Mystra Inc HQ

Arrghhh... too long between posts!

2011-03-25T19:44:00.002Z

Hopeless aren't I? Ah well...
I used to love a good blog... now I really don't feel like it so much! Maybe before I had the goal of using it to help me get a job... now i have a job!

Ok... enough explainations and here's an update!
I now have an awesome job as a games designer, and I can't believe I've been living in London for over a year... how crazy!!

Mike has a job here too :D So everything is going brilliantly.. this time over a year ago I wouldn't have ever expected this, I feel so priviliged to be this happy, I hope that doesn't come across as smug - I've been through SH1T before and hated hearing about how well people were doing... so feel free to growl if things aren't rosy your end, I've been there, and one day you'll be in my postion, and it'll feel all the more awesome!!!

I've got 2 corn snakes now, Betty (who now eats like a pig! Thanks Charlton Reptiles!) and Sanchez. Both adorable little scaly buggers!

That's about it!

Snakie updat-ie

2010-10-15T19:52:00.000+01:00

Well week two of being a snake owner... it's going ok...
We tried to handle him for a little while before feeding on Sunday - bad idea. He was a bit nervy still and super wiggly - still so small too! Turns out we should have just tried to feed him and work on handling another time. He didn't eat sadly, we warmed a pinky up and tried to entice him with it on the tongues, then tried braining it - which made him slow down and more focused but it was as if he didn't know where it was or what made him focused. So we left it with him over night in his feeding tub, still there 24 hours on. I knew what I was buying into when I took the little dude on, so I know this is just the start of my worries and if I just calm down and relax it'll work out, for better or worse.

It's not put me off snakes anyway! When this one gets more independant and older I defo want to get another, the other corn owners were right - one isn't enough!! I'm still besotted with the adult I met when i got this hatchling, so once the fish get a new tank I'll see what 2nd hand vivs are about maybe... :P

Another overdue update...

2010-10-09T12:30:00.000+01:00

Oh god... I am officially the world's worst blogger now...the shame of it...
Well, I did some freelance work recently...which is not easy when you work full time too eek! For a fishing blog called Robocarp, he wanted a semi-robotic fish...so that's what he got!

In other news, I am the proud owner at last of a baby corn snake! It's a sweet little black and white (or anery to the experts!) snake and it's so tiny! The only problem is that it hasn't had its first feed yet, but otherwise it is very bright and healthy, once it's feeding I'll be letting out an enormous sigh of relief. I don't know if it's a boy or girl either, so I have a load of names in mind but will wait until it's more healthy and can be properly sexed. Fingers crossed it pulls through and grows into a healthy strong boy or girl snake! Here's a really bad picture until it's settled in and I can handle it properly :D... apparently I'm the only person the breeders had seen it not go for!

I may actually learn how to sew...

2010-08-10T20:42:00.000+01:00

Apologies once more for the epic gap between blog posts... currently kicking myself trust me! Got a few creative type things on at the moment, which is pretty awesome!

Having these lonely nights of boredom is getting me into all sorts of mischief... doing lots of drawing but unfortunetely nothing digital and i don't have a scanner yet to scan in my doodles :( Trying to get one that is wireless, one of those all in one jobbies, but turns out most of them only print wirelessly, but you have to plug them in to scan.... argh! Also need a new mac, working on a laptop is a real pain when you're at a desk, it over-heats too much to have on my lap!

Now onto the picture and the whole sewing thing. Anyone who knows me well knows what really grinds my gears - awesome tshirts only in men's sizes! Mainly on the high street really, there's lots of awesome new tshirt stores online that do men's and women's sizes in all the designs, trouble is they're mainly based in the US meaning the postage is expensive. TruffleShuffle is awesome, but all the cool designs are for boys.... booo! Primark always has some cool tees in the men's section and they're ridiculously cheap, extra small fits me sometimes luckily but it's mainly luck whether its a nice fit or not. So on my Google voyages I went looking for ideas on how to make a men's tshirt fit me, and also to salvage some of my fave tshirts that are looking a little out of shape, small etc... and i stumbled on two awesome books!

Generation T - Beyond Fashion 120 Ways to Transform a T-shirt

and 99 Ways to Cut, Sew, Trim and Tie Your T-shirt into Something Special

Both these books have restored my faith in clothes! The nearest I'd eve got to customising shirts would be to cut my tees that had srunk in a wide off the should boat neck so they would have a bit more length after my Mum shrinks them in the wash, but these books take it to a whole new, yet easy enough level! Check out their respective sites/blogs on the links above for some ideas!

Got a couple of shirts over the weekend, an awesome yet huge men's tee from Primark with a David Bowie-esqu lion on the front and a superbly awesome small but still too big and very unflattering Iron Man tee from Play... will keep you posted on how those turn out...hopefully not to shreds! Mike's bringing a few with him next time he comes down that don't fit him any more too, yay!

Big news of the week is... Mike, my boyfriend, finally has a job in London so he'll be moving in permenently in three weeks...WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!! :D

Pyschadellic invite design

2010-07-14T21:44:00.005+01:00

Was approached by someone at work the other day to create an invite for his girlfriend's 40th birthday party...

After speaking to her on the phone, turns out I'll be taking a really different project to the stuff I've been doing for a while. It's been years since I did anything for print for a start! So with Mike's help setting up the bleed etc, I got stuck in and back to my roots of event type promo graphics, AKA invites!

