Peter Parr Tribute

This is not the greatest painting in the world. This is just a tribute!

This year my university tutor, the legendary professor Peter Parr, is retiring. He has been the living embodiment of the animation course at the AIB and has been a fantastic tutor for me. I am inspired by this elderly chap who has shown more enthusiasm and energy than all the youths in class. It was really eye opening. He led by example a successful and enjoyable life and career that I can only hope to emulate his achievements. So heres to you PPP for showing us the ways of the bouncing ball, we wave our poorly animated flags at your departure but we look forward to a new chapter for the school you have built a steady foundation on. Happy retirement!

EDIT: Found a link to an article about the man himself with some samples of his work. This guy NEEDS a website to display the trillions of drawings and paintings he has!

EDIT: Apparently some of my blurb here was quoted in a speech delivered to him on the last graduation ceremony he attended as a teacher. But I wasnt credited!!!!!!! Plagiarism lol! :P

Expose

A wip for ChoW 200 and a tiny update on the previous landscape.
Last month I made a post where I said that I might have an announcement to make soon (original post). Well now that I got the confirmation I can announce it today.... I have an artwork accepted into Ballistic Publishing's Expose 8! I am very excited, actually today I was wondering if I did get in or not as the last time I heard that I got into the final rounds was ages ago and I was thinking that I didnt progress further. If you are wondering what the image I have in there it is going to be the one that is currently made my banner (the watercolour and photoshop hybrid). You will be able to find it on page 197. It feels surreal to be on the same spread as Andrew Jones :P Expose 8 will be in stores next month.

Ive been to visit my good friend Harry Wormald this weekend to celebrate his new job as a matte painter at SFX giants The Mill. It didnt seem long ago when we were both noobs in our Foundation Art course in 2005. Harry was actually the one who introduced me to digital painting and it scared the crap out of me, I was shockingly bad at it! We were both fresh out of high school but we had big ambitions. I look back at those days fondly because we set our goals then and spent the next few years in pursuit of them. I wanted to be a concept artist and he wanted to be a matte painter. In our foundation degree we were only beginners but we were willing to work and we were ambitious. I dont care what level you are at at the moment, if you consistently work hard and strive to learn and improve then you are on the right path to your goals. Our tutors used to tell us off and discourage us from going after these goals saying that there is no place for them and nothing would amount from it. What do they know eh? ;P

Oh... and turns out the Cintiq isnt the answer to all my problems :P There is annoying little things with the colour that is slightly off my normal monitor that throws me off. However I have a solution! It involves my precious Graphire 4... I can draw with the Cintiq, then use the Graphire to block in colours (on the monitor Im used to) and take it back to the Cintiq to paint!

New Toy

Heres an old speedie I did. I was hoping to finish it but then got distracted by the ChoWs and lost track of this. Will have to revisit later. Its hopefully the start of yet another personal project of mine. We'll have to wait and see when I do more of it.
Heres a sneak peak at some of the thumbnails for my next ChoW... Its the queen of music using her conductor baton to orchestrate and bring to life the inanimate instruments around her to form her throne and the lifeless subjects starts to play their songs.

And here is a snapshot of my desk with the new Wacom PL-521 :D Isnt she a beauty? The gray tablet on the left is my 4 year old A6 Wacom Graphire 4 which has served me in battle throughout my art development from my noob days to now and it has done well for me and seen me through the highs and the lows. I will miss the stickers Ive decorated it with and the finger groove worn into the rubber grip of the stylus! Here's to the old and to the new, Im sure my new weapon will see a lot of adventures over the coming years!
In other news... Im helping to promote my university course at the AUCB to Blitz and we might be adding them to our academy scheme! More on that when it happens.

Courtier

Chow number 199. I really wanted to participate in this one because it marks 100 Chows on from one of my first entries. December 2007 is when I took part in Chow number 99 and Ive been planning to use the latest one as a chance to look back 2.5 years ago and see where Ive gone. Looking back at old work is good for me to find comfort that I a improving. Seeing mistakes and ways to improve old pieces that I used to be the best I could produce shows you are on the right track.
If I was to give some critique to younger me from 2007 on his piece I would point out: The silhouette is not that strong, the pose is stiff, the anatomy should be thought about more rather than just imagining the figure on the surface (imagine him without his clothes and he is quite deformed!), everything is too flat on and there are no variety of depth (like foreshortening), the lighting isnt consistent and is quite generalized (doesnt give you an exact idea of where the light source is and it can be used to enthuse a mood), and the background is carelessly done without thought (what do the crazy patterns and marks have to do with the subject?).
Anyway back to the actual piece. The topic is Courtier. For a long time I wanted to take my designs in a direction that is rooted in fantasy. What I mean by that is trying to come up with designs that might not be so mundane and limited to reality (but is still believable). So the kind of reaction I am trying to encourage from my designs are intrigue and curiosity. Hopefully there is enough recognizable elements to connect the viewers to reality and enough juxtaposition and bizarre things to make it look other worldly.
Coming soon: A tribute to Peter Parr (my tutor)
EDIT: The Parr tribute may have to wait. ChoW #200 is upon us and Im too excited to back down from it XD

Master Chiu Remastered

Another repaint. Will post some actual new work up soon!
I recently completed Dead to Rights Retribution! Im very pleased with it and happy for my peers to have pulled together a solid game. I also found my fellow concept artist's website. Check out Bob Cheshire's work here.