Stretch

Christmas Holidays started a day earlier, Nice!!
Back to the daily sketches and doodles... Not sure if I'm going to be able to post as regularly over the Xmas break, but will try to put some stuff up.

Kris Kringle 6

Here we go, all finished.
It felt a little weird to be working with ink and then coloured pencil on paper after illustrating so much in the computer lately. I think I've gotten way to used to that undo tool and the ability to be able to switch off or modify layers.
All in all, I'm fairly happy with the result. I shouldn't fuss over it too much as I don't really know this guy. It's just me being picky. I'm not wrapped with the way the colouring worked out on his clothing, but ahh.
In hindsight, I should've gone with a less textured paper. I was after something with a bit of "tooth", but this probably had too much and I felt just restricted how I worked the colour.
You live and learn...
...and now it's just dawned on me, what has someone else got me?

Kris Kringle 5

Sorry for the delay, had work to do (shock, horror) and my wife's birthday.
Here we go, the inked in version on the final textured stock.It felt a bit funny putting down the inkwork after working on the pencil composition for so long. It's never been my favourite stage, I feel you can kinda "deaden" a drawing and lose some of that weight that pencilwork can get. Usually my preferred medium for inking in has been a black ball point pen. I've used this for a number of years when inking because I've been able to get some nice variation with line weight out of it. It's not particularly black tho' and I was after a darker line. I'll have to try out a brush marker in the future to get some nice thick and thin in my linework.
Now to colour....

Kris Kringle 4

He's not in today, bugger!
Here's another workover over the previous composition that I drew earlier.
I pushed back his right shoulder so that it creates a cleaner line down his back. I lowered his right forearm too and took some of the bend out of his wrist. I think it helps with the overall slouched look to his pose.
I've added the head quickly from yesterday.
...and he's ended up with his face really close to the screen too which is great for that gag. I've spent enough time on him now. Time to transfer him onto the final piece of paper and tie down the linework...

Kris Kringle 3

A bit more playing about here, trying to nail some of his features. There's something quite distinct about his upper lip and his chin under than goatee.

This is a first rough of the pose and composition I'm thinking of for the final piece. I've kept it deliberately rough, so that I'm looking primarily at the shapes and composition and not being seduced by sexy linework(By sexy linework, I mean a really nice appealing stroke or line that may actually be wrong but just looks nice and therefore restricts you from changing it).

There's a few little things here that I'm not happy with, so on a separate sheet of paper, working over the top of this drawing, I will now work at exploring what looks best and what I can improve.

First up, his head- here I'm going to play with pushing the shapes around a bit and seeing what I can exaggerate without straying too far from him being recognisable. As he doesn't appear to be a personality type person, I'm trying hard to nail the visual "look" of him, and the more things I get accurate the better.

I wanted to fill out the back of his head a bit more, and have played around with his chin a bit trying to capture the essence of that, and also accentuating his forehead.

I think with a profile (which I haven't done before as a caricature) you really need to capture the "essence" of the shape that their profile makes. My thoughts with regards to caricatures in general are that you need to capture the shape of the persons head, and then make that triangle that encompasses their eyes, nose and mouth as recognisable as possible as it is those features especially in that small area that we all instinctively recognise- that's what we look at when we talk to a person.

Kris Kringle 2

Here we go, "Live caricature" process...
This is probably also a perfect supplement to my earlier discussions on caricatures.
This is the view I have of Peter Wake from my desk. Not a whole lot to go on, and I don't usually do caricatures in profile. But the info is there at least. I've got to try and snatch looks of him now without giving away what I'm up to. At least with someone you know, you've got an excuse for looking at them, I've got to try and be subtle here, and not give him the impression I'm some sort of weirdo. At least he's in reasonable proximity and I can pretend I'm looking out the window that he sits next to. Exploring some of his features here and trying to catch that "first impression" that you get from looking at him. Also trying to work out what sort of pose I'm going to draw him in. Even tho' he wears glasses and I usually do the cheat with glasses of drawing the frame and whacking dots for pupils in them, he's got these great droopy eyes with bags under them that are just begging to be drawn. He sits right up against his desk slouching back in his chair, and has his monitor up really close; I doubt there's 30cm between the end of his nose and the monitor.
He was looking in my direction at one point having a conversation with someone else, and that was a great opportunity to capture something of the rest of his face from a different angle.

