Weekly Update #7 (March 22nd-28th)

So last week I had the change to see my sister as she came to visit for a few days. I was very lucky and had two extra days with her since I worked from home instead of in the studio in Canterbury. It's more important to me that I got to spend time with her, my FMP revolves around her anyway. I admit I went a while without doing much work as I was spending time with her, but she gave me very useful feedback, inspiration, and she helped me work through some other stuff that has been troubling me. We visited The Making of Harry Potter which has provided me with many interesting photos that will make for good digital paintings I feel like.

Sister and me at Warner Bros Studios

Sagazan Speedpainting...playing with Overlay Layers

Weekly Update #6 (March 15th-21st)

I'm writing this post a little bit early to ensure that I post it so that my crit group can have a look at it on Monday while I'm not in. Unfortunately, I was not in for my crit group this week either due to a stomach bug but they gave me feedback anyway which was useful. My sister is visiting from America so I'm expecting to be busy with that instead of doing work so this week I've done everything I could despite me being sick and busy with other things...I think I did a decent job. Most of my work has either been speedpaintings or really quick pen/marker drawings but I've produced a reasonable volume of work although it is not the highest of quality. I looked at a few artists such as John Howe (one of my absolute favourite artists, who did concept art for Lord of the Rings), Mike Azevedo, and I started to glance at Wylie Beckert. I also found this article which I thought was very inspiring and interesting, about 'how to create without thinking'.

Digital Speedpainting of Sagazan using a sketch I made earlier ~40mins

Weekly Update #5 (March 8th-14th)

This post will most likely be a bit shorter than my normal ones (maybe) since I tried to take it easier this week. I've been having a lot of bad luck recently and needed to sort some personal things out so I had less time to work. I still did a decent amount in my sketchbook and I did a lot of little A5 drawings, a speedpainting and a traditional painting but I did focus most of my energy on research and sorting out other things. I like what I've done despite not feeling as focused on what I'm doing. I'm going through a phase where I really like fineliner and marker, which is very different from what I normally do. I've done a lot of research into Sagazan's work, it disturbs me but I really enjoy it at the same time. I also found a digital artist on the 3DTotal's gallery page called Liam Peters who has some interesting work that I liked, although there is not much about him that I can find.

Monster Speedpainting ~30 mins (made later in the week, these images are not in chronological order this time) made in Photoshop CS5

Weekly Update #4 (Mar 1st-Mar 7th)

This week has had a lot of ups and downs. I've had the privilege to go to Rochester for an 'interview' with Phil Gomm, the course leader of the Computer Animation Arts course I'm going to be starting next year. It made me feel even more confident that I chose the right course after speaking with him, I felt like he understood what I was all about and it felt very welcoming and he gave me various suggestions for my FMP. He suggested some sort of stop motion animation and gave me some artists names including Jan Svankmajer (specifically his film Dimensions of Dialogue I've already seen clips from Little Otik), Jiri Barta, and Oliver de Sagazan (I've only looked in depth at Sagazan so far). He also recommended Power of Horror by Julia Kristeva, I'm very happy I felt so comfortable there and I really do think I'm going to love my undergraduate course...I hope so at least.

Digital Painting made in Photoshop CS5