Inktober- Day 30- Still Life

I need to stop drawing these railings and monitor on my bus journeys. This is the third or second time I have attempted to draw this. Maybe because I was getting bored of drawing characters for this live project, and drawing the back of heads on other passengers on my bus journeys. Hopefully, the last day will be a bit more original than this. 

Inktober- Day 29- Censored Illustration

Managed to revisit yesterday's work-in-progress to finalise this illustration for presentation. I like the colour-coded nature of these characters, and how the blue one stands out from the tent without being too glaring from some of the other blues used in this illustration. 

Inktober- Day 26- Censored Illustration

I'll admit revisiting these inked drawings from earlier this month is taking a lot longer than I thought it was. But perhaps with all of my other commitments I'm doing, I'm probably not going to catch with ammending and finalising them as fast as I wanted them. Well I finally finalised what another character in this project looks like as this stage. A bit King Sized Canary to my liking, but that's what the client wanted, so there.

Inktober- Day 21- Life Drawing

I started using another sketchbook today to do life drawings, and I'm quite pleased with the mark-making with the ink pen I managed to fish out for today, being an old caligraphy ink pen. I also like the composition of this life drawing of a couple, especially with that mark denoting a bus seat in front of them.

Inktober- Day 19- Censored Illustrations and Sketches

Pretty pleased as I finally get around to finishing off the final illustrations for the final chapter of this current live project. Whilst I need to revisit those hands to give a more anatomically accurate representation of that particular gesture, I'm glad I managed to plough through these with good ease, even with characters that I haven't drawn in a while too.

Inktober-Day 16- Censored Sketches and Illustrations

Onto the final chapter of this live project, as I felt I wanted to keep the ball going until I have finished this current sketchbook. They seem pretty funny in contrast to the previous illustrations I've done, but maybe I was in a mood for something for the laughs rather than melodramatic. They turned out okay, but I might need to tweak them when I get around to finalising the colours and line art.

Inktober- Day 15- Censored Illustrations and Rough Sketches

Not as productive as yesterday, but it does mean I have finished inking all the illustrations for the penultimate chapter of this live project. With one I'm happy with, but the other I want to tweak some of the perspective to make more of an impact, especially as there is plenty of overlapping and foreshortening going on in this scene.

Inktober- Day 13- Censored Rough Sketches and Inked Illustration

Finally inked a finalised illustration from yesterday's initial sketch. I have also started work on the next illustration, whilst working out what brush pens to use, as I kept using an old brush pen that kept drying up whilst inking, so I resorted to using two new brush pens to help finish off this piece. I think one is good for big strokes, whilst the other one is good for details that don't need to be rigid. I might experiment with these pens to make it work, but I just hope the client doesn't notice when I produce the finalised illustrations with these pens. 

Inktober- Day 12- Rough Character Illustration

Not much for today, mainly because time was not on my side today. But at least I have an idea on what this finalised sketch will and that a new brush pen doesn't bleed through to the other side of this paper, unlike in my current sketchbook. So I'll see how I get on with inking a finalised piece at some point tomorrow, once I try and find a long-enough ruler to sketch out my border first.

Inktober- Day 8- Self Portrait

I just wanted to experiment with my recent invested Copic marker in terms of tonal work. Whilst you don't get much tonal work with blocks of black ink, I was glad to experiment with this brush pen that I'm not well acquainted whilst doing this quick self-portrait done with a mirror. Having done a lot of expressions recently to get my professional character-based illustrations that extra dimension in terms of 'performance', it was something that was to happen sooner rather than later. 

Inktober- Day 7- Twilry Woo Pose

Because of family events happening over this weekend, I haven't had much time to do my professional. So yesterday (at the time of writing this blog entry), I have been interested in trying to do some piece involving one of my niece's favourite TV programmes, The Twirly Woos, with its striking stop-motion silhouette for these titular creatures. I should stress I did this from memory without any references, which explains why the hair and feet may not be as accurate as I would like for a piece done with some good research, but I'm pleased with the result of the pose, based on their pose that they do when in movement and are fixated or surprised at an object. 

Inktober- Day 2- Sketch and Illustration

A continuation of yesterday's Inktober work, as I try and resume where I left off with these illustrations for this client, hence the censored faces. After doing this initial sketch and inked illustration, I received feedback from the previous pieces I've done, and I now have to revisit them. So I know from the get-go that I will be revisiting this piece once coloured to amend some of the initial character design for that character. So stay tuned for a few more amended pieces during the next few days. 

Inktober 2017- Day 1- Amended Illustrations

Well, you get two for the price of one on my first day of Inktober as I spent the day trying to amend some illustrations for a live project, hence why the character heads are censored. The client wanted some tweaks here and there, so I am waiting to see if one of the designs is to their liking. Hopefully, throughout the month, I will be producing a lot more illustrations for the live project. 

