Exploration

Some more figure drawings to push my anatomy forward. Mostly from imagination with a few referenced pieces.

Go Go Logo

Another 2d artist activity at Blitz Games. This time we had this random shape we had to manipulate into a logo design. This was a tough challenge and until I finally got the idea I ended up using I was really struggling :P I decided to try use the geometric shapes this offered and initially extended the lines to try create an impression of three dimensional space and essentially create a cube I can chisel into (thinking of the N64 and Gamecube logos). I made up a random company name to go with the letters that came out of the logo and then started playing with how they are arranged together. Since this was an exercise I tried to come up with a more adventurous layout than the standard ones.
Its about this time that students are graduating from university and are released into the big wide world. Its usually this time that the post education period of looking for work and constant rejections occur. Ive been through my fair share and I just wanted to share a few thoughts.
Do not be content to stay at your current level! Dont wait and hope that someone will just give you your dream job, you must earn such luxury. The creative industry is mega competitive but those who are daring and willing to put the work in to achieve their dream are the ones who will succeed. I took comfort in these times in the knowledge that no matter what happens and how long it takes I will keep drawing and painting and because of that I will keep progressing and eventually get to where I want to be. Dont be discouraged by failure. I failed before and I am happy I did, it taught me an important lesson to never be complacent. From then on I focused on improving myself and the best way I knew how to was to practice a lot. I pretended to be working full time whilst I was unemployed and worked from 9-5 (and often overtime :P) on my own artwork. That was my tip-top secret... to consistently practice a lot. It was not an overnight thing, it took dedication. I worked this way for 5 months before I was good enough to be land that cool job and all the struggle and hardship has been 100% worth it. Often I chat with my colleagues on what a living this is but we never say how 'lucky' we are because we all know what we had to go through to get there. It is time and effort in abundance. Now its your turn to do the same :)

Bodies

Some drawings from today. Still trying to learn anatomy :P Thankfully I have some awesome colleagues who are well informed on this subject and have given me some pointers which has been very helpful. Trying to just copy from anatomy books helped me with rhythm but I needed something more to inform me of the forms I was looking at and it was a benefit to be told what each muscles do and how they operate. Slowly getting better! Lets keep it up!
Ive also been looking at some of my old drawings from 6 years ago when I was still in high school. Let me tell you.... they sucked ASS! Its comforting to look back on where you came from and where you want to be. 4 years ago I didnt even paint digitally and back then seeing any ole digital art blew my mind and I couldnt imagine how I could paint like that. But with practice you can achieve anything. That is why I am continuing my own practice outside of work. My goal is to make the same advancements in the next 4 years as the previous ones so why wait? What better time to do it than now?
Inspiration: Keith Thompson - Recently been thinking about design and this guy is very good in that department. Imaginative concepts accompanied by descriptions creates a sense of worldliness to his work. Kris Kuksi - Superb designs! Something for me to aspire towards!

Walk! Dont Run

The above pieces are tracing exercises. Its an exercise Ive been reading about and decided to put to the test. The trick is not to 'copy' but to analyze and draw! I found this helpful to recognize and hopefully memorize forms on the body and to make a decision on what to keep in and what to keep out of a drawing. Having a photograph to trace from was usefull because I saw all the details in the form that might have been tempting to throw in but looking over other high quality drawings I saw that they didnt construct themselves that way so I started doing these to help me make a better judgment on what to describe and how to describe them. I have looked at my own shortcuts in drawing a form and rather than accepting it as something that just worked I questioned if it was accurate. My goal with these is to eventually be able to use the exercise to help me to draw (not trace) over the reference and then upon removing the guideline reference, hopefully have a drawing that does not look traced but stands alone as a good drawing. This I think is a stepping stone for me to the next level. More to come

Some drawings from my head (mixed in with a few referenced drawings) to put into practice ideas achieved from studies. Mixing studies and application will test how much I have taken in and my ability to transfer studies into concepts. More to come :D

And finally... A study of Charles Gibson's girl figures. I have studied his drawings before whilst at university and have since adopted his method of describing the bottom of the nose with that thick 'v' shape but I started questioning the accuracy I used it and so I went back to the original to inform myself further.
In other news... Work is going very well. I am pretty damn excited and enjoying my experience. Sometimes you can get tunnel visioned and forget the awesome situation you are in! I am enjoying working with other ambitious artists and talking to them is refreshing as we all share a common interest, belief and background. I also got to see today one of my environment concepts in game! It looked great even though there was no textures applied yet. It was a bit weird to see my painting in 3d and interactive. It is a tiny bit frustrating that I cant say anything else thats been very exciting to me. But maybe in a couple years time you will know about it and by then it would be old news to me lol.

Lion Guard wip

Heres a wip im working on and might not get to work too much on this week (have to pack up and move house :P) so I'll post up a wip. This might be good for people to see as you can probably decipher some of my techniques and process in this. Sometimes I might crop out elements from a previous painting and use as a base to work on top of. Thats also how the head came about, it was a photo of a stone lion that I cropped and made a crude montage to paint over. This is one of many different approaches I have been using and is something that I find useful to save time when it comes to concept art for a deadline. Recently I had to paint 4 characters in 4 days at work and so I have been looking into ways to quicken my process. Towards the end of this wip I found the image to be quite desaturated and so I added some overlay colours and you can see the hallmarks of overlay layers involved. Hopefully by the end it will be less blatant ;)
In future Im not entirely sure what kind of updates you will see. I am tempted to just do concept artwork and explore some neat designs but I have also been neglecting my studies quite a bit so that needs to be addressed. Ive been reading some anatomy workshops but I might have to put more consistent practice into that.
And some inspiration (its been a while since I last posted these): Jeff Simpson - very nice styled art. Red Bear Dead - an artist's personal project thats gathered a lot of interest.

Akumazine!!!!

For the Super Street Zine blog.
Ive taken some time to look through some of my old work currently in my portfolio. Its been about 7 months since I started working at Blitz and since then I havent always had as much time to do my own work to a 100% finish like I was able to do when I was fresh out of university. But this was kinda the first time I took a good look at whats in my folio since then and Im quite pleased to find that I can see looooaaaadssss of crud and areas I could improve on and I find it an encouraging sign rather than a negative thing. Ive recently hit one of those walls when I doubt myself and feel a bit frustrated with my art but looking at my old stuff gave me a bit of encouragement since I feel I can do better now. Sooooo lets hope there are more improvements along the way!

Parr-ty Time!

Just wanted to drop a few links here for you to check out. Ive been bugging my tutor (who recently just retired) Peter Parr to set up a blog or website and it looks like its finally worked! In response to some incessant demanding he sent me this link: (Click here to Parr-ty!)
The site is new and is in need of more uploads so we just need to keep pestering him about it. Hes got tons more great work that we cant see on the site yet so Im gonna link to another place where you can see his work: Here!
Also a lil plug for myself hehe :P You can now pre-order Expose 8 and preview it here. I had a look in there and was very impressed with the work that was on show. So much so that I was thinking to myself "How the heck did I get in this?!?!? Im not nearly as good as these guys!" Then when I got to my page I was even more shocked! In the category I was in (Abstract and Design) I received an Excellence award!!!! Really dont know how that happened! I only hope I can improve and eventually merit such an accolade more convincingly. Back on the road of self discovery!

Chun Li

For the Super Street Zine blog.