That was an interesting year, work-wise - I got to paint for a number of Lone Wolf Adventure Game books, some World War Cthulhu, The One Ring, and Adventures in Middle-earth, and I did get out to a graffiti festival (I wanted to do more, but the year was not always kind, bringing as it did some family loss). There might be other stuff that has to stay under NDA... I really couldn't say ;)
But, of the things I can show, here are my favourites of the year (this doesn't always mean the biggest pieces, or even the technically sharpest ones, but more the ones that satisfied something in my creative drives):
Archet - I enjoyed the angle and colours
A collection of monsters for LWAG :)
My graffiti piece - still lots to learn, but here I learned lots
The Road Goes Ever On, with challenging no-sky lighting
Oaths of the Riddermark - a classic royal Rohan image
Laughter of Dragons - challenging, but I like the atmosphere I achieved
Clues - I love b+w pieces, and this could tell so many stories
Cellar - moody, awkward, creepy
Chess - I love depicting reality as bending and warping
Dwarf Kit - simple, honest, practical, it's essence of dwarf
Bree - I got to paint the Prancing Pony :)
Thanks for looking, and that might be it from me for this year. I'll see you in 2018 - stay safe, take care, and have a great time :)
Here's the thing... there are two things I would love to talk about regarding my work, but I have to keep them under wraps until some time in 2018. Ah well... :)
I said the next post would be Terror of the Darklords part 2, didn't I? I have it ready, but then it feels more pertinent to put up recordings of livestreams pretty soon after they take place, and I did this one yesterday evening.
The idea is to begin exploring ideas for my next graffiti piece, and that means thumbnailing. I've changed how I edit streams once they're done, so rather than auto-uploading to Youtube in 15-min sections, I download and then upload longer sessions. Given that, I'll try embedding Youtube videos of the streams, rather than linking to them on Twitch (it seems easier to do that in Blogger right now):
Part 1, up to the tea break:
Part 2, until I hit connection issues:
Part 3, when I could bring the connection back up and finish the stream:
Thanks for looking, and I (probably) will be back with some TotD pieces for the next update :)
Part 2, or perhaps more accurately round 2 - issues of a different kind mean I don't have a video to link to this time, but at least I have the sketch to show!
I'm fairly sure I've ironed out all the problems, though, so I should be good to go, no tech troubles, next time :)
My stream from last night - I said in the last post that I wanted to try working live on some of the hard-edge sketching, and this is what happened.
Thanks for looking, and if you enjoyed it just go and click 'follow' over on Twitch to catch me next time I'm live (no schedule yet... but I'm working on it). And hey, while you're at it, you can find me on various social media sites if you follow the links at the top-right of this page :)
I tried a series of super loose sketches, mostly using only the hard round brush, trying to
get form with very limited tones and with no blending or hatching (and with a heavy ancient Egyptian theme):
Then I tried again:
I think I'd like to carry the idea on, perhaps either working with black, white and 2 shades of grey or by working with colour (I'm not sure yet what kind of intensity level I'd be looking for, that just needs experimentation to find out what works best... but my suspicion is that higher would be more interesting).
I think I'd also like to try streaming something similar soon.
Last weekend I was out painting at the 1st Cheltenham Paint Festival, and it was amazing - okay, the weather wasn't inclined to help, but the organisers did an amazing job of coordinating everything and making sure the artists were looked after.. I took a few shots of my in-progress stencils, the work in-progress, and recorded a short video during one of the many rain breaks.
I got around to streaming again on Twitch - this time working within a silhouette. The idea, and this specific shape, are originally from a Facebook thread by Patri Balanovsky, and a challenge that ended before I could grab a moment to join in, but hey, it's all just a bit of fun so I had a go anyway.
Thanks for watching, and if you enjoyed just go click follow over on Twitch to catch me next time I'm live (no schedule yet... but I'm working on it).
This dropped into my email the other day, a game screen for C7's Lone Wolf Adventure Game made of the various covers I've painted for the game. This was compiled by Paul Bourne, C7's incredibly capable graphic designer.
Despite my broadband provider being less-than-reliable and causing me to set my plans back by an hour, I was able to broadcast another stream tonight. The topic this time was a sketch of the MegaMan 1 villain Cutman, trying to interpret the character in my own way while keeping to the basic underlying concept, and I've embedded the recording below:
Thanks for watching!
One of the things I'd like to get into is livestreaming some of my work, but... not always so easy to show what I'm doing. No chance to show anything other than personal pieces, and that's also tricky right now as a lot of it is stencil work and not so good for commentary. Having said that, I did have a go at a point where I was working on some detailing for my next stencil piece, and streamed it live to Twitch - seems to have worked okay! I was honestly more nervous about the tech holding up than I was about talking.
I'd like to explore this kind of platform more, as time allows.
