Pinflux Sketches

Entropy

2009-05-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

Dane and I just released our latest Rhubarb Zoo short film online. Check it out (and buy the Entropy pack to see me and dane blabbing about how we made it)!

Showreel

2009-05-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Well that's done, now on the hunt for an animation job in London!

Imaginary Friend

2009-05-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

My imaginary friend for the Hermit Sessions blog, a couple of doodle pages, and a 25 minute acrylic painting done on my birthday! 24 now, scary stuff. If my visa actually arrives in time, I'll be heading to London to live in 17 days. I should probably start putting together an animation showreel so I can get a job huh :P

Life Drawing

2009-04-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

Drawing from life, except the 4th which is from reference and 5th which was just a doodle.

After the Weekend

2009-04-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

The second image was a collaboration between myself and my friend Ryan - he did the outlines and I shaded them.

This weekend I participated in some team based Nerf warfare at my friend Mike's house! We played 6 a side, where if you get shot you're dead for the rest of the round. It's surprisingly fun and tactical!

Gifts and Commissions

2009-04-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Some friends of mine as their favourite videogame characters for Christmas. They didn't realise it was a set for a month or so, and connected them up once I let them in on it.

Pic of my friend Mat for his birthday. This was his sweet robot suit.

A quick robot lady done for my friend Neil for his birthday card.

A commission done for my friend Inyoung of her and her boyfriend Richard (aka Podgypanda), for their anniversary. She commissioned a bunch of her friends to paint these tiny 4" x 4" canvassas and them combined them into a larger piece!

Facebook Portraits

2009-04-03T02:19:00.000-07:00

All for my facebook portrait project - my lofty/ridiculous goal being to draw everyone in my friends list.

Wrench

2009-03-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

Reference used for the top image, 10 minute studies down ze bottom

Dance

2009-03-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

Pandaka

2009-03-13T18:22:00.001-07:00

A coloured up version of a sketch I did a while back, and a bunch of drawings from life. It's so nice to get back into the life drawing groove, though we have lost our current venue so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back into it.

Cory Fanart

2009-03-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

These rediculously long posts will ease up soon, I swear.

First up is a page of Cory fanart - my take on a page of awesome sketches in his book.

From there we have a crapload of reffed and unreffed stuff, an attempt to redesign Warhammer 40k's Space Marines that ended up lasting a single page, and a bunch of reffed nude studies, experimenting with using line to show contours instead of volume through shadows.

Marama Sketchbook

2009-02-27T11:12:00.000-08:00

More from Wellington - Cory and I started new sketchbooks and had a competition to see who could fill the most pages while I was down there for the week. We forgot to check the final result but I'm pretty sure he won (my excuse - he draws big. And lots)

Animals are all from Wellington Zoo! I hadn't been to the zoo in an age.

Marama studies

2009-02-21T12:21:00.000-08:00

Sketches from life and observational drawings at the workshop.

Marama

2009-02-14T22:24:00.000-08:00

Last November I flew down to Wellington with some friends to attend Massive Black's Marama workshop. I had a great few days; Learnt stuff, did a bunch of life drawing, and best of all, met some awesome and talented peeps who I still keep in contact with (Check Jez and Tom, whom I have added to my friends list on the right hand side of the blog).

I also entered the Thunderdome contest, the theme being self portrait. Amazingly, I won the contest and took home a Carl Dobsky original drawn from one of the models over the weekend, an art easel signed by all the massive black guys, a couple of DVD's and a bunch of girl's T-shirts!

I also put together a portfolio for the guys to crit, getting lots of positive feedback. I've included some of the pages below, even though it's mostly a collage of things I've posted here before.

Dobsky's portrait (drooool)

Rachel

2009-02-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

1) Portrait of my sister for her birthday

2) Random doodle

3) An image done for my friend David for his Architectural Uni Project. He wanted a smattering of the major buildings in the Auckland CBD drawn as people, static at first and then interacting.

Here are the buildings represented (see if you Aucklanders can figure out which is which!) -

Skytower
Metro
Britomart
Aotea Centre
University
Uni flats
Docks
Gym
Hobson Street apartments
Town Hall
Vodafone HQ
...and two sneaky ones thrown in that represent nothing

4) More random doodles

Incoming

2009-01-31T13:49:00.000-08:00

I painting I did for a thread on Cloud9, and a bunch of stuff from observation/reference/imagination.

Some more

2009-01-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

1) Random girl with stuffed animals at the musuem

2) Doodles - and a real life text message conversation I had with a stranger who accidentally text me instead of 'da bro reakt' (my first reply was 'who is this sorry' but I quickly adapted to his texting style)

3) More stoopid doodles, figuring how to draw a cowboy hat in perspective.

