Christmas and Birthday

2 quick additions for 2 quick illustrations.

The first is an illustration for Luke's 21st birthday! 'Unlock the Sky' - a metaphysical 'key'. It depicts the Eagle of the Skies and the Bear of the Cosmos, wandering the galaxies in search of beauty. A completely new style for me - expressionism, but I had a lot of fun doing it. A very quick, 6 hour illustration. (Which is quick for me at least).

The second is my Christmas greeting for 2011. I kitbashed photos of me and Luke as kids, and had us naughtily painting on a sheet. I think it's rather cute!

Vicissitudes

As my final accomplishment at University, I wrote and directed this short film, 'Vicissitudes'. The script was written and workshopped over the first semester, and after being chosen for production, my crew and I brought my script to life!

Shot beautifully on RED EPIC, (courtesy of Deakin University), the post-production process has been long and I only FINALLY handed over my completed film yesterday.

Will be screened at VISIONNAIRE, a Deakin event which screens all the third year short films. Held at the Astor Theatre in Melbourne on November 20th 2011, this is going to be an exciting event as the films will be projected in glorious 4K! Higher resolution than just about everything you've ever seen!

For the record, Vicissitudes is about.... change.
'When William Creighton meets a mysterious lady in red three times in his life, he comes to understand the neccessity for human vicissitude.'

I Return!

So! It's been a while since I posted, but now that I've revamped the whole thing, I decided to do another post.

The drawings above are ooold. Last Christmas in fact, but I realised I never posted them here. So here they are! I based last year's Christmas card on my character Seraphim 9 from my fan film.

Speaking of films, there are a few I haven't yet posted on here!
Now let's try this insert video thing...

This is SERAPHIM 10. A sequel to Seraphim 9 that I released a while back. Enjoy this piece of DSLR work, shot with 7D, under my house.

For those interested in something more arty, this is Cycle of Providence. This is an experimental film... interpret how you will. ;)

And finally, my showreel of previous work. Not too impressive at the moment, but look out for more stuff very soon.

I'm sorry I've forgotten about this blog! I hope I'll be writing back here soon enough!

Filmography

It occured to me that although my main art is filmmaking, I haven't posted any of my films on this blog. Therefore I decided it was most neccessary to link my YouTube Channel to this blog. For your viewing pleasure. :)

I haven't done any particularly extraordinary films at the moment, but I trust that some of you may enjoy 'Seraphim 9', which I've posted some of the concept art of on this blog. And 'Legion Street Antiques' (though a terrible film) was a good learning experience. The Motion Capture clip might also be insightful to anyone interested in mocap and keyframe animation.

Help and Fairy Tale are some of my earlier film works, which are way cheesy in retrospect, but seemed deep and meaningful at the time.

Anyway, enjoy!

Unheeded Devastation

An illustration for my good friend Rohan's 22nd birthday (and Valerie's 3rd birthday). I combined three things that he loves - nuclear apocalypses, his car Valerie, and a chick with a big gun.

I have to admit that this illustration was largely kitbashed from photos - particularly the car, and the composition and colours were almost entirely inspired by a Stephen Crowe illustration (Very obvious which one, if you know anything about the NZ artist).

I had a few problems with perspective. The photo of the car which I was copying was taken at a very peculiar low angle, also on a Dutch slant. I modified it a little in Photoshop, but it was difficult to draw the girl at the same bizarre angle. In the end, I decided not to attempt drawing the girl from a low angle at all, and instead, drew a big crack in the ground to suggest that she is standing in a ditch, and much closer to the viewer than the car is - therefore at a more regular angle.

Now whether the girl is an anthropomorphic representation of the car is totally up to interpretation. Initially that had been the intention, but I realised that the costume design didn't really have the same shapes as Valerie, and I could definitely do a better job trying to personify Valerie. Maybe some other day.

