How to spot a Jasper Xbox 360: The definitive guide.

Inspired by my holiday...

...I painted this caricature of my travel buddy. It's based on a camel ride we had when visiting the ruins of Petra in Jordan.

Israel and Jordan.

Without wishing to turn this into a bog standard Blog about my life, writing about things that no one really cares about, I recently went to Israel for a holiday and wedding which I'd been invited to. I'd a great time and took lots of pictures. I even popped over the border to Jordan whilst I was there, which was initially terrifying, having been told by a number of Israelis not to go. "You go there, you don't come back alive!" we were warned. That turned out to be untrue, thankfully. Silly shit stirring Israelites! Although the blood stains at the border did nothing to calm my nerves during the crossing, the Jordanian people on the whole were exremely friendly and welcoming.

Below are some of my favourite pictures from the trip. For more images be sure to follow this link to my Flickr account.

Still not finished.

Another work in progress snapshot. I did a couple of hours over the weekend on this painting, adding some background first, then adding some more detail to the face and improving the contrast in the process. The scan as always has changed the white balance, so it's not entirely representative of the actual painting. In fact, it's not even a scan as my goddamn printer is broken. I have nothing witty to say. Leave now.

Despite the new job, I've still managed to continue with a bit of painting and sketching in my free time.

The above is a work in progress attempt to paint my other cat, Lucy. It's early on, so lacking much detail or refinement. I'm finding her a lot harder to paint than Minnie however, I think mainly due to her having far fewer colours in her fur and markings. Also, the fact I've chosen to paint an image of her in which she's squinting, her eyes therefore not fully in view, is probably not helping. Eyes being a main focal point of a face, providing character and detail, etc.

Ho hum. Lesson learnt. Always have eyes.

Another copy of some existing concept art, again from Fable II. This time a big breasted woman, staple of the video game industry. THEY'RE BIGGER THAN HER HEAD! o_0

And a silly little Darth Vader doodle.

New Job...

Hello old friend. Once again I have neglected you. You should probably get used to it.


I started a new job a few months ago (hence lack of posts), doing CAD design. I now spend my days designing school classrooms, libraries, kitchens and offices, producing renders, quotes and sales packs for clients, and making life about as easy as it can be for ungrateful (and often incompetent) builders.

I sneakily sent myself a few renders of work I've done recently. Logic dictates that these are those renders:

Snap Happy Wins Two Awards!

Good news: Snap Happy, the game I worked on as a character designer/illustrator/animator for Mobile Pie, recently won two awards at the Media Innovation Awards.

Snap Happy not only scooped the Mobile Communications Award, but went on to win the overall MIA Award (winner of winners!) beating off the likes of ITV and the BBC!

"..the overall winner and winner of the 2008 MIA trophy was Snap Happy, based in Bristol for Mobile Pie in association with Hands On Mobile and Luke Bennett, for producing an original, fun and user friendly mobile application."



More information about Snap Happy can be found in the Sketch Book section of my website here.

Flickr.

I have recently taken the time to upload some of my favourite photos from the last couple of years to Flickr, where I have created a new set, ingeniously titled 'Favourites'. Unfortunately, as I don't currently have a Pro account I'm limited to 100Mb of photos a month, and seeing as I've triumphantly blown all of that in one go I will have to wait a few weeks before I can add any more.

Click here to go to the set on Flickr.

Check out a few of the shots below as an immediate appetiser.

Surprise!

It's been a while. It appears I've gone the way of many Bloggers before me, having started off with good intentions, but then, err, forgotten.. yes forgotten, to post.

Actually that's a bit of a lie. I've not forgotten really. I've been meaning to post but other things keep on getting in the way. My health for one. Also, I've not really felt like I've had anything particularly worth posting of late. But to remedy that, here is a more or less finished scan of the painting of Minnie, my cat.

'More or less finished' in that I could keep working on it, but I'm choosing not to as I'd like to move on to something else. I'm not entirely happy with the background; with hindsight I think keeping it more plain and less busy would perhaps look better. Either that or making it as detailed as the foreground (Minnie), as opposed to the annoying In-Between I seem to have settled on. Next time Gadget... Next time.

Yet Another Quick Update.

Hot off the press, this is the current revision. I've been focusing on fixing the background this afternoon having messed it up somewhat a couple of days ago. It's a definite improvement, looking less like the work of a child and more like that of a man. A big powerful man. I'm in the experimental process of gauging how detailed to make the background whilst keeping the foreground the main focus.