FMP - Exhibition Week

Everything was finished in time for the exhibition - including a few last touches to my back board and space. Let me tell you, it turns out that Velcro is a wonderful thing, and double sided sticky tape if related to the anti-Christ (Maybe a third cousin, twice removed?). I tried to stick my pictures (and some paper) to my painted boards, and the double sided sticky was having none of it; Not even glue was working! And you can never have enough glue. So I used Velcro instead - and not only does the stuff stick, its reposition able, which for me, Queen of the wonky lines, was a godsend.



Anyway, opening night went spectacularly, apart from my late appearance due to traffic. It was a pleasure to be at, attending my space, if not for the people visiting. I have never done anything so embarrassing in my life. I usually sit before a screen and let people say what they like about what I draw. While no one said anything bad, I was beet red for most of the night, feeling awkward. It was easy to talk about my work, but at the same time, mildly mortifying.



Another thing I'd like to note - I originally placed a box, rather square and sturdy, for my ceramics to sit on, positioned away from the very edge. However after a discussion with my tutor, I used two slender plinths after, moved forward so that the ceramics would have a back drop of black. Worst mistake ever. It looks fantastic, don't get me wrong, but I've spent the week fretting over them falling over with people brushing past, or my ceramics getting knocked off and broken. I should have devised a perspex screen or something to shield them.

Other than that, it's been pretty uneventful.

Week before the exhibition

Okay - it's been another two week gap, but this one literally is because I can't seem to find the time. I haven't stopped, for two weeks.

My head, it spins.

So its been set up basically, which means putting everything together, getting covered in black paint and staining my hands brown with tea. Oh, and a note to self - don't paint the floor of my space first next time. I can't reach the corners of my walls if I do that...

I've spent several days working none stop to get my back boards painted and stained, and my mural has come together rather well, regardless of the fact I despise the back ground. Digital projectors, like many pieces of technology are an idiotic waste of time (Note the exception to the rule: A graphics tablet's for life, not just for Christmas). I've had to re-adjust it so many times that I'm sure none of the back ground actually matches up. Next time I'm going old school and using an OHT projection. at least then you have more control.

I will admit, I hated my mural, right up until the point where I started adding water colours to it, and then, in the space of a few minutes it grew on me (probably because the back ground was obscured). And I have taken great pleasure in causing many a teacher to wince, as I took a lighter to my work. Another nifty note: my college's smoke alarms don't go off if you set paper on fire. Turpentine on the other hand is another thing entirely. But it seems as though everything's been coming together. I've even got some fully completed pieces. I shall admit guiltily that several I wanted complete aren't going to be, unfortunately. Though I will probably complete them in my own time after the project.

All that's left to do is finish off some of my sketchbook work, print out the completed digital's, and mount everything on Monday and fix it to the wall.

All... she says like its nothing...

Wish me luck. The examiners in on Wednesday, and I shall be having anxiety attacks until then. For now, enjoy some finished art.

Week - Something....

It would seem in leu of my work, I've forgotten how to count. I have no idea what week it is, but thats alright, I'll just keep trundling on, like always. Just a warning, this is a two week update,as I know I forgot to post last week - a few personal bombshells were dropped.



In all, I've gotten a fair bit done - finished off a couple of pieces of art work, and really knuckled down on my mural back board. My sketch of Luc is officially finished, and shock horror, I like it. Kind of...heh.

I tried mixing up my water colours - a bit late for a trial, I know, but I felt the need - and used markers as an underlayer on a couple of pictures in my sketch book. Let's put it this way, I doubt I'll use it for a final piece. While the over all look isn't bad, persay, it's not great either. I much prefer using pastels with the water colours.



Oh, and talking of, I got another water colour piece finished.

I've also finished my model of Luc in ceramics. I adore it! As my second human piece, I love the features, and I managed to pack loads of detail into this one by using blunt and sharp pin tools to model. I even went so far as to make his belts from flattened pieces of clay (yes, that includes buckles, fastenings and holes - I'm a masochist...). He's been put to be fired over whitsun. And of course, I started another one to go along with - Tiffany from the nightmare relm. It's going good, but I keep having to chisel out her features because she's so sharp, it's a little repetative, but I'm liking the over all effect.

I have a horrid feeling though - those belts? Visions of them breaking...

FMP - Week 7

Whee Art! Acrylics are the anti-Christ.



I hate, detest, nay loathe acrylic paints after this week. I've been trying to work on idea's for my mural - and of course it's on a wooden board, so I thought acrylics or oils would be a good choice. Oil's would take too long to dry. Acrylics just hate me.

DRIPS! Everywhere I paint, I get drips from them, because I water the acrylic down, not even that much though... urgh.