The Light of Doriath: Beren and Luthien

So I've wanted to do an illustration of Beren and Luthien from Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion' for a very long time, and as my friend Luke's birthday approached, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to at last draw these two fateful characters.

Now rather than the traditional romantic and classical style that you most often see Beren and Luthien illustrated in, I went for a high fantasy, heroic/enchanting style. (Shhh.... it has nothing to do with how I am incapable of drawing classically). Lighting is obviously dramatic, and I suppose it was somewhat inspired by the works of Ben Wootten and Jerry Vanderstelt, who are both masters in fantasy illustration.

I chose to depict Luthien as the powerful enchantress who weaves a cloak of deception out of her hair. Blue is her raiment, and her hair follows like a shadow. She was somewhat modelled on an illustration by Gus Hunter in 'White Cloud Worlds'.

Beren is depicted as a warrior... and just happens to look a bit like an Aragorn/Prince Caspian cross-over. But I wanted him to have the look of a travelled ranger, although there is some royalty about him. He bears the Ring of Barahir (hardly visible), and his armour is patterned with snakes, which was inspired by the Ring of Barahir. He was somewhat modelled on an illustration by Sacha Lees in 'White Cloud Worlds'.

As for the lighting, the forest and the mist, that was largely Jerry Vanderstelt inspired. I knew I wanted the characters to be set in a beech wood forest (of Doriath), and I wanted a light to be coming out from behind the trees. In my mind, it is the light of a Silmaril.... although that hardly makes sense narrative-wise. It can also be interpreted as the light of Luthien.

This illustration is very close to my heart, so it was an absolute delight to accomplish. Perhaps not the best 'technically', but I am still relatively happy with it.

Mandragora: Pyrrhic Dream

I created a graphic novel for one of my uni classes. Now when it comes to stories, I have a tendency to make up incredibly detailed backstories to support the presented material. I actually think my backstory is more intriguing than the story I have here illustrated,but I'm not going to tell you about it, because hopefully this story makes sense without needing to know all that back-story stuff. The written dialogue in this isn't great, as I was trying to hint at the backstory through diaogue (and did so poorly). And the illustrations got sloppy after a while, but nonetheless, without further ado, I present MANDRAGORA: Pyrrhic Dream.

Superheroes!

So I've been doing a lot of comic book research lately - mostly into Marvel characters, and I've even been reading comic books - namely 'The Sandman', 'X-Men', and some of 'Justice League of America'. I think I'm turning more and more into a stereotypical nerd daily, but I love it!!

The chief reason for all my comic book research is because I'm creating a graphic novel for an assignment. More on that later. My research also came in handy when a friend asked me to sketch a superhero character for a pitch!

This is Ryder. Bad-ass. A relatively quick sketch done in pencils and heavily modified in Photoshop. In retrospect, I think I should have used less grainy paper. It's a little too rough. However, I like the general design, and especially the mask! He was inspired by a collection of superheroes - The Black Panther, Gambit (X-Men), Batman, Neo (The Matrix) and Nite Owl (Watchmen).


Now onto my comic book (which does not yet have a name). My idea somewhat inspired by 'Inception' and 'The Sandman'. I've come up with a rather complicated plot about 'Dreamweavers' who are servants of the great Dream Lord Morpheus (nothing to do with 'The Sandman' however). Dreamweavers are responsible for creating the dreams of humans, and each Dreamweaver specialises in different kinds of dreams.

This is 'The Evolo'. She is the creator of escapist dreams. The idea is that these dreamweavers are made of 'dreamstuff' and only exist in dreams - thus why her legs are part of her skirt which is actually the ground. They weave the material around them to create landscapes for dreams. I wanted lots of billowing fabrics for my Dreamweavers. Like the Sandman, their clothes are constantly changing in size and shape because the material is transitory and always shifting - such are dreams. This design was inspired by Storm (X-Men), Emma Frost (X-Men) and Dream (The Sandman). I like the background of this illustration. It has a nice flow.

