Fassinating

Hey, didn't I say I was going to post more, right before I vanished for 4 months?  Yeah, sorry about that.  Won't Might happen again.  I'm not going to go into why it's taken me so long to write a new post, mostly because I'm not entirely sure myself.  I have a fair bit of catching up to do though!

So, what's happened since I've been away?  Well, I presented at GDC, got a new position at work (I'm an Associate Art Director now), which also means I completed the project I was working on, and did an album cover (sort of - I think I was working on it when I wrote the last post).  More on some of that next time.

This post focusses on something that I did before all that though, even before the last post.  Last August in fact.  I thought I had posted about it at the time, but I guess I hadn't since there isn't one.

Just a Little Board With Pulp

No, that's not a typo in the title, I mean board, not bored.  I work, as you may or may not recall, at a videogame development company.  What you may not be aware of is that a shocking number of game developers are also lovers and designers of boardgames.  Not only that, but the city in which I live has an annual board game design competition, which is obviously popular with the staff.

One of my colleagues mentioned before Christmas that he was planning on entering a game, and would I be interested in doing a cover for the box?  Sure, sounded fun. And then I forgot all about it because Santa coming has that effect on me (or perhaps it's the copious alcohol).

Obviously I did end up painting the cover (or this would be a very short post), and you can see it, and the rest of this tale after the break below (unless you clicked through already, in which case it's right there, probably on screen already,  Look!  There!  Right there!).

Speeding Through It All

Whenever I do a speedpaint post I think to myself "Well, I only have 4 or 5 images to show, how long could writing that take?" and then I actually go an look and it's more like 6 to 8 images, so it's going to take longer than I thought.  6 to 8 isn't bad going, especially since it feels like I've barely set aside any time for them recently.  And I really haven't - most of these are very, very quick studies, for various reasons.

I still have a lot on my plate  over the next few weeks, but it's not always easy to find the time in between my day job, and the stuff I do for Dr. Sandifer.  Last week, as an example, I was working on an image for work in my spare time. It wasn't an official image, but I needed to demonstrate something at a presentation, and didn't have time to both write the presentation and do the artwork without working on it at home.  No, you can't see it, at least not yet.  Maybe one day, when what it refers to is no longer under wraps.

SO yeah, I've been falling behind on my art practice, and I'm honestly at a bit of a loss to where all the time goes, but it does go, and it goes fast.   Speaking of fast...

Sketching for July/September '13

With over a month since my last post, you'd think I'd have lots to show.  You would be wrong.  It's not that I've not been active (though I've not produced anywhere near what I should have - almost no speed paints for example), just that much of that I either can't show, or can't show just yet.  Mostly though this month (and the end of the last) has just been a fairly tough slog.  Long time followers will know that October 5th marks an unhappy anniversary for me, and  as such the two weeks around that date are usually a pretty horrible time for me emotionally.   This year though I also had two friends pass away in the time since I last posted.  The latter was very close, and died on Thursday.   I won't post my thoughts on that here - it's best left to other places, but obviously it's affected me deeply.

But on to happier things, at least for this post.  We've had a house guest for a few weeks, and he's likely to be around for a while longer.  While his presence is obviously a minor distraction from the art thing he's also the model guest, and we're very happy to have him. I do also have some things coming up soon - I'm taking a new painting class, and I'll be posting the results before long.  One of the pieces seems to be fairly popular, (though of course, being me I can't see why) and overall there should be three or four paintings by the end of it.  I've also been working on a new book cover for Dr. Sandifer, and that should be hitting the electronic store shelves in the next few weeks - I'll have a post about it ready when it does of course.  There are also another two covers that are essentially done, and just waiting on a final page count.  Those I'll probably blog about in December and January when the books go live.  So yes, things are happening, even if it's not quite in the places I would hope (anatomy practice, sketching, that sort of thing - I've had no mental time for it the past few months, but hopefully that will change soon).  For now though, let's get the sketching up to date...

Sketching for May/June '13

I've not been terribly good at keeping up on the blogging of late have I (and long term followers will know this is nothing particularly new)? To be honest I've not been terribly great at keeping up on the art either. That's not to say I'm not doing any, but a good chunk of it is for work, so you'll either never get to see it or you won't for a few years. The work stuff is a big learning curve right now, and as a result it's having a knock on to the art-as-hobby area. In all honesty this last week I might have gotten back on the horse properly, but Saints Row IV was out and I was too busy playing to actually draw anything (I did work on it of course, but even so there were plenty of surprises in there I'd somehow missed during development, and I had a blast). Plus it's right in the middle of allergy season, and I hate drawing when everything is slightly blurred from the results.

So yes, the art and the blog have not been my priority of late (there have been other things going on too, but I won't bore you with them), but now SR4 is done and dusted and there's less pure knowledge being assimilated at work I should be getting back to it. But not this week - I have a deadline of sorts this week.

Anyway! Sketching.

January '13 and (December '12) Sketching

They say it never rains but it pours. I don't know who 'they' are, but they've been saying it for an awfully long time. Right now, with the rain streaming down the windows this seems a particularly apt term, as I do seem to have rather a lot to be getting on with after a month of relative artistic calm. Much of this comes from work, and so you may never see it dealt with here (though it's not out of the question eventually), but some of it I'll be dealing with here eventually. Eventually is an important word there, as I won't have much time to update the blog or do side work to show for a little while, so if this is the only post during February I hope you'll forgive me. But you're not here to hear me bemoan my work load, you're here to see art (come to the wrong place I suspect), so lets get on with it.

A Welcome Return to Speed

It's been a crazy few weeks. I didn't mention this in my last couple of posts, but the company I work for filed for bankruptcy and put most of it's assets up for sale. I won't go into the details (You can look up THQ bankruptcy if you have an interest), but suffice to say it was a stressful time all round, and while I still have a job (under a different parent company, but still with the same team in the same place), many people didn't, and that makes me very unhappy.
And given all that stress art has not been at the forefront of my mind. Even so I've sketched more this month than at any time since September, and given how little I'd drawn in December I felt I may as well hold onto that for a post in early February.  Which leaves us with the few speedpaints I've managed to cobble together over the last two months.  My last speedpaint prior to this was also in September, and I have no interest in leaving it that long again as the quality level drops sharply if I don't do them for too long.

More to life than simply Speedpainting

It's not very often you get to start a post by paraphrasing Ghandi, so I think when you get the chance you should go for it, don't you. This month has been a little sparse on posts as you may have noticed. Generally this happens when I get busy elsewhere, and I'm plenty busy right now. Tomorrow I start a 6 week painting class on Wednesday evenings. It worked out as expensive, but I feel it will work out cheaper in the long run (and faster) than pulling out some paints every six months and grimacing at the results. it may turn out I just suck and the whole thing will be a disaster, but at least I'll know, and so will you as of course I'll post the resulting detritus here.

As well as that I've been working on a commission (the one I said I'd be a fool to turn down). It's actually finished, completed last night, but I can't post it for a while (which is something you should be used to with the commissions by now). The good news is that I'm sketching a lot more than I was last month, although quite a bit of that is for the Open Art Group (Which you get to see anyway). Two of this month's speedpaints are sort of for the same, so I suppose I should get on and show them.

Sketching for August (and the OAG)

Well, yeah. So I haven't been posting much in the past few months as you may have noticed. This isn't because I don't like posting (although prepping these sketch posts can be a real drag), more it's with me just not having much to post.

August was an especially dry month, it seemed to go by extremely quickly and I didn't do much in the way of sketching; I thought - Turned out I did more than I expected, just not the usual stuff, but more on that in a minute. I had promised another post last month, but in the end I felt that the contents of that were better blended with my regular sketch posts - the aims are similar even though the results are less exciting.

You'll notice some changes this time around - they may stay, they may not. Only time will tell. Oh, The ORG? Read on MacDuff!

Bouncing Baby Boyn

Life has been keeping me a bit busy of late. Not with huge and taxing things like "Move House" or "Build Moon Rocket", but with small things that add up, like "Play with Son" (He needs it more than usual right now since his best friend just moved away), "Ensure kittens aren't eating power cables" (We just got two kittens - I think I mentioned this last post) and "Paint a baby" (which this post is about, eventually).

Usually I manage to cram in some video game playing, some TV watching, some sketching and some reading into an average evening. Maybe not all of those things in one evening, but averaged across the week; with some speedpainting on the weekends. Right now this is not the case. I've played for 6 hours since the middle of July, I've managed an hour of TV a night (tops), I've spent a fortnight reading the same book (I usually finish them in 3 days) and this month so far I've done a bare two pages of sketching and not done a speedpaint for two weeks.

Those little things eat up a colossal amount of time I guess. Anyway, Onto the baby!

Children of the Apocalypse

Despite the title of this post it should be noted that the two boys in the picture that follow are actually lovely lads.  The reason for the title is something that's not even apparent in the images, yet it's been the planned title ever since I got the commission for it back in April.

