Bartering sheep

Hi there, you might hardly believe it, but I've just completed a new post for you mere weeks after the last. I have not one, but two new pieces to show. Shocked? I'm trying really hard to push myself to spend more time on this thing I love called illustration. "But what does this mean for me?" I hear you ask. Well to answer your question, I hope it means updates more often and more work to share. Now let's get into it.

First up, I've got an illustration I completed of local Melbourne musician Ali Barter. This was originally going to be for a client, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, it was never published. I left it alone for several weeks and then one day decided it was a waste of my time and effort not to finish something I'd already spent a considerable amount of time on. So here it is!

Colourful, no? I'd never heard of Ali before, so like I mentioned in my previous post, research was key. I found myself particularly drawn to the bright colours and style found in her clip of the song Hypercolour, so I that was my main inspiration. Just the term made me imagine super-bright and high impact colour schemes. The flowers were inspired by the same clip, though in this instance they're magically growing from the guitar itself. I think it strengthens the sense of 'hypercolour:' Almost sickly bright flowers.

In terms of background, the clip for one of her newest songs, Girlie bits features synchronised swimming, so I thought, how about a pool without water as a setting? I had a tight deadline originally with this work, so I had to keep things fairly uncomplicated. The tiles I think make a for simple but very catching design. I've always loved drawing environments where nature has taken over, so expect to see more of those as my background painting skills improve. I discovered working on this, that though guitars seem like a relatively easy thing to draw, they can take some time to get right. I'm still not 100% on spot with line drawing using my tablet, so it took a few attempts to get the strings where I wanted them. I'm particularly happy with the way the eyes came out.

Up next is a personal work I've been working on bit by bit over the last couple of years. As you can probably imagine, producing a work over such an extended amount of time often leads to many changes. The lengthy production period mainly stemmed from my desire to try my hand at painting the background. If you look through most of my work, it's either got no background at all or a very simple drawn one if any. I was very apprehensive to start it once I got up to that point. Which I know is kinda silly given that in Photoshop, everything can be undone.

I'm not entirely sure what I was going for with this image...I'm guessing sheep were likely the starting point. I think I was watching The Musketeers at the time and really loved their... shoulder capes? Which lead on to considering a striking heraldry logo: I started out in graphic design, so I always like to find ways to combine it with my illustrations. All this doesn't really fit with a simple sheep farmer, so let's just say that in this world sheep farming is considered a noble profession. The idea behind the glowing gem in the crook is that it in some way hypnotises the sheep to follow her. The design of her hair eludes me and is lost to time.

Working on a piece across such a long period of time was a great way to sense my progression as an artist, there are some things here that are quite different to how I do them now. Though I did try my best to change little to keep it in line with the original. The major thing I tweaked were the colours, mainly to harmonise them with the recent idea I had for the background. I was originally going to use a textured brush, but decided against it: I'd read from a few artists that it's best to start with the basic flat default brush until you get a feel for painting.

Considering it's one of my first attempts to paint digitally, I'm quite happy with how it all turned out. I think the sense of distance is captured quite well, particularly with the foreground grass. I'm always amazed with how plain background can be to still have a good feel of the environment. The stone sign, (in an unknown language so you know it's not Earth) shows the distance to the next city. Perhaps our sheep herder is taking her flock to trade? As a bonus to the detail shots I quickly drew up a completed graphic of the heraldry shield. Sometimes these things look better flat.

I'm currently trying out a 'sketch a day' exercise to speed up my drawing skills, So I'll probably make a new section or possibly add to my sketchbook section.

Well that's it for this post...next time I'm hoping to have something done from a galaxy far away. Thanks for reading!

Rusty pipes and a piece of Melbourne

Greetings! I hope this day finds you relatively free enough to check out this update. Today I have two works for you to check out, both of which were presents for friends. I seem to do more of that than anything else, but that's alright. Doing work for friends always involves unique challenges since I have a completely open brief, but need to try and create something I know they'll appreciate. This can really test my knowledge of the people I know.

So this piece was for a fan of Mario obviously. Now usually I don't do fan art. The reasons for this are two-fold. Firstly that it can quite often not look as professional as original work and secondly that it removes the most interesting and complex part of art for me: Design.When one does fan art, the design is already well established, so there's less to do from a design perspective.

However there are times I love a game or anime so much that I really want to do some fan art. I decided though that the best way to keep design an integral part of the work is to insert an original character into an existing world.

In keeping with that rule, I created a new Mario brother, or sister in this case. Much of the design comes from feminising aspects of Mario's costume.Note the puzzle box earrings. Since my friend is a nurse, I wanted to make out that this character could be much like a healer in RPG style games, the idea being that from her magically bottomless bag she could throw out power-ups for her co-players to collect.

The background I knew from the very beginning would need to contain the iconic sewer pipe (when you google it, the images are mostly Mario related). So I decided to have them floating in the sky. I have  a penchant for flying things, just can't help it.

The last artwork for today was for a good friend and fellow illustrator going back to her home country after living in Australia for 5 years in which she attended the same university that I did. It's a fairly simple concept. I wanted to draw her something that would remind her of Melbourne and have a character eating cheese as she rather enjoys it. I chose Flinders Street Station, as not only is it a lovely old building, but also has a nice strong recognisable colour scheme that makes it stand out. I'm quite happy with the result, especially when you consider my last attempt at the building with my Flinders band piece, which can be found in the illustration section of this site. Levene loved it too!

You can check out her website here.

That's it from me, see you next time, in the blogs ^_^

New Year? and a foppish DI

Hi there, as you probably expect, the reason for this post is to show some new work. It's almost impossible to believe that I haven't updated since April, but that's the truth. So anyway here's the new stuff.
 

This first piece I did for the new year, but never quite finished it for a while. As you can probably guess, 2013 is the year of the snake. As with my 2012 artwork, I decided to keep a somewhat Japanese feel, but I also at the time on a whim decided to incorporate Art Deco elements in the clothing and bottle design. My sister thought the pattern on the kimono looked like stylised bamboo, which I'm okay with. I'm particularly happy with the design on the bottle, though there's probably way too much detail in the label, as you can't even make most of it out at 100%. Still it was fun to do, I just need to make sure in the future that I stop zooming in so close. I've included a detail shot of the bottle. Serpent's Kiss - Seductively deadly.

The second I have for you today is a present I drew for my mum. If there's two things she loves, it's her Tonkinese cat Bashir (As in Dr Julian Bashir) and murder mysteries. Enter DI Tonks! Being a cat I believe he would have a rather foppish dress sense and I also trying to incorporate fish into the design. The tail waistcoat was based on fish scales and the shirt is herringbone. Yes, that's a fez, just because, you know, fezes (what the hell is the plural of fez?) are cool. This was my first attempt at full background in watercolour, so I'm pretty happy.

Number three is my fifth work in my patented 'Quick Concept series,' This time combining a bird (vulture) with a sniper. The limited palette worked quite nicely I think.

Well that's it for now, I've got a few more pieces ready to upload but I'll do that next time
 Bye!