Coach Trip Fisheyes

At the beginning of November I embarked on a 10-day-coach-journey-catch-up-session around the South east. I took my fish-eye. These aren't as good as I'd hoped for to be honest, I'll blame that partly on myself for not getting round to taking many photographs recently and being out of practise, and partly on the fact that my light metre is broken so all the settings are guess work.

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Portsmouth

Always old buildings

Sunrise

Bridge

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London

Forever in love with weird doors and crumbling walls

Deep thought

Covers

Crusty phonebox

Soho somewhere

Something went weird here

I love half-wound photos

Long exposure walk

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Brighton

Upshots of lamposts always

There is another few photos on another film which hasn't been finished yet. 

Killing Them Softly 1: Scoot McNairy

So i've been absent for quite some time. I burnt out hard, got lazy, threw a lot of paper in the bin and then moved flat so I've got my excuses. But time to get back to it. I got inspired by the film Killing Them Softly. It was so good, and the characters were so intense that I just wanted to draw them all. Didn't know this guy before I watched it but he is an absolutely incredible actor. Scoot McNairy. A fair few mistakes, but not bad for the first thing i've drawn in nearly 6 months.

EMP Packaging & Vinyls - All 3 Films

Big Trouble In Little China

This box is absolutely enormous for the size of the figure, but it looks cool though so it's fine.

Small Town Folk

Finally got some vinyl figures sorted to go on this & the next box.

Troll Hunter

Covered the bottom sections of the mountain in fake grass flock.

Lid on the mountain.

Lid off the mountain.

EMP (and not EMP) Postcards

As a little addition to link my full size posters with the vinyl toys I decided to make postcards of  the full posters but also with photos of the vinyl toys and the type from the posters. I included the name of the character & the name of the actor that played them & once they're printed they will all be signed & for EMP purposes the cards showing the figures will be numbered as a sort of authentication certificate system. And since it's nearly show time I though it would be good to have some other bits to hand out so I've gone for some prints of my favourite old pieces as well.  

Back

Big Trouble In Little China

Troll Hunter

Small Town Folk

Others

EMP Poster 3: Small Town Folk

No messing around with this one. Get it done. Took my inspiration for various other horror movie posters where the killer is visable in centre frame but is obscured in some way, either by their back being turned or something hiding them to leave some suspense to finding out what they look like. I went for a simple fade out on three edges and the sickle coming forward on the right. I went for a simple colour palette this time. After creating two heavily coloured and heavily detailed posters I felt that I needed to try my hand at something a little more refined. White, grey, black, two shades of blue, red & a flare. I sat the figure on a black background to allow the fade. The typography again is the same in terms of the information text and the title typeface is Arno Pro (display) which is close to the typeface used in the original artwork. I chose to use only a single splash of red so that it really stands out from the rest of the image, it can be easy to use too much red which ruins the balance of a piece and I wanted to keep it minimal and suggestive rather than painting blood all over the place.

EMP Poster 2: Trollhunter - Finished

After hours of fiddling about with different coloured backgrounds, tag-lines, different coloured type, fonts, styles, slanting the type, throwing on textures and taking them off again I decided - no, I'm just going to leave it simple. So I did and I think it works well. I already talked about the illustration in an earlier post so I'll skip that. In terms of the text I wanted to keep it similar to the official typeface and Franchise is the closest I could find, it's very similar. It's all in lower case but looks like uppers. I also wanted to keep the yellow of the Trollhunter title as I think that is something that is really memorable from the original artwork. I found that having the whole title in plain yellow left it a little lost in the imagery, I tried it with a black stroke but that didn't help much so I reversed the two, black with a yellow stroke seems to work well. It doesn't get lost because of the boldness of the black but keeps the yellow that I wanted. I carried this across to the information section at the bottom to bring a little consistency and add more yellow. If you compare the layout of this type with that of my BTILC poster you'll notice that they are pretty much the same. This is to keep the series bound as a set. 

