Brainfreeze

Closeup

"...so little time."

Part 2!  Last week I shared Heartburn, which was an illustration inspired by my usual reaction to new experiences, ideas, and possibilities. This week, I'm sharing Brainfreeze... the aftermath of that.

Initial Sketch

Brainfreeze is essentially what happens when Heartburn burns out, and it represents my indecision. I'm thankful that I've found so many wonderful things that make me excited, but there is a cost in being passionate and enthusiastic about so many things. It's tough to make decisions. I find it difficult to decide if I want to follow this wonderful rabbit hole of an idea or that one. I stress out a lot; because I know that choosing this means saying no to that. You can do anything, but not everything, and all that jazz. Ultimately, decisiveness is something I'm trying to work on.

I designed these two illustrations together; to show my thought process. I don't know if anyone will see elements of themselves in them, but at the very least I hope you lovely people think they look cool. :)

Heartburn

Closeup

"So many ideas..."

Part 1 of 2! The idea for these illustrations first hit me back in February-ish, but for one reason or another, I haven't had the chance to really bring them to life until recently. They're nearly more relevant now than they were then though, considering the incredible summer I've had, and all the decisions that I've had to make in the past few weeks in particular. I'm incredibly thankful, and overwhelmingly excited about everything that's been happening in my little corner of the world lately; and this little drawing sums up that feeling pretty well.

Initial Sketch

Heartburn - I'm a sucker for a pun, and visual puns are even better! - represents my excitable side. If you know me in person at all, you'll know that I'm essentially a storm in a teacup... If I like something, I tend develop an all-out obsession with it, so I throw myself at projects or ideas or stories with a passion and enthusiasm that sometimes surprises people. It's fun, it's fast, and usually it means I produce work that I'm proud of.

Full Image

That's just one half of the story though. I'll share Part 2 next week! ;)

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!

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.

Illustration | Mad Max : Fury Road | The Nux Car

Mad Max : Fury Road. Have you seen it? Did you love it? Can you guess my favourite character? As always click to enlarge the images; both images below are desktop wallpapers. ;)

This was a fun learning curve. It started life in pen on paper, then I painted it digitally. I made a few custom photoshop brushes for the mud splatters and whatnot, and used rust textures where I thought they'd work. Other than that, this was all layers, masks, adjustment layers, persistence, and time. Learning.

PS: I draw vehicles a lot. If you're interested; here's a smattering of links (some of which are to external sites, where you can buy prints and mugs and pillows and other fun stuff of particular designs):

MotoGP, MotoGP - Marc v Rossi, Harley Davidson, Vespa, VW Bus, F1- Ayrton Senna, Mini Cooper, FW-190, Spitfire, P51 Mustang

Go look if you haven't seen 'em! 

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.

Ballpoint Pen Illustration | Origami

Remember: These illustrations and more is for sale on Society6. Check it out!

The other night, I took a playlist of delightfully questionable taste, a ballpoint pen, a Moleskine sketchbook, and two hours to illustrate this. It felt like I was coming home, and it felt SO good. Ballpoint pen is still my jam. I've missed it oh so much. I missed drawing just for myself, just to get a tiny snippet of my own thoughts out on paper. Click through to read more, and see the rest of this mini collection!

1916 Easter Rising

I'm a little bit late, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! In Ireland, Easter is significant both religiously and politically. I'm not going to go into detail (knock yourself out on the 1916 Easter Rising page on Wikipedia if you feel that way inclined), but I thought it would be an appropriate time to share this still video project.

You might remember last October I shared the colorization project above. Well, at the beginning of this semester we were asked to add movement to those photographs. So I came back to this one, separated out all the different layers within it, and added a bit of camera movement. I'm pretty happy with the end result!

Emily | Portrait

Here's another assignment from last semester: a digitally painted portrait. Once again, the wonderfully willing Emily (actress) helped me out by becoming my model. There's a chance you'll remember her from past projects, including Race Against Time and The White Lady of Kinsale. I actually asked Emily to help me with this one in particular for a number of reasons, which influenced the overall look of this project.

Firstly, we met in secondary school, where we took art classes together. At that stage, Emily occasionally tried her hand at painting, and frequently leaned towards more abstract looks. For this reason, I built the portrait on a background of acrylic-style brushstrokes. I picked the sepia colour because Emily, like me, has a fondness for all things vintage (especially old film-memorabilia, I think), so I wanted to capture an old-film kind of look. I also added gold because Emily is always classy and elegant, so it seemed fitting. I also appreciated the connection to film awards such as the Golden Globes, which is another link to Emily's personality.

Emily's personality and our shared interests also influenced smaller details within the image. In school, we were always hopelessly ambitious (we still are, to be honest) and it was her ambition to become a part of the acting world, for instance, which inspired the film reel border. Because she is a self-professed coffee-connoisseur and tea-lover - and the fact that when we meet, either coffee or tea are generally involved at some stage - I added the coffee stains to the background. Finally, I added some French phrases in a scripted font for a few reasons. Emily and I shared language classes for many years, and we both share a love of travel. Emily, I believe, is particularly partial to capital cities, like London and Paris. We also both share a tendency to use elaborate handwriting wherever possible. And finally, Emily has a very distinctive way of speaking, which is usually pretty entertaining, so I wanted to include language in some way.

And so, the portrait above is a result inspired by the ever-lovely Emily (actress), to whom I am so, so grateful for! Below, you can see the original photograph I took of Emily for reference in all her Irish-sun-drenched glory.

Flame Animation

Just a short and sweet little post today. Here's a flickering candle flame, which I animated towards the end of last semester. I had fun with it!

Also, just a quick heads up! There's free shipping in my shop until the 8th of March! :)

Photography | Tones

Last semester, I also studied a photography module, which was something completely new for me. Yes, I have taken photos before, but I had never taken the time to really get to know how to use a DSLR to its full potential. So, photography class was a bit of a learning curve, and its a skill I would love to develop further. These shots were taken for a photography assignment in the past few months. Click to embiggen them!

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