The Storyteller

I forget how badly I paint. It's not that my knowledge of colour or tone it particularly bad, but more that I get overwhelmed with what you can do, and have a habit of overthinking and overworking the most basic things. This started out as a speedpainting, but I gave up, blurred it all and changed to a tonal study. I'd like to come back to the picture though, the original is quite a beautiful photo.

While in most ways I feel like I was a generation too late to really get the chance to appreciate Jim Henson, he seems like an incredible man. If it wasn't so late I'd wax on forever about the guy, but even from the little I know of him he seems like a man to aspire to be like.

24 HOUR COMICCCCC

Woo! So here's my 24hr comic, completed at the beginning of February at the amazing Eden Project, which if you haven't been, is like a slice of the future- today.

It was for 24hr Comic etc., where three events in different parts of Cornwall were set up for us participants to try and complete 24 pages of comics,24 illustrations, 24 minutes of film, 24 songs, or whatever in the allotted time. It was awesome! Real good fun, with amazing people and organisers.

Although having to get a bus and a couple of trains back home after a distinct lack of sleep is a lot harder than you'd think.

Anyway, here it is! I used photoshop magic to get rid of my coloured pencils and level the pages (here's what an original looks like), so that might be thought of as cheating (going outside the time limit). But I don't care.

It turns out there isn't a photoshop tool to airbrush out bad storytelling. Here's my comments from a questionnaire I gave to the organisers:

"I don’t think it’s explained very well in the story, but the idea is that scientists and biologists created a giant machine for harvesting natural resources, but it malfunctioned and ended up destroying the local environment by letting anything useful rot and stagnate within its structure. The scientists made underground stations to help maintain whatever plantlife was left from above, using mirrors to get sunlight underground. That’s the backdrop, anyway. The creature/machine was inspired by the giant scrap robot in the eden project, and most of the rest of the comic is inspired by all the people and bits and pieces dotted around the area."

So yeah. That's it!

character designs for an illustrated book I'm starting, which was actually mentioned... here. It's gonna be fun to do! These are tests for a single character. Her personality isn't really defined yet though, so I've got a little way more to go before I'm done narrowing down.

Also, the go team piece I made was linked here. More work goes into that website than the official page!

Lastly, I've been listening to this cover more than I should: http://hypem.com/#!/item/vhqa/The+Bamboos+-+King+of+the+Rodeo+feat+Megan+Washington+