Blues

Late post this week, I'm afraid! It's been a crazy hectic fortnight overall, between moving to my new little house and travelling to Derry for ComicCity, as well as getting back into the swing of college life and keeping on top of freelance-y work. It's been busy, but I'm learning so much, and I'm having an absolute ball!

Post-con blues have hit hard this week. I came home from ComicCity in the wee hours of Monday morning, buzzing with a renewed passion for creating things, and a huge appreciation for the people that work so hard to make things happen. This week, I've been feeling an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude, new admiration, and incredible excitement for the future in every sense! I've got lots of books to look forward to reading (check out the photo below!), lots of ideas I can't wait to get down on paper, and lots of experiences to anticipate!

Aqua

For one reason or another, I haven't been able to think straight all week. Ever since I came back from Dublin Comic Con, I've had SO MANY ideas and thoughts, that everything in my head kinda burred together. That, and a very hectic work-life-freelance week, means I haven't been able to draw much more than a doodle. So, inspired by the fact I got my helix pierced a few weeks ago, here's a sorta-self-portrait with a bit of an Atlantis Twang. :)

Liar, Liar

Pants on Fire. Your nose is longer than a telephone wire.

I recently got talking with someone about the best films we've ever seen; and I reckon I will always put Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels at the top of that list. It's got good, solid, characters, the use of the English language is off-the-wall, and it's one of the best-told stories I have ever come across. No matter how many times I've seen it; it still makes me laugh, makes me frustrated, and makes me excited to see what happens next. Classic British comedy at it's finest.

It's also a very, very well directed film (hats off to you, Mr Guy Ritchie!), so there were a LOT of shots that I wanted to illustrate. Alas, the week was busy, so I could only pick one. So, here's Tommy, during the boxing-ring poker game that sets the ball in motion.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out overall. Wish I could spend more time on it, but between day-job, odd-jobs, and freelancey-design-jobs, I was lucky I was able to spend the few hours on this at all. I might return to Lock Stock for more inspiration in the not-too-distant future though; 'cause I had a lot of fun with it. And  it's a pretty good excuse to listen to the soundtrack and watch my favourite film all over again. And with scenes like this:

How could you not love it?:)

Dublin Comic Con 2015

Super-quick, day-job-break-time doodle of a buddy who was there in Cosplay. As soon as I can get a link to Aaron's stuff online, I'll be sure to share it - he's done some pretty incredible costume work.

A massive thank you to all of the incredible writers, artists, cosplayers and friends who I was able to chat with (however briefly!) at Dublin Comic Con last weekend. Seeing my name in the credits of a comic book for the first time was a pretty incredible feeling, and I came away feeling ever more inspired and enthusiastic about comics and art and stories! Special thanks in particular to Eoin and the rest at the Lightning Strike Comics table for making me feel so welcome!

A hint at one of the pages I got to design. Almost all the textures I used were from papers from around the time the original Holmes stories were written, with a few illustrations and stains scattered throughout. SO much fun to work on!

A huge thank you too, to all those who contributed to The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes, and to everyone who picked up a copy! We raised over €1000 to be donated to children's hospitals in Dublin, which makes a book that was great anyway, just that little bit greater! I really was delighted to be a part of it, and hopefully more projects like this will come up in the future.

My haul from the weekend! They're all SO beautiful, and the ones I've read so far have been utterly brilliant! 

Embarrassing enough as it is to admit; this was the first time I've ever been to Dublin Comic Con. I really can't recommend the trip enough; there was so much talent under that roof over the weekend that it could have gone on for a week and I'd still be learning something new at the end of it. The stalls, the cosplays, the panels, the Q & As, there was just so much brilliance to take in that it was nearly overwhelming! Can't wait for the next one! 

The Chicken Song | Update 01

I am incredibly excited about this project, and really couldn't wait to share it! Recently, I was approached by Ruth Butler to animate a music video for a song she had written. I'm about two weeks into this ten week project, and I'm happy to say that things are going very well. Ruth has a brilliant sense of humour and a clever way with words, which all poured into this quirky, entertaining little tale about a chicken and a golden egg.

Because the song is such a fun story, because Ruth wanted the lyrics to appear on screen, and because I needed to animate to a high standard quickly, I thought styling it like a comic book would be the best route to take. So saying, I'm looking forward to seeing the final result, and because I've designed everything according to both US Comic Book Dimensions, and HDTV, the story will look good in print as well as on screen when it's finished.

This is just one page in this little story, but there's a lot more to come that I'm very much looking forward to showing you!

PS: If you think that you, or someone you know, would have a good voice to sing a song like this, get in touch at allie22 (at) gmail.com! :)

Illustration | Harley Quinn

A pretty vibrant character with a healthy dose of attitude; it's gotta be Harley Quinn. The trailer looks promising, no?

Digital painting is something I've admired from a distance for a long time, but never really felt hugely confident with myself. Nevertheless, it's one of my favourite ways to colour, and it's a skill I really want to develop, so I've decided to embrace the challenge. I've just partnered up on a really fun comic/animation/music video project too (can't wait to share the details here, but you'll have to wait a while!) so I figured I could do with a colour study anyway.

Harley is a character I wish I'd come up with. She's a lot of fun to draw, so I keep coming back to her when I'm trying out different styles and whatnot. I shared a few of those sketches below.

Sketched during down-time at work (I only had a refill pad).

Quick pin-up style, inspired by one of the photos doing the rounds online.

Inspired by Geneviveft on Instagram.

The Little Black Book - Character Sketches

Click to enlarge it! 

