Good, Bad, Ugly

I had this random doodle in my sketch book from my session of drawing Roland of Gilead. I was wondering if there was anything I could do with it and turned it into a film poster.

With this first one I was going for a Sin City look. I thought it looked ok but the more I thought about it, the more wrong it was. So I decided to put in some 'western' colours to make it feel less Sin City and more Good Bad Ugly.

Stargate Poster

I found this on my hard drive earlier and it made me laugh. I was trying to make Stargate posters a few months back for my portfolio and this was the best of the bunch. Because it's clearly the one I was doing as I gave up.

Dark Tower

Last year a good friend of mine got me reading the Dark Tower cycle by Stephen King. Looking back, I'm still a bit fuzzy about precisely how that happened. I guess he must have used hypnosis because I remember him telling me how it all ends and me saying that I'll never read them after that. It's more about the journey than the end though and now that I finally got past Wizard and Glass (quick summary; the first 100 pages or so is basically the last 100 or so pages of the Third book, then there's a massive flashback about him as a teenager hiding basically) I'm reading it every night pretty obsessively (I'm on Wolves of the Calla now).

For those not savvy to it, it's an epic fantasy series but instead of swords and sorcery, King deliberately went for a Western motif and if weekday afternoon movies on Channel Five are any indication, then Westerns are coming back.

The story centres around Roland Deschain, the Last Gunslinger of Gilead and his search for the elusive Dark Tower. He's a man who is described as being a) incredibly old because the way his world is moving on is affecting time somehow b) sharp, both with his guns and with his perceptions c) short on imagination d) short on humour e) complete badass.

The Tower itself stands at the centre of all things, the nexus of all worlds and times. And it's crumbling.

Plot aside (I'm sure I'll bring it up again at some point anyway) I spent some time last weekend drawing Roland in front of the Tower and spent a while today meticulously colouring it in (click to full zoom of course).



























And then I went and defaced all of my hard work.




























And then I wondered how it might look on an old edition book.




























But it kinda came out more like an olde timey wanted poster.

Chilling at Work

Here's a new comic what I done.

You need to click the magnifying glass so you can zoom in. I was having trouble with Flickr as it for some reason wouldn't let you zoom in at full size, which made it unreadable.

It Came From Beyond (the Jameson's house)

Hello there, to whoever reads this still. I've been doing a bit of drawing lately during downtime in my Naxxramas raids. It's surprising how much you can actually get done while waiting for people to turn up, run from graveyard, discuss strategies.

I got the idea for this, sort of, when I had to mail some dvds a week or two back. I couldn't find the post office (apparently all the local ones are shut) and had to walk into Laleham. Got a bit lost and ended up walking down suburbua. With the endless rows of houses and surprisingly few people it felt a little claustraphobic and Kafkaesque. I imagined myself lost in this labyrynthine residential area for the rest of all time.

I got out of course. Duh. But I couldn't escape the feeling at the time that I was trapped.

This image however is part of my attempt to build a new slightly fresher, more mainstream looking portfolio. The hope is it'll get me work. Work that I need.

Firefly 'Review' and Doodles

I was just playing around on my Wacom for the first time in ages. I haven't done much drawing recently I'm ashamed to say, and it felt good to get back to it for a bit. This could probably be better, but I'm a bit rusty, and I was experimenting a bit with colour value and contrast.









I've been watching Firefly and it's a good show. The last time I watched it I was completely enamored with it. But this time round I began to nitpick a little bit. For a start, the Alliance is meant to be this massive authority and you get the feeling that they don't really have much control as many planets don't actually have any Alliance presence whatsoever. In the context of the show, the crew of Serenity avoid the Alliance like the plague, deliberately going to these places but the fact that there are hardly any government or federal types around at all after about episode 4 gives the impression that they hardly exist at all.

Same with the Reavers actually, but I reckon I'd have got a lot more annoyed if it was all Reavers all the time.

This includes the main characters. You get to know them as people but many of the main cast don't get a fully fleshed out backstory. Most get a blurb in regards to their history, and some a massive question mark. River's time spent at the Alliance academy, while getting attention, is never revealed. Sheperd's links with the Alliance military is also a massive blank. But the other character's with their more 'mundane' lives don't get a look in. How come Kayleigh knows so much about Space Ships and engineering? Where is Wash from and who taught him to fly said space ships. And why the hell is Jayne such a badass?

To be fair, this is stuff that would have been fleshed out further should they have been allowed to complete the first season and perhaps move onto another. So I guess the conclusion to this ramble is 'good but need more'. Which is about as good you could get.

Oh, and I want to know about the 10th character. How did she end up in that junk yard and who the hell owned her before Mal?

Why I Can't Get Design Work

I found this job posting online this morning. I wish I'd made it all up. The worst part is that people actually applied to this guy.

Description:

I need humble graphic design artist that can draw the characters and color them I need two guys standing side by side of each other with there arms crossed and they need to be drawin in the type of style as the characters in the picture I got attach atleast like the one with french braids have bandana around his mouth and nose and the one with the red and white hat on him this will be on the t-shirt if you can draw them better then be my guess make it look cool it will be full body shot of both of the characters... The character with the hat is gonna have red,white,yellow hat turned backward its gonna be fitted Old atlanta hawks hat with the Atlanta basketball jersey the colors is gonna be red,white,and yellow with just the atlanta hawks logo red and white on the front of the jersey with know band on his arm... his shoes red,white and yellow pants white and pants white with red and yellow line going down the side... he have know scraf on his head either last but not least his t-shirt under his jersey gonna be white look at the atlanta hawk picture I attach will help you match the colors with the hat but I dont want the man dribbling the basketball sinble there I want you to put the atlanta hawk sinble so you can see it when his hat in backawrds in the same colors as the sinble on the front of the hat The character with the braids blue hooded sweater with dark green pants and his boots gonna be black... bandana around his mouth and nose will be blue and white looking like a real bandana and his t-shirt under his hooded sweat shirt white THIS IS T-SHIRT DESIGN AND CHARACTERS WILL BE USE FOR CARTOON MOVIE I would like some words around them or under them to make it look urban and you can send me your samaples as well of what you come up with characters will look realistic as possible The characters you will be designing must be a little bit bigger then the characters on the picture thats attach to this post we would like someone with good prices not real high in prices but good a real good job that can work with me and also humble Yes the characters race are two black males on the picture them the ones you will be drawing They pants can be sagging also can even even have they hands in they pocket Be creative but it has to be catchy I guess is more of the thug type of look as some of you might say Please dont put know Pink clothes on them You must be able to work with us on yours prices we aint rich at all or know where near

Employer questions:

(1) What can you bring to this project ? What Programs You Use ? (2) Why you apply to this project ? Are you humble person ? (3) Why should I hire you for this project ? How long you been doing this for ?'

TShirts part 2

Apparently I ballsed up the links on the last one. So here they are again. Hopefully you can actually SEE them this time.

Illustration Friday - Flawed

Didn't think a whole lot about this one. I just wanted to draw something.

I like the lighting from the windows (?) on the left and from the glowing balls of spell flame.

The demon himself perhaps not so much.

T'Shirts

Herro. Here are some shirts I did as partway application for a job. Didn't get it so here they are. Mostly using other people's fonts' and design elements. I just arranged them this way. (only thing that's truly mine is the camo wave).

click to enlarge