I didn’t realize I haven’t posted an update since the new year. I’ve been really busy at work these past few months and it hasn’t left much time to work on my short film project in the evenings (because I’m pretty well knackered by the time I get home). But I am still plugging along. I’ve got 4 years left until I hit my deadline and I want to see how far I can get.
I’ll talk more about these characters and environments I’ve been illustrating in separate posts once I’ve gotten through creating all of them. For now you’ll just have to look at them and wonder what the heck is up with the blue glowing bits. As always, thanks for looking!
I just wanted to shoehorn this last bit of content onto the site before the calendar rolls over to 2019. Starting this project was a big part of last year’s resolution and I’m proud to be able to say that I stuck with it. As I’ve said in other posts, if you’ve got some sort of creative endeavor in mind, get started right now! Life is too short to not pursue your goals, and who cares how long it takes? Creep along at your own pace and let the project shape you as you shape it.
So this is a first look at a couple of the main characters. Not very exciting I know, but the purpose of these sketches is to capture the general structure of the head, and facial features for the purposes of sculpting them in a 3D software package. So everything is going to look very clinical for a while as I try to nail down things like jaw width, cheek bone angles, eye tilt, hairline, etc. There are 3 more characters that show up in the next scene from the film so I’ll be blocking them out next.
Eventually I’ll be doing expression sheets which tend to be a bit more interesting because they depict the characters going through a range of expressions in order to show how their faces change when they emote. I’m looking forward to those. Anyway… That’s it for 2018. I hope you keep stopping by to check on my progress. As always, thanks for looking.
As I’ve stated in previous posts, this project is something I’ve been meaning to get to for the past 25 years. During those formative years, no matter how many times I got started, something would always come along that distracted me just long enough that, once I returned to the work, I no longer felt that it was good enough and I’d start all over. I’m determined not to make that mistake again. I no longer have the luxury of time that I did in my twenties and thirties. The clock is definitely ticking. Granted I’m hoping that my artwork will continue to improve as I continue to work on the film, but I won’t be starting over at any point. The work I’m doing now will serve as a permanent record of my meager abilities and earnest determination. This is the third storyboard by the way. It’s an aerial shot of a corporate mega-structure designed to dominate the future Manhattan skyline. As always, thanks for looking.
In case you couldn’t already tell, I’m kind of obsessed with cityscapes. So I guess it makes sense that, when I finally sat down and tried to tell a story, it would mostly take place in a near future urban sprawl.
The only problem is the amount of time it takes to accurately render such locales… And I’m not just talking about perspective drawing although I could vent on that topic at length. For the image to be believable, each building has to look like it was designed and built by a different group of people, but still fit with all the other structures into an overall aesthetic that reflects the time period. It’s why Hong Kong looks nothing like New York city…
And as I’m moving forward I’m finding that it really is a lot to consider. So I find myself picking very slowly through the details, trying to find just the right forms, angles, lighting, colors without going overboard and overwhelming the viewer. It’s very humbling and more than a little bit intimidating because I’m such a stickler for consistency in the books, movies, and games I consume. So I have to hold myself to the same standard as I timidly move forward with this project.
I’m definitely in over my head. But I’m also having a ton of fun just pouring love onto the screen with my stylus. I hope you find some entertainment in watching me fumble and flail.
I’ve gone ahead and posted the first storyboard image for my short film in the gallery. It’s also the current header image for the website. The old placeholder artwork is gone. From here on out I’ll only be posting work that’s relevant to the project.
It feels good to finally be getting started, even though that hyper critical voice in my head is telling me that the work’s not good enough and I should just stop now… But that’s nothing new. We go way back, that voice and I. At this point I’ve simply chosen to ignore it and plow on ahead with my little passion project.
Nothing will make you remember you’re running a website faster than receiving the bill for hosting and domain registration. It seems like only a few weeks ago that I updated this site with a few token images and a new blog post…
Nope. That was almost 5 months ago. My how time flies when you’re working a full time gig and renovating your house on weekends.
I am working on a visual storytelling project for this website. I swear! I’m still in the early stages at the moment but I have every intention of documenting its development here on my site. It’s one of the things on my bucket list that I’ve been dying to check off for a while now.
In the meantime, you can always check out my Facebook page. I post work in progress stuff there mainly… The finished stuff will probably show up here eventually but it usually turns up there first.
It’s always humbling coming back to something like website creation after being out of the game for a few years. I managed to get the framework of my artwork page up and running using a few old iPad sketches I did last year.
I experimented with a couple of different gallery plug-ins for WordPress and ultimately wound up settling on one called Modula. I found it to be very easy to set up and configure and I’ll most likely invest in the pro version once I decide to get serious about configuring the final layout.
It’s nice to have a website again… even if there isn’t much point in having one in 2018.
Hi there! I have no idea how you found your way here but, as you can plainly see, at this point I’m still rocking the default WordPress layout and the site is completely devoid of any computer graphics and/or illustrations. But don’t worry, I’m planning on changing that soon.
Since I’m happily employed in my field, this website really isn’t meant to serve as a portfolio/resume for me. It’s more of a hobby. A spot away from social media where I can post photos, illustrations, animations, and small blog entries about whatever strikes me as cool and interesting from around the web.