So, as it stands, I'm going to stretch some very large paper over the boards, and hope for the best. I'm going to try to make it look like a page from my sketch book. Copious amounts of Tea and Coffee shall be used, along with bits of water colour here and there.

I'm beginning to get worried, honestly - I don't feel I have enough pieces... I certainly don't have as many as I would have liked - I've gotten slower at working, with my discovery of new techniques, rather than faster. I'm really going to have to crack down the next couple of weeks, and troll out some great art.



I put my monster Marquette in to be fired, after I got the surface of his skin pebble smooth usine a rubber kidney. I think it looks good and can't wait to see it actually fired.

Also, I finally finished the painting on a picture of Tiffany from Somnium. Now all I need to do is put in a background and it'll be ready for printing.

FMP - Week 6

Alright, so Week six was mainly spent on water colour pieces - did an awsome picture of the insect catacombs in Erebos (one of the worlds I'm designing) that I'm debating putting in the exhibition.


I also started a monster Marquette this week, and pretty much finished it in one sitting. But I suppose that was because there was nothing too fussy on it - it was just a siple case of layering the clay to look like wrinkles. It just needs a bit of smoothing out before I put it to fire. Using Porcelain Paperclay is not fun, its so delicate when you're modelling it, that it's a pain. One little knock and you have to spend ages remodelling.



Also, after seeing Roxanne after she was fired, I'm not sure I should make human figures out of clay - I'm not pleased with it at all. Her face looks funny, the modelling is way too rough and her hair line is sqew-iff. Yes I'm fussy, so sue me.

On the up side, my photoshop work is, I feel, getting better. But my mural is still giving me trouble, gonna work on it some more next week.

FMP - Week 5..?

Okay, so I'm late posting for last week - I utterly let time run away with me...And I can't even remember what week it is right now - I'll have to check my calender later.

Okay so this week, I finally decided on the design for my exhibition space, and I've totally committed suicide by deciding to do a mural on it. Full board one. This week has been spent mostly making thumb nails. I decided to use the last scene of the game, a street scene in Paris, but I've been toying with composition until I decided on Friday to do this. I have to say, I'm hopeful, fingers crossed it works okay.

And YAY! I finally finished my first ceramic Marquette, of Roxanne, the main playable character. She looks great - I did the hair in individual strips, scored with the side of a metal kidney. I also added some clothes in separate layers. She's just waiting to be fired now, and I have to admit I'm nervous about the hair because it's so thin, but...

I started my second Marquette on Thursday. Luc, Lucian, my favorite sardonic hero. Can I just say right now - Guys are hard to sculpt! It doesn't help that I'm a perfectionist who likes to put down all the muscle structure too. I need to keep working on him of course, but he's looking good.

Old Work Dump

I figured I might as well try and get as much stuff on here as I could, so here goes. Just, bear in mind - some of this stuff is quite old.




These two (above)are photo's of a large absrtact piece that I did towards the beginning of my current course. I had a little too much fun making it. I'm quite alright with the way it turned out though - but abstracts aren't my favorite thing in the world...




Another one for college - appropriation this time. Believe it or not its based off 'fictional' historical movie posters. The Second photo is of it on the wall in one of the college exhibition area's.

FMP - Week 4

Okay, so this was the first week back in classes - not a bad thing at all, it helps me structure my time a bit better. In Vis com, and project work, I'm pretty much just working on more research along side my 2D work, and I've been thinking about actually adding some digital 3D modelling to the project, but it means doing a refresher course on old skills. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

Ceramics, again I've been working very much on getting my Marquette's sorted out. I'll tell you now, modelling a human face, barely the size of a two pence coin is not easy. Especially eyes - to the point where I've decided I'll have to paint those on. However, hair is surprisingly easy to do - just cut into triangles, rake a knife lightly down it and attach in small segmented layers. Easy enough.

The armor for my Marquette's however has been put on hold until I can finish the clay models - purely for the reason that I need to finalize the designs and I need to get the specific measurements in order for this to work right.



NOTE: I just found out I can't really solder aluminium, and the copper trials that I made for the armour look bad, so I wont be using metal on them.

FMP - Week 3

Okay, I really need to schedule these updates - the things are just... random, and it's driving me insane. I'm also thinking I'll update more.

Any way, unfortunately Week three has been kind of slow. I've been working up some more designs but I'm just not really feeling the flow of it this week. Although I have been trying out some Photoshop tutorials with awesome results, and seemed to have levelled up, skill wise, in my sleep (See my last none project related post).

I've spent most of my time sketching this week, just trying to get some of my idea's down on paper, save loosing them in the coming weeks.

Anyway, peace, peoples. :D

Huzzah!

I seem to have levelled up in my sleep... I can paint, in photoshop, somewhat well. Thank the gods for small mercy's.

