Critter of the Week 3 : It's ME!

Here is a self-portrait I created for the first page of my portfolio!

  

 

Critter of the Week 2: Poodle!

Aardvark Admires Artistic Ants

I've completed the first page/scene from my Animal ABC book and wanted to share the preliminary photos. I also completed a short animation sequences to demonstrate my characters' 'bendability'.
I plan to complete 3 finished double page spreads from this book in the near future so that I can start sending out dummy copies to publishers.

Creature of the Week 1: Aardvark

Here are some (low quality) images of creature number one in my creature per week challenge: the aardvark. I was in a hurry to post this and I positioned him rather sloppily. As a result he looks like he is recovering from a big night out.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a full scene, which I will post this week.

Fascinating aardvark fact: they have four digits on their front limbs, and five on the back.
 

Creature of the Week Challenge

In the spirit of setting goals and deadlines for oneself, I have decided to take up a new challenge. Spring has sprung, I am feeling unusually motivated and I intend to ride this wave as long as possible!

Many illustrators set themselves weekly goals, such as participation in Illustration Friday. It seems like  a great habit to establish, especially for those times when you are in between projects and don't have the creative energy to devise something entirely new to work on.

I have a book dummy, an animal alphabet, which has gathering dust on the shelf for quite some time. It's high time I revisited this project, and this leads me to my challenge; a creature a week!

This will be a really useful exercise for me as I will have to tackle certain creatures that I have previously avoided because they seemed too hard, or I don't have the right method and materials.  Not looking forward to the Queenly Quail...

I'm going to proceed through the alphabet tackling each creature in order. Starting.... Monday 30th April. There. It is written down... and now it shall be done.

New Work: HUMAN Characters!

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the NESCBWI Conference in Springfield, MA. The three days were packed with inspiring presentations, workshops and conversations. My head is positively spinning with all the information I absorbed, and it will probably take a week to process it all... I have started by writing list upon list of things I need to work/improve/expand on within my existing body of work. There is A LOT to do...  and I can't really begin to blog about it any further right now.

For now, I would like to share my first foray into sculpted HUMAN child characters.. it was a rocky road to say the least. I will post again soon with some 'process' shots, highlighting some of the challenges of sculpting tiny heads.

Creating Worlds

Macro Photography

Last week, I invested in my very first Macro photography lens. It only dawned upon me recently that a macro lens might come in handy when shooting my miniature scenes. I have experienced frustration in capturing an adequate level of detail in some of my shots, and only recently came to understand the limitations of my 'everyday' camera lens. 

After a great deal of research, I settled on the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Macro Lens.

Below is the first round of experimental shots - I am still getting accustomed to the particular settings required for macro shooting (e.g. it is recommended that you shoot at the lowest possible ISO to reduce 'noise', this effects the amount of light required). It is very important to avoid camera shake, so as always I use the tripod and the self-timer. Auto-focus is useless with this macro lens for some reason so I have manually focused these.

But WHEEEEEEEEE WHOOOOOOP I am so excited about the level of detail in these. In certain cases, this lens reveals perhaps a little bit too much detail... we don't necessarily need to see every crease, bump or lump of glue.

Perhaps a little TOO MUCH detail in this one!

f # 11, shutter speed 1

f number 2.5, shutter speed 1/40