She found an image of a kaleidoscope pattern she really liked, however of course I couldn't just rip it off the web (I have morals and it would be low res anyway). So i created a kaleidoscope pattern in Illustrator. Seriously I thought my eyes were going to bleed! Once you work out the technique it's not too bad, but it's proven to me that my current set-up is bloody awful. My Macbook Pro gets too hot, my desk is too small to fit my laptop and tablet in the same space, so the tablet goes on the keyboard slidy-out thing underneath, but the laptop screen is still too far away and it's killing my eyes. I need an iMac now, I have a proper desk so I don't need a computer than can be packed away. But I don't know if I'd get enough for the MacBook Pro to be able to afford a new iMac... anyway.

For the reverse of the invite she gave me 25 photos from her life to make into a collage, she wanted a pic with her three kids to have price of place in the centre. I was going to make a cut-out style collage but I think they can look tacky unless you spend forever and a day on them, so I went for a more clean-cut approach with everything in different size boxes with white frames around, I'm quite pleased with it and guessed the layout right first time..I had visions of running out of space!

The of course I added some funky text and put the venue details etc on the back with a black background to make it look quite chic. So there you have it! Quite pleased seeing I'm a bit rusty on the old print work... i much prefer digital stuff... printers are so fussy!

This is just the front, I figured seeing as they are her personal photos it would be a bit of an invasion of her privacy to post the back section up. The pattern is what took most of the time anyway, I'm quite pleased with it!

Sorry for the lack of posts!

2010-06-20T21:23:00.000+01:00

Oh my goodness, has it really been this long? My last post was at the beginning of March and now it's mid-June... good grief!! Well, I'd better fill you all in...

I finally got a fantastic job offer in London for an online bingo company and moved down at the end of March, which meant lots of house-hunting and moving and all sorts of other preparation, leaving no time to breathe, let alone draw or blog!

While it has been a great move and experience, I did feel very 'uprooted' and had to focus all my creative energy into my job, to make sure I gave me very best everyday. However now I feel more settled, there is more creative energy that I can use again for my own work! I'm still finding it hard to get back into the habit of making sure I do lots fo creative things, and it's a slow process. At least I have a job now, so I'm not forcing myself so much to make sure I impress potential employers etc, but still I love what I do, sometimes I can get lazy.

Anyway, the latest work is going back to doodles and designs by hand with my faithful biro. One fateful night may have finally sealed the deal on the design and look of Mystra herself. I feel like she's been sat in my head unabe to escape onto paper, then one night she did! It's not a very good drawing but the design is there and I feel so much better for it. Just need to practice drawing her and get comfortable with the design, so I can be confident with her in more finished coloured work.

Attack of the little traders!

2010-03-08T19:21:00.002Z

Was approached by Localtraders.com to create some character illustrations for their website, they're finally finished and on their site for all to see!
Localtraders.com is basically a website where you can search for reputable tradespeeople in your area and then get quotes for whatever job you need doing - so you can pick the best deal. They had already bought some illustrations on Shutterstock, and tried to get hold of the artist to commision some more but had no response from him. So a few of them aren't the ones I did. It was quite hard to recreate the exact style so you couldn't tell it had been done by a different illustrator, you'd expect it to be easy just copying someones style but it's very tricky!

Please note the bottom group illustration contains the other artists' work as well as the ones I did.

I'm really pleased with them though, the little buggers are quite cute!!

Fishing and hippy stuff...

2010-03-06T22:18:00.003Z

Now it's not often I get too over passionate about environmental stuff... i probably have a carbon footprint the size of a small continent and forget the turn the lights off all too often.

But I've always had a bit of a thing for the ocean, and of course the amazing creatures living in it. As a kid I stopped eating fish for a few years when I found out that dolphins were being killed by trawlers etc. I eventually started eating fish again (not sure why - I aren't really a massive seafood fan).
But I just watched a really eye-opening documentary on Channel 4 - End of the Line. It was about over-fishing and how we're basically going to run out of main fish we eat before the end of the century.

Now when programmes about battery farming of chickens came on TV there was uproar. In fact in general we're getting better about being aware of where our land-based meat comes from. Laws are in place to make sure livestock is killed humanely and treated well while it's still alive. It's not perfect of course but nothing is. At the end of the day when say a pig is slaughtered its done pretty quickly. And that is life - the food chain and I believe in it strongly, although standards need to get better in some areas. But no-one bats an eyelid as thousands of anchovies are dragged straight out of the sea, gasping for water then processed in a giant mincer whilst still alive. Hell, I even know vegetarians that eat fish! Since when we the fish we eat not alive? We treat them as some sort of endless crop, and basically the ocean is getting messed up.

Countries in Africa, where the trade of the people is too fish, both to sell and eat on a small scale where there is no more disruption than a shark eating its fill of other fish, are having their fish stocks completely removed because of massive corporate super-trawlers. Massive nets which catch everything, not just the fish they want but sharks, dolphins, even whales - all of which not only die but get thrown back in to rot. It's insane. The programme showed that lots of fancy restaurants here in the UK serve endangered fish, would they serve an endangered land species? No because apparently fish isn't meat. It's not a vegetable is it!

The trawler boats on the coast of Senegal on the documentary were enormous - image a cruise ship with nets! The people there could barely fish enough to feed themselves and the government allows the ships there for some sneaky money.

