Quirkyjoe

I was looking through my life drawing portfolio and decided to pick out some images to bring a second life to, that I could work with in Photoshop to create something new. This was an idea inspired by an experiment I did earlier in the year, layering a series of images from different sources, using a life drawing as a base image. It resulted in the first image below. And since then I’ve been wanting to create a series of these ‘Afterlife Drawings’. I’ve also been drawing a lot of monsters lately, for various projects. It’s made me remember just how much I love drawing monsters. I spent most of my childhood drawing strange, repulsive or creepy-looking creatures and it seems to be a great way to express things, anxieties and curiosities. And there is something so uninhibited about being able to start drawing something and have no real restrictions about where it should go. Below the Afterlife Drawings there’s a pen sketch I did when I was in Melton a couple of days ago.

I’ve been working on some designs for characters to feature in a children’s fairytale story to be published by Pen Press. It’s a story that features an anthropomorphic rabbit and an angry man with a big sword. Here are some of the designs that will inform the illustrations that feature in the book.

I enjoyed attending the BANG event last week. An opportunity for Brighton-based animators to meet up and drink alcohol. I hope there will be lots more BANG events over the coming months. They seem to take place in the pub The Earth & Stars (although there is a screening this week at the Lighthouse) and anyone with any kind of interest in animation is welcome to join. See details of future meetings on the BANG website http://brightonanimators.ning.com

Below you can view the animated blips I produced for Numb Records and their band, The Orchard. The blip idea came from the Radiohead TV promotions for Kid A and Amnesiac. We loved the short blasts of animation and music and wanted to create something just as striking and curious to create an identity for the music of The Orchard.

Starting this month, I am going to be running a series of 6-8 week Saturday workshops related to animation at the City College Brighton & Hove. These will be hands-on, practical courses exploring traditional animation methods from storyboarding to developing characters and bringing images and objects to life. The courses are available to adult learners of all skill levels. The links to details for each course are below

Storyboarding For Animation – http://www.ccb.ac.uk/public/courses/adult/animation-storyboarding-sat-sept-11-5977.html

2D Character Animation – http://www.ccb.ac.uk/public/courses/adult/2d-character-animation-sat-jan-12-5962.html

Stop Motion Animation – http://www.ccb.ac.uk/public/courses/adult/stop-motion-animation-introduction-sat-april-12-5974.html

Also, as I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been producing a series of book trailers. The trailer for ‘Men Dancing’ is the latest one.

In the last few weeks I’ve been working on the kind of projects where I can’t really show you what I’ve done yet. Client-based work that is yet to be approved or tests for animations in the pipeline.

Most recently I’ve illustrated a book cover for a fantasy adventure story about anthropomorphic ducks. I can’t show the finished cover yet, but I can show an early character design below.

Another project I hope to post more about in the future, is an animation based on a poem featuring a raccoon. Some test animation is featured below.

Finally, I’ve been doing a little bit of work for an NFTS Graduation film directed by Iria Lopez. I’ve mainly been colouring pigs. I can’t show any of that, but I can refer you to one of her earlier films, which I think is fantastic.

Neighbours (above) by Iria Lopez – National Film and Television School

Please visit her blog http://iria-lopez.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-05-08T10%3A31%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

This week my short course in tutored life drawing at Brighton’s Phoenix came to an end. Over the last eight weeks I feel like I’ve come quite far in removing some observational drawing rust. I also feel that I’ve been a much better learner this time round and have benefited from a really good tutor. Things make so much more sense now – especially in terms of measuring proportions and translating that to paper. Here are some examples of my drawings from over the weeks, poses ranging from 1-20 mins.

We were also asked to bring in examples of work from artists we admire. It was recommended to me that I look at the work of Oskar Kokoschka. So I did that. Here’s some of his stuff what I grabbed off the Internet. It is awesome. I love the sense of awkwardness in the poses. The uneasiness of a person squeezed into a body.

So just to reiterate – the pictures below are not mine but I wish they were.

I was asked to create a character and produce a short animation sequence to promote http://jobsinbrighton.net – a Brighton-based jobs vacancy website. So I knocked out some character designs and we settled on the idea of a pink (and blue) naked man. There’s still a few tweaks to make before the sequence is finished but you can still view the Vimeo below.

Below, a photo of my floor and sofa covered in some of the 150+ pages (many with multiple drawings) used to complete the animation.

This pink character isn’t the only naked person I’ve been drawing lately. I’ve taken up life drawing after a break of a very long time. I’m quite rusty but there were lots of things I didn’t ‘get’ about life drawing when I was younger and I’m hoping I can approach these concepts with wiser eyes now. Here are a couple of drawings from my first two sessions.