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Ewok for Sketch Dailies

Mountain Pass

Personal project. Just something that popped into my head one day. Wanted to limit my palette so I kept to only two main colours.

Still life #1

Currently doing a Schoolim class on Painting with Light And Color. Assignment one is to paint with overcast and diffuse lighting. Very little in strong values in this one, but that’s all part of the assignment. Low values, local color.

Vulpes Vulpes

So I'm trying to rely less on line. It's scary. But rewarding.

Comic #3. Sunburn.

Comic #2. Blockbusters.

Something I've noticed over two consecutive cinema visits.

First comic.

Decided to have a go at this online comic lark. Just to see if I can! So here's my first attempt. And they say write what you know...

First Love for The Mo Chroí (My Heart) project

So I was very excited when I was approached by Martin Millar to produce a piece for a great project he was putting together called Mo Chroí. The project is a book and album featuring some great talent, with proceeds going towards the Irish Heart Foundation.

Since my life is pretty much dominated by my new baby girl, I used her as inspiration for the piece. Pretty happy with how it turned out, and seeing my work in print is a huge honour. It's a great cause. Support it today!

The Mo Chroí book.

Mo Chroí on Behance.

Skeletor's bad day.

New Sketch Dailies theme this week. It's villains, and first up is Skeletor. Loved this guy when I was a kid. Ah, memories!

Monsters sketch

Playing around with different texture brushes in Photoshop.

Does a bear crap in the woods?

Just a quick digital illustration of a bear doing, well, like the saying goes... does a bear crap in the woods?!

Good Morning!

Good morning! Just something that popped into my head and I wanted to illustrate. May have something to do with the fact that I'm having a kid in July, may be completely unrelated....!

American Hipster

Well, it only took four months. Between a wedding, thank you cards, work, and getting knocked-up, this is something that took me far too long to complete. That fire escape on the right? Two week's work. 

Anyway, here's American Hipster. Based on the Grant Wood painting 'American Gothic,' I had the idea of doing a more contemporary, cartoony version after a sketch I doodled in one of my Moleskines. So this is it. I have a bunch of in-progress images that I'll post soon.

Digital painting 101 - Tonal Study II - Vases

The second in the series of tonal studies I've been doing lately. This one was a little more complex. I also tried to get in a bit more texture into the subjects. This was something missing from the apple.

For the next one, I think I'll return to something more organic. There's not much texture in a smooth jug!

Giving thanks!

So recently, I finished the final part of the everlasting wedding project! It all started with the Save The Dates. Then came the all-important Invitations. And finally, we have the Thank You cards. These were sent to all the guests and the lovely folks who were so generous to offer us gifts for the wedding. So if you are one of those and you haven't received a Thank You yet, it's on it's way!

This is just me and the wife, looking into the future. The wife is triumphant after having broken her leg seven days before the wedding... having surgery five days before... and still managing to get back on her feet for the wedding. She done well, she done!

Digital painting 101 - Tonal Study I - Apple

So I've begun learning digital painting properly, as I've sort of flown by the seat of my pants up until now. I've also started trying to get a handle on lighting and colour in theory, as those subjects, I know very little about. It's certainly a challenge. There's a lot to learn, but it's actually quite an interesting subject.

So to that end, I decided I'd try doing a regular series of studies to try and lift my game. The first one I tackled was a pretty simple black and white photo of an apple. Simple subject. Quite difficult execution. But hey, for my first attempt, I'm actually pleased with how it turned out. Vast room for improvement though. Still, every race starts with a first step.

"Headspace" Australian National Youth Mental Health Foundation Illustrations Part 2

So here is the final part of my illustration job for "Headspace," The Australian Government's Youth Mental Health program. The final illustration deals with self-harm. Obviously, this is a very difficult subject to deal with. And the illustration didn't want to show self-harm directly. No blood. So, instead, it was decided that to show a teenager somewhat isolated and withdrawn would be the best way to go.

SELF-HARM-

This illustration started out as five girls sitting around, chatting, with one girl different. Isolated. It was decided on draft two, that two of the girls should be boys. The brief stated that there should be a mix of ethnicities included.

The final illustration.

Detail of the self-harm girl.

Teenagers detail.

 Teenager detail #2.

The final illustration as used in the self-harm infographic by Lauren Hollern.

This was a really nice project to work on. The palette was limited, which was a bit of a challenge. And trying not to go all cartoony was also somewhat unusual for me. But for my first properly paid illustration commission, I really enjoyed it!

"Headspace" Australian National Youth Mental Health Foundation Illustrations Part 1

Okay, long blog title! So this is what I've been working on for the last few weeks. I mentioned last month that I was approached to do some illustration for "Headspace," the foundation that deals with youth mental health in Australia. I finished the project two weeks ago, and this long blog post is all about that. So... enjoy!


ANGER-

The brief for 'Anger' was to be a young man, a teenager, struggling to pull apart a wall, surrounded by debris of that wall. This was the original sketch for that piece-

After going through line work and painting with Photoshop, here is the final illustration. I was limited to a certain palette, and flesh tones, so what you'll see in these illustrations is... a limited palette-

A close-up of the dude's face. I was quite happy with the tip of the nose and the fingers... for some reason-

And the final infographic by Lauren Hollern, that was posted on the Headspace website, and their Facebook page-

SELF ESTEEM-

 This one started out as a male and female. One happy and outgoing, the other shy-

On the second pass, it was decided that both of the characters should be the same person, different personas, facing a mirror-

The final illustration-

And the infographic by Lauren Hollern-

So they are the first two parts of the project. I'll post the final part, self-esteem, next week, as it was the largest part of the project.

Me and the future missus invite you to a little shindig!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm getting married in 4 (jesus!) weeks. And part of my duties was to design the invitations for the day. I decided to go with a design inspired by Alphonse Mucha, using the colour scheme for the wedding. Here is the final design.

And here are the invitations after they were printed up on watercolour textured paper. They were printed by the great people at Daintree Paper in Dublin. Pretty pleased with how they turned out. Soon, I'll post a work in progress to show how I got to the final design!

Chimpanzen

I did a sketch recently of a chimp which I wanted to expand to something bigger. The pun came to mind, so it went from there. I had a bit of an idea of how I wanted it to look, but a this piece just sort of grew as I worked on it. I'll post a break-it-down at a later date!