Hockley Hustle

Just a quickie...

I'll be a guest of part of the 'Hockley Hustle' event in Nottingham this weekend:




I'll be on a panel talking about writing and art alongside Darius Hinks, Alex Davis and Damien Walter.

So, if you can find me, feel free to come and say hello...!

Aftermath: Dr Sketchy's Nottingham

Hello,

Here's a few scans from my attending the recent Dr Sketchy's event in Nottingham last week, alongside the talented Jake Gumbleton, Ryan Stevenson, Ben Newman and Dan Baker.

I'm definitely going to attend another event, the sittings were pleasantly short and the models were pleasantly pleasing to draw.

(Above)
Quick (5mins) pencil sketches
concerned with halftones and edges.
148 x 210mm,
Graphite pencil on paper

(Above)
The short poses meant having to concentrate
on constantly finishing and not obsessing over linework.
148 x 210mm,
Graphite pencil on paper/
Conte crayon on coloured stock

(Above)
Unusual objects and interesting fabrics
made the rendering all the more interesting
148 x 210mm,
Graphite pencil on paper

After all that, it was into the Nottingham night for beers, mojito's and, eventually, kebabs.

Rock on!

The Times They Are a-Changin' / Luke Skywalker

Well, I've been offline a few days whilst my family and I make the move from busy Nottingham to rural Lincolnshire. This should mean more help in looking after our two children, as both sets of Grandparents live up the road from our new Georgian townhouse (complete with its own study, from which I'm writing this blog - cool, huh!).

So, ideally, I should be able to spend more time working, woohoo!

Anyways, I digress - enough of my yakking and more pics:


"Luke Skywalker" was a portfolio piece to try my hand at likenesses. As an image I wanted to have a brooding Luke poised between the Light and Dark side, at the moment of choosing from the two paths. The intense contrast in lighting is quite illustrative and probably something I'd like to develop further.

"Luke Skywalker" Detail

He was fun to work on as, at the time, I was working at Free Radical Design on the Star Wars Battlefront 3 FPS project before it was moved over to another developer. He was made with 3DSMax, Maya, ZBrush and Photoshop. The bulk of the image was painted as I find it's easier to really get some character into an image if it's been hand finished.

Also, notice how I tend to add a low opacity CMYK noise 'grain' to the image to knock back the cleanliness of the finished render.

Trivia: The reference photos of me holding two wrapping paper rolls does not look anywhere as moody as the final piece ;)