First things first!

I'm the realist (lolI'msorry)

Four months is a long time! Hi! A lot of things have happened since I last made a post and even since I last set up this draft haha, where to begin? I'm going to Japan! For seven months! Its not an art position, however it is something I've been trying to do for sometime. In November last year I put through an application to the JET program and I went to the interview for that in January though unfortunately, I was unsuccessful.  Undeterred, I applied for a similar position through Interac: Enrich through Education  and an online application, telephone interview, face to face interview and seminar later, I've been given an informal offer of employment! I don't have my visa through the system yet but I'm confirmed to be part of the August batch of new employees. 

On the fronts of everything else, Printmaking, game design and animation, we'll go with animation first!

After following through with a couple of "animation for beginners" write ups, I got the "Ocarina of Time" Link figurine down off my shelf and drew it, moved it a little and drew that on a new key frame over and over. I didn't quite get as far as tweening the frames but here is how far I got with that project;

Ended up being a little fast when saved out as a gif but that's the gist of it. Of course using one of MMO characters as the base gave me a little bit more motivation to finish it. My second attempt was just off the top of my head so its pretty bad- walking and catching a falling pineapple sounds simple but hah, I feel like I learned a new level of respect for fluid and natural walking and running in animation!

Next up the game ideas that I had back at Animex. I honestly didn't get very far in unity and blender/3dsMax. In RPGmaker 2003 On the other hand, I've been learning it by making a terrible, terrible game about all the weird people in my gaming guild."The secret of the magic percy or sth", never coming to a steam near you! Heh. I've put a lot of thought into how I'd like an exploration or environment driven game to look and feel but my personal abilities using environment generation softwares is somewhat/very lacking. Maybe one day!

Digital work has varied between some studies as above, paintovers as below and further down some concepts and illustration based on the Dragon Age tabletop game I'm running for some friends.

Arah years later - Guild wars 2 style paintover 

The Kocari Wilds - environment concept 

Plaza of Lights - wip from a guild wars piece

The Guardian - Tarot card-esque illustration, first in a potential series.

It really doesn't feel like I've done four months of artwork, my sketchbook practice has fallen to the wayside as of late also, though I'm slowly getting back up to speed! And hopefully I'll get most of these finished in the next couple of weeks before I'm shipped off to Japan :)

 On that note, I'll be starting a Sam in japan blog for my experiences, I'll have the link in here and on facebook for when that happens.

Thanks for reading!

Animex Festival 2015

Its just like being back in Uni...

I've been back in Middlesbrough since Monday for the annual Animex Festival for the lectures and workshops from a whole bunch of really cool people who've made and worked on really cool stuff. From the art directors of Epic Games, Ninja Theory and Atomhawk to artists from other companies like Doublefine, Valve, to technicians and  VFX specialist studios such as Framestore, The Mill and Method Studios...It's been a busy week!

One of the best things about the week is that its incredibly inspiring, especially just after maybe becoming a little unproductive due to the holiday spirit and the new years festivities. I have no real professional interest in becoming a matte painter or a cgi/VFX/3D animation artist but its very interesting to see how they achieved various effects, problems they encountered and how they overcame them.

Four days of this week have been solidly packed (9.30am -5pm) with talks on a wide range of topics such as filming a documentary on Dota, rigging a semi-realistic 3D Paddington Bear model for the recent film, the art of Ninja Theory's Alesandro Taini, an overview on methods for a Producer on a Videogame team, how to give and receive efficient artistic feedback, how Groot was animated for Guardians of the Galaxy, how to create a character's personality though writing before approaching the appearance, Character visual design on Big Hero 6, and practical game design through the creation of Alien: Isolation, creating the sets and the step by step creation of each frame in Studio Laika's Coraline, Paranorman and Boxtrolls, Also the concept art and aesthetic direction of Guardians of the Galaxy from Atomhawk. (To name just a few!)

