Something Shiny: The Sketchbook Project

After many years and lots of hard work I’ve sort of learnt to deal with the gene that makes me attracted to shiny things.
Up to just a few years ago I would get up early and walk towards the rising sun on some formidable quest, only to stop after just a few minutes and set off after something more interesting, like, you know, wine tasting classes, or folk guitar lessons because it’s cool, or something like that.

I’m much more resolute now and I seldom start something if I haven’t finished what’s on top of the list first.
The internet, however, has the same effect on my resolve that a cloud of delightful cigarette smoke has on someone who’s trying to quit.
Have you any idea of how many shiny things are available on the internet?
I’m not just talking about all the useful and highly appreciated advice brought to you by Amazon and friends every time you login to buy something you really need.
I’m talking about REALLY cool things.

Like, you know, *The Amazing Sketchbook Project*, which I discovered this morning reading Roberta Baird‘s blog, who by the way is an illustrator I like lots.
So, on top of everything else I’m already doing, here’s what this project is about:

Each artist is sent the same blank Moleskine sketchbook. We’ve only got two rules: first, the book must be used in some way – no sending us back an empty book or a completely different book! Second, the sketchbook must stay within its original dimensions (because we don’t want to have to provide an extra suitcase just for your book while we’re touring the country).
Each book will be given a barcode so we can easily catalog it into The Brooklyn Art Library system. Once we catalog it, artists will be able to track where on the tour their book is viewed and how many times someone pulled it from the shelf – we want to make sure you can stay connected with your sketchbook!

I picked Dirigibles and Submersibles as a theme, the coolest thing on the planet apart from Spaceships and Zombie Vampire Steampunk Aliens From Space (not on the list unfortunately, someone must have picked it up first).
It’s perfect for me anyway, first because I – like everyone – love zeppelins, second because the next storybook I had in mind would have a submarine in it, so there.

The deadline for sketchbook submission is the 15th of January.
If I don’t succeed in filling in all the pages with scribbles within the set date I’ll still have a really good looking sketchbook to keep, and lots of concepts to use.
Too bad for the other projects who went back a place in the queue (like Mirror’s Edge for iPhone, king of the toilette sessions).

Back From Vancouver

Ah, the good old days when you could go on holiday and then bother people inviting them over to see a bucketful of your silly picture rolls.
Blog posts and albums on Facebook are nowhere near as annoying, they take a lot of effort from the already tired traveler in terms of uploading, tagging and stuff, while family and friends can get away with a simple “oooh” posted hastily on your profile.
Technology sucks.
So there, I’ll restrain myself and condense *my awesome trip to Vancouver* into the 10 things that struck me about it.
Plus, here’s the link to the first album on facebook. I’ll post the rest of the pictures when I’ll figure out why my camera is invisible to my mac.

1 – Vancouver is beautiful. It’s so beautiful that when I came back to London – my now second favourite city – it looked like a grim and miserable bunch of shacks littered with rubbish and full of pissed-off people. However, pubs in London are everywhere and a pint doesn’t cost a fifth of your wage. Which leads me to my second point.

2 – Vancouver is a magical city of fairies and rainbows, where, amongst other wonders, your money can disappear into thin air. No laws of thermodynamics in Vancouver, you withdraw money from an ATM, you put it into your wallet, walk around for half an hour and it’s gone.

3 – There are ravens everywhere. One would expect seagulls. There are ravens instead, thousands of them, lurking in the shadows, looking at you from the rooftops, obviously longing for the flesh of your eyes. That’s scary, believe me.

4 – Canadians live up to their cliche. Wave a map in Vancouver and people will queue up to give you some help.

5 – Food in Vancouver is awesome throughout. And there are more sushi places than Mac Donalds, which is good. Although I fear they are the place where that amazing feat of the city to have your money vanish is more likely to happen.

6 – Canada is pretty far away from the UK, which means you have to plan something interesting to do when you’ll find yourself wide awake at 3 o’clock in the morning, horribly jet-lagged.

7 – The Rocky Mountains with fog and rain from a Greyhound look pretty much like the Highlands with fog and rain from a car.

8 – In Vancouver it rains all the time apart from the day you’re leaving. That day the sun will shine high in the sky and the mountains will reflect their glorious bulk into the ocean, pods of whales jumping happily out of the foams. Mocking you.

9 – Vancouver is so nice that other cities in Canada buy their homeless a train ticket to get there. Because they know Vancouver rocks and they want everyone to enjoy it.
This is why there are so many people in the streets asking you for change. