Lunch 2

I thought the first lunch with Senor Grillo was epic but this one was 'MONSTROUS'! Watching Uli, Oscar & Neil together was like Clash of the Titans, Matt, Boris & I were happy to be along for the ride.









By the end of the meal/day the table cloth was covered in drawings & I wish we had a photo of it. Oscar did you keep the ones we ripped off the paper? Can you scan them & post them or are they too bad?

Life Drawing 28th March

CHARACTER DESIGN BLOG

Randall Sly has posted my interview on his excellent blog at characterdesign.blogspot.com
I'm honoured to be in the company of such fine artists & I hope professionals out there keep responding to Randall's questionnaire.

HONEYSTARS

Now HONEYSTARS has aired I can finally post some of the artwork that went into the making of the 2 new spots last autumn. The agency wanted to update the look of the whole campaign this time so I started to re-think the design of the kids first. To appeal to kids I basically thought of the INCREDIBLES crossed with Natalie Portman's white suit in ATTACK OF THE CLONES. These are my exploratory thumbnails.



Instead of the usual 'cereal kid' I tried to make them look more rounded, almost like toon-shaded CG.



I also refined the look of Captain Star & made his costume a bit more sleek. Captain Star (bottom right) poses by Dean Roberts.



The villains in this ad were fun. Robotic bird-men. I was inspired by the clockwork owl in CLASH OF THE TITANS & Woody Woodpecker.



The birdmen & the spaceships were translated beautifully into CG by Joan Cabot & Leo Sanchez.




Finally some colour keys I made to guide the production company in Malaysia. The overseas crew were supervised by Andreas von Andrian. The ad was laid out here in London & directed by Uli Meyer.



This sculpt of the boy was made to aid the animators. It was sculpted by the highly talented Cako Facioli who promises me he'll have a blog soon.

Schlingmannism

This lunatic has one of the best blogs around. Check out drawnography.blogspot.com.

Life Drawing 13th March

Drawings from last Monday evening's session. 30 second warm ups.



Then 2-5 min. short poses.




Playing around here with modified contour drawing, drawng with left hand, without looking at paper etc.




Longer studies, 20 mins. each.

Baker St.

I recently finished working at a studio in Baker St. It's an interesting part of London & at lunch times I would go on the trail of Sherlock Holmes. There's a statue of the famous fictional detective outside Baker St. tube station. 221 b Baker St. is the address that Arthur Conan Doyle gave Holmes in the books. On this site now stands the Sherlock Holmes Museum.



The museum has been made to look like Holmes & Watson actually lived there. Holmes' study is full of items that fans will recognize from the stories, including Holmes' crack pipe!



Last year one of the Eurovision Art Challenge themes was 'Elementary dear Watson'. Here's the development sketches of my image.






Not far from Baker St. is the Wallace Collection. They have Fragonard's 'Swing' & Frans Hal's 'Laughing Cavalier'. I spent a lunch-break drawing the armour collection. The Persian & Indian armour, helmets & weapons are really cool.

February People

People drawn on public transport, in the street & from the TV.




These were drawn at a gig in Camden.

Italian Graffiti

Last Tuesday 5 members of the London Animation Blogging Chapter (tm) met up for an extended lunch to discuss drawing, blogging, animation, political torture & jazz. In that order! From left to right in the photo we have Grillo, Jones, Mielgo, Kardos & Limbolo himself. I brought along a book of Oscar's that he graciously sketched an original doodle in the front for me. Cheers Oscar! Thanks again to Oscar & Neil for arranging this get together, 'twas most agreeable.
Over on Sandwich Bag blog, Elliot has posted an uncannily accurate group caricature of the event.

CORPSE BRIDE

Some of the storyboards I did while working on the film in late 2003/early 2004.







































Thumbnail boards.




Below are some sketches & studies that I made from films & paintings I thought were appropriate reference.