Now I honestly don't eat that much seafood, but I admit to enjoying a nice cod from the chippy or a fish finger sandwich now and then. But now I quit. Even my goldfish have to quit! Turns out their food is made from mushed up live anchovies (incidentally wild anchovies are caught and processed to feed farmed fish - rendering fish farms utterly pointless!), will have to find some friendlier fish food for them- I'm pretty sure a 3 inch goldfish isn't going to eat an anchovy in the wild! I'm not saying everyone should stop eating fish - it's part of our natural diet - but we need to consume less of it if that makes sense?

Meanwhile can someone send me a trip to a coral reef - there was a guy in the Bahamas on the programme who spear-fishes and they showed him swimming past the reef in order to get to his fishing spot. At least he catches his fish fair and square.

Sorry for the environmental rant - but sometimes I think things have to be got off the chest and I haven't had much chance to do any illustration work, I'm not normally a tree hugger but this really grinds my gears as they say!

Look at this Mess!

2010-02-28T21:59:00.002Z

Yes look at it! Look at this Mess is Mike Messina's blog. Mike Messina would be my boyfriend...
And now he's actually started posting things on his blog, I encourage you all to check him out! He's one of the most talented graphic designers I know, and not just because he's my other half. He kicks ass at typography design most of all, loves his hand-drawn stuff too. He has a proper website too here, which will be changing in a few weeks, but the old design is just as nice as the new one will be. Go! Now!

Website... I has one!

2010-02-21T20:20:00.001Z

Top of the list of things I thought I'd never get round to sorting out after the hectic past few weeks!
But at last Mystra-inc.com is live! OK it's just a holding page for now, there's still long way to go for the illustrations and character design stuff that makes up the site, but after the next week I can concentrate on them more, just got some freelance work to concentrate on first. Bills to be paid etc! But check it out anyway, good times!

CV Printed...for now

2010-02-18T22:08:00.000Z

Printed some copies of my epic CV...
But forgot about pesky bleed and all those other bothersome print technicalities.... so it's a bit wrong. But decided to get the next lot printed professionally. Ink for that printer costs an arm and a leg, and it takes so long because it's so temperamental. It's an Epsom Stylus Photo 1400. You'd think having an A3 printer would make life easier but it really doesn't seem to!

So gonna splash the cash and get my folio re-printed professionally as wel as a million copies of my CV, I think it'll be worth it. Mike got me some rough prices from a printer he uses at work, and I was very surprised. It'll be better finished and less stressful, and I wont have to sit and cut the block out at the front a million times! Mike did these for me though, and I thanked him with a selection of Jamaican condiments and also cookies. Sorry for the rubbish quality, my camera's dead so did it on my phone... but you get the idea!

CV PDF fun and games!

2010-02-17T19:01:00.002Z

Yes I'm still working on the CV...
Started to print some folio pages off first last night...then we realised it wasn't actually A3 paper at all, some crazy B size... didn't notice until I tried to put one of the sheets into a folio sleeve hehe...d'oh!

Meanwhile I just put together a downloadable version of my CV, design to be just one page, can be viewed on screen or printed out for quick reference on 2 A4 sheets or one A4 landscape. Or A3 obviously but no-one has easy access to A3 printing obviously!

If you want a copy of the PDF get in touch with me via comments, Twitter and all the other ways!

Working hard!

2010-02-16T19:46:00.001Z

I'm busy working up a sweat on my new CV to send out to various games and animations companies, feeling the stress at the moment...
My old CV wasn't really very eye catching nor creative, so this new one promises to be more exciting! Basically I'm printing it on A3 and folding it in half to make an A4 booklet thingie, but the bottom half of the front bit will be cut off, and will show the illustrations on the page underneath, where I've put a random selection of characters and illustrations. The writing runs across the two top halves inside, with full contact details on the back, but my phone and email is on the main bit too as it's the most important bit of course!

Going over to Mike's house as he's better with typography and layouts and I just want him advise me a bit and fiddle with it til it's perfect, them I'm leaving him to print and fold it etc because I am AWFUL at that. my printer hates me... probably because I abandoned it at Mike's because there's no room in my tiny shoe box room at my Mum's house! But he's really good at paper and printing and stuff like that, in return I'm putting his website together in a couple of weeks.

But this is what we have so far, will upload a photo when they're actually done so you can see how it works in the flesh as my explanation is terrible! The shaded or black parts are where the cut out part is.

Front and back... Obviously there wont be a dirty great outline around it but you wouldn't see it on here properly otherwise!

and the insidey part...

New Logo

2010-02-14T23:07:00.000Z

Is not this. This is the old one...
This is the new one, after much deliberation, I think this one suits me and what I do best. Oooh and I've done a new blog header. Shiny.

I just think the od one has had it's time, it's serviced me well the past year or so, but we can't stay the same forever. Plus it doesn't read well when small. Meanwhile I will be designing some nice shiny business cards and CV type promo stuff, and who knows maybe even my website!I'm really busy so just wanted to at least stick the new header up and launch, but the rest may have to wait, I have some work to do for real actual money and a very important week coming. Less said the better though!

Happy Valentines...

2010-02-14T19:38:00.001Z

Here's a big wet slobbery kiss for you all...!
I promised my watchers on DeviantART that I would work the retro pic of Mystra and Rover for Valentines day, so here we are!