A delicious side effect of being asked to sit in one space for several hours at a time, was that I could draw in my sketchbook while listening to (often incomprehensible) terms and attempted explanations about motion tracking and facial rigging. 20 pages of sketches which I will scan and upload when I get home next week, though for now here are some low quality photos from my phone.

On Wednesday morning I attended a workshop in creating concept art environments from Dave Paget, I learned a new workflow for early thumbnail generation which I am very grateful for! I didn't resolve the image during the class, as it was only a half day and most of the class was the explanation and demo.

The lower one is just quickly carved out with the lasso tool, and top is painted over a little for more detail. I still like the bottom one more though.

The evenings saw us taking to the bar in the student's union for networking and portfolio reviews with all of the speakers from that day. The response to my work was pretty positive, but I did get some excellent criticism also, due to the various expectations and requirements of the people who I asked.

But I love walking simulators! :D

I was able to think a bit about a plan that I have for a possible personal project, where I teach myself enough script writing in Unity and Blender to create a 3D environment based on my sketchbook and print style. I'm currently playing with a lot of ideas, though I'm almost certainly thinking far too complicated for my current skillset;

• initially black & white with simple exploration as the only real objective
• First person 3D environment, mouse controlled camera, perhaps a webplayer unity or dl 
• Graphical style evolution as you explore - Evoland but with art process- start with sketchbook, end up in a rendered painting environment
• Subtle narrative expressed through the atmosphere and key colours/music, perhaps ingame text 
• Swords & Sworcery kind of exposition - less words more imagination
• Similar kind of experience to non-games/walking simulators Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Leviathan,
• environment develops as you explore, or maybe through a collectible/chest?
• feels like keaton henson/Mogwai/Explosions in the Sky - bleak/contemplative/
•  the line drawing AE test should be how it starts - black screen, white screen, lines draw themselves onto the level shape from the camera starting position and transition quietly into the actual game with no indication that it has begun,
• It could be quite interesting to create the textures through printing, scan them and apply them digitally for a papery look

Now as cool as much of that sounds to me, I don't have any game making experience, I don't know how long it will take me, I can't texture or model (yet) and I don't have any money to fund it (though, if I do it all myself it'll be free right? haha who knows!)

 Printmaking catch-up

Now for a print update, since while this blog has remained un-updated, I've been quite busy at the print workshop in Belfast.

I drew, etched and created a 10 print edition of the Captain Marvel lithograph and then painted over in watercolor to create a varied edition. Its kind of annoying that you can't get very much cool merch for Carol like you can for the other Avengers :( But if you'd like one of these prints for your own, they're available on my Etsy!

I've drawn and printed my 2nd Lithograph, Vigil (the design from the previous post) and unfortunately, I was unable to edition it as I left too much white spirits on the surface and I lost a section of the design. So I had a bit of fun with bleeds and washes on the 3 "error" prints. 

Digital scrapbook - This year so far in Photoshop

                           

Guild Wars 2 fanart

illustration idea

Self portrait

more Guild Wars 2 fanart (paintover)

And a bunch more things from my tumblr scribble tag!

Thanks for reading this far, and if anyone reading this has any suggestions for resources to learn C++/C# (or even recommendations on where I should get started on the whole coding thing, I would appreciate it!)

-Sam

Sketchdump

These past two weeks have been quite busy with my graduation and flying over to England and back within 24 hours, so while I missed life drawing,  I still managed to get some printing and sketchbook work done. For some reason that meant a bunch of unrelated rocks and rocky landscape thumbnails, but it is what it is. 

As for the constellation characters, I've printed the libra design again but with varying amounts wiped back (below);

I've also thought about printing it as a combined etching/lithograph, so we shall see how that plays out. 

Speaking of lithography, for my next stone print I've come up with the design below (the actual stone drawing is different, this is just a rough idea for the design).

And to end off this post, a couple of sketchbook things I quite liked/found interesting. 