So why was it always the planned title?  Because the original brief required the two boys to be standing in front of a nuclear explosion with an innocent look on their face.  The idea was that they unintentionally bring chaos and destruction with them wherever they go.  They're boys, this is standard operating procedure :)

Okay, let's get to the chase and we can review afterwards.

One Little Pony

No, I failed utterly to make a post about the Blog's birthday. I would say I'm rubbish (but you already know that), but instead I'll point to the slightly hectic couple of weeks I've had with dental work and surprise birthday parties and Mother's Day (which we did bugger all for, as usual), and my Son's best friends planned move to Canada (and his sister's utter terror of my very presence)and my wife's car breaking down, and her entrance exam things for College in the Autumn, and so on and so on... What do you mean that sounds like an average week in your household? You need to lay off the caffeine dearies.

Anyway, so I got a bit swamped, but I also got a commission. Have I mentioned this before? No, I have not, if I mentioned anything it was an entirely different commission that I've not started yet (I need to schedule a photo session).

Now I think anyone who commissions me has got to be a bit bonkers, but lucky for me I know a lot of people who are ever so slightly off their rockers. After the last commission I sort of decided that I wouldn't do any more for a while (because it was hard), and so of course I've taken on another two (because I am thick, or at least a soft touch). So, I present to you the first commission I've ever done for which I will get paid (actual job work not withstanding).

The Best (Not Worst) Sketching of October

I think by this point we've all acknowledged that I can be pretty tardy when it comes to updating the blog, especially when there are other shiny things I could be looking at/reading/playing/watching etc.  This was definitely the case last month as you'll note the new record low of 1 solitary post.  Bah.  If October felt like an eternity then November offset it by going in a flash.
"Oh look, it's Guy Fawks Nigh*VOOF*t...  I mean Thanksgiving."
Partly this was down to the excitement of having shipped another game, and it being reviewed very well, and also being really really fun to play.  Yes, I've played rather a lot of Saints Row: The Third recently.  I only spent six months of so working on it, but it's hard to miss what I did.
Pretty much every ship in the game is something I built, as are a couple of vehicles. They all got touched by other people after I was done (and quite a few people when I was still making them, for technical aid and so on), but they're still enough of mine that I can point and say "I made that ship!".  Anyway, enough excuses and prattling, I'm a month behind, we stuff to catch up on...

All Work and No Play... (RFA Part 3)

Wow, what a long month! It seems like an age since I last posted, though it was only 19 days ago. Madness! (No, Sparta!). It's been a strange month too; usually I fill maybe 5 pages or so of my sketchbook and then condense that down to share the best and the worst with you lot (all three of you). This month - 13 pages. 13! Madness! (No, increasingly annoying tendency to shout Sparta!). But I can go on about that more next time. This time It's the grand finale of the work I'm going to share with you from Red Faction: Armageddon.

The Best and Worst Sketching of September

You may be wondering why it's more than a third of the way through October and I'm only now posting about September.  For once it's not because of the effort involved in getting all the images together nicely - nope, finished that on the 2nd.  It's because I was monumental depressed (as you may have gathered in the last post) and just couldn't be bothered.  Couldn't be bothered to speedpaint either, or paint anything else for that matter.  I did sketch a lot though - most of it was dreadful, but you'll get to see that next month.
Odd thing though, today I feel much better.  I felt much better when I got up, I felt even better when the thing I've been working on at work started to come together, and pretty awesome when I won a raffle for a set of snazzy Saints Row the Third headphones (oh, that's the Saints Row the Third I worked on by the way - check it out next month when it hits the stores... if you're old enough).  So, here we are all happy and jolly; better write a blog post while it lasts - hey, I'm placing you lot above painting again, be thankful! ;)

All Work and No Play... (RFA Part 2)

Since my last post I've done depressingly little art outside of work, a handful of mediocre sketches (and almost all the sketches were of heads and faces rather than figures) and a rough mockup of a book cover that you won't get to see for a while in case it becomes the cover to an actual book. Other than that I'm sick today, which meant I didn't go to work - this is a shame because I'm rather enjoying what I'm doing at work right now. Since I'm stuck in the house though I'll write a blog post instead.  Lucky you.

All Work and No Play... (RFA Part1)

So as some of you may have ascertained by now I work in the games industry for a company called Volition. It's a fairly well known company, predominantly for the Saints Row games these days, but also for the Red Faction games and some other stuff you may or may not have heard of. I've worked on a few titles there at this point, predominantly as a vehicle artist. I've asked if it's OK to show some of my work from shipped titles (shipped means "finished" basically), and this is apparently fine as long as I don't slip you any source art (the actual files that end up in the game). I'll be starting with some of my work from Red Faction: Armageddon.