I got a birthday card for Valentine's day hehe, Mike thought it was a better card than the stupid red ones with teddies and roses on, it's a Star Wars card. He knows me so well hehehehe...

Ah yes... you have indeed spotted the new logo, you get a cookie!

Bleuuuuurrrgghh

2010-02-10T21:41:00.000Z

Apologies for the lack of activity of late, I've been lurgied up to the eyeballs!
Basically woke up on Saturday morning at stupid o'clock feeling like someone had decided to kick me to bits in my back, side and stomach. Spent all day in agony and managed go to the doctors, turns out to be a nasty kidney infection, gave me some anti-biotics and was told to take paracetamol for the pain.

Come Sunday however I was a wreck, couldn't even take a sip of water without throwing up (nice). For some bizarre reason I thought if I went to work on Monday I'd be ok seeing as I'd get some fresh air. Erm no. Threw up 4 times (which is a pain seeing as the loos are upstairs in a dimension where heat doesn't rise and the floors upstairs are freeeeezing!!). Went home at lunch time, had nap. Still felt dreadful. Went the doctors again that day and they say it's all normal with these tablets... huh?!?!!?!?!? what's the point in that then? Surely my body would need to be strong to fight infection so why give me tablets that reduced me to an anemic lettuce leaf!?

Seriously though, haven't felt that ill since I found out I was allergic to penicillin (another story kids). Drugs are baaaaad! Managed to start eating last night and have felt much better for it, so fingers crossed I can go back to work tomorrow, as I'm kind of at that stage where I'm feeling ill just from being inside. Work's been good though, been doing work at home as much as I can, so I haven't been too bored, although it was hard yesterday when I kept falling asleep! I'm not 100% but I reckon a bit of fresh air tomorrow and normality I'll be just fine. And will post some new work. But obviously I need to do new work! One day this will all be so EPIC!

In other news my boyfriend Mike has a blog but I'm not telling anyone anything until he starts using it properly!!! xx

Developing Mystra some more...

2010-02-03T22:11:00.001Z

Yes I know I'm supposed to be picking a logo but there's a Mystra monster to be created!
Simply took the sketch I did last night and worked it to death in Photoshop as ever, good practice with the Wacom too of course. She's finally starting to look right now, cheeky but fierce is a hard look to nail down you know! I wish I could call this a speed paint, but it wasn't very speedy *slap*.

The line work admittedly isn't my best, stil fiddling with new brushes in Photohop since it deleted the ones that I had just right *aaargh*. Really should have saved them somewhere else or at least made a note of the settings etc. And looking at it the shadings pretty shocking, but I did rush that art, I really wanted to see the basic workings of it as a digital picture, as a lot of my biro sketches, once drawn up digitally seem to fall flat on their faces! Over all though, there's definetely progress, and you can really imagine this character drawn next to Rover in a finished piece, not just a biro doodle.

Tonight's work was brought to you by the Superbad Soundtrack, which I can honestly say is like someone pouring melted awesome down your ear and tickling you at the same time. And the first track is very apt "Whatcha drawin' baby?" haha, ok so it's the track at the end where there is a unique art gallery during the end credits. Hilarious.

Character developments...

2010-02-02T23:28:00.003Z

Sorry things have been a little quiet of late, and I'm also including myself in the apology there. The lack of activity is definitely against my new years resolution to be creative all the time and always drawing or practicing or something!
Over the weekend I was mainly working on the logo/CV, well the whole branding shebang, definitely feeling out of practice for things like that so I need to be doing it I guess! I think I've almost come to a decision regarding my logo and hopefully things will spin off in a crazy fashion from there!

Last night was spent with some friends with some possible freelance animation work in the pipeline so I guess thats not too bad an excuse for not working.. but still slapped wrists all round. So tonight I've made sure to sit down with my sketchbook and Wacom and just draw. Nothing exciting came from the digital work, more of just some warm up doodles and scrawls, but sorted out part of the piece I'm working on for my Twitter page. Realised I wasn't quite happy with it, luckily while it was still in sketchy layout stage.

Sketchbook wise I did a good character sketch for Mystra... but I'm too snug in the duvet to go to the scanner in the living room, so it's just a web cam image. I think her overall look is starting to come together. Apart from the chin where a bit of a mistake appears to be turning into some sort of beard. I made a massive folder of female characters by various artists I like in my DeviantART favourites collection, which is great for inspiration and its really helped I think.

Other than that next time I saw I've got creative block throw something at me and scream "PUT SOME BLOODY MUSIC ON!" because seriously, music solves it every time! I'm not even a great collector or critic of music really, more into films really, but I just find it really does help. Tonight I've been listening to the good old Radio Soulwax/2ManyDJs mixes, which is like eating lots of sugar and banned food colouring!

Logo attack...

2010-01-29T20:24:00.001Z

Been working on new CV and logo today... it is epic...
I can't quite get what I want... I'm not sure I know what I want haha! I am very out of practice with graphic design to be honest... been getting help off G as he is a design genius (thank you!!). Will be some time I think... then there's the rest of the branding in terms of how everything else will look, after branding goes way beyond just a logo!

Time for a re-brand?

