Drowndown Character Design

These are my initial character designs for the three protagonists of the music video I made for You Are Wolf's song, Drowndown. A mother and her young daughter are travelling through a forest when a mysterious river spirit tries to lure the little girl away from her mother, taking her to her beautiful watery realm beneath the river. 

I drew inspiration for the designs from The Secret of Kells and The Little Prince. The colours draw upon autumnal forest colours for the girl and mother, and water, river colours for the spirit. I played about with making the spirit more of a greenish blue colour palette, however this made her too ominous looking for the narrative. For even though she is luring people away to an underwater world, she is not really bad or good, as she symbolizes the power of rivers and of nature, where it can be both beautiful and deadly.

This is the girl's armature, made from aluminium wire and miliput. She is a small puppet, only 9cm in height.

Armatures from left to right - girl, mother, spirit. The girl and mother both have not and bolt tie down systems in their feet to hold them onto the stage during animation, but the spirit does not as her feet never touch the ground - in all her shots she is either hovering in the air, sitting, or swimming. The spirit was suspended from a flying rig or tied down with wire when sitting on her rock.

Production Design for Escape

I recently had the opportunity of working on a very powerful short film called Escape, directed by Alex Falconer. The film tells the true story of a woman escaping from a domestic violence relationship with her three children. The film was shot over two days in a family home.

I was the production designer and was in charge of sourcing props and dressing the rooms. I needed to make the house look very tidy as the woman would have been expected to keep it looking immaculate by the husband and it also needed to be quite minimalistic with very little personality, to reflect the years of oppression the mother and children had endured. Once shooting was over I had to return the house back to its original state.

The film is now in post production, so it will probably be a while before I can share it, but so far its looking like it will be a very moving and harrowing tale.

Fox Stop Motion Puppet Visual Research

I decided to make a fox stop motion puppet, as foxes are one of my favourite animals. Whenever I manage to catch a glimpse of one it always feels like an almost supernatural moment and I always seem to see them before something significant happens in my life. I based my research on the British red fox breed, as this is the kind of fox I see out and about in the countryside. I love their orange-red fur and their huge bushy tails, as well as the grace with which they move.

I did some visual research, as you can see from my sketchbook page (above) and followed this up with a look at the skeleton of a fox (below).

Inky Out and About Sketches

Been filling up a happy new sketchbook lately, using lots of inks and watercolours, as I haven't done that for a while, and man, I really missed using them!

The above drawing is the view from my garden on a very sunny day, I wanted to get a sense of the chaotic nature of it.

Castle Beach in Falmouth, surrounded by some riled up seagulls.

My old school friend came to stay with me for a few days in Falmouth and we spent a chilled out afternoon doing some sketching of the boats (and seagulls - how many can you find!?).

We also went to St Ives for a day and did a bit of sketching there too.

St Ives rocky coastline

Before I moved back down to Falmouth I drew this one of King's College in Cambridge.

FXU Advertisements: Design Phase

The character for the FXU adverts needed to represent both Falmouth and Exeter students. I named her Steph and gave her a casual student look.

These are some other colour combinations I tried out before I settled on the bird jumper with red jeans version.

I then roughed out the design for the bedroom set (the white patche on the walls are where the posters would go). My colour choices were drawing upon a the colours of a beach sunset, with blues, oranges, reds and yellows, as I wanted the advertisements to be inspired by Cornwall and Cornwall is known for its beaches.

Game Of Thrones Sketches

Here's a couple more Game of Thrones related fan art pictures I've been sketching up in my spare time, since I have been getting a bit obsessed with it at the moment.... The Jon Snow and Ygritte image is created with ink and watercolour, while the Daenerys one is a simple pencil sketch.

Game Of Thrones Art: Tyrion Lannister

Pen sketch I drew in my fancy new sketchbook (I'm in love with my new sketchbook, makes me want to draw so much!) I'm really pleased with this drawing as I think I've captured Tyrion quite well. He's without a doubt my favourite character from the TV series, however Dany is the best from the books.