Overall I'm happy with the outcome of this piece, I think that it displays the mood of the film but in my own illustrative fashion and compliments the original artwork well. 

EMP Poster 1: Big Trouble In Little China - Finally Finished

This has been, without a doubt, the most extensive period of time spent on a single illustration I've ever done. According to my blog record I posted the first character for this on the 30/01/12, and that took a few days in itself. So I've been working on this for nearly 3 months and it is finally finished and I am SO glad. I've added in the Kim Cattrall character (You have to have a woman in the poster somewhere. It's a rule.) and I've dropped the guardian simply because of the logistics of fitting him into the frame. Because of his shape he was being really awkward and wasn't fitting properly with any of the other characters and was throwing out the whole balance of the image so in the end I had to cut him from the final piece. I went with a black background & blended that into the bottom of the characters. 

I also abandoned the hand-made text I had after some feedback regarding its inaccuracy and general shoddiness. I tried to keep the typeface as close to the original movie posters/cover as possible as I think it's a fairly iconic part of the imagery for this particular film. So I used the same colour gradient with the same stroke for the lettering. The typeface used for the title is Big Noodle Titling (which frankly sounds like it was made for this piece anyway) which was close enough to the original to be similar but not so 80's as to look as tacky. The typefaces used for the information at the bottom are OSP - DIN ( my favourite that I use on everything ) and I wanted another sans-serif to compliment it and after trying a bunch ended up with Trebuchet. ( I think that's how it's spelt. ) I like the effect that using different weights and sizes of the same font within a line has; I think it really helps to emphasise certain words without being too distracting or breaking the flow. These two typefaces and positioning of the information will be constant across all my posters to create a sense of them being a set.

Overall I'm really happy with the final outcome of this poster. I think that the illustrations have all joined together well to create a strong, balanced image that holds its own but is supported by the typography. I wanted to do justice to the original imagery used and I think that by taking elements of the compositional style and typography that I have managed to do so whilst bringing in my own take on the characters. 

Enough talking.

Here's a picture.

I can't wait until this is blown up to A1.

I also made a tiny body-bag as packaging for my Small Town Folk vinyl today. But it's not quite finished so I'll hold off on the imagery for now.

EMP Poster 2: Troll Hunter - Illustration

This took about 4/5 days to draw and 2 solid days on Photoshop to paint.

I went with Photoshop instead of illustrator, and a more stylised illustration because I'm trying to work with different styles/techniques across the range of posters to demonstrate my various abilities. Outline first, scan, select range, drop the backing out & then paint underneath the outline. Start with a base colour, usually a mid, then go a shade darker, then again & continue to build them up until you get the desired tones in the right areas. Throw in some extra colours, drop some opacities to get the tones/shades coming through. Many brushes. 

The inspiration for this piece (aside from the epic scene in Troll Hunter where he battles the Jotnar) was old movie posters for monster movies. Films like King Kong, Godzilla etc, where the monster towers over everything. 

 

Fee Fi Fo Fum

EMP Poster 1: Big Trouble In Little China - The Third Storm

The third storm.

They all wear the same hats. Just one more vector character to do. Then possibly background. And typography. And composition.

I finished my A1 Troll Hunter illustration today. That's likely to be up tomorrow. 

EMP Poster 1: Big Trouble In Little China - Wicker Hat Man #2

The second Storm from Big Trouble In Little China. It's all about enormous wicker hats.

I'm not as happy with this one as with the other characters, I may go back and re-work a lot of the detail and colouring. Just seems to be lacking something, maybe I forgot something. Don't know. I used the same colours for the face as the last Storm to keep it consistent. Next up I've got the third Storm to illustrate, then the guardian. Also I'm going to start work on my Troll Hunter poster and I'm halfway through painting my vinyl figure of James Hong. Photos to follow.

EMP Poster 1: Big Trouble In Little China - Title Text

Title text for my first poster.

Added the Chinese translations for obvious reasons.