A few weeks ago, I bought a little black sketchbook. I don't know what I intended to do with it originally, but it quickly became a little book of characters. They're generally quick sketches; usually around five or ten minutes, depending, and they're a lot of fun! Here's a collection of twenty-five of them. Some of them are completely original, some of them are characters I created for other projects, and some of them are inspired by or adapted from books or films or TV shows or art that I've come across.

Some of these characters have backstories, and a lot of them are calling out for colour, so you might see a few of them crop up again soon. I've got a lot of other fun projects in the works too, which I can't wait to share!

Layout Design | Atlantis

Atlantis again! This will probably be the last post I'll share about this project, for a while at least. The legend of Atlantis is one of my absolute favourite myths, though, so I'd love to revisit it at some point again. But for now, I'm going to leave you with a finished layout design for it. Click the image above to enlarge. 

Click through to see the a simple breakdown of the process.

Animation | Side Step

I have less than a week of classes left in this semester! It's been a tough one, no doubt about it. I've still enjoyed (almost) everything we've learnt, but it feels great to start wrapping everything up. Plus, I've got a whole lot of stuff planned to keep me busy in the summer, and I can't wait to get into all that; it kinda feels like a Friday, heading into a two/three month weekend. :)

Anyway, this is the latest animation I've been working on, and I've been really looking forward to sharing it! We were asked to use our own character (She's somewhat simplified, but does she look familiar?), plan it out, and eventually add colour and a background. Click through to see what I produced, from humble beginnings to the last stand.

Ps: If you stick around, you'll see this again soon! I've got a progression reel in the pipeline!

Anticipation Animation

Simple little post today, because I'm still in recovery mode after spending last Tuesday in hospital, and also because I've fallen behind on a lot of work that I need to catch up on pronto! So for now, here's a short animation of an enthusiastic little bobble-head hopping through a loop. Enjoy!

WIP | Atlantis | Character and Environment Design

Recently in college, we were tasked with pulling together a design package for a story based on "My Irish Myth." We were given the choice of working on a story that we're creating in groups (more on this later) or a new story of our own choice. I decided to go with a new story; The Lost City of Atlantis. It's not a "traditional" Irish myth, certainly, but there are some people who believe the city of Atlantis sank off the coast of the Emerald Isle, it's one of the best known myths globally, and it's one of my personal favourite legends, so I thought it suited the theme. At this stage, it's very much still a work in progress, but I'm having a bit of fun with it, and because it's St Patrick's Day, I wanted to write about something at least vaguely influenced by my culture. And so, today, I want to introduce to you the first character I've designed for the The Lost City of Atlantis (but with an Irish twang). 

This character is called Síofra (she-o-fra), which means elf or sprite. I'm still fleshing out the real spirit of her character, but at the moment at least, she's a mischievous Atlantean who likes to explore the world around her. 

And this is the first background layout I've drawn up; Síofra's house. Located in a cliff-edge environment, but with a distinct Irish style, the house sits on it's own tiny island and is reached only by a wood and rope bridge. 

Finally, I just want to say, Lá Fhéile Phádraig! Hope everyone's having a good St Patrick's Day! :)

Curiouser And Curiouser

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I love the characters, the environments, the utter bizarreness of it all. I recently started reading the book again, and had a sudden urge to draw up the famous quote "Curiouser and curiouser!" and I also thought it'd be a good way to kick-start a bit of activity in my shop. So click here and check this design out on t-shirts and mugs and all sorts of other fun things! Please do!

Flash Game | The Getaway

BIG post today! I spent a solid chunk of last semester working on this interactive programming assignment. Weeks and weeks of drawing, animating, and coding, all working together to create a short and sweet little game called "The Getaway." Click HERE to play the game yourself!

"The Getaway" is a single-level flash platform game, which I made with my friend Kirsty. What I'm showing you today is the game bible, which basically shows you every element of design that became a part of the game; including character designs, environment layouts, user interfaces and start/finish screens. I also wrote a short(ish) backstory to give the game a bit of meaning, and added a few of the early sketches. Be sure to click on the images below to make 'em bigger, and click HERE to play the game yourself! :D

Don't Starve - Wednesday

Have any of you played the PC game, Don't Starve, by Klei Entertainment? If you haven't, you should! One of my assignments in college this term was to create a new character to be placed within an existing universe, and while some of my friends picked things like Adventure Time and Valiant Hearts, I picked Don't Starve. And I am so glad that I did!

So the first step in the process was research, research, research. I studied the game itself, paying attention to the the line weight, the colours, the shapes, and everything in between. I made some interesting discoveries that I might not otherwise have picked up on; almost every character in the game wears red, for example, and the males only have pupils, while the females only have whites in their eyes. The playable characters, as a set, are incredibly unified, right down to their names: almost all of them start with the letter W.

I also researched different types of characters that I might like to design; and eventually settled on a Horologist, whom I named Wednesday*. Then I was able to sketch out some ideas (throwing away most of them!) and eventually figured out how I wanted my character to look. Below, you can see how I drastically I changed the character from the original sketch into the final lineart.

The next step was colouring, which was a LOT of fun! We were taught a technique of colouring that I had never used before, which allowed for easy changes later on. It worked out quite well, I think! I experimented with different hues and things, but nevertheless I stayed true to the game's styling, and went with a predominantly red colour scheme, with a lot of black scribble detail.

The final part of the assignment was to place the character in different lighting situations, which was my favourite part, by far! We were given five different themes: 01) Mid-day sun 02) Dark rainy day 03) Moonlight 04) Sunrise 05) Haunted House. We weren't asked to design the backgrounds, per se, but I got a little carried away with them... 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the end results. What do you think? Does my character fit in with Don't Starve? Do you have a favourite lighting condition?

*In honour of Wednesday Addams, whom I love, and think would fit in with the game perfectly! I also watched The Addams Family recently and remembered how much I loved it all over again.