OxGrowArts Workshop Pieces- 22nd June 2017

After hesitating until the last minute, I decided to go to this Painting and Drawing Workshop organised by OxGrowArts, situated at Hogacre Common Eco Park in Oxford. Here are the drawings I made there, sit intact in my sketchbook before they are removed and framed for their exhibition at the end of July next month.

My first piece was probably my most successful piece from that workshop, calling it Flower Study. Basically, this is a still-life study of some flowers that feature some buds flowering more than others do. I just love how I went on a journey with my brush pen, getting lost in the detail of all those negative spaces and shapes this flower was making. I am not an expert in flowers, but it gave a pink/purple flower when the bud was in bloom. I was advised to try out adding some colour. Therefore, I did...

... In addition, this happened! I loved the shape this 'vegetable' was making with its leaves. I wanted to get the shapes that the leaves were forming. However, acrylic paint was not behaving the way I wanted to do. Therefore, I ended up with just these abstract blobs on the page, and that is what they will ever be now before I ruin it even further. I called this piece "How Not to Paint Vegetables."

 

 After the acrylic omnishambles, I had time to do a quick study with my tried-and-tested brush pen, just called "Log." Therefore, I tried to sketch out this log near their pond. Not as convincing as my flower study, but I like the marks I made to frame the negative shapes that the leaves and log were forming. Not a complete disaster in my book, but something I should have spent more time establishing the objects in that space.

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Trigger Word- Let - 4th July 2017

Overall Image of Trigger Word Model

Closeup of figures saying goodbye to each other.

Closeup of figures in speech bubble

Yes, I am still doing trigger words, and here is the latest web-friendly model for you to check out. The word was 'let', when meant to allow. So I used it in the context that I let my friend go back home with their parent. Based on a recent event, I think I manage to create this model rather quickly. The fact that I modelled three of these characters three times was something I did not expect to do. However, I felt the body language in the first scene would not have been clear without the speech bubble emphasising what has happened in the final scene (see close-up of those figures as I felt I did not arrange the figures well for the shot of the overall composition.) 

The Blinddraw Challenge Drawings

Remeber that Blinddraw Challenge I did at the start of the month? Probably not, but I finally got around to scanning those drawings I did during that challenge. The first three were my initial attempts whilst I try to frame myself and my sketchbook in the confines of my bedroom. The bottom one was the one used for the video, whilst the others were sped up as an extra treat for anyone that wanted to see them.

Comic Display at Red Room Exhibition March 27th 2017

Comic Pages on Display

Comics Display in Context with Other Images

For those that are not a Facebook friend of mine, I can reveal that for the past two years I have been helping a writer via PeoplePerHour to help bring their script to live in comic form. Three of these comics have made it on display recently at the Red Room Exhibition, over at the Royal College of Art last Monday. For work commitments, I could not make it to the exhibition, but thanks to the writer, I managed to retrieve the displayed work for you to admire. 

Whilst this has not been the first time my work has been on displayed, I am glad that they have taken a good place amongst the rest of the artwork, which looks very visually striking even when taken from a Smartphone. As for the comics themselves, I am surprised at how good the line of action is on the top page, featuring two characters interacting in three panels. I do not know if it is the choice of colours or how I have drawn them (although that bottom panel had been tinkered to get the final desired effect), but I was pleasantly surprised at how striking that very page is. Whilst the other two feature conversations, they seem cluttered from a distance. Therefore, people would have been able to read the pages for themselves closely. 

Overall, I am always glad to see my work getting exposure in any way possible, and as I am still working on this project still, I will look forward to finalising the product, with the writer, at some point this year. 

The Wheatsheaf Gig (The Phat Cardinals; Holy Moments; Freddy le Cragg)- 18th March 2017

The Phat Cardinals

And on drums is... Bojack Horseman?

Holy Moments

My fabvourite shot of the night, comprising of all three musicians of Holy Moments

Freddy Le Cragg

One of my city-centric friends organises local gigs. So it seemed fitting, that his birthday including a few gigs to mark the occasion.

This was a good down-to-earth experience, with Freddy Le Cragg's opening set displaying all the things I love about acoustic performers. Anyone that goes up there with his or her voice and guitar and does that is always worth seeing in my opinion. He even tackled a great cover as well as his own original songs. If Newton Faulkner has Spongebob Squarepants, he does it for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air!

The final act was Holy Moments, whose blend of skater rock and indie punk has a resonance of Blink-182 and Something Corporate about them. This was another memorable set, if this floats your boat.

However, the tour-de-force of The Phat Cardinals was just the icing on the cake. Think The Stranglers and Mclusky go into a fancy dress shop to emulate Slipknot, but making do with whatever are there instead just sums up the punk-metal madness of the group's repertoire. They made me smile for all the right reasons, as I am a sucker for this kind of music, and any act that goes into a dodgy raffle must be doing something right. Go check them out whenever you can if you want something big, loud, and downright bombastic.