A wellyboot of animated happenings

This is the finished piece, I made the clock greener for a more realistic dusty light. Shadows in the rest of the clock draw more attention to the slice of light peaking out of the crack.  Also, it further defines the differences of what Spider is used to (dark) and what he isn't. (light of day)

This is an art piece to help develop an idea in the works for my pre-production story idea which revolves around two clock bound characters facing the concept of the great outside. Here shows the Spider reacting to a beam of light shining through a hole in the clock. I'm the first to rush towards a line drawing, the thought of relying on just lighting terrifies me. However ... just by chance on photoshop I turned the layer with the line drawing off, and for the first time I saw something I'd drawn with nothing but colour and shading!  This is a biggie, as I'm pretty stubborn and have been avoiding doing sustained painting online for a while. The importance of light has definitely been realised. The Spider is delicate, as is the light. This proves to be a nice mix. That said, I'm sticking with the line drawing for this particular piece, just because I feel it gives the character the personality he needs, which would be slightly scraggy yet def

Glen. A4, drawn with a pencil I found on the bus.     I began by drawing a huge nose and consciously decided to fiddle around with the normal placements of facial features. His ears are small and in line with his mouth; His eyes are wide apart and slightly rotund, yet still around halfway in the middle of the head; and his eye brows take the shape of clear lines, almost looking paved or carved into his face.     Drawing bodies in proportion has always been a grey area. Call me mad but it's pretty exciting to think I have so much work to do to refine this, I'd love to become more confident in drawing full figures, as I reckon it's a weakness of mine.    Glen is a cover teacher. He used to be a food critique, but one of his reviews caused the closing down of a restaurant owned by a guy called Dudley. Glen put him of work, leaving him homeless. But, feeling bad, promised to let Dud stay over in his house for a few nights. 10 years later and Dud still hasn

The story of how I came up with another story. Bongo.  (do ignore the wings.) This is a doodle that happened some while ago.     I bought some new glasses that somehow made me look like Diane Keaton and they arrived today which prompted me to get re-get tumblr so I could search for cool photographs of her off-set drinking tea or something. The first thing I see on the dashboard was one of those "fill-in-your-own" character sheet; promoting the capabilities of bringing to life a complex character. This caught my lil eye, and I had a moment, so I thought oh, what the heck.  Here's a transcript deciphered from the scribbled questions and answers that popped up all over the page.  Name: Bongo Age: 30 Gender thing: dude Socio-economic background: casual labourer - serves coffee  Personality strengths: laid back, trusting Personality flaws: always exposed, too laid back Unconscious want: sense of family Conscious want:  Selfish or se

Sketching away: with much tea I've begun applying life drawing techniques to my doodles. It's giving them recognisable humanoid legitimacy! I'm loving the spontaneity of it all, as sketchy time is full of un-planned hand/mind combinations resulting in unique drawings that wouldn't have happened at any other time. There's something special in that I reckon. The girl above is an A4 portrait drawing (ish) which to be honest is faairly unheard of for me. I rarely fill a page! Began with the nose and the rest followed. As I type this, I realise many times when I draw, I'll start drawing a man and it will somehow become a woman. Perhaps it's a habit of mine to add features, (hair, earrings, eye lashes, necklaces, tops etc) to expand doodles. Thinking about it, these are all features that break out of the pencil line of my drawings of dudes.  If I could find my rubber I'd move that eyebrow slightly to the left. 

Clockwise: I drew the character above out of nowhere the other day. His design is simple!  Wasn't expecting this to go anywhere, but those who saw him seemed to really engage with his character. "Who is that?" they'd ask. "Where is he?" So I figured I had to give this guy a story. Looking at him, he displayed large eyes and ears, so one could assume he'd spent a lot of time in the dark. The small scale of the drawing must have subconsciously rubbed off on my mind, so I saw him as small. Clocks are everyday objects just about large enough to be someones home. He looks honest and innocent, more importantly alone. Isolation and clocks seemed to compliment each other wonderfully! It also kicks up questions of time and working around a coggy environment. Very quickly I found my mind racing and there were almost too many possibilities in terms of story! Growing mad with ideas isn't easy, but by quietly mulling I managed to finally see s

Life Drawing: By tackling different aspects of the body at a range of scale, the outcome becomes unpredictable. I like this approach, it's made me look at the bodies closely. Blocking out darker shading has proved a recent habit, although I reckon I need to loose some of the structure of the drawings. Loosening up with the charcoal might leave potential for fate to swing in and get some real action on the page.

 James Henry design work: Ella is a small determined little mouse. The lucky type I'd expect to jump into puddles and come out completely dry. In the design process I thought big eyes with big ears would be a likely combo. Chipper little mice also need to use their tiny paws to keep a grasp on their scrolls and swords, so I gave her puffy paws in which to do such things.  Overall I reckon my designs could suit their demographic more, with this show being aimed at young audiences, perhaps a design of simpler and easier means for ease of animation work flow would be better suited? Still, I confess myself proud of the above drawing as I managed to get a lot of character out of her stance and face! I'm slowly discovering how to draw each feature (through life-drawing) and it's exciting to see my sketches become better rounded and unique.