2010-01-29T12:28:00.001Z

After deciding that my CV is a bit rubbish in terms of layout, I've been thinking about pretty much everything ever. It has also put me a very bad mood! It just feels like it's all snowballing...
But maybe the timing is right. The CV obviously hasn't worked so far (yes I know I have a job, but it's not really in the field I want to be in - my boss was the one that told me all this!). My online presence at the moment it just this blog, Youtube and DeviantART and Twitter all things that are easy to re-brand. A re-brand would be a much bigger job had I already done a website.

In terms of re-brand obviously, it's mainly the logo. I love the speech bubble and will keep that, but I don't like the text/font so much anymore. I'm currently playing around with that whole text/speech bubble combination. The current font, doesn't read so well, and just lately doesn't feel very 'me'. I've had a it a while now so I guess while it's a pain in the bum, it's time to move on and change for the better.

My boss made me read some weird motivational book about cheese...it was cheesy... I am trying to prove I'm not as lazy as I look. Now he'll go on about the book working. Oh good god.

Teeny weeny RAWR!

2010-01-27T22:14:00.002Z

Someone on DeviantART suggested I draw a baby Rover... so I did...

However my tablet and or Photoshop seem to hate me! Photoshop deleted all my customer brushes and settings, and the tablets lags really badly when I draw/paint with it. So tonight has not been very productive in terms of tablet practice at all! Mind you this pic was more for a bit of fun, so I aren't going to take it all too seriously.

Hopefully going to get the Mac's RAM upgraded when I get paid at the end of the week, it really doesn't like running certain programmes at the same time, which is annoying because I like to listen to iTunes while I work. Ok so I could just listen to the iPod separetely but the shuffle function is better on iTunes on the actual Mac (iPod mixes up bits of mixes, I have these in a seperate folder on the actual Mac so they don't get played on shuffle and make no sense lol - this doesn't apply on the iPod). I have a MacBook Pro, which is about a year and a half old (not the latest model), but it doesn't seem to last anywhere near as well as my old one did. My old iMac is 9 years old and still runs well enough for its low spec, I only upgraded the RAM once on that so I could run CS2, the RAM died and the Mac lived on. Then I came into some money and decided it was time for a new Mac, and opted for a laptop, seeing as now living back at home, and my Mum buying her own Mac, there was nowhere else to put a desktop computer.

Anyway here is a baby Rover, massive head and googley eyes, dribble and gangley legs, bless.

Retro fun!

2010-01-24T21:48:00.001Z

I'm a huge fan of retro cartoon style art, especially Shane Glines...
As you may have seen in the previous post, I doodled a 'cartoon retro' style Mystra and Rover, just for fun. So for more fun I did a proper version of it in Illustrator. Ah good old Illustrator... I haven't used it properly for ages now, I used to be obsessed with it! Now I use Photoshop more and draw freehand rather than with vectors... but there's no denying it, a bit of vector works wonders with this style of art! So we get a pin-up girl Mystra with a uber-goofy Rover.

Be warned...those boobies aren't mine in real life!

More biro madness

2010-01-24T15:25:00.000Z

Here's some sketches I did over the last couple of week but hadn't got round to uploading!
Still working on the general look and design of Mystra, still not sure if I've cracked it yet! Argh! But still I'm enjoying the project anyways and even did a silly 'Cartoon Retro' inspired version of Mystra and Rover.

Om the Nom

2010-01-21T23:22:00.000Z

Oh yes another Rover picture... I bloody love drawing him though!

Plus he's a character I am confident drawing, so he's ideal to practice drawing with the Wacom. Tried out some new brushes, had a play with the brush settings along the way. I think I'm getting better with it... I hope!

Meanwhile Rover has just discovered his own tail, which looks like something he might like to eat. Raptors are supposed to have been quite intelligent...

Slobber

2010-01-21T17:12:00.000Z

Another quickie-ish drawing of Rover, wanted to draw a colour image of a different angle.

Looks slightly skee-wiff... not sure, but I really like how I drew the slobber, I think the effect worked nicely just by keeping it simple and blobbing the digital paint action around with a bit of transparency. My line work still leaves a lot to be desired still but I think I'm getting there... well I hope so!

Mystra's Machine Mk II

2010-01-19T23:46:00.002Z

Decided to re-use the line-art from the picture I drew for Ben, and turn it into my Ka, I really like the angle and thought it would be good to use for colouring practise...
This time I went for a more cel-shading style, which is trickier than I thought, especially as I was testing out a different nib on my Wacom pen, horrible hard nib but with a spring in, the pressure it a pain and it's slippy like the normal nib. Think I'll go back to the felt nib for definite now!

I think I'll use this lineart again as part of one f the images I'm hoing to create for the upcoming website, I want to have Mystra and Rover speeding away from a T-Rex in it. Living the dream lol.

Redsauce.com Homepage Animation

2010-01-19T17:47:00.000Z

I've finally finished my Flash animation for Redsauce.com, hooray...from me and my boss haha!!

My boss just wanted to liven up the homepage with a little animation to replace one of the pictures that was their originally. I wanted to illustrate what we do here at Redsauce.com (in a very basic way). It starts with SEO and it grows from there, our trademark tomato grows and falls, gets 'found' by social media and connected, helped along by the 'tools', goes into the 'search engine' and the best content is extracted. The juicy content gets passed around and fills up our Redsauce bottle.

It was great fun to do, I love animating in Flash, I know some people can do loads more with Flash, but I like to just animate with it for things like this, but still i always like to learn more!

