Nothing says "Merry Christmas everyone" more than an intergalactic rhino policeman, well maybe a snowman or Santa or something but as a close run thing a Judoon from Doctor Who comes close to spreading Christmas cheer.Merry Christmas everyone!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Judoon - Ink Sketch
Nothing says "Merry Christmas everyone" more than an intergalactic rhino policeman, well maybe a snowman or Santa or something but as a close run thing a Judoon from Doctor Who comes close to spreading Christmas cheer.Merry Christmas everyone!
Monday, December 21, 2009
The Worlds Strongest Man
I've been looking forward to showing off this work for a while and now that its all over various digital TV channels and websites I can tell and show you all about it. Back at the start of October I was contacted by Mainframe a creative production studio specialising in motion graphics and animation for ads, promos and branded creative content. They asked me if I fancied working on a job for Virgin's digital channel 'Bravo' promoting the new series of 'The Worlds Strongest Man', I'd do the drawings and they'd animate it, sounded fun already.
The basic idea was that we'd take five well know strongmen from the competition, Zydrunas Savickas from Lithuania, Phil Pfister from the USA, Mariusz Pudzianowski from Poland, Terry Hollands from the UK and Derek Poundstone from the USA and draw them as super-heroes in the act of some tremendous show of strength. So the first thing for me to do was design their costumes. The brief for the costumes held information on each of the strongmen and also gave rough ideas for colour schemes and ideas to make each outfit fit that particular character.
Shown is the final approved costumes and from there it was straight onto producing the illustration work for each individual scene. I'd receive an email with a sketch and brief outline of what was happening in each case. In most cases it was fairly easy to see what was happening but a quick chat with the people at Mainframe would always resolve any questions and often result in extra reference being sent onto me.
With all the scenes I pencilled the work first for the client to approve and as you'll see from the pencil examples below all the elements in the scenes had to be produced separately. In this case the 'Zydrunas' scene there wasn't actually too many elements to draw. The main figure of Zydrunas himself, the tree he was holding and the background. In the final coloured work the rocky pinnacle he's standing on, the trees and the sky where all separated so that the animators could work their magic on all the different sections.
After approval of the pencils it was a straight forward job to ink and colour the work ready to be supplied to Mainframe. And work their magic they indeed do as I was often sent their work in progress and was always amazed at the effort they'd put into my illustrations to breathe life into the scenes. I'll take a moment now to sing the praises of Mainframe as I found them to be one of the easiest and most appreciative clients I've ever worked with. I feel that for the whole project time was slightly against me and although I've worked long hours before on various jobs I've never felt so involved with an agency that keeps me well informed and is quick to give credit for the work you've produced. My thanks go to Adam Jenns for approaching me for the work in the first place, the animators Mark Warrington and Fraser Davidson for turning my scribbles into animated gold and especially to the producer Emma Phillips who was by far the easiest going and nicest person I've worked with in years. Sometimes a job and the people you work with just click and it definitely clicked this time. I thoroughly enjoyed this work and it would be a pleasure to work with Mainframe again in the future.
Seven scenes and six weeks later and I'd finished all the illustration work. You'll see lots of examples of the pencil work and finished colour work below and of course the 30 second advert that is currently being shown. I've yet to receive some more samples of the teaser trailers etc. so when I do I'll add them onto this post.
All of this work is © 2009 Virgin Media.
The basic idea was that we'd take five well know strongmen from the competition, Zydrunas Savickas from Lithuania, Phil Pfister from the USA, Mariusz Pudzianowski from Poland, Terry Hollands from the UK and Derek Poundstone from the USA and draw them as super-heroes in the act of some tremendous show of strength. So the first thing for me to do was design their costumes. The brief for the costumes held information on each of the strongmen and also gave rough ideas for colour schemes and ideas to make each outfit fit that particular character.
Shown is the final approved costumes and from there it was straight onto producing the illustration work for each individual scene. I'd receive an email with a sketch and brief outline of what was happening in each case. In most cases it was fairly easy to see what was happening but a quick chat with the people at Mainframe would always resolve any questions and often result in extra reference being sent onto me.
With all the scenes I pencilled the work first for the client to approve and as you'll see from the pencil examples below all the elements in the scenes had to be produced separately. In this case the 'Zydrunas' scene there wasn't actually too many elements to draw. The main figure of Zydrunas himself, the tree he was holding and the background. In the final coloured work the rocky pinnacle he's standing on, the trees and the sky where all separated so that the animators could work their magic on all the different sections.
After approval of the pencils it was a straight forward job to ink and colour the work ready to be supplied to Mainframe. And work their magic they indeed do as I was often sent their work in progress and was always amazed at the effort they'd put into my illustrations to breathe life into the scenes. I'll take a moment now to sing the praises of Mainframe as I found them to be one of the easiest and most appreciative clients I've ever worked with. I feel that for the whole project time was slightly against me and although I've worked long hours before on various jobs I've never felt so involved with an agency that keeps me well informed and is quick to give credit for the work you've produced. My thanks go to Adam Jenns for approaching me for the work in the first place, the animators Mark Warrington and Fraser Davidson for turning my scribbles into animated gold and especially to the producer Emma Phillips who was by far the easiest going and nicest person I've worked with in years. Sometimes a job and the people you work with just click and it definitely clicked this time. I thoroughly enjoyed this work and it would be a pleasure to work with Mainframe again in the future.
