Boo Hoo!!

I've posted a couple of character designs for my children's book on my blog in the past, but l thought l'd like to put up one of the page spreads that l've done. I wrote my ill-fated story "The Muha Monster" sometime last year and put together a package to send around to a few publishers. I kind of hurried it a little because l was so eager and that showed by the fact that it hasn't yet been picked up. When l get some time l'm planning on revisiting it and working out a few of the kinks, but in the meantime here's the first test illustration l did for it. This is actually still a WIP - the intention is to have the illustration span both pages and the text will be worked into a large tree trunk on the left (It's unlikely l'll get to this anytime soon though, ...)

Screen Recording

I downloaded some screen recording software a while ago to record some of my illustrations as l'm working on them. I always find it really interesting when other artists do the same, its great to watch an image come together.

This is a very quick piece l did simply to test out the settings on the screen recording software when l got it. I did a couple of these so l might upload some more soon. They were interesting because l didn't plan what l was going to sketch. This guy came out of the silhoutte that l started with. The video is sped up, l think this took about 8-9 minutes to do.

Here's the final image, ...

... and here's how it came together, ...

Dont Call Me Stupid

I thought this may be something different to my usual 2D work that l (rarely) post. You may have seen this character in an earlier post on my blog. Or you might recognise him from my current facebook pic.

This is an old character animation test l did a few years ago now, originally l built the character to use in a short film .... but the film is still in production ... as they all usually are. I've still got some WIPs of this animation as l was creating it, so l may upload a few of those to show how l go about animating a character in such a shot in the future, but for now here's the final render....

A Quick Warm Up Sketch

James Charles On Main

I recently designed a logo and some business cards. I'll post the website when its done too.

Nursery Paintings

A few weeks ago l ventured back to a place that l dont dare travel to very often. It's been a LONG time since l finished my illustration course, and since then l've worked almost exclusively digitally. Its just so much faster to work digitally and it has a couple of great features that traditional mediums simply dont have. 'Undo' is an obvious one, and for me the ability to fine tune colours endlessly makes my work look far better than it otherwise could.

But with the arrival of our baby approaching l wanted to get some "real" artwork up in the nursery. To cut a long story short, painting these canvasses was the first time in a long time that l've enjoyed painting again away from the computer. They actually turned out exactly as l'd planned them ..... apart from one minor oversight .... l forgot to paint the elephant's tail. Oh well.

Ellwaste Booklet Cover

This is a cover for the Ellwaste Company Information Booklet that l recently did. I've also just completed the Ellwaste Website in the last week ... only took a speedy 3 years to complete!! Check it out at www.ellwaste.com.au if your interested.

We've Had An Upgrade

I thought the blog could do with a bit of "foofing up"

Go Girl

This is 1 of 3 tender illustrations l did for a childrens book not too long ago. The other 2 didn't turn out as well as l'd hoped (even though it was a quick brief), ... but l don't mind this one.

Girl

There might be a job on the horizon where l'll need to improve my rendering skills of the females. This is a snippet from a test illustration l've done recently to try to get myself back into the 2D swing of things.

Meet the Author

The main purpose for this post is below, but l couldn't go past putting an image up. This one's a snippet from a test illustration l did for my Children's Book idea ....


Now for the important stuff, Leia has kindly tagged me so its time for me to answer a few questions. Here's the deal.
A: The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B: Each player answers the questions about themselves.
C: At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog

10 years ago: I was studying illustration in Melbourne and getting told by the teachers of the course that "we would never earn any money from it". (Inspirational people weren't they!)

5 Things on my to-do-list today:
1. Get a coat of paint onto a couple of rooms in our house
2. Eat
3. Go to Bendigo to pick up my suit for my mates wedding
4. Eat
5. Eat again

What I would do if I was suddenly a billionaire:
Number 1 would be to travel. Starting in Africa to see what we didn't see there last year (which is a lot) and just going from there. Possibly spending half the year travelling and the other half making my own films (which l would do by decking out a bus and travelling around Australia working from inside as l go) for the rest of my life. l'd invest a little too, but donate most of it to a selection of my favorite charities.

Three of my bad habits:
1. Sleeping in
2. Eating too many dim sims
3. Always starting too many projects at once and never finishing any.

Three places I have lived:
The last 3 have been Echuca, Cohuna and Taylors Hill in Melbourne.

5 jobs that I have had:
Trench digger
Medical Waste Collector
Wine Salesperson
Animator
Playback Engineer

5 things people don't know about me:
1. I'm really an alien.
2. I take medication that costs more than l earn in a year
3. I happily pay my taxes (look at number 2 for explanation)
4. I don't care what goes into dim sims. I'll eat em anyway.
5. I'd love to travel around the blues fesivals playing John Lee Hooker, Hendrix and BB King on my guitar. Because people need to hear the blues.

Buck

Well 2000 hits on the blog just ticked over, .... so since about 1900 of them are probably me that makes a solid 100 visitors to the page over the last couple of years. Impressive numbers, l'm sure google will be jealous!!

What better way to celebrate than to throw up a new pic. Here's one l did yesterday for my mate's bucks day which is gonna happen at the gee-gee's in a few weeks.

Alien

This is something that came together fairly quickly. Aliens with raygun blasters are always on my mind it seems, so l sketched this out and mocked it up pretty quick. It's ok, but l look at it now and see a lot of stuff that needs fixing. not least the character design! mainly though its the lack of a warm underpainting that l like to start with now, the colour design (while not brilliant) would be a lot nicer with the warm/cool contrast under the linework ... oh well, maybe next time.