Check it out here.

Toy fox

2010-01-16T14:22:00.001Z

Drew a fox for some more practice on the Wacom...

I just felt like scribbling out an funny looking fox on the old tablet.

He's not meant to be a real...as I was drawing I was thinking about the book "The Velveteen Rabbit". So i guess he's a similar thing, a toy that's alive. Hence the funny legs and large head and beady eyes. God that book makes me cry. Read it if you never have, it's a childhood classic.

Tablet kitteh is not amused

2010-01-15T23:12:00.003Z

Just drew a cat, trying out different things on the tablet that i still feel distinctly rusty with...

Going for more of a painted chidlren's storybook look with this one, rather than all the lines and other style I've been doing lately. Style being a very loose term here. I do however think the right ear is spot on, which is probably it. Over-all I think it looks good small... it looks terrible big...

Either way he's less amused then Trashcat

G is for....

2010-01-13T22:35:00.001Z

IAMPAULGILBERT!!

OK that makes little or no sense, but I implore you to go and visit his blog...
He's a great designer and a ye olde friend of Mystra's. Ah I remember his political campaign... the one that I did behind his back and he found plastered everywhere...the good old days. Oh god... we're old enough to have good old days. AARGHH!!!!

Daily Deviation

2010-01-12T11:17:00.000Z

Just as I'm saying "ooh isn't it nice how Sulk got so many fav's on DeviantART"...

I logged into DeviantART, wondering why I had loads of "fav" messages for it, then scrolled to the bottom of the homepage to see Sulk there! Everyday people suggest other artists work to be featured as a "Daily Deviation", it's like a daily pick if you wish. Then the staff at DeviantART pick their favourites from what they are sent. And Sulk got picked! I am so excited and pleased, like I've said before I never really thought that much of it as a big deal sort of piece, but people seem to love it! It's now seen by millions of people on one of the main and most viewed pages of the site, which in turn is one of the most popular art sites on the internet. And many thanks to Sarah for suggesting it :). Check it out with the other fabulous Daily Deviations here. Obviously its for Tuesday 12th January, so if you're looking at this on a different day the page will have changed but I know you can look at previous days.

Everyone loves to Sulk

2010-01-11T12:36:00.003Z

I can't believe how popular this illustration is getting on DeviantART. It's been 'favourited' by over 50 people now, which to me is a big deal!
I think I used to really under-estimate it as a piece of work. Originally it was for an exhibition at university, as part of an exchange program with a couple of colleges of art in Japan. I was hoping a trip over with the work we all did might be involved, seeing as the Japanese students came to visit us...nevermind eh!?

But anyway, the theme of the exhibition was "Places and Spaces I Have Never Been". So the illustration is my take on that idea. I was obsessed with the Moon as a kid, I still thinks it's pretty cool now! But it's also a take on the worlds we create as a child and the worlds within our own world, the woodlice have their own world, which we never experience, just because we're far too big. Aside from the theme maybe its just a snapshot of my childhood. And perhaps not just mine, maybe that's appeal, maybe other people see a little bit of the kids they used to be in the image.

Sketching

2010-01-07T11:44:00.002Z

I think I have some sort of mental problem...

Normal artists sketch with a pencil...why am I obsessed with sketching in biro?
I just find them amazing to sketch with, the downside is you can't really rub them out - which is a bit of nightmare for me the Queen of making mistakes on paper (lol another reason I do final pieces digitally!)Yes i know you can get ones that do rub out, but I didn't like them.

Weapon of choice at the moment is either my trusty Papermate Flexigrip elite (1.4) or good old Papermate Stick 2020 (M). I spend a fortune on trying out new nice new pens but I always come back to these. I think its a confidence thing, because I'm using a biro, I know it's not a 'final' piece and I'm more relaxed, and my imagination comes through better as well as technique. If only there were jobs out there for a Biro Sketch Doodler type person lol, my life would be so much easier!!

I tried out a new look for Mystra last night and drew this, I'm not sure if its the way to go yet, but I enjoyed drawing it. I then tried a daft manga version, which then turned into one of those manga cat-girl things, and seeing as I love LOLcats it just ended up getting very silly, but I quite like it!

Feather again...

2010-01-06T22:21:00.002Z

Still practising feathers...
I'm just trying different things out. This time i used the smudge tool more to blend the colours in the feather and to err make it more feathery lol

i'm not happy with the stick vein thing whatever its called, its too big and obvious, when the rest is delicate. But overall i'm quite happy with it.

Just practisin'

2010-01-05T23:09:00.003Z

Just practising with my tablet some more...
Tried out drawing a feather, i have something in mind for my Twitter background, should be fun. And of course another pic of my favourite (and only) Velociraptor. Rover is growling and looking shady... just fancied a change from his usual puppy-like cuteness!!

Gone premium on DeviantART

2010-01-03T23:58:00.002Z

I finally did it, and went premium on DeviantArt!
And I'm really impressed with it, no annoying adverts everywhere for a start! Plus I'll be able do loads with my page using CSS etc when I get chance. Was less than £20 for the year, don't know why I never bothered to be honest!

Check it out here.

Tablet Speedpainting

2010-01-03T19:28:00.004Z

Well we say speed.... perhaps not because they're taking forever...

