It's Space Time!

Just a little something I did for our NUCA Comic Society, my friend Faye runs it and we needed some promotional images for the Freshers Fair on Tuesday : )

Oh hey I also had my hair cut : )

The TARDIS progress

I wanted to show how I work, so voila : )

This was a commission from an old friend, Erika, for her husband John for his birthday : ) This took an awful lot of time, and though I was only offering sketch commissions at the time I hadn't done something nice for Erika in years, and I thought a coloured picture would be better for a birthday present. For anyone else I would have charged an awful lot more, and if it was for a publication a bit more again, but as I've never done any work for a publication... I wouldn't know how much to charge, I'd have to ask my tutors!

So, this took weeks to do on and off, I'm not entirely sure how long, you'll have to ask Erika. The colouring seemed pretty fast to me compared to the sketch and inking, but then the colouring took over twelve hours, so I wonder how long everything else took... I learned a lot doing this too, namely to never draw the inside of a TARDIS ever again. The line work was still quite sketchy, I would have cleaned it up for proffessional work but as it was for a sketch commission I let it go.

It's up on DeviantART if you're interested in a higher res version: http://acheronhades.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5ahlia

References:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/TARDISref.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/david-tennant-who-2.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/David-Tennant.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/article-1240098-07BDF7E6000005DC-247_468x403.jpg

Textures used:
http://enchantedgal-stock.deviantart.com/art/Sandpaper-Sand-Texture-Stock-49297190
http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/art/rusted-paper-texture-259201596

Life Continues...

The finished commission (finished a few days ago, actually) rough sketch and final sketch. Glad the commissioner liked it, too. I'm working on the next now, but it's a bit more difficult because I'm drawing the inside of the TARDIS, and oh man is that ever complicated.

I saw the National Theature's Frankenstein with dad on Monday and it was absolutely superb, Benedict Cumberbatch was playing the Creature, Jonny Lee Miller was playing Frankenstein and they were both brilliant, I really loved the whole show and I'd love to see it again, with the roles reversed. I really hope the NT change their minds and release it on DVD for everyone to see, I think it'd be a real shame if they didn't.

I also went to the third year art exhibition on Tuesday, I really liked the design work, and the illustration, especially Tai's work, so beautiful! Apparently John Hurt was milling around too, but unfortunately I didn't see him.

Life is still throwing things at me, but I'm coping. I hope I can find a job soon, and find a new housemate to replace Danny as he's leaving soon, but we'll see.

Sad Times and Great Music

This is going to be a post about my abysmal week, and music.

I'm currently listening to Florence + The Machine's latest single, Breath Of Life, for Snow White and The Huntsman. I really need to see the film, but right now the music is more important. I love listening to Florence, the music is so powerful, so sorrowful, so meaningful and deep... It speaks to me. Wow, that sounded like a horrible cliche, sorry, but it's unfortunately true. I really do love Florence. It's just so beautiful. Here's Breath Of Life, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROtBbOcdFxo

I usually favour bands with amazing lead singers, starting with Orgy, with lead singer Jay Gordon (great electric voice), and then moving onto A Perfect Circle, with Maynard James Keenan, and then moved on from A Perfect Circle to Tool, simply because he was the lead singer for that band, too. And when I say 'Moved on', I don't mean I left the band behind, what I mean is, it became another favourite band. I mean I started listening to them, like a musical evolution (and Maynard's voice is absolutely amazing, by the by).

ANYWAY. Let's go back to my abysmal week before we push on about music.

It started out decently enough, I started a couple of commissions that I had taken due to a complete lack of finances (still dealing with that one), I've finished one of the commissions now, but I won't post it up here. I haven't been paid yet, and I don't want to risk my commissioner finding her final piece and not paying me, that would be very not good.

On Monday or Tuesday, I forget, one of the pipes in the bathroom burst, luckily while we were all at home, though it was fifteen minutes before we managed to turnthe water off, by which time our bathroom had flooded, there was water coming through the light socket and the ceiling in the hallway, and half an inch of water on the tiles on the hallway floor.

So that was that.

But compared to the news that I recieved later in the week, the burst pipe was completely pushed out of my mind, and looking back it seems inconscequential.

I had a couple of job interviews, one of which got back to me today to tell me that they didn't want me. My mum called me on Wednesday evening to ask how they had gone, and gave me some awful news. I won't type it up here because of family politics, but it's really rocked me, and the emotional fallout is taking it's toll.

It's be alright, eventually, I just need time to process it, to find, to discover what I'm going to do with the news, and then face my family.

Anyway, let's end this one a cheery note, and hit 'replay' on Youtube one more time, because oh man Florence... Your music is so powerful, I love it.

I read an article just recently on twopaddocks.com, Benedict Cumberbatch (along with a long list of celebrities) gave a top ten music list, and I read and listened to them all (and liked them all, more importantly). I really wanted to make a list of some of the bands that he listed because I liked them especially, and wanted to look into them a bit. So, for starters, The Macabees, because 'We Grew Up At Midnight' was really nice to listen to. I know, nice isn't a good descibing word, but this is my blog so what I say here goes. I really loved Claire de Lune by Debussy, too, such a beautiful tune, it made me want to learn to play it on the piano, too. Stone Roses were great too, 'I Am the Ressurection' was good to listen to, but mostly, out of all of the songs, it was Radioheads's 'How To Disapear Completely' that really got to me.

