Phew! It’s fair to say 2011 has been an exciting one – not only did I have a great time illustrating A Bear Ate all the Brussels Sprouts for the iPad back in the summer, but I’ve also had the huge privilege of working with the guys at Realmac Software on yet another large scale drawing project…
Click here to read more, and view the artwork in more detail
Hint: Click the fireplace to extinguish and relight it!
The model below is the result of little self-initiated project, designed to help me get to grips with realtime hardware rendering in the Maya viewport. I also wanted to establish a complete workflow from design concept all the way through to modelling, texture mapping and CGFX shader rendering (which led to so some unexpected and rather confusing shader coding efforts!) and produce something that maintained a strong illustrative style throughout. The whole thing turned out to be much more interesting and enjoyable than I expected, so I decided to write a bit about my process below and include a few of my progress shots.
Below are a few screenshots and process images from my latest project – an interactive children’s book for the iPad. You can download it here, or read on for more details.
This latest project has been tough but enjoyable – faced with the seemingly impossible task of fitting over a months worth of work into just two weeks, I didn’t have much choice but to pull out all the stops, put the kettle on and wave goodbye to my bed (on a side note, it’s interesting to discover how little sleep I need to get by, and that drawing for 24 hours straight can do strange things to my brain). Fortunately, I don’t remember the last time I’ve been so completely in love with a project that wasn’t self directed – it’s easy to put in the extra hours when you’re given the freedom to develop a personal connection with the work and produce something you can feel truly proud of. Of course, having a deadline with high stakes helps too!
I was approached by writer & producer Charles Kriel with a tantalisingly simple brief – to illustrate and animate an interactive children’s book for the iPad entitled ‘A Bear Ate All The Brussels Sprouts’. If I wasn’t already sold on the prospects of working on the iPad, then Charles’ succinctly charming story about a boy and his overactive imagination (let’s just say it wasn’t difficult for me to identify with the lead protagonist) as well as the freedom to take the artwork in my own direction was just too great an opportunity to miss.
Later on in the project I also had the chance to get to grips with the development environment and help work on some of the scripting and interactions, which after weeks of drawing was a welcome change of pace.
Over all it was an incredibly fun project, and I really felt like Charles and I made a good team – I’m hoping to work with him again in the near future.
The app is now live in the App Store, and will be presented by Charles at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield on Thursday the 7th July. We’re also hoping to push a 1.1 update in the coming weeks, which will add extra interactions, smoother transitions as well as a few hidden surprises! If you own an iPad, even if you don’t have any kids, you should definitely download it now! Oh, and for a limited time…it’s completely free!
Check out some screenshots below:
Also, below is some of my working process – the video is a demonstration of the underlying 3D reference model I created to help inform the perspective and lighting, allowing me to quickly draw the scene from any angle and keep things consistent.
Realmac Software are a team of app developers based in Brighton with a keen eye for design and slick UI interfaces – they’re the guys responsible for the excellent RapidWeaver, LittleSnapper and Courier. So I was hugely excited when they got in touch and asked me to produce one of seven illustrated Tshirt designs for the team to wear on their upcoming trip to Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) in San Francisco. The brief was simple – to illustrate the company logo and reinterpret it in my own style. There’s nothing quite like an open brief to whet my appetite! I had a really great time working on the designs, and I wish the guys all the best in California!
This was the final selected design:
All seven Tees, freshly screenprinted – check out Realmac’s blog post to see them in more detail.
This was a second design that wasn’t included in the set (after seeing the other designs that stick closely to the silhouette of the logo I can understand why):
I’m very pleased to finally present Dust & Summer – a short Mountain Bike video that I shot while visiting my brother in southern Spain. It’s my first real foray into the world of filmmaking, so it was a huge learning experience for me – I’ll be heading back out in the Autumn to film a longer documentary style film, so if you like what you see, stay tuned for more!
Watch the SD video below, or watch the full HD video on Vimeo by clicking here (highly recommended).
A little more info:
I’d recently bought myself a Canon 60D, mainly to replace my ageing 350D, but also with the intention of getting to grips with the HD video features. I’d heard a lot about the potential of DSLRs for video, but I really wasn’t prepared for just how amazing they can be! After all, by using an SLR you immediately have access to some of the highest quality and most affordable lenses around, and the ability to swap them out at a moments notice is a real benefit.
So this project was really born out of the process of learning to use the camera, but it naturally ended up developing into a more fully formed narrative as we went along. I hadn’t really thought of doing anything too fancy or cinematic, after all I only had a tripod and a couple of lenses – but I was keen to spend time making the most out of them. The fixed 50mm f/1.8 only costs £90, but delivers so much more than you would expect for that price. By stopping it all the way up and finding the right angles you can really emphasise the depth of field, adding that classic cinematic touch. For wide angle shots, I used the 18-135mm kit lens, which also became a really valuable asset due to the built in image stabilisation – without it, I just couldn’t have included any of the handheld or panning shots.
The final piece of kit that was a lot of fun to use was the time-lapse shutter – I spent more mornings that I care to remember trying to catch the perfect sunrise! But where better to do it than the Spanish countryside?
Anyway, a big thank you to my brother and Pete, who allowed me to endlessly film them on their days off, and for putting up with my rather inexperienced directorial approach (which including turning up for the first days filming with only 20% battery life remaining).
And finally, a huge amount of credit is also due to Ben Howard for the soundtrack, without which the film just wouldn’t have worked – it made editing the film into such a fluid and exciting process. Ben is an up and coming musician from Devon here in the UK – I remember once seeing him performing in the high street in Totnes (my Mum’s hometown – shout out!), so it’s great to see him gaining so much success. My brothers and I are all huge fans of his music and I hope this video helps to spread the word – if you like what you hear, his music is available on iTunes – download it now!