This is the juxtaposition of The Evolo. This is The Marre. He is the creator of the inescapable nightmare. The darkest and cruellest illusions that you cannot wake up from - those are the work of this dreamweaver. Although he is a juxtaposition of The Evolo, I wanted his clothes and his face to somewhat have a resemblence to The Evolo, to suggest that they two are infact not so different. He too has the billowing fabrics which he weaves nightmares out of. I originaly planned for him to be a very beautiful character, as his personality is going to be charming, witty and sweeping. By accident, I made him too manly. Now he appears as a fierce brute, though that wasn't my intention. Inspirations were Dream (The Sandman), Sephiroth (Final Fantasy) and Quinlan Vos (Star Wars). And yes, he has some weird-looking abs.

These are the faces of The Evolo and The Marre. As superhero characters, I wanted them to have masks of some kind, but I disliked the idea of hiding too much of their faces, so I went with tattoos instead. The Evolo's tattoos are largely Art Nouveau inspired, whereas The Marre's has sharper-edges.

N'oubliez Jamais

In 2009, I did this illustration for my good friend, David Taylor. It was in response to a piece of music that he wrote named 'Rappel d'un Souvenir', or 'Recalling a Memory' in French. Upon listening to that piece of music, imagery of a girl jumping into darkness with white cloth rippling around her burst into my mind, and thus did I feel compelled to illustrate it. I named this illustration 'Grace a des Souvenirs', or 'Thanks for Memories' in French.


A year later, 2010. I was still intrigued by the idea of what happened after the girl jumped, and so I did this illustration as a kind of sequel. I think it's apparent that my drawing technique has improved - if only slightly. This is one of the fastest full illustrations that I've ever done. I believe it only took me about 8 hours all up, which is pretty fast for me!
I named this piece 'N'oubliez Jamais', or 'Never Forget'. Whether you see this piece full of despair or full of hope is up to your interpretation. ;)

Comic Strips and Telephones

So for homework one night, we were asked to draw a mundane scene in a comic strip style.

I chose answering the phone.... AND MADE IT EPICLY CINEMATIC!

Originally, this was just supposed to be a crappy little excercise, but by the second frame I realised I was putting too much effort into it! So I decided to actually make it a decent work of art.

And yeah, I realise the boxes are slanted. That wasn't intentional. I should learn to use a set square.

Seraphim 9

So it occured to me that it's been a while since I did a digital illustration. My pen tablet was getting dusty! So I decided to do a quick sketch (quick for me anyway) of a character that I'm making a film about- Seraphim 9. Yes... both the character and the film are called Seraphim 9.

Because of my DIY mantra, this film is going to be made by, and starring ME. So this illustration is actually of me... in clothes that I do in fact own. And with a raygun I modded myself.

Taking a leaf from Greg Broadmore's book, I painted the quick sketch in PS and digitally 'pasted' it back onto the journal page where it was originally drawn. Around the illustration, you can see a rough sketch for an alien arm and some iconography for the film.

Overall this is nothing special. Just some good old fun.

Happy with- the hair, the raygun, the sash, the bandage

Unhappy with - the face, the lighting, the anatomy

Storyboards

A form of art that is often forgotten is storyboarding. Being a filmmaker, it's something that I do regularly, and it's taught me to draw fast. However, unlike most people, I tend to go into extreme detail when it comes to storyboarding, and I often try to indicate not only the shot size and angle, but also the lighting and mise-en-scene.

The following storyboard, which was produced as an assignment, should not need accompanying notes for it to be understood:

These next few pages are from my last film, 'Legion Street Antiques' (2010). These pages aren't consecutive so they won't make sense, but they display my initial ideas for the film's visual look. That's right... in my mind, Detective McGuinness looked a heck of a lot like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Sea Longing

For Kristal's 21st, I promised her a drawing of epic proportions. 4 months later, I finally delivered! The drawing actually only took me about 7 days of solid work, there was just a lot of procrastination.