4) Bus doodles

5) All from reference pictures I got from a book on drawing the body in foreshortening. Good practice.

Catching Up

2009-01-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, I've decided I may as well just upload to blogger instead of trying to use my own host. Much more to come!

The top image was an entry for an interesting competition, and everything else is doodles.

Coat

2009-01-05T21:33:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog in so long because blogger started cropping my images unless you click them, instead of resizing them. I'm guessing it'll happen again now, so it's probable that I won't update the blog until it starts working again... Whenever that is. Sorry T_T

Scrapbook

2008-10-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

I entered an art competition on the NZCGI forums with this piece and won a ticket to the Massive Black workshop here in NZ in November! The idea was interpret the theme 'consequence of time'. I put up a walkthrough here as part of the rules of the competition.

...and another couple of random doodles, the second is from photo reference.

Bison

2008-10-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

A Bison skeleton drawn from life at the Auckland Museum, then a bunch of sketches I referenced from photos (trying to cartoon them up a bit), and lastly an unreferenced self portrait of myself drawing on the Cintiq that I did on the Cintiq at work.

I stumbled across a completely amazing 21 year old artist yesterday named Rebecca Sugar. Her style is both lively and spontaneous and technically accomplished, and she's also a most talented writer! This is evidenced in her quirky and affecting 12 page comic Don't Cry For Me, I'm Already Dead and her ongoing series Pug Davis. One is a short story about two brothers that love to quote the simpsons, and the other chronicles the epic space adventures of the mighty dog-person-thing Pug Davis and his camp sidekick Blouse. To top it all off she is a wonderful animator, and has a couple of pieces of her work up on her Youtube channel. You best be clicking those links!

Tinker

2008-10-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

One random image, one drawing done based on this image for someone on DA, and a pic done for a friend's architecture project at Uni.

Surface

2008-09-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

More random doodles. The Joker was from reference - what I believe was a photo of an early concept for Nolan's version of the character. I've been playing around with markers lately and finding they're great fun! I'll chuck up some more more marker pics later. Also - the girl at the bottom of the sketchpage is all kinds of screwed up sorry, but I liked Regan's scooter and David's cow skull.

A series?

2008-09-03T02:25:00.000-07:00

Jeff pointed out that these four images seem to form some sort of a little series. I did them all around the same time but didn't intend for them to work like that - so what was it that made them go together so well? My initial thoughts were that they all seem both somber and surreal, but on closer inspection I realised that they're all looking down and to the right. Sheesh, talk about uninspired! The very top image, by the way, was done for my friend Rachel's birthday.

You should go check out Jeff's blog if I didn't already arouse your interest in the previous paragraph - the man has talent! I'll add him to the tiny list of artfriends on the right of this blog.

And here's a couple of sketchpages that haven't been posted elsewhere, to keep the punters happy. The girls arm didn't quite work out.

SJS

2008-08-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

A CD cover I made for my little brother using my own photos - the album is a mix of the recordings Animal Collective did during the time they recorded the album Strawberry Jam. I tried to retain the visual aesthetic they went for with that album and the recent EP Water Curses.

Prayer Stairs

2008-08-15T01:29:00.000-07:00

One (or is it two?) that Cory hasn't seen yet. The first is a sketch I had lying around that I coloured on a whim, the second is a speedpaint from a reference photograph, and the third is a collage of sketches done from more reference photos. I had a revelation about the way 'faux shadows' (there must be a proper name for them - shadows that are not from cast light but reflected light) work tonight at the bus stop - it's impossible to explain with words so hopefully I'll get around to using some photos or sketches later. I dunno though, I am quite lazy, and the subject is probably pretty boring to anyone that isn't me :P

Artspaz

2008-07-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

Trying to loosen up a bit with my sketches I guess...

The Jellyfish Girl

2008-07-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

All stuff that's been posted elsewhere I'm afraid - new stuff in the next entry! This last page is a bunch of villain concepts I did for my hugely talented bud Cory for his comic-in-the-works.

C9

2008-06-10T03:52:00.000-07:00

Weekly activities and things on the Cloud9 forum - a great way to make myself actually draw, though I really should try to come up with something original and of my own at some point...

From the fight my character thread, following the hugely talented Ninth.

Erm, fighting robots.

And some interpretation of Mickey Mouse.

My Dearest Friend

2008-06-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

Sibby

2008-05-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

My awesome friend Rachel gave me Sibby for my birthday. He sat next to me on the bus ride home.