Stars over Orr (Litho class #3)

Lithography stone, (ie that big limestone chunk) before printing on Wednesday. Since I'd never printed a litho stone before, I had no-idea how this would print or if it would even print. 

Ink roll up area w/paper and and timpan.

It took a couple of prints before I got the pressure and amount of ink right, but it was pretty interesting. This is how it printed. I really liked how the marks in the sky (made with a big old bent paintbrush; it's bristles had all separated out) ended up, and that the lines from the dip pen printed also. 

I printed an edition of 5 and then levigated the etch on the stone so I'll be starting a new image next week. So far I've changed my idea about 3 times so I'm going to sit down an plan it out this weekend. The name of this print is "Stars over Orr" because its loosely based on the Guild Wars 2 areas with the ruins and gigantic stone arches.  

As for the series on constellations (I'll decide on a good name soon!), this is my idea for Virgo, though the clothes might change a bit before it makes it to plate.

Life drawings & Etching update!

So despite the weather's desperate attempts to prevent me from getting to life drawing last Thursday , I still managed to get there if a bit late. The rest of these will go up on my facebook page but heres a couple that I quite liked. 

As for print work, I've started the first of two (perhaps more than two) plates for a new series of prints based on Zodiac characters and the constellations that their 30° divisions of space as seen from earth. Starting with Libra (the sign rather than the constellation), in his cloak are the constellations of Lupus, Ophiuchus, Scorpio, Virgo, Hydra, Serpens Caput and Centaurus. Somewhere else on his figure will be the astrological notation for libra ♎.   

First, I drew up some quick thumbnails and silhouettes in my sketchbook, did some research on the constellations in each sign's domain and tried out different poses and places for the star field to be placed- on the cloak, hair, skin, shawl, dress etc.

Then after drawing it up in Photoshop to my liking, I printed it out A6 size (same as the copper plate) and traced it onto the plate with the needle. Then, as shown in the image above, I laid down a light rosin aquatint and stopped out all the areas I wanted to remain clean with varnish- the background, the mantle and the constellation points.

5 minutes of etching later, the plate was ready for another round of stop out varnish. 

And after 2 printing proofs this is where it's at. I'm quite happy with the result though I should have let the aquatint be stronger on the cloak since it isn't quite as graphic as I expected. Next week I intend to re-aquatint it so that this time I get a light shade over the figure as well as the cloak, and also to deepen the tones in the star field. The 2nd print will be Virgo but more on that next week.

Dragon Age Inquisition comes out pretty soon, so I channeled my excitement for the game into trying out the official artwork's beautifully stylized Tarot cards. It was a fun exercise and in the future I might be tempted to include more abstract shapes within my work.


And finally, I've got some prints available to buy in the Belfast Print workshop Gallery , should you be in the city and want to see some of my older prints. There are several artist proofs and unique prints (non-edition ed) that I will be adding to my Etsy shop in the coming weeks so look forward to that! :)

-Sam

Printing and back in business!

Since coming back to Northern Ireland and completing my degree, it's taken me more time than I'd like to get back to working on projects and drawing but things are starting to settle down now. My formal graduation ceremony will take place in a couple of weeks back in Middlesbrough. Sadly, my laptop has been off with Dell for 5 weeks since the start of October for repairs and my digital painting practice has been suffering. On the other hand, I'm back 100% at the weekly life drawing classes and a new stone lithography class run by the Belfast Print Workshop.

Over the next five week's I'll be able to document my (likely eventful) journey of learning Stone Lithography and on through with my plans work in progress shots for a new series of etchings based on constellations and the zodiac signs.  I'll be taking whatever prints and odd pieces I have left in my drawer here at home down to the gallery at BPW to try and get something for them, rather than let them waste away in my studio, and others will soon appear in the etsy shop link to the top right of this page (how very exciting!).

Now for a visual catchup of some of the kind things I've been drawing (and making!) in the last couple of months!

-Sam