Hiatus Over

controlstate — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:16:51 +0000

One long month but glad its over. Been working on a few things which include some front end web design, storyboarding and trying to grow a money tree. By the state of my bank account I only succeeded in two of those things. Though I’m not complaining, could be worse. So heres some of the things that I’ve been doing, there is more to come later in the month but I’m just trying to find it all. I put something down and I can’t find it anywhere.

Round and round we go

controlstate — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:09:31 +0000

We all feel like this, sometimes …

Creatures and Colongue

controlstate — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:29:05 +0000

Its Movember, though I can’t grow a full slug, and CreatureMag have put together a brief involving moustaches. This one be mine, decided to use some techniques I found at this very helpful website DaniDraws where I learnt photoshop things.

Also I’ve been doing some oil painting, which has been very enjoyable though taxing.

I found all my Dads old oil paints, when I mean old I mean 50 years old, they were in a bit of a state but with a knife I managed to get them going. I don’t know how I really got started on this particular piece apart from that I saw some JOOP! GO on my desk and thought I would be funny to see it go. And it did.

This second piece I did, just came out of my brain, a boy just blows some bubblegum too much.

Characters, Creativity and Money

controlstate — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:07:03 +0000

Been a while. Right o here’s some character designs I’ve been working on firstly before anything else, done with pen.

So had a creative recently, same old drill where nothing seems to be going right, doubting my work, getting into a cycle of same old annoyances which get to everyone. Though I can’t complain really, I have a roof over my head, electricity, and I’m alive. So I did this.

To help me get on with working I’ve been doing something I haven’t done for a while, look on other blogs, my work seemed to be so uninspiring to myself that I had to do something new. I came across this website, How to Steal Like An Artist, and it just made me laugh cause everything was so true on it. So I’m sure this idea has been used before but I’m going to have a little play with it and write the book I want to read from it. Also I must work on my typography.

In the last to pieces the characters have been the same cause its me, cause I’m being self-referential. I’m going to go steal a car like an artist would.

Animation GO!

controlstate — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:50:15 +0000

So finally I’ve shot some decent quality animation, quality as in video quality not content that’s up to you, using a free trail of DigiCel Flip book which I will be buying sooner rather than later. The animation is of a character I’ve been working on and let slip character poses in another post, though I shall repost them in this.

The eventual short will be about a boy who’s auditioning for the role as Dracula in his school play, of the same name. Most of the audition scene is storyboarded but was adjusted to when it was a talent show instead of an audition for a play. This is just to have a bit of fun and slowly work towards more stuff to put in a showreel at some point. You can also tell that I haven’t animated for a while, 2 years, but I love it too much to give up on doing it.

Silly Silverback

controlstate — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:25:31 +0000

Silverback gorilla chewing on a balloon. Just for fun.

More More More Animals

controlstate — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:37:08 +0000

Right so, I’ve been getting some traffic from Creative Anchorage and didn’t know what was happening, so went over and had a look. I found food, yum, and my mythical creatures piece blogged, so I did some more animals. Thanks Beth for the much needed pick me up.

Just some stuff

controlstate — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:25:28 +0000

Just as the title says, just some stuff that was floating around in my head stopping me sleeping so had to get them out. Some of them are being used but the rest aren’t. It’s nice to share.

Some More Mushroom Magic

controlstate — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:05:06 +0000

Carring on where I left off, some more mushroom magic. Painted in Watercolours last night/early morning, edited in photoshop this morning creating the vignette effect and tweeks.

Here are some progress shots I took throughout the evening.

Finally heres a scanned up edited version of my painting.

I do like these little guys, though I going to have to work harder on my painting skills to make them come to life more. Going to do a character board with them showing stages of life and emotions, should be up in the next 2 days.

Technically no photography but I added some to get a wider audience hehe :p

Magic Mushrooms

controlstate — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:47:52 +0000

Been away working again harrowing fields, which I found out was towing chains around on a quad bike or tractor to harrow, in layman’s terms breaking up horse poo when theres too much to pick. Sounds boring but when the sun was beating down with my hair colour and skin rubbishness made it worse. But it was a good time to have a think and look at how many mushrooms were about, which was backed up by having a mushroom lasagna the previous evening. So I took some pictures in the dead of night with beer in hand.

This was a Tuesday and left to swirl around for a bit when on Sunday slightly hungover from a friends birthday I had time to sit and do a few sketches of what might live around here.

The original thought was I could change the colour balence to make it look like an alien world but didn’t work soI just kept it as these little mushroom creatures. This could go somewhere, I’ve got 3 ideas for storys, 2 are animations and this one is more book than animation. But heres a watercolour I did, this could go somewhere but I need to get my writing and idea head on. I’m juggling to many hats as a old tutor would say.

In other news I bumped into a old classmate from high school and foundation, Samuel Higley and you can check out his work on tumblr here http://silversleeves.tumblr.com/ his work is jaw-dropingly good.