Venetian robots and goblins riding a dog, oh my!

Hi there everyone. Sorry again about the infrequency of my updating, I've really got to work on having something to post at the very least once a week, as right now I'm not even getting something out once a month.

Things have been rather busy though, I've finally found myself a job, but no, unfortunately it's not illustration or even design, but retail. It's something though! With some income at last I'll be able to save up some money for printing and gallery space next year. That way I can hopefully get my name out there and start getting some real work. It's true certainly for artists that you need to spend money to make money >.<

In-case you missed it, here's my piece from Illustrators Australia's annual 9X5 exhibition. It was a really interesting piece to work on as I haven't very often worked off a theme that hasn't come from my own head.

I actually sold my piece! My very first sale of art...ever! My wonderful and supportive parents bought it. Now they have the challenge of trying to work out where to put it in the house...one of the walls good for art is already covered in mine and my lovely sister's art.

So if you're interested in some background of it, I shall now provide...

Each year the 9X5 always have a theme, this year it was carnivale, so you can bet there were many artworks of masked characters based on the Venetian carnivale tradition. One of the most curious things I came to learn about the introduction of masks was that it was a way to remove the harsh class system imposed on the citizens of Venice. I loved the idea of hiding something completely different behind the mask.

Anyone who knows my art, will know that I love to mix old and new up in my illustrations. I enjoy taking something historic and trying to futurise (that's so not a word) it, or trying to make something of pure fantasy fit into a historic setting. This was of the latter, A robotic musician playing during the carnivale at the time of the renaissance. I chose a 3/4 back view to show both the illusion of real from the front, in which she (it's a female robot, machines can have genders!) is wearing a period dress, and behind to show the gears and other parts that make it work.

The reason she has a long neck was originally to fit in a speakers that were going to be attached to her shoulders. As this would end up blocking out some of the details I decided to instead have wires trailing over to a speaker somewhere out of view.

I really quite like the effect of graphite on wood, so I think I shall have to experiment with it in the future.

My second piece for you today is my fourth quick concept piece. A suggestion from my sister: To combine goblin and umbrella, I instantly got the idea of using a giant leaf as an umbrella, and just now got myself thinking of Totoro and the classic scene at the bus stop in the rain. Before I knew it, rather than having one goblin I ended up having 2 goblins riding a dog as a sort of trader. travelling the world selling whatever junk they happen to find that they think is worth something.

I've got some more quick concepts just around the corner and some quite detailed Xmas presents in the tunnel too, so look forward to uploads of all of those, eventually. I'm also doing another re-design of my blog banner and a new design for my logo and business card coming too.

Until next time. ^_^
 

Keeping up with nature

 So without further stalling for time I present to you a somewhat recent illustration I did for a very good and very far away friend of mine. The Record Keeper of the Forest!

My friend is a big fan of nature, so I wanted to try and craft my artwork with a strong natural appeal. I wanted to come up with a character that would be really interesting and different. Rather than going the road of fairy or dryad, or any other countless fantasy creatures, I tried to think of a unique character and one that could sit in a tree at that. I tried to imagine what an office worker might look like if they worked in a forest. Even nature needs to keep track of it's assets, right? The blue bird is like an assistant, who bring up scrolls from storage for her to peruse.

I was really happy with how the face came out on this one. There's something I can't quite put my finger on. The main challenge here was the tree itself. As one of the largest elements in the image, just doing cell shading didn't seem appropriate. Especially since I was playing up the naturalness of the illustration, I wanted to express the texture of the tree. So it took quite a lot of playing around before I was satisfied. Textures in this style can't be too realistic, otherwise they don't fit well with the flatter parts. But hey it worked out in the end. Sorry about the lack of updates lately, I've been really hunting trying to find a job.

I'm also now a proud member of Illustrators Australia! Which is a professional body of illustrators in Australia, hopefully I'll be able to pick up some jobs through them. It's also good to be part of a larger community, so hopefully I can start making connections too. See my IA profile here.

Until next time, (note that 'next time' is not bound by any standard measure of time-space relationships).