But seriously, I'm dead proud - guess those tutorials I looked up last week helped somewhat. Though I have to admit hair is still giving me problems, and I haven't even tried my hand at back grounds yet. Fingers crossed I'll figure it all out before the week is out (-scoff- yeah right, hopeful much?).

Here, I'll give you privy to my works in progress (no matter how bad :P)





So both of these are doodles for a friend - I say doodles, that's what they started out as, but kind of ran away with me... the 'geisha' one, was the first one I painted when I realised I'd finally figured out how to shade without line work (no, seriously, for me this is an accomplishment. I am the Queen of Black-Lines)

The top one - Eddie - I *hate* his far arm - need to fix that, along with other, periphial stuff (like his nose and face shape). But I love his hair :P I spent so long on that hair - found out that if I used an inner shadow, with the noise cranked slightly that it made the hair actually look frizzy. Gotta love accidents.

As for the second, I love her eyes, plain and simple. :D

Downward Spiral...

Eh...

I've had about enough of this Student Loans business. For once not because of the government, but rather, just because evry time I try to get it complete and sent off, something else crops up in my path to stop me. It's gotten to the point now, where I'm about ready to call it quits.

Which I would, if I had a bachelors degree already - Disney Interactive is hiring interns, and I'm seriously debating applying, even though the job's in California. Then again, they want at least some proficiency in programming and rigging - and I'm utterly crap at both.

Oh well, guess I'll just keep holding out for Square Enix. :P

FMP - Week 2

Research, research... oh, and guess what? Yup: Research.

I found a couple of concept artists who are pretty awesome, though, so I don't mind. The only problem with that is I can't find the dimensions of the images, nor the dates they were made. Oh well...

At least not all my research was books and websites this week. I managed to pay a visit to a couple of manor houses, and take some photo's. I tell you, some of the architecture in those places.. wow. It was good stock material for the scene sketches I'll be working on in the coming week.

I also made time to sketch - got some good one's down too.

So here goes, another Sketch dump - One of which (The more cartoony mean guy in pen) was inspired by this concept artist I found, 'Duddlebug' :D







I love these designs (Especially the two almost horror-esque ones), alot more than the dump last week. I really think I'm getting some where with these designs.

Oh! I've been thinking about posting up life drawing on here, but it means I'll have to put a mature content rating on it I think... hmm..

See ya!

FMP - Week 1

Alright, so week 1 was busy. The research period always is. Busy and grueling - I hate research, it feels like you're trying to pull your mind through molasses. I don't mind looking at other people's artwork and picking it apart, no, its the documenting that I can't stand. But I have been doing it - I have three weeks to finish all my research up.

This week I've been pretty much looking at Dali and Leading light - one the master of fantastical realism, the other the master of british concept art. Whats not to love?

Anyway, other than that I've been doing some experimenting in ceramics. I decided early on that I wanted to include some 3D work in my concepts, just to give it a bit of 'umph', and I'm going to do that with Marquette's. At the moment I'm just toying with the types of clay that I'll be using - porcelain and paper clay - as they're finer than what I usually use, because the work I'll be doing is so detailed.

I've also been making small tester pieces of armor in Sculpture, using embossing copper and aluminium cans - I'll post some photo's up once I have them (unfortunately my camera died during lunch that day). I cut the metals into basic shapes, and then simply used a biro-pen to press designs into them. It was surprisingly effective.

And last, but not least, on Wednesday I started a 'Spontaneous Sketchbook' (honestly I don't know what else to call it), where I'm just going to draw from life and my imagination when the need strikes me. I've also been sketching when I wake up from dreams (a little inspiration from Dali there) and it's been turning out some awesome stuff.

Okay, here's a sketch dump for you to go with this post. Just a few monster sketches from this week :D






Anyway, week 2 update soon :)

See ya!

FMP - the nitty-gritty introduction

One of the main reasons I created this blog, was to document my progress on my current school project (which just so happens to be my Final Major Project). I will be documenting week by week, all the work I do for it.

Just for a little bit of back ground info, my project is called 'Phantasm' - a working title, don't look at me that way, I'm naturally bad at naming things - and it baisically revolves around me making several pieces of concept art for a mock game. Now, I'll admit, I'm pretty new to this concept art thing, so forgive me if a couple pieces end up kind of screwy, the aim of the game here is experimentation.

But, and this is a big 'but', I don't just want to post this stuff up for you guys to see. Feed back is more than appreciated, as well as tips and pointers on any work you think needs it. I may even give out virtual cookies if you do.

Hello there...

Hey, so this is my first attempt at a real live blog (meaning it will be updated regularly with all my work and personal notes).

So, just a brief hello before I run to the scanner and to get my notes :)