Noah

Not finished, colours not right, too simple a composition, but moving on tomorrow.

Little Noah Chilton

Work in progress...

Facebook test

OK so I may be a little behind with technology, apparently theres this thing called facebook that I can also publish my blog posts on, it gets more coverage that way, so this is a test. One of these is of Dilly and Hugo knocking on Amelias door, the other is of the NCT kids having a little boat race.

Number 28 - almost there

This lunchtime has been productive, Ill come back to it tomorrow and change a
bunch of stuff no doubt

Number 28

Turned the tree into something a little more friendly, added the kids and first pass
at basic colours

No28 continued

Extreme Makeover Number 28 Edition

For some reason I felt this needed the ubiquitous rickety staircase and fantasy chimney

I lied

nope, just couldn't leave it alone, after the weekend i realised prefered it when the boats were closer together and i felt it needed one other little element. At first i had a whole flock of seagulls, then one by one they were erased until this little fella was left. I think the picture needed contrast and the seagulls gave me that in scale, the flying ones proved too much contrast though as they were in the air, something else for the eye to consider. Happier with it now... for now!

Tree

Doddled a tree last night with a rather pleasing form, i think this may form the basis for a new picture based on my boys dressed as rabbits going for tea at their friends who live at number 28

NCT Boat Race

Im happy with this now, tried adding more detail to the water but it just ended up looking over complicated. Wanted to avoid a horizon too but it feels so much better for having one. Yeah i like this, first thing I've done that I want to put on my son's wall.

Colour added

wohoo had a whole hour to do what I wanted today! I managed to get the first pass of colour down, I want to keep it light and simple I find it more charming that way, and its satisfying to break some old game industry habits of adding lots of ambient occlusion and dark shadows to give soemthing form.

2 more boats enter the race

.. not sure about the positioning of the second one on the left though, will correct that in tomorrows free 30 minutes!

Boat Race is Underway

Ok so I took that thumbnail from my last post that I was happy with and broke it down into a box with easily re-created landmarks for all the curves of the boat. I can go ahead and rotate it into any angle and make the boats seem like they are riding the waves. Hopefully this will be enough and I can get away without having to paint the water in as that will be a royal pain in the arse. hmmm maybe that means I should try and do it then, agh damn it!

More Boats

Had an hour last night to have another go at this boat

Getting it right

Dilly's bike picture isn't going anywhere, not surprising really it started off as an example to show the publishers of a kid on a bike do I've put that on hold, might come back to it later. So last night I started on an Idea Ive wanted to do for Dillon and the NCT kids for a while, they're all off to school soon so I wanted to do a picture of them all going off on their own little adventures. I struggled with the boats for a while though and this was the best sketch. However I realised I was guessing at angles and shapes again. This time however I stopped as soon as I realised to try and work out a simple form I could rotate into loads of angles. A big part of being a decent draftsman Ive recently been taught is to be honest with yourself if something isn't looking right, it's taken me a while to get though.

so here's a more simplified boat shape, I wanted the proportions to be cute and the shape to be easy to read, the fact that it doesn't mimic a real world boat shape doesn't matter, it needs to be naive and endearing. The fact that this also makes it easier to rotate in 3d space is a bonus! I'd say the top sketch and the bottom left and right ones are the best

Random Children Sketchies

Dilly's bike so far

More Dilly

dilly's bike

I met up with the art director at Random House last week so she could go through my portfolio and talk about doing a picture book, although I didn't walk away with a deal I did come away with some very usefull hints and tips, all in all quite positive. So I'm now working on this little chap, a character she spotted in my sketchbook and liked, I think. Going to work on a few more ideas around him and post them up as I go.

wedding invite

normally this kind of thing is a drag, but i really enjoyed doing this, mainly because the couple are good friends and lovely people but also they came to me with a clear idea, an image and wanting something a bit different. Folksy, festival, beer, hops and sunflowers. Looking forward to it!