Winter Is Coming....

Watercolour poster I made of a white walker from Game of Thrones. 'Twas another birthday present (I'm just too generous!) I had initially planned to add black ink detailing over the top, but decided that would be over kill, as I liked the softness of the pencil lines. 

Creatures of the Night

I drew a randomish piece of concept art. It's not completely random, as it is a culmination of a fair few things I have been mulling over in my mind recently, but it is random in the sense that during the making process the piece evolved and became something other than I initially intended.

In this piece I have been doing some experimentation with the brushes in Photoshop, as I wanted to get more texture into my digital art. I am someone who craves texture (hence the whole love of stop motion thing) and am really pleased to say for the first time I have managed to get some into a piece created entirely in Photoshop!

It was really liberating to create this after having been doing the storyboards for the new System Error film, which is all clinical white walls, sci fi style, so it was good to be able create a more natural, chaotic environment.

I've included the more bleached out version of the image (which you can see below) as I feel I prefer this one as it has a slightly more eerie atmosphere, although I do like the colours of the first one. 

Concepts Completed!

Here is the final piece of concept art for System Error's new short film. These pieces have been a bit of a challenge, as I am not used to working with so much white and creating such artificial environments. I feel I have grown more confident with painting digitally and I want to keep this going, so I can keep improving. However it's safe to say, I will be steering clear of painting entirely white rooms for a while!

Desk Top Concept Art

More concept art, view of the desk top in the office. The CCTV angle on the screen was a little hard to draw with its warped perspective!

Prison Office Concept Art

The latest concept piece for System Error's new short film. This took me way less time than the previous prison garden one, and I think this is my favourite one I've done, the neon lighting was a cool effect to create!

Prison Garden Concept Art

The latest piece of concept art I needed to produce for System Error Studios was a prison garden.

Whilst I was working on my first version, shown above, putting the finishing touches to the plants, I had the sudden thought that I had gone about the garden aspect in the wrong way. I had gone waaaaaaaaaaaay over the top with the plant life, as I realised that a far more clinical, minimal approach would fit the film's vision better. So after kicking myself for not having realised the better path earlier, I conferred with the director before scrapping the luscious garden. I decided to replace it with two very neat, symmetrical lines of flowers placed on slightly fluorescent, glowing white plinths. This new image works far better, both stylistically and conceptually. 

Only a couple more concepts left to do and then I can move onto some storyboarding!

Prison Cell Concept Art

Latest piece of concept art for System Error Studio's new short film. Depicting a futuristic prison corridor. Made in Photoshop.

Bear Sketch

Pencil illustration of a bear. It's been a while since I've done a pencil drawing like this, but I really enjoyed doing it, I find it a very calming process.

Bear Drawings

Here are some more bear drawings as predicted. I'm pleased with the top one and its looser line quality. I feel the splash is working on the bottom image, but the bear's eyes are a little off, they look a bit too cartoonish for the rest of the image.

Prison Cell Concept Art

At the moment I am producing some concept pieces for a new System Error Studios short film, which is currently in pre-production. I have just completed the first two pieces of a prison cell, both a day and night version. These were made entirely in Photoshop.

The Casual Bear

Drawing I did for a Christmas present. I've gotten quite obsessed with bears lately after watching the polar bears in David Attenborough's Frozen Planet. So more bears may follow.....

Border Collie Illustrations

Some drawings of my dog (and me!) that I've been doing the past couple days. The first two are pen drawings and the third is watercolour and pencil crayon. I think the first drawing is the best as the expression on the dog's face has captured some of her mischievous character. The line work is also a bit more free and spontaneous which I like as well. 

Life Drawing

I've been attending life drawing classes at King's College in Cambridge, as I have always really enjoyed life drawing. I find it really calming. It also definitely helps your drawing abilities. Here's one from a recent session where the model held a slightly longer pose.