Book Cover

Talk about a hectic time of the year!

Have just finished working on a book cover job. The books title is "How to become a Superhero" and its written by Sage Michael. Check it out online at http://www.superheropress.com/

Did quite a few rough layouts before we were happy with the final product, but i think the final cover scrubbed up ok.

Apologies for so little posts of late...

Apologies to all for my slackness of late with my blog. I promise to endeavour to get back on track with it.

Have been busy of late. This weekend I was fortunate to be invited to feature a a guest artist doing live sketches at a gallery opening from one of my art colleagues. Her exhibition "Something Wicked this way comes" opened at Rooftop Gallery in Melbourne on Saturday.

Was my first foray into the art scene as i usually live a very sheltered life in the toy industry where they make a point of keeping all their artists and designers deliberately unknown. My only assumption is so they can stop us being poached by other toy companies.

Sigh, if only they realised that a bit of recognition would inspire more loyalty. At my work we are very fortunate to have highly motivated creatives who are incredibly passionate about their products and hold a strong sense of pride in the work they do. I work with a team of illustrators who i consider some of the best i have ever seen, both in talent and work ethic.

Anyway, my point was, that it was enjoyable to meet some art industry people and to proudly put my name to my art. I was amazed at what a back catalog of personal art i had accumulated that was outside work. And i have to say i thoroughly enjoyed doing the live sketchs - i'll post them here soon.

I've also entered in another competition. This one is for Banjoe Kazooie: Nut and Bolts, and the brief was to design a vehicle that you thought might fit the game. I must say i really loved designing my lil Sky Hamster.

Anyway folks, i'm back and i'll try and stay more focused on this blog!

I am officially becoming a slack a$$.

Its been over a week since my last post. Have been out of action for the weekend with a pulled muscle in the next or shoulder. Quite alright tho as long as i only want to look left. :)

Anyway, went to the physio last nite and am my old self again - just a slightly more bruised version.

Anywho, here's a quick scribble to get me remotivated.

Ups and Downs

Been almost a week since i last posted here.

Trust me when i say it isn't due to laziness. Its been a real up and down week with plenty of stuff on. Having been working on a book cover which is now starting to take shape ( and interesting project and a nice change) as well as a few other projects. Recently did the character of the week challenge at conceptart.org. Was a cool topic - Goblin gunslinger. Mine was a bit rushed but he was still a lot of fun to draw.

Work has been...sigh...yeah, ups and downs i guess. I have a toy i designed going off at retail but as with all things there are always negatives to every positive....and i said i'd never gripe on this blog!

Rabbit versus Bear / Fish Bank

Sometimes it can be so hard to write stuff..how do people do it so easily.

Some good news to report. Fish Bank sales are absolutely going off. sales have gone well beyond our expectations. Bit of a surprise, and also a massive relief. Makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Also my Rabbit Versus Bear skits are starting to attract some favourable response as well. Guess this means I'll keep doin' em then. Just for the hell of it - Here's the latest one...

Speedpainting

As another weekend comes to a close i find myself dwelling on those artists that have mastered the technique of speedpainting. Alas whilst I pride myself on being able to work extremely fast i have never truly grasped the ability to speedpaint.
Is it in the brushes? The grasp of light and shadow? Is it the color? Probably a mix of all i'd say. I have always found that due to my toy background i tend to oversaturate colors and become lost when i try to implement a more realistic palette. it is certainly something i want to aim to perfect,
Tonite i tried a quick 20 minute speedpaint. I had no idea what i would paint or where it would go. I'll admit to say it was an uncomfartable xperience to say the least...

Zombies and a long week

Its been a long week with no chance to get to the blog, or maybe i've just been lazy.
My product that i worked on, Fish Bank is going great guns in the UK and Australian domestic markets so far. Retailers are reordering and sales are strong so its a good sign. Bit of a sleeper this one. To be honest, I had feared it might be too niche, but so far so good!
in what has been a relatively unproductive week for personal work i did manage to rush a submission for the Left 4 Dead contest on moddb.com. Here's my entry - I call her the breeder. Apologies to those that might find her a little distasteful.
Anyway, gotta go watch the second innings of the 20/20 cricket :)

Back to work tomorrow...

Oh well, 3 days off was nice but alas it's over.
Did another refinied pencil page today whilst i watched the V8 supercars.
Watched "There will be Blood" last nite. Very intriguing movie. Love the segments with no speaking and just music. Movie makers seem to be giving the viewers more credit these days. Movies like There will be blood, Wall-E, and No country for old men all do this very successfully. There seems to be a lot of good films out there these days. Daniel Day Lewis' performance in "There will be blood" was amazing!
On another note: my puppy gets her lamp shade taken off her head tomorrow so thats a definite plus. Can't say i'm gonna miss that walking Pixar lamp! :)

Comic page pencils

For a day that started with a mild hangover, it was actually pretty good. Knocked over this refined pencil page this afternoon and now its time for a video marathon with the girlfriend.

More comic layouts

Been muckin around with my layouts for the latest POW challenge. These are reall rough. Will go and do the proper refinied pencils next. Sigh...do i have to go back to work next week? Holidays are so much fun!

Nice to be on holidays

Enjoying my time off. Was the girlfriends birthday today so we had a pretty fun laidback day. Did get a little bit of a chance to do some drawing. Am doing the latest P.O.W challenge at conceptart.org.
Started on my main character design and page layouts. Must admitted the tone and theme of the story is definitely influenced by the amount i've been playing of fallout 3 lately. Too many good games out at the moment and too little time. Such a good problem to have.

Holidays and Halftone screens

Sigh....I have the rest of the week off. Am really gonna enjoy this holiday as I've felt a little on the strung out side. My usually short fuse has seemed almost no existant of late.

The great news is that little Leela is feeling much better. She slept the whole nite through with no dramas. That also meant I got to sleep the whole nite through. As wierd as it sounds me and the pup had a little slumber party in the entertainment room, watched some dvds and crashed out there for the nite. Hey, those futons are surprisingly comfy :)

Also mucked around with some halftone screens on my comic pages. Loving the effest. Just have to make sure I don't get too carried away with them, as that can happen with me. Anyway I'm back on track and refuelled with creative energy. More to come soon!

They turned my dog into a lamp?

Lil Leela's operation seems to have gone well.
She's gonna need some supervision for the next few days but it looks good.
Can't help tho and make the comparision between her and the Pixar lamp mascot.
Now where do i plug her in? :)

My Little Dog's big operation

I'll admit to being a little nervous. My little puppy Leela is going in for a big operation today. Last nite was the first night she's ever been away from me. It's gonna be a very long very nervous day.....

She's my lil girl and i make a shocker of a worried parent.

In the meantime here's some more Fable 2 fan art.

Storyboards

Full on day today. So glad I practiced that comic drawing on the weekend, especially the sketchy layouts.
Needed to do some storyboards for a TV sizzle ad for one of our new products today. It was flat stick but actually really good fun. I love doing storyboards! Got it all done and I must say they turned out fantastic. Very happy!

CG folio hits 70,000 views!

Allow in dire need of a coffee to jumpstart me into this week (pretty sure i walked through today in a daze) i am still pretty stoked to discover my CG Society online portfolio has hit 70,000 views. I'm also on 79 other artists favourites lists so i'm feeling pretty chuffed.

http://redfrog.cgsociety.org/gallery/

To celebrate i think i'm gonna go play some Fable. The girlfriend has been monopolising it all weekend but apparently her character has become fat so she's depressed and is giving the game a break :). It's a classic that girls even worry about the wieght of their virtual characters too!

Oh, and before i go, it seems that my company's latest showing at tradefair went down a treat and one of my babies (products) has been very well received! Ahhhh....and that is what makes all the hard work and frustrations all worthwhile!

Rabbit versus Bear 01

All future posts for Rabbit versus Bear will be on the individual bog.

Well I stayed true to my motivation for the weekend and completed most of the POW challenge on concept art.org. Got two of the pages inked yesterday.

This up and down weather is messing me round though - i don't care if its hot or cold - just not both so close to each other...aaaaarrrgggh! :)

Woke up this morning and feel like i've had about an hour sleep (which isn't true - i had a full nites sleep) but this hot weather at nite is a bummer.

Back to work today...sigh...I think I need a Berocca :)

The girlfriend is still depressed about her fable character getting fat. Have to admit thats pretty funny! (Hope she doesn't read this :) )

Anyway here's my two inked pages...

Panels of the Week challenge

Well it looks like the motivation is holding strong. With the exception of a couple of interuptions to ferry a very drunken girlfriend and her friend jellybean around to a party and so forth, I've been able to knock over four pages of rough layouts for my entry.
Now I've gotta properly design the characters and do some refinement to the page art.
Die Hard is on the tv now, and toy story movies were on before that so theres been plenty of background stimulation as well :)

Rabbit versus Bear

Ok then...
The older I get the stranger I get.
I've just started a blog titled Rabbit versus Bear. The damn thing has been stuck in my head for over six months now, so I've turned it into a blog. I don't even know what it is yet, other than a muddled creative dump where two fictional characters battle it out to expunge the crap that goes on in my head.
Wow, it's Friday nite and I'm not even making sense to myself...
Check it out if you want...
http://rabbitversusbear.blogspot.com/

Rabbit versus Bear

Rabbit and Bear are a couple of characters i have developed who are constantly coming up with new ways to blow each other up.

Here's a quick scribble i did this morning depicting Rabbit.

I am so looking forard to the weekend this week. Lots of stuff to do on the art front. Will be interesting to see if ambition turns into productivity...

Branding update

Have been invited by one of my Facebook buddies to participate in her gallery opening of "Something Wicked This Way Comes". She's a really cool uban plush designer. Her Kooky Spook designs are awesome stuff!

Anyway there's gonna be a few artists doing live works at the opening at the Rooftop Gallery in Melbourne on the 6th December, between 1pm and 5pm.

