Messing Around with Paint

I bought a copy of ImagineFX magazine on Saturday. it had loads of tips on painting in Photoshop and Painter. A lot of the art is sci-fi and fantasy and its all done digitally. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a go and the results aren't too bad. Her lips look a bit stuck on. She's modeled on a black and white portrait of a ballerina (hence the haughtiness!). The texture is a polaroid I took out camping in the Lake District one Spring when I was at university. Maybe I'll try some more fantasy style art. I'm one of the nerdiest people I know, so I suppose its only natural for me to like pixies.

Ferret Friend

Now I've drawn a ferret to go with the badger. I'm enjoying this, messing around with my new watercolour technique on photoshop.

Freedom magazine

Here are some pages from an article I was in from Freedom magazine, which is published in Taiwan. Its about working in the design industry and where I live in the UK. In it I talk about working as an in-house greeting cards illustrator and my personal work I do when I'm not at work, which has been published! I also talk about Bedford and what I enjoy doing in my free time.

Badgers are great

I love badgers. Unfortunately since Thursday there's been a poor little deceased one on the main road to work. I've never seen a live badger (wah!), I see plenty of poor little squished ones though. Makes me a bit sad.

Also feeling a bit blue about other stuff in general. Mostly to do with my drawing abilities (or lack of). I always have my greatest ideas when I'm really tired and I'm drifting off to sleep. All sorts of colourful characters before my eyelids in excellent detail and vibrant poses, but I'm too tired to scribble in my sketchbook, since I have to get up for work at 6:30 every morning.

When I came home from work to do something creative all I could think of is this badger.

Valentines Day Card

That I made for Jack, the wolf man.

bunny toy

Just a hand sewn red bunny I made from some scrap bits of felt. I knitted his little scarf too. I'm planning on making a bogg girl like this too for a little chimp society project, but I thought I'd start with a bunny to practice some basics. I used to make a lot of toys like this, but don't have the time anymore. I think he's kind of cute.

Softer side

Working as an in-house cute illustrator for greeting cards means that the illustrations I produce have to keep up with trends. When I joined 2 years ago bears were getting tired, now bears are back (thanks to Forever Friends... grrr). Working digitally enables me to try a whole range of different media in Photoshop and Painter, but they operate differently. For example, colours don't interact and blend the same way when you layer then up, you end up faking it. Watercolour is fashionable at the moment in cutes and I've been playing with different brushes to get the look and fool people into thinking they're seeing a traditional painting.
This image was made digitally at home using the similar techniques and brushes I'm also using at work. Its good to see a bogg-girl in a softer style.

Cheerleader

I've finished outlining 10 different cheerleader designs. This evening I've had a go at adding colour and backgrounds to one of the characters. After my previous rant about folk wearing too many bright colours 1980s style, I don't know what I was I thinking here. I suppose I have a secret love affair with the fluorescent and I'm actually in denial. Next time I colour a cheerleader I'll calm the colour palette down. It is a tad bright.

I stumbled across a poll on an illustration site asking if the changing of the seasons affected my work. Here is proof that it doesn't! Anyway, I usually have to draw Christmas cards in August, so I can't let things like that take influence or santa would be wearing speedos.