I'm just pracising using my Wacom tablet fully on Photoshop, not just for colouring but drawing too. I'm feeling a bit epic fail with it all!!

Creative Boom Xmas E-Card

2009-12-21T21:02:00.008Z

The title pretty much explains it… Created for Creative Boom, a national online magazine that aims to celebrate, inspire and support the creative industries throughout the UK and the rest of the world, including everything from music, design and fashion to film, photography and writing.

Basically it’s meant to be Xmas Space Invaders in the style of knitting rather than pixels…making little or no sense….!! Created in Illustrator then animated in Flash. Alhough I’ve never done ‘pixel art’ before, I’m guessing it’s similar to how I created everything. Instead of using a square pixel, I used a sort of ‘v’ shape, similar to the shape of a knitting stitch, to create a knitted look. I think knitting looks very much like pixel art, it’s a very natural cross-over I guess.

Ben's Ka

2009-12-21T21:00:00.005Z

An Xmas present for a fellow Ka forum members boyfriend, an illustration of his Ka Bruce!
I first drew the Ka’s line art in Illustrator, where I tend to use shapes to create lines, rather than just lines themselves. It keeps it more uneven looking and stylised, until I get more used to drawing freehand with my Wacom tablet in Photoshop. I then imported the line art into Photoshop where it was coloured and shaded. Ben’s tagline on the forum is Tarmac Terrorist, so I added that, just to make it look a bit more dynamic than just a drawing of a Ka. He’s might chuffed with it, and I think it turned out tonnes better than the pic I did of my own Ka, I guess practice makes perfect!

Mystra and Rover

2009-11-05T00:31:00.005Z

As you can see that’s Rover on the header… I am creating the characters of Mystra (me) and Rover to form the main identity of my proper website, and for fun…

Rover is my pet Velociraptor, just what I always wanted
Some sketches and stuff from the project so far, including some old ones leading up to newer concept sketches, and some in-between

My Ka

2009-11-05T00:11:00.005Z

Yes I'm a bit of a girl racer, when I'm not drawing (which is a lot lately, having a nasty spot of creative block disease!)
I'm spraying something yellow for my Ford Ka at the moment! So I thought it deserved a picture, it's angry with me because it doesn't look like this at all yet! Well it has the yellow stripes and spoiler now, but I've been painting those yellow mirrors for months! Trouble is when you paint something yellow outside, flies like to commit suicide on the wet paint, then you have to let it dry and sand it down all again, I need a garage!!! Anyway, contrary to Pixar, my car's eyes are its HEADLIGHTS! I just can't watch Cars because of that, I find it really distracting, my bad!

Creative Boom

2009-11-05T00:06:00.005Z

Creative Boom is an online creative magazine, created by Katy Cowan (Boomerang PR). I'm one of the contributors for a few months now and really enjoy it!
I get to write about wonderful things that I find, from illustrators to films, it's great! I recommend you sign up, its growing rapidly and it's always really interesting no matter what your creative area and its great platform to get noticed whether your established or just starting out. It's helped me make some fabulous contacts and new friends, and learn lots about the industry beyond just my fields.

The Adventures of Zephir and Zippy

2009-11-04T23:59:00.006Z

Cool work, sad ending. Created a simple game to a set brief for a job application at Playfish. They really liked the game, but wanted someone more experienced :(

However i had a hoot doing the work, however stressed out I was, it was ace! The brief was to create the character Zephir, an alien bounty hunter and his sidekick Zippy, put them in an alien environment, create the basic game elements; a walk cycle and a shoot cycle (which had to last exactly 0.5 seconds), with a funny, cartoony theme. I created a colourful world made of cheese (lol) and the two characters, Zephir being the secret lovechild of Han Solo and Zapp Brannigan, cocky, smart but lacking common sense, but insanely likeable. Zippy his sidekick is a hyper-intelligent creature who can clone himself and communicate with telapathy, and acts Zephir's moral guide and conscience. Play it here

Character sheets and images from the game.

Bahrain Racer

2009-11-04T23:50:00.005Z

More work with Koko Digital, this time for Gulf Air, and the chance to be involved with an actual online game!
I created the environment for the game, the race-track and surrounding areas, based on the real Bahrain GP track. They were after something stylised but no unrealistic and they were very impressed...so was I for once! Since then the game has been played by over 3.5 million people worldwide! Woooop de woop and so on...! Play the game here.

The race track itself (so I did all this basically, the guys at Koko worked the game magic!)

Koko Digital Work

2009-11-04T23:45:00.004Z

Last year I had the fantastic opportunity to work with Koko Digital. I created some illustrations and helped with some super secret stuff!
Here are the illustrations I created for their website, the sheep character, Lamb-Chop belongs to them, totally their design, I just dressed him up and drew him to fit in with the scenes and fun going on! Koko make viral advertising games, and they basically rock at it, check them out here

My Show Reel

2009-11-04T23:43:00.002Z

My most recent animation showreel currently on my YouTube channel, where you can watch lots of the animations featured there.

Probably due an update, although I haven’t done much animation for a bit, we’ll see.
Music as ever by the fantastic DJ LoDY

Illustrations...

2009-11-04T23:40:00.005Z

Some illustrations... pretty ones! Basically I recently got a Wacom tablet, so I have been practising using it, and did some nice work with it...or so i think...

And also some hand-drawn doodles ...

more old work again!

