WIP 4 | Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business

The deadline for this kinetic text project is fast-approaching, and so are the deadlines for everything else! But it's pretty satisfying to see a big project like this one creep ever-closer to the finish line, so I'm pretty happy with it. There are still a few little bits and pieces about this section that I want to tidy up, but done is better than perfect, so right now, I'm planning to get everything finished to a standard I'm happy enough with, and then I'll go back over to tweak it to the best that it can be.

WIP 2 | Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business from Alice Coleman on Vimeo.

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! :)

If You Have Enough Book Space | Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett...

I started reading Discworld when I was around twelve years old, and while that series instantly became one of my favourite collections of novels, Pratchett immediately became my favourite author. The characters, the worlds, the stories that Pratchett created and showed to his readers were incredible. His creativity, imagination, and wit have always inspired and delighted me, and his quirky, ever-positive outlook on life, and death, and everything in between are so mind-bogglingly brilliant that that they consistently leave me in awe. The more I read, the more I learn, and the more I appreciate the wisdom and intelligence of Pratchett’s view of our world.  And so, more than just an author, but as a human being; Terry Pratchett will be missed. Quite terribly. 

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

Tamara Glenn

Introducing Tamara Glenn! I drew this a few weeks ago, but spent so long fussing about with colours that I hated the sight of it. I'm still not 100% sure about the colour choices that I went with, but I wanted to share her character anyway. I'm still figuring out her backstory too, but eventually I'll put together proper character sheets for all of these. :)

Hayley Maller

I've done another character design : Hayley Maller! She's a drummer with a very black-and-white, no-nonsense approach to life. Her icy personality is disarmingly intense, and her music is just as powerful. 

Helios Philip Lament

Here's another character design I've been working on recently for a fun personal project I've had in the pipeline for a long time. He's an intrepid explorer and happy hitchhiker, who's been everywhere and back again. His story is closely associated with Arista Spice.

Vrit

Vrit is another character design I've come up with recently. He's second in command, under Captain Maroon Mauls, on board the Eleemosynary ship. He's sly and sinister, but he's exactly what Maroon needs to keep him focused. Not that Maroon is ever particularly keen to listen to him, of course.

WIPs after the jump :)

Arista Spice

Recently, I've been really focused on character design. I'm trying to be more consistent, more efficient, and more distinctive. So I've been trying out a range of different styles of drawing and colouring, and I think I'm finally settling down into a nice rhythm.

WIPs after the jump :)

Audio Soundscape - A Tale Of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities is a segment of Neil Gaiman's Sandman: Worlds' End. Using the graphic novel excerpt as a script, towards the end of 2013, me and two friends (shoutout to Kirsty and Jamie :) ) captured all the dialogue needed to build a soundscape. I also created my own foley, and used sound effects from on-line sources. This is my version of the tale.

The White Lady of Kinsale

My latest Visual Communications assignment was based on the theme of Macabre Ireland. We were asked to go out and research a local myth or legend, and create a book cover for it using photography, collage, and photo-manipulation. I chose to base mine on the story of the White Lady of Kinsale.

The story goes something like this:

In the early 18th century, Charles Fort was governed by a man called Colonel Warrender. He had a beautiful daughter, named Wilful, who fell in love with a man called Trevor Ashurst, an officer stationed at the fort. On the night of their wedding, Wilful and Trevor took a walk along the battlements. Wilful noticed a crop of flowers growing on the rocks at the base of the fort and set her heart of having them. Trevor, eager to please his new wife, promised to fetch the flowers for her, and sent her home to wait for his return. 

Once Wilful had left, Trevor turned to the nearest sentry on duty and asked that he retrieve the flowers instead. The sentry agreed, on the condition that Trevor take his place in the sentry box. The two men switched uniforms and the sentry set off to fetch the flowers. Trevor promptly fell asleep in the sentry box.

Colonel Warrender, Wilful's father, was known to be a strict disciplinarian. Upon discovering the sentry asleep at his post, the Colonel immediately shot him through the heart. After the shot was fired, the colonel examined the body and discovered that he had just killed his daughter's husband.

When Wilful heard the gunshot, she ran to the battlements to investigate. She was so distraught by the sight of her father holding the dead body of her husband that she immediately ran to the edge, and threw herself from the fort and into the waves below. 

To this day, the ghost of Wilful Warrender is said to wander the battlements of Charles Fort, still wearing her wedding dress. 

I ended up making two trips to Charles Fort, in Kinsale, over the past month or so to do research and to gather photographs. On the second occasion, I brought my dear friend Emily with me, who very kindly wore a white sun-dress and posed as Wilful for me, despite the freezing damp and bitterly cold weather. I'm forever grateful to her! The top image is the final book cover that I came up with, and the rest are a few of the photographs I took in their original state.