Mital's character in the Draw My Character activity on C9. See them all here

Ghosts

2008-05-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

Life Drawings

2008-05-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

Soldier

2008-05-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

WAM

2008-04-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

The other day I redrew from memory the main characters from a web comic my friend Shaun and I used to have on the web. We collaborated on the writing and I drew the comics. It was back around the turn of the millenium when Penny Arcade was relatively new and everyone wanted to be Gabe and Tycho. Thus 4/5 of all web comics consisted of two guys that played games and also talked about them a lot. WAM (Warped Adolescent Minds) was no different. We gathered a loyal fanbase of two or three (not including our friends) and had an awesome time for the two or so years we released comics. Here's to the good old days!

Chief

2008-04-27T17:35:00.000-07:00

Some messing around with acrylics, using the leftover blue paint from a canvas painting I did for my brother's 21st birthday.

Swim

2008-04-24T13:02:00.001-07:00

BBR

2008-04-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

Party invitation - lots of random sketches - an awesome idea for a cartoon set in the year 3000 that involves scientists resurrecting a team of dogooders from the past to fight an alien threat.

LT,NS

2008-04-16T04:01:00.000-07:00

So I've realised that I'm way better at finishing pieces for the blog than I am at actually uploading them. These are the first of 19 images I have ready to go in my sketchblog folder.

The first is the cover I came up with for myself, Dane and Oliver's made-up-on-the-spot-and-recorded-in-a-couple-of-hours album (link here if you're couragous). The second is a bunch of observational drawings from a couple of afternoons in the library. The third is a long overdue present I did for my buddy Ryan, of a character he came up with at animation school. First time I've really used paint (acrylics), and it was fun but scary. More efforts along these lines to come!

Ashley the Archer

2008-03-31T02:16:00.000-07:00

Considering I call myself an animator, I don't draw much that's animation-friendly (I don't animate much either, but that will be rectified before too long). I decided to play around with a single character in a few different poses. Kind of seems to be a strange lovechild of Wind Waker Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus...

Mindjunk

2008-03-25T23:44:00.000-07:00

Music for Games

2008-03-17T12:40:00.001-07:00

First image is a CD cover design I did for Little Pie Music in the US, as a sampler of Kurt Oldman's videogame music - I also put together a wallpaper version of the robot.
Some bad perspective in that supermarket couple picture, but I included it cus I liked it otherwise :P

Don't Cry Red Tears

2008-03-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

All from reference photos

My little sister at home in Kerikeri, complaining about having to hold the pose.

I'm so addicted to drawing faces, it isn't so good for my creative progression as I often neglect other stuff :O

A really terrible sketch with scribbles that turned out a heck of a lot better after mucking around with blending modes in photoshop and a quick texture.

My entry for the Pepper Project on DeviantArt.

Smoke

2008-03-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Catchup

2008-03-08T11:49:00.000-08:00

I have a tonne of pictures in my 'to blog' folder that I just haven't gotten around to putting up yet, so I'll dump a few of 'em now and more later.

The first is a Photoshop painting done using a reference photograph I took of my brother. I added a progress picture too - the first four frames show me playing with the photo to get the look I wanted and from there I started to sketch and colour the piece. The rest are speedpaints done in OpenCanvas - for the first I directly referenced the great Zhaoming Wu - his landscapes blow my mind completely.

What I really need to learn with colour is subtlety - pieces that really stand out to me are the ones that use small amounts of shifting colour effectively rather than bashing you over the head (like most of my sketches above). Again using Zhaoming Wu's landscapes as an example - his paintings of fog and fading light are just incredible.

Casual

2008-02-21T14:04:00.000-08:00

The first is from an OpenCanvas session with Neil and Daniel last night, the second is gesture anatomy practice done from the amazing website Pose Maniacs that I discovered today.
It gives you a single CG image of a pose and gives you a time limit to complete the drawing before it switches to the next, just like gestures in life drawing class. Unlike life drawing, the angles are all over the place and foreshortening is rife, which makes it a tonne of a lot more tricky (and interesting) to manage. The standard time is 30 seconds but I couldn't handle it (check top left of page), so I changed it to a nice 90 seconds. I also decided to keep going until the canvas was full, which was perhaps an error of judgement given the 5000 x 5000 pixel canvas size. Almost a hundred poses later it felt like my eyes were bleeding.

Bigpost

2008-02-18T23:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I almost managed to do one of these a night... but then I stopped.

These last three are from OpenCanvas sessions - the last two done with my good friend Neil. If anyone is keen for some multiartist OC action (Cory - I'm looking at you) , let me know and I can send you the program.