2009-11-04T23:19:00.005Z

Sorry just trying to post all this old stuff ready for the new stuff!

I made a flipbook once... the animation is the same one used for the opening of my showreel, which I'll post later... I was trying out creating super simple characters, this one featured a squirrel and an exploding peanut!

An illustration for an exhibition - "Places and Spaces I Have Never Been". I looked at the idea of big worlds (the Moon) and tiny universes (the world of insects) in comparison to my own world as a child. How things going on in your world seem huge especially when you're a kid, but there's other bigger things going on, whether large or small.

A picture of my old car, drawn using Illustrator then printed onto crazy looking paper

Some photography, I used these cardboard letters to create some stop motion work and some experimental photography, see the show reel which I will post soooooon!

Some character designs for a music video project, which turned out awful in the end and we do not speak of it anymore lol... the idea was about depression, madness and temptation and something else I'm not sure about, boredom probably...

And some screenshots and character stuff from the Whale animation, where I used Flash to mix photo-collage and hand-drawn animation, really fun! The music in the animation is by DJ LoDY, who is my awesome friendly neighbourhood hip-hop DJ!

More old illustration work...part 2

2009-11-04T01:06:00.003Z

The other chidrens book project was based on the poem Macavity the Mystery Cat by T.S. Elliot.
Below are character studies and some surviving parts of the book which was handmade...all the lettering fell out! I re-did it once digitally putting the type on, but I'm a horrendous typographer and it was terrible!

More old illustration work...

2009-11-04T00:50:00.002Z

Both are childrens book projects. The first was a series of illustrations for the Edward Lear poem, The Quangle Wangles Hat.

Character designs and studies

Finals:

On the top of the Crumpetty Tree

The Quangle Wangle sat,
But his face you could not see,
On account of his Beaver Hat.
For his hat was a hundred and two feet wide,
With ribbons and bibbons on every side
And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace,
So that nobody ever could see the face
Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.

The Quangle Wangle said

To himself on the Crumpetty Tree,--
'Jam; and jelly; and bread;
'Are the best food for me!
'But the longer I live on this Crumpetty Tree
'The plainer that ever it seems to me
'That very few people come this way
'And that life on the whole is far from gay!'
Said the Quangle Wangle Quee.

But there came to the Crumpetty Tree,

Mr. and Mrs. Canary;
And they said, -- 'Did you ever see
'Any spot so charmingly airy?
'May we build a nest on your lovely Hat?
Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that!
'O please let us come and build a nest
'Of whatever material suits you best,
'Mr. Quangle Wangle Quee!'

And besides, to the Crumetty Tree

Came the Stork, the Duck, and the Owl;
The Snail, and the Bumble-Bee,
The Frog, and the Fimble Fowl;
(The Fimble Fowl, with a Corkscrew leg;)
And all of them said, -- We humbly beg,
'We may build our homes on your lovely Hat,--
'Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that!
'Mr. Quangle Wangle Quee!'

And the Golden Grouse came there,

And the Pobble who has no toes,--
And the small Olympian bear,--
And the Dong with a luminous nose.
And the Blue Babboon, who played the flute,--
And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute,--
And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat,--
All came and built on the lovely Hat
Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.

And the Quangle Wangle said

To himself on the Crumpetty Tree,--
'When all these creatures move
'What a wonderful noise there'll be!'
And at night by the light of the Mulberry moon
They danced to the flute of the Blue Babboon,
On the broad green leaves of the Crumpetty Tree,
And all were as happy as happy could be,
With the Quangle Wangle Quee.

by Edward Lear

Life Drawing

2009-11-04T00:09:00.003Z

Some life drawing...obviously

more more old work...

2009-11-03T23:58:00.002Z

Some more old work to show you...
A video I directed/storyboarded/filmed, as an intro to a group presentation. People clapped, it was exciting lol...

Also some posters and illustration work:

Old front cover for my folio, no reasoning behind it ...

Posters for DJ LoDY's gigs :

And a illustration I did whilst slightly drunk and finding myself hilarious at the time!

An animation about a crazy dream I had where I was being stalked by a Killer Whale:

Messing around with stop motion, and looking at the theme of Mischief!

More old work...

2009-11-03T14:36:00.007Z

Another animation project, simply done in Flash. Was part of a theme about 'Praise', I looked at the word 'thank you' in other languages, most of it was utter random rubbish, but this one wasn't...
I simple used the French for 'thank you' - 'merci' and created characters from the letters, the main one being the dot on the letter 'i'. It shows his journey while he tries to find his rightful place in the world, and his gratitude to those who help him on the way. The music is 'I love you Ono!' by Stereo Total.

Some old work first...

2009-11-03T13:50:00.001Z

So the next few posts are here to update everyone with my work to date :)

Here goes nothing...

Akiryuu: An animation project using hand drawn animations of a character I designed projected around a house. The idea was that the character was some sort of spirit creature, who people would be afraid of, but the creature is more afraid than anyone! Akiryuu sort of means Light Dragon in my pigeon Japanese. I think...
Some development sketches

Some photos of the film being made and some screenshots:

And the final video itself of course

good idea or bad idea...?

2009-11-02T14:37:00.004Z

who knows but i need to exist online somewhere besides DeviantArt until my website's done...which is a none-starter right now. I will post something properly later...

Meanwhile here is a dinosaur on a scooter for your viewing displeasure..