For the first time, I tried to draw a full artwork rather than just a character in a sketchy background. For this epic task, I drew on a lot of inspirations:

- The enitre composition is based on Jerry Vanderstelt's 'Homeward'.

- The man is based on Alan Lee's Orpheus in 'Shapeshifters'.

- The underwater seascape was inspired by photos I found on Google. Good old google.

- The wings and bubbles were inspired by Daniel Falconer's mermaid.

- The background mountains were shaped after the silhouette of the White Witch's castle from 'The Chronicles of Narnia' concept art by Weta Workshop.

- The almost expressionistic style of the rocks was drawn from Greg Broadmore.

So this melting pot of inspirations makes this illustration something special, and overall, I'm rather fond of it.

Sniper Chick

Here is an action-filled piece I drew for my friend Rohan's 21st birthday.

I'm quite happy with the composition of this piece, and I think the background works incredibly well.

Neytiri

This is (tentatively) Neytiri from the film 'Avatar'. I drew this as a birthday present for my good friend Luke. She's not exactly screen accurate, because since the DVD of Avatar hasn't been released yet, there aren't too many pics of her circulating the internet yet. The bow is not very screen accurate at all, and I took that design more from the 'Art of Avatar' book than from the final product made for the film. It's Eytukan's bow, designed by Daniel Falconer.

Things I don't like about it:

- The right hand, which I couldn't seem to angle so that it looked natural.

- The background, which is very lazy. If I wasn't lazy, I would draw a bioluminescent forest, but too bad, I'm a bit lazy.

- The face, still not totally screen accurate

- The hair, which took me 3 days or so, but Neytiri's braids are NOT easy to render.

Otherwise, I'm relatively happy with it!

James Blarbbo!

Here's just a few quick drawings I did a while ago for a competition. It was a raygun giveaway, and a bunch of friends and myself wrote and illustrated a story set in Venus for a chance to win the Righteous Bison! Though I didn't win, a worthy friend did, and I had a heck of a lot of fun nonetheless!

How Stars Are Made

This is a drawing I did for Chloe for her 15th birthday. It's a witch who makes stars with her wand!

Okay, the drawing isn't great. Though anatomically accurate, the face isn't exactly 'beautiful'. Looks old.

Behold! A Modern Miracle Machination!

Sharkilius-93 Physical Matter Sublimator
Behold! A new invention of scientific genius that is sure to make your enemies vanish – literally! I present, the SHARKILIUS-93 PHYSICAL MATTER SUBLIMATOR, or as we call it, the ‘Shark’. Powered with ten thousand Herzetrons worth of Hezeliot Crystals, wielding the ‘Shark’ will give you tremendous power like you’ve never felt before. Each squeeze of the trigger releases a wide ray-beam of invisible Hezeliot particles that convert any living creature into a cloud of red smoke upon contact! The secret is our Hezeliot crystals, obtained from the planet Hetzbarr; these crystals have the unique properly of breaking down solid matter into gaseous form in a process called sublimation. Brilliant stuff! But that’s not all! We have now added the handy function of a Beam Narrower for your convenience! By adjusting a knob, you can now narrow the wide beam of Hezeliot particles, so the Herzetron power can be concentrated on single creatures rather than the entire battlefield. With this narrow beam concentration, our scientists have proven that a regular giant octopus can be wholly sublimated in exactly two Earth seconds! Marvellous indeed! Additionally, the discreet toggle switch allows you to reduce the power of the ‘Shark,’ all the way down to zero Herzetrons for safe transportation. What are you waiting for? Get your ‘Shark’ today!

Final design: Poster Exterior

Future Progress: Exteriors

Here are the original sketches for the exteior future poster. For the buildings, I wanted to go minamilistic to the maximum, so that it was as un-beautiful as possible.

This is my proposed idea for a Mecha lord, the Lord Mechavon.