Monday, April 30, 2007

kids stuff




well I've been off camping for a few days so no new drawings scanned.
Yesterday I finally got paid for that Inner Health ad and the work so far for Osmo..
So that was good.
Drawing wsn't working yesterday at work. Everything is shit.
So that was bad.
Also when I got home things still weren't going so well- I was darkening an A2 Jabberwocky inspired drawing, and as I darkened it I could see the perspective was wonky. That'll learn me.
I will scan what I've got in tonight and do it again but right- I've also got a couple of loose layouts I wanted to resolve further. And I need to finish the Osmo stuff.

Anyhow because theres nothng spanking new, then heres some lightly new bits and pieces, and an older Jabberwocky drawing as a stand in.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Setting Off


I drew this last year,- during an unpleasant period where for a while I was resigning from work,- in fact nearly a year right now. So despite her wonky hand I never got round to fixing, here it is to celebrate my change from animation.

Its no Clanky


Clanky the Robot was a very important children's book for me. I have a suspicion it was printed in the 60's, which is why you can find neither hide nor hair of it on the internet. Anyway clanky was a robot,(sort of with a paintjob like a schoolboys uniform), and he discovered in himself a talent for designing awesome cars with wild colours, a very beautiful book. It had wild colours, like a Brian Wildsmith Book we had as children.
Anyway.
Like dinosaurs, boys and giant robots go together. So here's a boy and a robot or two. Once again things are a little wonky, but you get that in recreational monday night drawing.
Plus theres no wild colours, so you have to poke yourself in the eye to get that effect.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Lost...in translation




Sitting down and drawing at home I often just draw and keep drawing with no plan and the perspective gets wonky.
Other times I do a neat thumbnail and proceed to butcher it on a new but more epic scale when I attempt to draw it anew without blowing up the thumbnail and cleaning it up.
Still other times I'll do a nice drawing, and then don't finish it, figuring I'll get back to it.
Here then is a trio of fairly recent dabbling representing these fates.
The moonboat one I'm redoing- so there'll be no necker cube shit, and I'll figure out exactly how it works.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

One Good Turn...





Well on the weekend past I attended SupaNova in Brisbane. I was on a panel"what makes game characters work", and I was also supposed to help judge their art competition.
The art competition theme was "draw a game" character.
Well that could be anything and it was.
So what was the stick thats poking lach to talk?
Well I love kids art-they're completely crazy.
If you put any of it on a tshirt I'd wear it most of the time. And thats the problem- they only had one 'winner' per category(I suppose because of their scabby prize limitations).
So I said you have to have honorable mentions, because , I reason , like any artists, they want some recognition and reassurance to 'keep on that path'
- Well if it was me I'd want encouragement dammit,- they took the trouble to enter the damn comp.
Even having your name mentioned in front of others is a big deal when you're little,- well it was to me when I was a kid.
So we all picked a few in each category as 'honorable mentions'. Later they announced these winners to a largely empty auditorium because they left their announcing so late everyone had gone home. Then we had that panel discussion. I have in my brain a stockpile of 'saved discussions' (with milenko) about topics such as "what makes a character work"(well our discussions would be more along the lines of "why character X is fucked in our game" and "the way things oughta be done" ).
I think i probably looked autistic as i spoke but I think the point I made were good. For example I talked about the problem whereby:
1. game has huge budget and therefore huge risk- money men demand that character have appeal and that people get it.
2. In order for people to 'get it' money men demand we reach for well worn archetypes and cliches(even in terms of game ideas not just characters) because they're recognisable and therefore accessible- people 'get it' without having to read the fine print.
3. Original ideas and dangerous ideas weeded out, whats left is very similar to 10 other games currently released or in production, and custom made to sink without trace.

The only way is to go to the source, do the original research, do the research on what exists so you don't tread on peoples toes, and then let the ideas themselves guide art (and then the art guide the ideas in a loop as eveyone gets excited).

So to the two of you and your dog that were watching that afternoon- I hope at least that any drool stains formed while you were asleep caused no embarrassment. I've left some annoying stuff out(like their stupid fucking security wristbands they insisted I wear constantly for 2 days)
but the bottom line on Saturday was I that close to not bothering to turn up on the Sunday - because I figued they we so unorganised they wouldn't notice I wasn't there.
Turns out I was right in a way.
Aaaaanyway the next day i did go in, and I resolved that, like the year before, I'd bring a few drawings to give to the 'kids under 12yrs' section.
Why? well they might't be genius but thats all I've got to give prizewise, and I reckon my half hour drawings are a fair trade for theirs,
and I know kids like dinosaurs and monsters- which is pretty much all i do.
Well i do nudie women too, - I'm sure they'd like that....... anyway.
Sunday I turn up with a few drawings and find out they'd decided I didn't have to be there - that they give me a break because they didn't want to put me out. If I'd been told before hand then yes, that might have been a good thing, but there I was standing stupidly with drawings I'd dragged in feeling like a complete idiot for bothering.
Undeterred I said here's some drawings for the honorable mentions anyway.
One of the kids dad seemed genuinely impresssed with the dinosaur drawing I gave, and also it seemed by the fact that something so personal was just given away.
I shook his offered hand,- signed my drawing(which i stupidly almost never do) and left feeling wierd but good.

Heres the drawings I gave away on sunday- all A2 or bigger.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Lost world aint lost without a dinosaur



So here is a dinosaur.

A sorta made up dinosaur.
Thats made everything more lost worldy already.

good.

Apparently.....


People start blogs, only to find they have nothing to say after all..... and give up not long after when they find in fact no-one in the internet cosmos cares.

Well I don't have a lot to say unless poked with a stick, but I draw stuff fairly regularly.
Hopefully there'll be a bit of resonance at least between the artists I know and myself through it, and that will give us each the juice to keep dreaming, and fight the good fight pencilwise.