Illustration

Pen Drawings – 1

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Last post of the year I think, so I thought I’d post up something new and a bit different.
Recently I bought some Fine Liner pens. I’ve done sketches using thicker ‘ProMarker’ pens, but I wanted more detail. The sketches are a continuation of my life drawing and concentrating on portraits and faces. They are colour studies and merely experiments. Some of the sketches work better than others, but I wanted to move away from Pastels and I would like to do more traditional illustration in the future. These pens should give me a bit more freedom in this.

Polaroid Picture Illustration – 7

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I am postingabout one a month now which is what I intended. Actually I created this one back in August but was far too busy to post it.
This one is pretty cool keeping a sketchy feel as opposed to an illustration. Never the less I think it works. 7 of these Polaroid’s have been created now plus 2 images created for the Live Project. 9 in total.
The idea was to do one a month and I think I am on schedule.

Current Projects – Part 2

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This is the second major project I am working on and it is fairly big. I have designed 50 stickers all based on a single generic design. I have customised the design so there are 50 different characters from the initial design.
I have printed the characters onto sticker paper, cut them out and will stick the stickers on interesting locations.
I will stick one sticker onto an interesting location per week for 50 weeks. Each week I will take a photograph of the sticker and post it up to a dedicated blog.
The project is still to have a name and I will start the project early next year. A new blog will be created to present the project, although I will post about it on here as well. The image below is of one of the stickers, but there are 50 in total.
There is text under each of the designs. These are short poems and found poems – an extension of my 3D poetry and writing work.

The project is to make sure I get away from the computer and take photographs, while learning about composition, lighting etc, which will inform my work in general. Along with my Lomography I should hopefully have several projects that allow me to get up and get out. I am also looking to buy a DSLR camera in the next few weeks – Probably after Christmas.

Current Projects – Part 1

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Project 1- After Effects Animation – Shadow Puppet

A few posts back I mentioned that I would list what I am currently working on and the projects I am either trying to get off the ground or about to begin. I’ve decided to separate this post into sections – one for each of my 3 new projects and a reminder of the projects that are still ongoing.

I’ve been learning to use the After Effects animation software. Instead of just following tutorials I decided to create a short film for the Neon Digital Arts Festival. This will be uploaded to my Youtube channel next week. I’ve also created some animated logos and titles – I’ll upload these later as well. Basically I’m trying to incorporate this to my work and use the character animation tools of the software. I’ve used Flash and Maya for several years now and it is time I expanded my horizons. I plan to complete a short character animation by early next year. The progress of which will be uploaded here.
A screen shot of the character design is below. After loads of sketches this is the design a came up with (the image was created in Adobe Illustrator and will be exported to After Effects). It is based on Indonesian Shadow Puppetry. In the New Year I will begin to Storyboard the animation and get started with the animation itself.

Abandoned Projects

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Several months ago I decided that I was going to stop customising Vinyl Toys. I had some success in getting my customised toys in galleries. As a replacement for this I thought about creating a different kind of toy – a Flat Pack Toy.
Basically a cut out and keep toy that people can print off. I designed the toy and sketched it up in Adobe Illustrator. I printed off the design on glossy paper and then cut it out and stuck it together. And it looks crap. So the whole thing doesn’t go to waste I thought I’d post it up here. I’m definitely not doing another one.

However this project got me thinking about other projects I’ve done and what value they have. This blog in general is a project. My approach to it has been not to give a commentary or an opinion but just post up work. The only exception was when I gave my opinion on the Dare to Be Digital video game design competition thing I did a few years ago.

I think I’m going to change the approach of this blog a bit and talk about what I’m up to. For example just last week I attended a few events in the Neon Digital Arts festival in Dundee. In the future if I attend an event like this I’ll post up photos and give a bit commentary. I’ll also do a bit more to promote this blog. The main reason is to promote my work a bit more but also so I don’t go around abandoning projects again – even if they do look crap.

Next week I’ll post up about the projects I’m working on at the moment and give my opinion on how they are going. I’ve pretty much got 3 things which I working on. One is learning After Effects animation, the other is a webcomic which I am currently writing (and struggling to find a collaborator on) and the final project involves photography. This will entail starting another blog on the side, but more on this soon.

Anyway enjoy the flat pack toy photos and print off sheet below.

Polaroid Picture Illustration – 5

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I mentioned a while back that I had created a Polaroid Picture and not posted it. Here it is. This is the fifth Polaroid Image in the series. I’m not sure if I’ll do any more. The plan was to create a website to present the images (similar to what I done with the Live Project). Not sure when I’ll get the time but that is still the plan. Either way the images are on my Portfolio and on this blog.