EMP Poster 1: Big Trouble In Little China - James Hong

EMP (extended major project) has begun.

I am producing a series of highly detailed, illustration movie posters for some weird and wonderful movies.

The first I picked was 'Big Trouble In Little China'.

Here's part 1 - James Hong.

Close up.

Full.

Gradient, blend & a lot of time on illustrator.

Next: Kurt Russell.

Hand Drawn Kinetic Type #3: The Great Repetition - Complete

The 3rd video in the series has been a little while coming but it's finally gone live.

It's a little different from the first two, we're trying to move it forward.

I hope you enjoy it.

Props to Ben Darvill for all the help http://www.bendarvill.com/ 

End Transmission.

Hand Drawn Kinetic Type #3: The Great repetition - Progress

Okay. So due to recent developments with this project I'm taking a lot more time, care and effort about the outcome, I'm making, working, scraping, re-making, re-working and occasionally re-scraping what I've done. But I'm fairly happy with what is below.

Got some 3D paper type and stuff.

 

These take about 20-30 minutes to make EACH, depending on which letter it is (except for 'I' which is easy).

I made 24 letters. Only 3 of which were 'I'. You do the math.

Hand Drawn Kinetic Type #2: Touche Amore's Pathfinder - Work In Progress

So after the delight I had after finding out that actually, not only was making hand drawn kinetic type ( with a dodgy camera I ordered on eBay from Honk Kong) really fun, it looked pretty cool and other people actually like it. Ergo: make more. I've decided that I'm going to work my way through the album and see if I can do the whole thing. The first one was scratchy and unplanned. Change that. Think about this more. The second track 'Pathfinder' is about half done now and looking sweet. Not going to post it yet but here's some light typography. 

Mmmm. Light Stencils.

Frankly, these were some happy accidents that occurred when I was moving all the stuff off my table. But they look sweet, so I'm going to immediately upload the 2nd one to my website.

Hand Drawn Kinetic Type Time Lapse of: Touche Amore- Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me

 I bought a little camcorder about a week or so ago. 

This is the first thing I've got round to doing with it.

Hand drawn kinetic type of one of my favourite bands - Touche Amore

. It was just something fun to play around with. 

To be honest I thought It wouldn't work at all but in the end it turned out alright.

Check out Touche Amore.

http://toucheamore.com/

Year 3 - Project 2: The Future Of Illustration - Set Up Photos

Photos of time-lapse set up. Mostly with Holly's thumb in the way.

Year 3 - Project 2: The Future Of Illustration - Time Lapse Illustration Video

Group meeting 2 had some massively productive outcomes. We smashed the whole project in one day. 

More ideas, sketches, set up and production. Here it is...

Enjoy.

Horror Crew - Haunting Houses - Videos

So sometime a bit earlier this year I went to an abandoned hotel with some people from Horror Crew (see photos in an earlier post) and at the time I couldn't get the videos to upload. Now I have better internet.

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Enjoy.

December 2nd 2010: In The Land Of The Felines...

Coming soon to a cinema near you.

In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, one dog's struggle to overcome the odds and be reunited with his family is hampered by peril. Accompanied only by his pet rat, Bruno must fight for survival and outrun the pack of evil cats that are close on his tail. Toxic waste and the bones of old friends fill the streets while vulture circle hungrily overhead. Will Bruno make it? Will he reach the biscuit factory in time? Or will he succumb to the trickery of the cats, and be lost forever to the morose world that has become... The Land Of The Felines. Directed by Ben Mercer. Staring Will Smith as Bruno, Ross Kemp as RatBoy and Bono as Ginger Tom.

"Heart wrenching... I've never cried so much" - The Tymes

"A glorious story of the overcoming of odds and slapping those cat b*****ds" - Daily Telephone

"Will Smith gives an amazing performance... undoubtedly the best film of the year" - Will Smith

Rated 15 by the British Film Association. Contains strong violence, bad language, drug use and scenes of a sexual nature throughout.