Merry Cherubmas

Happy Holidays everyone!

Drawing Jam

Here's a rough sketch of a couple festive cherubs inspired by the topic of this week's drawing jam over on CGHub.

If anyone has time and fancies joining in or just having a squee at the adorable arts go take a look over here

Advanced Lighting - Lesson VII

One down, two to go! Here's Lesson 7 of Advanced Lighting - Light in Atmosphere. Lines by Sam Nielson. 

Advanced Lighting - Lesson VI

Proof I am not yet dead! Here's Lesson 6 for Advanced Lighting - Skin. Once again the lines were by the awesome Sam Nielson, I just did the painting. 

Advanced Lighting - Lesson V

Here's Lesson 5 - Hair and Fur. For this one we got the base of the muppet monster and were asked to paint on the hair and fur.

Advanced Lighting - Lesson IV

My take on Lesson 4 of my Schoolism course - Translucent Properties. Glass is a bugger to paint, let me tell you. 

Advanced Lighting - Lesson III

It's been a bit of a while between posts but I finally got some time today to work on Lesson 3 of Advanced Lighting. Yay! So here's my assignment for Specular Reflectance & Painting the Unseen. Only 6 more assignments to go ;)

Steampunk Ninja

Two awesome words. I did this a couple weeks ago actually as part of an art test, I didn't get the gig but I'm quite fond of this fella anyway and I figured there'd be no harm in posting him. Enjoy :) 

Advanced Lighting - Lesson II

My second assignment for Lesson II - Light & Surface Colour

Advanced Lighting - Lesson I

Earlier this week I finally enrolled in a class over at Schoolism that I've been wanting to take for over a year now - Advanced Lighting. It's taught by the incredibly awesome Sam Nielson, who's blog I've been following before I even really knew what a blog was. Go take a look at his stuff now!

 I'm only one lesson in at the moment but already I'm more excited about it than before I started - (who knew learning about light could be so much fun ;) )

Here's my assignment for Lesson 1 - Properties of Light & Advanced Lambertian Reflection. I won't say too much about the lessons themselves except to say that so far they've been great and I'm rearing to go for the next.

Sexy and She Knows It

A present for Kovah of her character Damien, inspired by some pretty cool dress designs she did for her.

A Watery Grave

Not your usual take on the saying but a fitting title I thought for this pic. I'd like you tell you more about what's going on here but you guys will just have to wait and see ;)

The Boy

An illustration-in-progress to go along with a chapter from the novelised southern story. It's not finished yet But I thought I'd post what I've got so far.

Black and White

Another greyscale pic, this time a portrait of a character of mine. He's pretty old by now and every time I draw him he changes slightly but I'd say he's 90% there now. Huzzah.

Rora 'gain

Here's an update on Rora.

Rora

Here's a lady you guys. She's the sketch at the moment because I haven't quite decided how to go about colouring her.

Suggestions are welcome ;) 

Sketchyness

Trying out some more sketchy stuff. Can't tell you how much effort it took not to start on a colour. Really need to get out of the habit of taking everything into colour.

Busy Busy

It's now been just over two months since I finished university and since then life's been pretty hectic.  Life after uni is a little bit frightening but also quite exciting - for the first time in twelve years I won't be going back to school in September! Wow.

Like most of my fellow graduates it's all about the job hunt, which I think is part of the fun seeing just how many creative roles there are out there. However while looking and applying is all very good it's also great to have something to occupy yourself with while you wait for those all important responses. So here's what I do to keep myself entertained - I hired myself! A pretty elegant solution really...;)

I've decided to set myself up as a freelancer to which end I've now become the proud managing director of Logic Fairy Limited (Look us up, we're a real company ;) ) It has been mostly paper work the last couple weeks, and I've still been at it today working on some business document templates. I also got to have some fun, though, creating the overall look for the company's letterhead, logo, and business card.

It's not exactly art but I thought I'd share with you guys. I've also gone and given my portfolio a shuffle round so go check it out!

Business Card

Letterhead 

Logo

Portfolio Cover version 4.0

In other news as I've mentioned before my good friend Kovah and I have been rewriting part of the story where my characters hail from. We've only got a few first drafts of some of the chapters down but we'll get there in the end I am sure. In the mean time expect more art from the southerners as we get going :) 

Animals I Didn't Own

Coming from South Africa I was asked if I owned a lot of weird animals when I moved to the UK.  Here's some loose sketches of just a few African animals I never owned - tis a shame really! 

And now for something...

...completely different?

Another Iolo but this time taking a somewhat different approach. It was advised that I try my hand at more lineart images that could be applied to a portfolio as book interiors, and as the Southern Story is going through a bit of a rewrite at the moment I figured I'd have a more serious go at the boy king.

Shining Light

Been rewriting some old parts of the Southern story lately which features a young Iolo; one of the grumpiest kings the South has ever known.

Sun Touched

A map of the South, or as they call it Solaai. Done because it gets damn tricky to write about a place without an idea of where everything is ;)

Landscape Studies II

A couple of small landscape studies done as thumbnails just to try out basic shapes and colour.

Dik Dik

Some dik dik doodles, trying out a simplified design. I'm fairly fond of the reddish colourations.

Oh Nose

Just a bit of nose practice in some downtime. Trying out different shapes and colours. They all still look a bit too similar for my liking so more practice required.

In the Clouds

A somewhat lighter toen for the afternoon than this vampiric morning.

Skull

A quick sketch done this morning to test out ideas for the vampire's skull I used the stylised version of the Count's head for this because I was quite pleased with how he turned out yesterday.

Monday

Some Monday artings in between work.

Trying a new design for Sol's dad - the Count, and a quick angel portrait.

Oscar

Another lil vamp.....but not Sol, what has happened to the world?

Group Shot

Just for fun here's a group shot of the guys so far.

Sol

Another OC portrait for the lineup. Don't you guys worry...there are plenty more guys waiting for their turn.

Long Time No Post II

I've been pretty slow updating this blog for the past couple months. Sorry folks.  Recently I've finished my course, my degree show and graduated (Weee!) plus I've moved back home. It's been a great three years at Staffs which I've spent in even better company. I know I'm going to miss it certainly.

Since coming home I've started looking for work, which has of course meant more work on my portfolio. (And you thought I'd done nothing hadn't you? ;))

So without further ado here are the updates I've been meaning to post for a while. Hopefully after this I'll get back into the swing of things.

Pretty in Pink

I think Aysel doubts the above very, very much...

...I don't blame her.

Dylan

Some head designs for a new design of an old character

Animation Backgrounds

Decided to make a portfolio out of my backgrounds for various 2D shorts. Work featured here from Tafti, Gums, Squid in Love, Cub, Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Monster Hunter's Guide, Don't do the Dodo, Tiny Planet, Muncha Buncha Lunch! and Feeble's Attempt.