Long time no see, guess I've been a tad busy...First Post of 2016

So, what have I been up to all this time? Mostly just riding a wave of incoming work much like opening up a wardrobe full of ping pong balls, an analogy I've probably used before as an excuse but honestly since I haven't updated this blog since September 2015 I can't account for it... While it'd be awesome to have it something like this...

It's more like this

 So it's an election year, the worlds most powerful country is picking it's leader and it's every but as crazy as it's ever been, so what better than to begin this year's posting cycle with a digital caricature, as drawn lovingly on my new(ish) iPad pro (will be doing a video about it soon)  But the main comparison I drew was Donald J. Trump and Dragon Ball Z, both are:

• Hilarious and exciting to watch and have been around way longer than most people realise/would care to admit.
• Just when you think the bad guy has won the "David vs Goliath protocol" switch is thrown and the story ends with an insane fireworks display.
• Both seem to have massive fan bases despite an overall lack of substance.
•  It's all about machismo, yelling and psychotic hair.

  

New digital work

Here's a few more examples of reducing my carbon foot print, sort of. By supporting some of the native wildlife and their quest to become the best martial artists ever.
As some examples of projects I do that have very little to do with caricatures, illustration, particularly cartoon based work is where my passion also is.

Yes that is a platypus balancing on top of the head of a koala like the awesome scene from the Karate Kid movie. 

I never got a chance to smash balsa wood planks when I was doing karate but my characters get to.

More to come soon, it's been busy lately.

Pure digital caricatures

Naturally these are still drawn by hand but as time crunches and carbon foot prints notwithstanding I decided to finally take off the paper training wheels and draw exclusively with the tablet and stylus. 

Dr Pam in colour WIP

Here's a coloured version of the Z Brush sculpt, soon to be detailed and posed. Though she's a scientist the 1950's rockabilly horn rimmed sunnies were a gotta have; the final version will probably not include it.   

Z Brush Poison Ivy fan art piece Work in Progress.

This piece I've been working on for a while using a combination of z spheres, shapes, duplicates and extractions though Edgar is a more complete piece he was far easier to make (not so many parts) not true of this one which is, part character design portfolio piece, part fan art piece, part pin up piece and is the work in progress result of much trial and error and the fact Z Brush has an autosave ability that is truly a life saving thing of brilliance :)

Zee Brush, "Edgar"

I'm currently still teaching myself Z Brush, a program in my humble opinion is probably the most awesome creative platform since I discovered MS Paint as a kid in the 90's. Ok that may be a stretch but back in 1994 MS Paint was the greatest.

Meet Edgar, yes I know most of what I've been creating has been a tad nightmarish and grim but stick around, it's all part of a far cooler bigger thing. Loosely based on Audrey 2 from 'Little Shop of Horrors" and the piranha plants from Mario Bros I wanted to make a cool venus fly trap monster. So using multiple component shapes for the head (sphere), flower (cone), soil (sphere), pot (cylinder)  and root (cylinder) coming out the side are all separate 'sub tools' that can be worked on independent of the others.

Here's a close up, I wanted to make the whole man eating plant concept more plant like especially when it came to the teeth as in different versions the teeth have always appeared more animal I wanted to make them seem more like thorns. 

I'm working on making the pot look more beaten up and giving way to the plant slowly beginning to escape, I also like the character of it.

Zee Brush

I began teaching myself how to use Zbrush after seeing some amazing work done online using the program. I've always been an avid sculptor since my days studying fine art and clay, is my medium (with sculpty a close second) so when I discovered software like Maya and 3Ds Max used digital clay I was to say the least intrigued, then along came Zbrush and I knew I found it. :)

This is the first completed painted head sculpt I've made so far, it's a fan art piece of Batman villain Killer Croc. 

The character has a great unusual face to create as he has been reimagined as everything from an MMA fighter with a bad skin condition, to a talking dinosaur so though there's a few parameters the characterisation is a free for all .   I've done other pieces which I'll be posting soon to show my progress.