On transhumanism

Deus Ex Human Revolution is really (really) good.

I've been busy making robots. That explains why I've been away for awhile.

(Those aren't actually our bots, but ours do pretty much exactly what you see in that video.)

On process

Game of Thrones wrapped up its first season last Sunday, and I'm not entirely sure I can wait till next year (next year!) before the next season comes out. Top Tip HBO: It's mighty impressive what you've done, but for a fantasy epic, a season needs more than 10 episodes.

Here's a sketch. It's work in progress though, so I'm posting this here because I really want to complete this one.

Update: Tweaked the pose, cleaned up the lines and generally tidied things up. There's a fair bit left to do though, and more dragons to add.

Update 2: Just got back from an unexpectedly long holiday. More dragons! Still sorting out lighting and colour values.

Update 3: Now we're getting there, colour correction, cleaned up some lines. Just got to sort out background and light sources.

4:


3:


2:


1:

And another...

Work in progress.

On concept art

These past few weeks, I've been watching Game of Thrones fairly religiously. It's a fantasy series based on A Song of Ice and Fire, and while the phrase 'serialised epic fantasy saga' typically sets off alarm bells for me, I think it's best described as Lord of the Rings, for TV.
And that's a very (very) good thing.

I haven't done any digital painting (or updated this blog) for awhile, so I thought I'd do a few environment sketches based on some of the locations in the series. Which are fantastic, by the way.

On certain shades of green.

I don't usually post too much about new music (that's what hypem's for!) but about 5 minutes ago, I stumbled upon this little gem:



Don't panic, I know, it's a lot to take in. It's been nearly 5 years since their last album, and god knows their entire discography has been on heavy rotation ever since.

Now, fanboy-ism aside, I'm not entirely convinced that this song is quintessential Incubus. I mean, just listen to 'Neither of Us Can See' to see what I mean (with Chrissie Hynde!):



So yeah, while I'm not entirely blown away by this new track, I'm just going to hold out till June, when 'If Not Now, When' will be released.

Let's hippie out:

On Autumn

There are a few more shots on my Flickr page, if you feel like browsing.

On Pandas and 404s.

Grooveshark's got another Pickles-the-Panda related error404 page:

Oh pickles, Pickles.

On Sideshows

I managed to catch a Stornoway sideshow last night, and while my ears continue to wage war against The Corner Hotel's acoustics, they played a sublime set.

I do apologise for the shitty quality of the photo's but I snapped these with an ancient Panasonix Lumix camera; Photoshop and Lightroom had their work cut out for them.

On Laneway 2011

Laneway! A brilliant Saturday; Tired legs and tired ears.
We managed to catch Stornoway, Cloud Control, Menomena, Two Door Cinema Club, Yeasayer and Foals before the day was through. There are a few more pictures on my flickr page, if you care to browse.


Cloud Control.


Menomena (who played an absolutely mindblowing set).


Moreland Stage (With Foals playing in the distance).


Stornoway.

On Growing Up

Yeah that's about right.

The whole 'back-in-my-day' sketch was a meme with webcomic authors about a year or so ago, and I am, as usual, a bit late to the party.

On one sentence stories.

You remember One Sentence, don't you? I did a few sketches based on some of the posts on that site years ago (circa 2008, I think). I had a couple of hours of free time today, so I did a couple more based on Sentence 3881 and  Sentence 3755.

Enjoy!

On Spring Cleaning

Tidied up the blog a bit. Look how cleeeeeeean it looks!
Productivity, oh yeah.

On balcony views

Y'know, it's high time I tweaked the look of this site. Probably should get working on that soon...

On choices

Clearly, sexy times are to the right.

On old work

An old piece of logo work that I did for a client that ultimately didn't make it past the draft stage. I quite like it though, so I thought I'd chuck it up here.

On suitable headgear

I am quite a Team Fortress 2 fan, obviously.

It's that time of year when end of year finals are around the corner, and it's also mostly around this time that my creativity decides to kick itself into overdrive; not especially conducive for exam revision.

As for me, it's back to the grindstone, and with any luck, I'll be posting a bit more often as the exam workload gets heavier (An inverse relationship, go figure.)

Yarra Valley Camp

Less talk, more pictures. Go.

Witch Slayer

A piece of Heroes of Newerth fan art, in the style of Mike Mignola.

Hello again!

It has been awhile, but don't worry, this won't turn into one of those apologetic posts where I confess that inbetween having a life and doing stuff, there just isn't enough time to update my blog.

I've been busy. Fuck it.

So here's a poster (horizontal love!) I whipped up after listening to Arcade Fire's latest.  It's a great third album, and has clearly launched them to mainstream success (U.S. Billboard 200 #1, UK Albums Chart #1, Canadian Albums Chart #1, whaaat?!)

The picture used for the background is a variant of one I shot on my last Fotoholics camp I went on.

I've noticed of late that I take photos with the sole intention of using them in graphic design work later on. What this means from a practical point of view is that most of my pictures aren't aesthetically pleasing on their own; The majority are sparse, minimal, and/or bleak (to make room for typography, obviously), but I'd like to slowly evolve away from the 'stock photography' mindset.

At this point I feel obliged to include some sort of inspirational quote about good photography, but I'm going to do the right thing and ignore that urge.

See you soon(ish)!

Splendour in the grass Recap

I'm fairly certain my body hates me now; My legs and ears are certainly plotting some diabolical scheme as we speak. 4 days of trooping up and down hills, weaving through crowds, dancing on mulch, eating food with the nutritional value of cardboard, and being the poster boy for Tinnitus has taken its toll on me.

That being said, my soul has never been more alive! :D

So over the duration of the Festival, we wound up going to watch The Joy Formidable, School of Seven Bells, Yeasayer, Foals, Angus and Julia Stone, LCDSoundSystem, Grizzly Bear, Jonathan Boulet, Two Door Cinema Club, The Drums, The Magic Numbers, Laura Marling, Wolfmother, Florence and the Machine, The Strokes, Boy & Bear, Cloud Control, We are Scientists, Ash, Whitley, BrokenSocial Scene, Jonsi, Passion Pit, Mumford and Sons and Empire of the Sun in more or less that order.*

And now, some pictures and videos of the festival (shot with a rather lousy phone camera).

First up, Broken Social Scene:

The Joy Formidable:

 School of Seven Bells:

Foals:

The Drums:

And oh yeah, the Amphitheatre at Splendour (Oh to be clear 32,000 peeps rocked up for this festival):

And now, some videos:


Grizzly Bear!:

Mumford and sons:

Passion Pit (The crowd went mental at this gig!):

That's about all that are watchable (the rest are blurs, mostly). Still, Splendour in the Grass was mind-blowingly good. I'll try to find some other band pictures (they're still uploading from my phone).

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*(Fuck me, that's a long list eh? And it took me forever to get those myspace links hooked up.)