To Feel

2008-02-08T14:54:00.000-08:00

Well I'm on holiday for two weeks, which means I have more time for personal work and improvement! I'm going to endeavour to complete one of these little unreffed speedpaints a day - here are my efforts from the last couple of days.

The clothing of the girl in centre was from reference.

Shadow

2008-02-01T00:40:00.000-08:00

Falls

2008-01-25T16:36:00.000-08:00

Crabgirl

2008-01-19T16:21:00.000-08:00

Reffies

2008-01-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

You guessed it, more drawings from reference. Well, most of em. Save three faces, that cliff-thing, and a skull. Harmony's skull. The chick with stockings up the top looked like a Claire Wendling drawing come to life!

New Year

2008-01-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

Drawn from reference in Newmarket, Auckland

Our tents outside Margaux's dad's bach in Omaha

Black Dawn

2007-12-19T22:55:00.001-08:00

It's official - plague doctors from back in the black death times are the coolest and creepiest guys ever. Almost makes me wish I was born back then. Almost...

Bigdump

2007-12-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

Stuff I posted on Cloud 9 recently. Have a hankering to get into doing colour but I'm not really sure where to start... Geez, drawing stuff is about the most complicated thing to think about evar. It's kind of a blessing and a curse knowing how much there is to learn about anatomy, colour, form, composition, movement, perspective etc etc - it's certainly bad because it seems like such an impossible goal to get to where I want to be with my art, yet the fact that I can keep learning and improving (hopefully) for the rest of my life is such an awesome thing. Optimism! Yes!

Nightsky

2007-11-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

Attempting some colour subtlety, inspired by the walk home last night. Unfortunately it's a bit too subtle, and you can't really see it unless it's against a very dark background =P

Comfy Seat

2007-11-25T01:34:00.000-08:00

Kiddles

2007-11-20T15:36:00.000-08:00

Drew a bunch of stuff from photo reference yesterday. The aborted picture of someone holding a camera on the left there is from a shot by this guy - shakycam

All of his photography is wonderful - but the standout gallery for me is his 'stereography' section - where he uses a special camera with two seperate lenses to achieve '3D' photography. The shots that impress the most are those that capture movement - jumping, sparklers and water. This shot here is one of my favourite images ever - the sight of water stopped in time is spectacular enough, but the framing of the piece that reveals just the feet and unusual garments of the three subjects creates an amazing sense of mystery.

The Ruckus

2007-11-19T02:07:00.000-08:00

Manny is from reference.

Afro Samurai

2007-11-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

Guy up the top is Afro Samurai from the cartoon, done without reference. You can tell I didn't reference Pulp Fiction either, because the quote is screwed up. Replace 'Big Macs' with 'a quarter pounder with cheese' and you'd be about right...

For Cory

2007-11-14T16:08:00.001-08:00

And the original sketch - screwed up leg position and all -

Bubs n Bus

2007-11-09T00:40:00.000-08:00

A comic I did at about 3 or 4 in the morning at work. Worked until from 8:30am until 4am for three nights in a row, got kinda tired. And here's some random doodles, three at the top are of guys on the bus.

Unsolved Mysteries

2007-11-02T02:15:00.001-07:00

A little illustration concept based on the Animal Collective song. When I have some time I'm planning to make this a series of three images based on different parts of the song - I'll properly clean them up and colour them too.

Clocks

2007-10-31T01:04:00.000-07:00

The Shack

2007-10-29T00:48:00.000-07:00

Grumpy Fish

2007-10-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Drawing some sharks from reference, wanting to know a little bit about them before I put them in a little illustration I'm planning. Our website is now online, go and check it out!

www.rhubarbzoo.com

Tunnels

2007-10-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Life Drawing 01

2007-10-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

Sneaky People

2007-10-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Some Girl and a Scooter

2007-10-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

Ode to a Dead Bird

2007-10-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

Cigarette

2007-09-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

I feel a bit guilty as I've put no effort into composition or careful arrangement of the images in each post - but for the most part these are just direct scans of a single page, hence random empty space.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking it to an extreme, it's just a stupid sketchblog after all :P

On a Prayer

2007-09-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

Old Men and Chainsaws

2007-09-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

Cords

2007-09-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

Hands

2007-09-16T01:45:00.000-07:00

As a warning - 70% of my sketches end up being clothesless. Once I'm happy enough with my anatomy I'm going to start figuring out clothes and drapery for real, but I'm very very worried about that.

Why Hello There

2007-09-12T00:36:00.000-07:00

Right... all the cool kids are doing it. Expect to see an update at least once a week - and expect none of it to be finished work.

And what better way to start than with a crap-tonne of faces?