The Battle

Weeks ago, before I headed off to Catalunya, I drew two of my favourite MotoGP riders - Marquez and Rossi - battling for a win. Originally intended to be a doodle/a test/me playing around, I never felt the need to share it. After the events of the Dutch GP at Assen, though, I couldn't help but revisit! That last lap battle between these two guys? Amazing.

I didn't really know what I was going for at any stage, but I had the style I used here in mind.. Here's a breakdown of me playing around escalating into something more.* 

Original drawing with pen on paper. Finished off on the plane.

Messed up the lineart in Photoshop. Added lights and darks with line and tone.

Added colour.

Adjustment layers to add a little oomph. Et voila!

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!

Adventures in Catalunya

Clockwise: 1) That'd be me. Hello. I shall be your guide today. 2) The funicular, which will take you from the base of Montjuic to the top. If you ask it nicely. 3) The gardens at the Castell de Montjuic. 4) The cityscape

In Spain, where I spent two wonderful weeks this June; I spent every day soaking up the warmth of the sun, I encountered a woman who told us that her eight year old "needs to learn to ride his motorbike this summer," and between all the quirky architecture, all the wacky sculptures, and all the unusual (to me) wildlife, I spotted subtle signs of MotoGP fans like me everywhere I looked. Needless to say, Barcelona city, and the mountainous countryside surrounding it, was a pretty amazing place to spend a fortnight.

Click through to see more photos of muh face. And click to enlarge the photos!

It Never Rains but it Pours

Do you ever have those days or weeks or months that you have solid plans in place, and then, for whatever reason, the plans take on entirely new directions? New responsibilities crop up, one thing takes longer than you expect it to, opportunities appear when you didn't expect any. That's what May was like for me, in good ways and bad. I thought I had it all worked out. Then suddenly, I found myself with a fairly intense job, my car had to take a month-long holiday in the garage, and a million other things just sort of filled in the gaps between responsibilities I didn't know I'd have. It never rains, but it pours.

That was the main inspiration for this piece, but there's another reason I felt like rain this week; because it's finally June! And June, in Ireland, is the real beginning of the "I need some sun and all we get here is rain, so I'm getting on a plane as soon as possible and taking a holiday" season. And I am in exactly that mindset. So saying, the grand plans I've been excited to start will have to wait another few weeks, because this Sunday, I will be happily dragging my sleepy self (there's a six o'clock in the morning!?) off to the airport, and from there, I'll be jetting off to the wonderful city of Barcelona. I'll be saying goodbye to sleepy days spent watching rain running down the window, and I'll be saying hello to sunshine and warmth and motorbike racing; A few of my favourite things! It's going to be wonderful to get away for a little while, I'm sure, and when I come back, hopefully I'll be refreshed and ready to tear into those personal projects that I can't wait to get started on!

The first thing I'll do when I come home though, is start pulling together a sketchdump here, to share all the little sketches and tidbits I gather on my trip. Although I won't have internet accessibility worth talking about, I'll still be sketching and drawing while I'm away! I'll also share some character design doodles I've been playing around with (some of which a few of ye might have seen on my Instagram and Twitter feeds). For now, though, I shall did you all adieu! I'll be back here before too long, probably staring out my window at rain again.

PS: Check out my friend's new lifstyle blog: A Little Amy! In her first post, she models one of my tshirts from Society6! 

Kinetic Text | God's Away on Business

It's done! My kinetic text project is officially complete. So here it is! 

Please do click through to see the complete process, from start to finish! 

Progression Reel

It's always fun to look back on old projects. For this progression reel, I went back through all of my first year work, and added it all together. It's interesting to see how my work has developed. And it makes me so thankful that we stepped it up a notch with the change of software in year two!

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.