He also does this thing where he leans back in his chair and places his hands on or just behind his head. Having a play with this for a pose, and exploring the 3/4 angle.Nah, profile shows of the closeness of the monitor more than I could get with a 3/4 pose. The arms up also obscure his head a bit too much too.
I feel a bit creepy spending this much time looking at another man and analysing his features.
More to follow...

Kris Kringle

Oh Gawd! The office has decided for the Christmas party to have a Kris Kringle and I've gotten someone I don't know to buy a pressie for. Chances were that this was going to happen anyway, as I don't know probably half of the staff. It turns out the bloke sits across a little way from me. In the throws of asking the receptionist who he was, I quickly whipped up this pic below to check I had the right person. This presented the next dilemma, what to get someone you don't know. This bloke's a programmer who I have nothing to do with during my job.
Then it dawned on me, I could do him a caricature, colour it up and bung it in a frame.
So you'll see some thought processes here over the next week as I try and capture someone I don't know.

Game stuff

Some more concept art from the game, for those tired of looking at naked girls.

Coy

A little less bottom focused today...

Arse

Doesn't it look like I'm an arse-man?

Bigfoot

My next effort on the Gum or Mints theme.
I don't know why I made him pick his nose, just thought it made for a funny pic.

Cop

I came across this great site a few months back where a bunch of artists post their designs on a suggested theme. It's a great way to see how different eyes see the same topic, and the diversity of styles on offer.
Not that I'm part of the group, but I thought I'd play along for a bit of fun, so here's my effort for their first subject- CopI thought I'd go for the highway patrolman look.
Inspired by the iconic highway patrolman Buford T Justice from "Smokey and the Bandit"

Sprung!!

This is getting to be a bit of fun...
I've been wanting to do a bit more drawing for myself and pleasure, and have been trying to set out to just do a doodle for myself everyday.
And cute girls beat monsters and aliens.

Cheeky

More playing about. This time with the new PITT pencil I've picked up.

supposed to be working

Just a random pic, having a doodle while I'm s'posed to be working.
Playing with line and shape.
Why not draw a cute chick?As you may tell, I've never really mastered the art of drawing hair.

More environments

Here we go, some more environmental art from the game. These pieces are from the dungeon sequence, if you couldn't tell.
I was in the midst here of trying to reorganise the production process too, and plan out the environments for the levels.

It's felt a bit odd doing environmental art after so many years on character work and animation. It feels strange spending so much more time on a drawing.

Dogstar preparing to launch

I got word last week that the last show I worked on, an animated series "Dogstar" is finally going to get it's Australian premiere. It will launch on Channel Nine on Tuesday, November 27th in the evening and play Tuesdays through to Fridays at 4.oopm.
For more news check out the show's website or Media World's site which has full details of the series.

Picking back up the pencil...

Well, after all of the excitement of a new baby (thanks to everyone for their well wishes), my paternity leave went by rather quickly and I was back to work.. and then off to Canada after three days to look at the film that we're making a game of and collect up to date Art Assets. That was a bit of a whirlwind, but also a great opportunity to catch up with some of the old Disney crew.
Back at work now with somewhat renewed vigour and a sense of vindication.
Here's a slight change of tact that I've been working on for the last couple of months, creating environmental concepts. The following three images were created in "Sketchbook Pro" and coloured in Photoshop.

Even More Baby Pics

Well, Nicky and Cameron came home a little over a week ago now, in spite of Madi thinking that Mummy's new home was the hospital. Both Mum and Cameron are doing well, and Madi is enjoying pointing out baby boy, Cameron to everyone.
Here we are still in the Hospital giving Cameron a feed.

Daddy having a cuddle.
Home now.
Snuggle time.

At home having a bath.And Madi riding the horsie at swimming during the week.
For those hanging out for drawings, I'll get back to posting some more of them shortly. Have been otherwise pre-occupied.

More Baby Pics

Finally, our little man is out of his humidi-crib and we can give him a cuddle.
Still in the special care nursery tho', but doing very well.



Big sister Madi wrapped with her little brother.