Seven scenes and six weeks later and I'd finished all the illustration work. You'll see lots of examples of the pencil work and finished colour work below and of course the 30 second advert that is currently being shown. I've yet to receive some more samples of the teaser trailers etc. so when I do I'll add them onto this post.
All of this work is © 2009 Virgin Media.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Merry Christmas, wanna a calendar?
Well, its that time of year and once again I've produced a desk calendar featuring some of illustrations from the past year to send to my clients and also to tempt some new business. The same as last year I can offer a very limited amount of these calendars to the lovely followers of this blog and so if you want a desk calendar all you have to do is post in the comments a humorous answer to this question in no more than twelve words:"I deserve a desk calendar because…"
Then you need to send me your name and postal address to my e-mail. And that's it.
I have a lot less of these calendars to give away this year due to a healthy increase in clients and also a lower print run. This is also only open to UK residents unless if you are overseas you are happy to pay for the postage costs?
Merry Christmas!
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Terminator - Ink Sketch
Some science fiction franchises just don't go away and that'll be true of 'The Terminator' series. The film that started it back in 1984 was directed and co-written by James Cameron and starred Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn and the current governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I won't tell you what its about as you'll already know, like a few other cult (and now 'classic') films 'The Terminator' is now part of the public database of 'things we just know'. Its like how everyone knows what a Tardis is and how Daleks can't chase you up stairs... um, yeah, moving on.The first Terminator film is rightly a classic now and as good as it is it still gets overshadowed by the sequel (no mean feat) 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' which just blew everyone away on its release in 1991 with the 'liquid' Terminator T-1000. Subsequent Terminator films where received less favourably until the most recent film 'Terminator Salvation' (2009) saw a renewed interest in the series.
As an 11 year old kid in 1984 an unstoppable robot killing machine who looked like Arnie was pretty much the coolest thing there was.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Ryuk - Ink Sketch
If you ask me to talk about Manga stories I like then it'll be a very short conversation. It's not that I dislike Manga its just that I feel the market has been flooded so successfully with the genre in the last ten years that I just don't know where to begin. Sometimes though I spot something I like and this happened with the series 'Death Note' by writer Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata. I'll admit that the first time I was aware of the series was through the film adaptions and that led me to seeking out the books.By all accounts 'Death Note' is a highly popular series with various books, an animated TV series and (I think) three films. If I can find another Manga series that I like as much as 'Death Note' then it'll be a good find. The character I've drawn in 'Ryuk' a Shinigami (God of Death) who drops his death note (book) down to Earth where it is discovered by Grade A student Light Yagami. The death note has the power to kill anyone whose name is written into its pages and Light ends up doing a lot of writing. I'll not tell anymore as I recommend either reading the series or watching the films.
'Ryuk' is one of those characters that you shouldn't judge by looks alone and he's a very un-biased being that enjoys a juicy apple. An apple a day keeps the Shinigami at bay!
As a clue to my next sketch I'll say "I'll be back" on Monday, have a good weekend.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Alien - Ink Sketch
More horror movie fun but this time of the science fiction variety. 'Alien' was of course the 1979 film directed by Ridley Scott starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt and a few more trapped in their spaceship 'Nostromo' with an alien superbly designed by H.R. Giger.The film rightly holds its 'classic' title and as you'll probably know has launched a slew of sequels, tie-ins, merchandise and anything else that sells. The first film is just really good, the whole production works well, props and models are great, the alien is great, the actors are great, the music is great and well you get the idea, its great.
My brush pen spat out some extra ink when I was drawing the mouth area of the alien and so it quickly changed to a sort of alien acid drool spit and having just got over a sore throat and slight cough myself it now looks to me like this alien might be coughing up a brutal acid lump from his throat. Its got a good smokers cough on it! "In space no one can here you cough".
Monday, December 07, 2009
Standartenführer Herzog - Ink Sketch
I recently watched 'Dead Snow' which is a Norwegian comedy horror gore film featuring the very popular combination of Nazis who happen to be zombies. Anything 'zombie' is popular at the moment but as soon as you add in the uniform of the third reich then it goes into overdrive.The film itself is very enjoyable if you enjoy comedy horror gore films, the plot is nothing new and once the gore gets going there isn't much to hold it together but your not really watching it for that anyway. The link here is to a YouTube clip from the film if you don't like gore, blood, horror, zombies etc., do not go and look.
Friday, December 04, 2009
The Flood - Ink Sketch
It didn't take me long to get back to a Doctor Who sketch did it, the lure was too strong. The last Doctor Who special, 'The Waters of Mars', featured quite spooky water monsters which where humans infected by something called 'The Flood'. They looked pretty damn scary to me!Thursday, December 03, 2009
Darth vader - Ink Sketch
The 'proper' Star Wars films have been on TV recently and although never really needing a reason to draw Vader watching 'The Empire Strikes Back' last Saturday has definitely fueled my need for the Star Wars of my childhood.Here's Vader doing his pointy finger threatening pose, "See you Jimmy!"
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