Should be a lot of fun. So i figured with this in mind it was time for a bit of a branding update. Wanted to still keep my trademark 'x' and gasmask dude, but wanted to reflect the more stylistic direction i've been going of late with the high contrast stuf and my love for all things urban vinyl.

Anyway, here's the result...

More Fable 2 fan art

Well as promised, I said i'd shut up and do some drawing. I also played a dose of Fable 2 last nite, which would also account for the subject matter of this sketch.

I present you with "His Lordship's matched luggage"

Hump Day

Ha!
What a day. It started off bad, came good, dropped again, came back up. I feel kind of seasick! :)
Ever had one of those days where you stop for petrol, fill up your car and then realise you have left your wallet at home? Well that was how mine started.
Fortunately it all worked out and even better didn't set a trend for the day. It may have had its moments, but it had its good one's too!
Pretty much the perfect incarnation of hump day!
I had the fulfilling sensation of finishing of some new concepts at work. I can't say what, but needless to say i was pretty chuffed with these ones.
We are also in the middle of a trade fair and initial reports seem to be pretty positive which is always good.
Now for my question of the day. If you are an illustrator and you have an online avatar (photo etc) why would you use a glamour shot of yourself? Wouldn't you use one of your pictures? Maybe i'm just daft and don't understand, but who in their right mind would want to see a glamour picture of me? It always made sense to me to represent yourself as one of your creations - even if its a caricature of yourself - at least that shows something of what you're about - not that you can pull a sexy pout?
Anyway, that runs a little close to a gripe, well, actually its just something that has bewildered me for a long time and now all you good people that are taking the time to read my blog have just had me waste five minutes of your time with this useless dribble.
Apologies - I promise I'll go draw something and get back on track :)

Fable 2 character rendition

This game is so cool. The girlfriend is currently monopolising the game (hehe :) ) so i thought i'd take the opportunity to do an overly dramatic representation of my character. Hmmm...i can still hear her playing in the other room...

Fable 2 released

Picked up my preorder release of Fable 2 on Friday (this may be one of the reasons for the lack of entries on my blog lately!). Sooo Cool.
Sure the critical could pick their share of flaws with the game, but for me it is awesome! It has a real storybook charm, great art style and a really quirky sense of humour! Over the last few months during the countdown to release i have also been submitting some fan art to their sit which is posted in their gallery on the website. To check out the gallery go to:
http://community.lionhead.com/photos/fable_2_fan-art/default.aspx

Here are some samples of the stuff i submitted

Spawn : Endgame contest results

And so the voting closes on the endgame comp. Was a real blast to make it to the topt 25 with 2 of my buds, Brad and Yves.
Yves represented our studio with flying colours pulling in 166 votes and finishing 4th. I think I ended up 16th with 33 and Brad 19th with 11.
Personally I think Brad should have polled a lot higher but i guess thats the internet for you. I'll admit to being a little surprised by the winner but conrats to them for the awesome job they did on their sculpture. The quality of the entries was fantastic and i certainly would have found it difficult to pick a winner.

No Life Drawing class..

Turned up at class tonite to find it cancelled. Fortunately we were able to drwon our sorrows with a pizza. Mmmmm...pizza.

Can't really think of anything worthwhile to write tonite (some may say that's never held me back before) so i think i'll call it a nite.

Strange ole day today...
Had it's ups and downs. Nothing of stand out note today.
Spent a little bit of time on the latest darksiders fan art.
Here's the progress (really early stage)...

A good start to the week

Well it seems my good weekend has rolled over into Monday. I love it when the first day of the working week kicks off well. It sets the tone for the rest of the week (at least I hope so! :) ).
After 4 or so weeks of drawing modelling specs and making comments on model prototypes in a mad rush (why are we always so disorganised?) for the latest toyfair, I finally got the opportunity to sink my teeth into some conceptual layout sketchs and even more refined pack art.
They say a change is as good as a holiday, so for the time being this will definitely satisfy. Now if i can just get some time allocated to render the sucker i'll be over the moon!
Meanwhile on the home art front i have been doing a little more progress on my latest Darksiders fan art. I have a bad feeling this lil baby is starting to go pear shaped. It getting a lil noisy and i've already had to knock the buildings back. Let's see what colour brings to the party?...

The little things

I am a very easily amused and pleased individual sometimes it seems!
My folio just got a mini spotlight on CGsociety as one of the popular folios.
Its not a huge spotlight but i think it usually means the folio is getting some decent traffic through it. I think at last count it had 66541 views and was on 76 favourites lists.
It all helps and its all very encouraging.
Shanx for checking out my folio people!!!

Home studio starts to take shape

Its been a pretty good weekend. Wall-E was awesome, Bathurst was on, and my new desk and filing cabinet arrived for my home studio. So for most of the weekend i've been putting together furniture, configuring the studio, updating the folio and just generally getting myself into serious gear.
I'm loving the new setup. Truckloads of desk space, a more ergonomic layout, dedicated drawing board space and just a whole new professional feel to the room. Since we bought the house in June i've been itching to get this studio set up and running and now it finally feels like progress is being made.
It's amazing how something like this can blow out the cobwebs and envigorate you.
Yep, its been a good weekend!