So this year has gone fast...

Wow those 3 months went by quickly! I've been so busy I don't know where to start! As always much of my 'real' work is still under wraps until its published but there is some pretty nifty stuff coming out later this year!

Summer LAN (Insomina 46) has been and gone (Sad times) and I had an awesome, awesome four days while I was there and while I didn't place in the costume competition I think i looked pretty epic and I got to wear real chain mail and take some advice on making armour from a guy that made the armour in the movies Gladiator and Braveheart which was cool (lesson 1: Always ask your mum if she knows any armourers. She might). So here are some of the 'making of' pictures annnd the final result as well as some random sketches and updates for your viewing pleasure.

 

Start of the bracers

 

Paper mached bits

 Outfit without armour

 Armour coming together.

 Eva modelling my Demon Hunter hood!

Oh yes, digging the red yes, pokemon tee, tiger onsey and demonhunter 

hood.

 

 And the finished article!

And now some arts

 Won a pint for this ^

 Shock horror a photo of me that I like! I must draw a dragon on it!

 Warmups

January Art Dump

Not much to report, just been generally arting. Doing my best to get good at drawing people, something has clicked recently and people arent quite as hard as i thought and im really enjoying drawing them finally which is nice. Also drew a lot of dragons this month perhaps get them out my system to concentrate on other things :D

Partridge for a friend.

Dragon for ArtOrder

CGHub Chinese dragon challenge

Skyrim Fanart...

Enviro practice,

tl;dr update post. I know you will just look at the pictures :p

So here is an update on just about everything, its been ages since my last post but I've been rather busy - mostly with commission work but also none related stuffs. Like going to the recent UK massive LAN event Insomnia43 (i43) which was held in Telford International Center and attended by over 2500 people that too their own pc (moi included) to play and drink and eat junk food for five glorious days. I didn't win anything but I had an awesome time. Met some new friends and played and watched some epic games of both TF2 and Starcraft2 all in all a great time was had. 


Our Greyhound x Saluki puppy is doing well, she is 6 months old now almost 2.5 stone or around 17 kilos at her last weigh in a week or so ago. Eva is currently making a mess on the rug with one of her chews, for some reason the designers of it thought it would be good to make an edible chew that breaks down into about a million tiny pieces that the dog then ignores completely.

But she seems to be having fun and its keeping her quiet, she hasn't had a lot of excersice recently because its been pouring it down here and she really doesnt like the rain and we havent got a proper coat for her yet because we dont know how big she is going to get though we think she will be around 30 kilos when she is finally finished growing but the jury is still out on how tall she will be. Her paws still look massive on her.

And now the arty stuff: Final image of the Dragon Lair picture, I ended up changing the dragon though I'm still not completely happy with it but I ran out of time and everything was getting overworked so I decided to let it be.

Character Exchange from Deviantart, was lots of fun to do this one.

Industrial landscape thumbs and creature concepts. Was trying to move away a little from the cuddly little mammals I normally do.

Cloud Forest Concepts:

Doodly sketches:

Based on a song called 'The Great Stack of Handa' by Moira Kerr which doesn't seem to exist *anywhere* on the internet. Not on youtube and I cant even find a site that has the lyrics.

However the song and the album have a special meaning for me as it was one of my late uncles favourites to listen to when we were going up to the Lakeland cottage and I remember the smell of the pine trees as we got closer and we would both be humming along to the cd. Well he lost his fight with lung cancer in april, and the cottage had been sold a few months previous to that. So this I guess is dedicated to him, I didn't mean it too look so like 'heavenly' just kinda came out that way.

tl;dr The song is about a small island on the north coast of Scotland that survives on bird eggs and fish and to stop predatory birds they get some men to climb across a rope to the 'stack' and destroy the nests of the predatory birds. Dedicated to Uncle that died of lung cancer in april who loved the Cd the song came from.

21st of July 2011 (omg an update :o )

Firstly, just want to say THANKYOU to everyone that donated for my Race for Life sponsor, I raised over 3x my target - you can see the final total here I ended up walking the 5 kilometers in just over fifty minutes which was a little faster than I had intended but I ended up taking Eva with me.

This is Eva:

Eva was 3 months old when we did Race for Life and is a Greyhound/Saluki cross and despite being tiring she is lovely jubberly and I'm so pleased we got her. She had been to five homes before we got her as the original owners were going to throw her on the street if the rescue hadn't come in time. The next 3 homes fell through as well due to no fault of Eva's. But now she is settled and happy and while I love her being a puppy I can't wait for her to get all growed up so we can get her a coat (Greyhounds need coats because their fur is so short and they have very little body fat) So then I can get her a black or white one and draw Eve from Wall-e on it :D

Artwise I'm a little behind in my updates but its been a rather busy month or so and I don't have a great deal of personal stuff to show for it as i've been working with Eva and doing freelance work. But I finally finished my Demon Hunter picture :D

I also started working on a new job doing some stamps for a stamp collecting game which has been lots of fun so far you can see one of my work here

21st March

Seem to have alternated between very productive days, and less so productive days, going to introduce Sophs to a friends dog this evening. Hopefully everything will go well, then will be another intro with a greyhound after that and she will be ready for meeting a new dog this summer if all goes well. Though shes not too pleased at the moment as she has a little ear infection which means i have to put ear drops in 3 times a day. I've started sneaking up on her when she is sleeping...she has started to suspect me I think.

Artwise:

Some doodles - LOOK! PEOPLE! Ok so they arent great but its a start...

Dragon Rex, I love dinosaurs. Jurassic Park is still one of the best films EVAR!

Annnnd a 50 minute speedpaint that i'm really rather proud of. Came out well.

And a silly doodle to make my sister follow me on Tumblr

7th March 2011

Lots of updates for you today, I had a nice quiet weekend was good to get some lie ins after the crazyness of last week/end. Though Sunday morning Sophie decided to barf all over my blanket, then all over my boyfriend. She seemed proud of herself and even tweeted about it.

So back to the art, another batch of Espers have been released, I finally managed to get a gander at the game on my sisters iphone and was all \o/ I DID THAT! AND THAT! And got far too excited, but its awesome to see stuff I created in a game that people are playing.

Did some more landscape studies too, its been a little while but it was a nice change to go back to a more concepty loose way of working.
First one was based on this image

Did some pixel art too, I've always loved little icons and figured I might as well have a go at it getting the anti analising right is tricksy though.

AND, not i'm not finished. The latest Knight Vision Games cover has been finished and released so here it is:

Then last but not least i've done a little more on Bambi's Revenge, he is looking pretty scary now.

3rd of March 2011

Wooooo Clive is FINNISHED \o/

Am proud of this one!

Wednesday the 12th of Jan

Lots of commission work still which I cant show you all yet but hopefully soon hence the lack of updates. Have also started my driving lessons again as well as housework that I have been neglecting somewhat annnd the yoga that I'm trying to do every day. So its nice to feel productive and kinda makes me wish I had been doing this since I finished Uni, its occurred to me I was just sort of waiting for things to happen and the world doesn't work like that, but working hard and doing a load of studies every day brought work in and hopefully it will continue like this and I will have enough to live off.

Here are some landscapes I did as warm up for some freelance stuff: