of an idea I already had cooking and though this character isn't in it, he is part of the back story. I drew a lot of these hybrids to help inspire my imagination - here I practiced with shadow too to further my photoshop practice. Here he's in a warehouse, as the government decide what to do with this weird creature they have discovered.

Monday 30 July 2012

Happy Harry character design

WIP expressions with speedy paint for 'Happy Harry' a smiley human character concept.

Thursday 19 July 2012

Black WIP

wip of Black: trying to paint things more realistically, so its fun working on him. :)

Sunday 15 July 2012

Experiment 02

Hybrid experiment 02 - 'Black' Black has more dexterous hands then Gold, and is much faster, but this means he is more prone to dislocation of the limbs. He has been thought to be capable of speech, but has yet to prove it through well formed sentences. He has a bad temper that means he must be constantly chained: any chance given and Black makes a break for escape. This sketch will be refined to be a completed picture later on,( sorry about the limited quality scan). He is part of my 'experiment' concepts.

Saturday 14 July 2012

Ixion

A new breed I invented :) The Ixion is a weird and wonderful beast,not unlike the horse, but much more skitty. Oh and it has a human head. haha!

Gold 'experiment 01'

Hybrid experiment 01 - 'Gold' Due to his complex DNA, this hybrid suffers from arthritis and a bad back. Gold is unable to use his hands due to their size, but he is intelligent and is capable of speech. He's also usually very well behaved for his captors, as he is sure they know whats best for him. This sketch will be refined to be a completed picture later on.

Saturday 7 July 2012

Purge Screenshots

Having become an official Animation Graduate 'Purge' was premiered at the BFI, and I have never been more proud. It was a long learning journey but was worth the strength, and my advice would be to undergraduate animators to push forwards, especially when te going gets tough. And now that my film is finished, I can upload screenshots of the final cut! 'Purge' follows a dog who can see Death coming for her owner and who then attempts to save him. The film features CG and hand drawn animation and was coloured in toonboom. The layouts are not my work, but the animation in the screen shots shown, as well as the line clean up, is my own. A great big thanks to all of the layout artists who helped make Purge possible. You can see some animation in progress in my vimeo account - https://vimeo.com/home/myvideos. I can't show the full film for another 18 months as my University owns the rights, but I am allowed to share these pictures. It was hard work but it was worth it!

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Pan Babysits

Pan is a promiscuous fellow by nature, but here he faces his responsibility however reluctantly - child support and a certain level of childcare!

Sunday 20 May 2012

Little Red

the Little and Red Interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood, under the same title as my A level project a few years ago. Ink and paint.

Sunday 6 May 2012

Cute little character design for a girl character who finds everything adorable. I got to voice her for her one line in the short film as well!

Thursday 19 April 2012

Anubis commission



A charcoal commission of Anubis, the Egyptian God of Death. I haven't drawn him since childhood so this was great fun - also to work in black and white for a change, and I think I will draw more of him. Canines are always fun to draw!

Sunday 8 April 2012

Road trip


Jimmy goes on a roadtrip with his new shire friend, Ronnie :)
Chunky horses are good fun, especially stylizing their feet. Helped me understand them a little better.

Thursday 29 March 2012

The Divine



Sirius, the main antagonist in my novel, mourns the death of his wife. Any of those who have read 'Morgan: The Grimstone Legacy' will know that hell hath no fury like a vampire scorned and he makes sure everyone suffers for his loss with great agony. However for this moment at least, he is reduced to his mortal form and weeps for her.
This was a speed painting I did, trying to capture that moment.

Saturday 24 March 2012

Livestream - Painting in Progress

I just got the hang of livestreaming recently: it records my artwork live for others to see and keeps the video handy as a reference. Here's one showing my work - the first half is a work in progress of a speed painting, while the other half is the first parts of work that took place on the sketch of 'Dog Warrior' from Dogfight.

Have a look to see some techniques ^^ the occasional pauses are usually due to me writing in conversation, but this has been blotted out by the recording. Enjoy!

Friday 16 March 2012

Purge - production still



The final production still for my student film, 'Purge' due for completion on the 11th May 2012. :)

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Angry Dog Concept



Angry Dog completed: fuzzy all over,it was great to really try and get to grips with hair in photoshop. Hopefully when I have updated my photoshop from CS3 it will be easier still to work!

Sunday 15 January 2012

Whole process - three steps :)

DogFight - cell shade



This is the other concept piece from project 'Dog Fight' - this one is dubbed Pirate Dog, though I know he isnt really a pirate. He's more of a hero dog - this is warm saturated cell shade, with the cleaned line art.

Dog Fight - crazy dog




Details from the 'Dogfight' concepts. This one has been dubbed 'crazy dog'. I'm trying to do practise work on each, keeping an eye on how they are looking in different ways.

Thursday 12 January 2012

Dog Fight



Initial sketches for a brief, 'Dog Fight' to keep myself on the go. The task was to make dog based warriors going on the theme 'dog fight'. These are the base sketches and I will soon be cleaning them up so that I can colour them as digital concepts.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Conceptual work





Following the completion of pre-production on my film, 'Purge' I can show some conceptual work that did not get used in the final design. These are the earliest concepts for Precious the dog.