Maybe it was the desciption that Benedict gave to accompany the song, explaining about the horrific carjacking that he and a couple of friends were submitted to, and the song playing in the car, acting like a sountrack to this horrible event. Maybe it was because of the really awful news that my mum had given me that was playing heavily on my mind, but it just shook me. Sitting on the sofa at one in the morning, fighting sleep, feeling solemn and thinking about life, the universe and everything. Well, I listened to it, read the description and has tears in my eyes. I don't cry often, but lately I've been giving in a lot more to my emotions, and the song really helped with that. Here's a link to it, do give it a listen, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZq_jeYsbTs

Right, I guess I should leave you with some good news, eh? Well, dad and I are going to see the Natioanl Theature's Frankenstein at Cinema City in Norwich on Monday, and then on Tuesday or Wednesday I'm heading over to the private viewing of the year three illustration exhibition. Not just to see some excellent art, but because I want to be able to see the kind of work that we need to have produced this time next year.

So next week will be good. I haven't heard back from the other job interview yet so wish me luck, I think I need some right now.

Moving On...

So okay, where do I start? In the midst of financial crisis and bad news in the family I'm somehow still here, chugging along like a trooper. But forget all that, you're not here because you're interested in my personal life, you're here for the art.

We've been told that we can pretty much make up our own summer project, so for mine I'm pretending for a bit that the book that I'm working on is a comic, so for different chapters I'm illustrating the comic covers! Fun times : )

These are just sketches, obviously, I don't tend to consult references until I start the finals (and then they get good), but anyway... The first one would probably be for the second to last chapter, that's Acheron up there. Below that, a few Seth and Quentin ideas, and finally a Quentin on his own. After that we have our fabubulous four with Suwa leering over them, and last but not least Varis, with the three other main characters chilling out on his antlers.

Yeah, it's an odd book, but I swear to God it's better when you read it, I can't do it justice in a blurb, I really can't.

As well as that, I've finished my final draft for a letter that I'm sending to Benedict Cumberbatch asking him 'round for a cup of tea. Erm, wish me luck?

Presentation tomorrow, wish me luck

Pictures taken by my group of our final books. Aah, where do I start? These last few days have been difficult, it took us about 4 hours yesterday to decide on a name for the book, to decorate the covers, to write our names on the insides and to add the little tag on the inside with a little info about it. How ridiculous, I've never worked with anyone more indecisive. The plan had been to then work on our presentation for thursday (tomorrow) but at about half past two, three in the afternoon the girls decided to call it a day. We'd clearly been working too hard.

Hell, so, okay. Today when I arrived I found them all sitting around the table looking over the pieces they'd all written seperately to read out during the presentation, we'd all given each other different parts to talk about. I immediately walked to a computer, signed in and opened up Powerpoint, there was no way I was going to sit around for another half a day not making any progress. They all followed me over, and we finally got to work.

I put the powerpoint presentation together with some input from the others, and after it was all done we ran through the presentation together and timed it. We all agreed, after we were done, that it went well, so I disapeared to the loo. When I returned they told me that they weren't sure about what I'd written, I happened to get the 'What we would do if we had the chance to do this project again' part of it all. They told me that my part made the group sound a bit 'shit' and that I hadn't put them all in a very good light, they asked me to re-write it and gave me some examples of what to say.

They had already lied about the costs for the bookmaking, something that I hadn't had any say in as I had been down in the printing lab re-sizing our work while three of the girls went out and bought the bookbinding materials. I refused to lie again, I am an incredibly honest person, my mum says I'm honest to a fault, meaning that I will be honest even if it gets me into trouble, I suppose.

I wrote a very short, very sarcastic re-write in my sketchbook, left it open on the keyboard and walked away, I needed to calm down and I needed to be away from them. Not long later I recieved a text from Sophie Harvey asking if I was alright, I replied that I was just trying to keep calm, and that if the girls (Sophie, Camilla and Emma) wanted my piece changed they could re-write it for me, and I would read out whatever they wrote.

We then had a break for lunch, and then afterwards ran through the presentation again, and the piece that they had written for me was so full of grammatical errors that it was hard to read. I'm not perfect at spelling but I don't forget to put full stops at the end of my sentances.

I've re-written it, it's a lot more me now, but I'm still not happy with it. The idea of writing something about what  you would change if you re-did your work means pointing out what didn't go well, and what went wrong, and they've made this project sound like a cakewalk. I'm not happy, which is why I'm writing this here, I'll be including screenshots of my blog into my P.D.P, so hopefully the right person will read this.

Sophie Harvey and Anneli Garton have been brilliant during this whole project, and I have absolutely no qualms with them. Sophie, Camilla and specifically Emma, on the other hand, have been very difficult.