An update on Summer work - Under Milk Wood

They're not all completely finished, but most are nearly there, barring scanning and a little recolouring, and in some cases the addition of a little texture painting (with the third one, mainly)

They're all mixed media, the bulk being gouache painting, with the addition of embroidery

Under Milk Wood is bloody tricky to work with, but worth it once you get into it. Another image and possibly a short comic to follow.

WIP tester for Under Milk Wood Image 4

Gouache Captain Cat from Under Milk Wood WIP

Works in progress for the (thank god) finalised version of my first summer project image. It was hell to do, for some reason. Here's hoping the others work out better.

I have been Tumblr-ing too much, so here's an update

He's meant to look drowned, but that's really tricky, as it turns out. Reference is hard to find too.

Migration

I'll still be updating this, but a little more sporadically than before. There's more going on at my Tumblr these days

Rhino knight concept for Sir Samuel

I have to get back on it, I feel. This is all I've done in two days.

Sir Samuel WIP colour tester

Colour tester, and attempt to learn gouache painting for the Sir Samuel children's book I'm working on over the summer (and if how long this took is anything to go by, for about eight years). The final book will likely be way simpler than this though.

The Alphabestiary

I'm working on a secondary blog about alphabetical monsters. Go see!

It's called the ALPHABESTIARY

Domovois

It's killing me. This book project is killing me.

I'm bashing my head against a wall right now. This is the closest I have to a vaguely acceptable composition for the ending pages of the book, and there's a whole 'nother character to go in. I may extend the jaw further, and the colours are to change around at some point for legibility. I should have picked a simpler story.

Lord Tapir

So many hybrids, so little time. I'm loving combining animals and medieval... things.

More hybrids

Chek in Action

My housemate, and photographer, Loren McCarthy (http://lorenmccarthy.blogspot.com/) is photographing the graffiti artist Chek for a project, so I sketched while they worked.

Life Drawing and Hybridising, or what happens when you neglect life drawing for more than a week

Sci-Fi poster

Heffer's bookshop want sci-fi and fantasy themed posters for a reading night, so I'm drafting like a beast.

Searle Award Finals

Searle Award finals - pre print

I'm considering a coloured paper background, but that depends on if I screen print these. They'd look nice, but sod it if I actually have time. Oh, nautical metaphor, how I love thee.

The Obby Oss

A maquette for my book project. How I love him.

Publish Post

Searle Award drafts 1 & 2, semi-drafted 3

Image 2 needs re-scanning, and image 3 is as yet incomplete, but the compositions for the first two images seem to be working.

The Stones Are Hatching 1

Part 1 of face development for my book project. I'm starting work on the characters of Phelim, Alexia and Mad Sweeney.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Sort of final draft for image 1 for the Searle Award.

Almost finished with this stage! I really need to get into the swing of these images over the weekend, then full scans, coloured and done! I'm an optimist, what can I say?

Searle Award 'Crisis' First Image preliminaries and gubbins

Working in my typically piecemeal 'my head works in Photoshop layers' way, these are some early stuff for my potential Searle Award entry on the theme 'Crisis'. I'd post some thumbnails, but it's rare anyone can understand them apart from me, like a hideously drawn secret code. None of the stuff I'm posting here is even a complete draft, as I'm working on a final component for the draft of image one. The crisis theme I chose is the recent (and potentially ongoing) financial crisis and recession. Without the central component, this is not in any way obvious, so these are most definitely just process. Basically, it's all very rough, so no judging please!

The first and second are identical apart from the left foreground figure, and I'm still adding/removing him and tweaking things

Then there's the background of the second (or third) piece of the five

They're all pen and ink, comped in Photoshop, and the waves are a simple block colour with two versions of the inked parts recoloured and offset.

Inadequate planning

Sometimes when left to my own devices I fail to plan properly, and leap into finalised or semi-finalised images, and this, of course, leads to work that is nowhere near as good as it should be. Case in point, my first draft for entering the Searle Award (an award specific to Cambridge School of Art students, started and in honour of Ronald Searle, the epic illustrator and creator of St. Trinians)

So, here it is. It doesn't get the point across, the descriptive parts of the image are too small, and just about the only half-decent bit is the composition, although my use of diagonals is a little heavy-handed. I've since scrapped this, and I'm taking elements on to my new version of this, which I'll post process work for soon. Also, thanks to advice from my tutor, it may well be a series of 5. Scary, but not due until March.

Christmas brief - what not to do at the office Christmas Party.

Can't say I enjoyed this one, as I couldn't find ways to interpret the article differently. Also, I had a hell of a time with the storeroom image, as something wasn't working but I couldn't work out anything better. I think tiredness was a factor on that one! I'm pretty glad this one is over, but I used it as an excuse to alter the techniques I was using and try out some new stuff.

Don't order Champagne when everyone else is drinking cheap wine



Dress to impress, not to shock - think twice about those gold hot-pants



Stay one drink behind your superiors at all times - it's only OK to pass out if the boss does first



You may be drunk, but don't sleep with a colleague



Under no circumstances should you be using the photocopier, especially to do this: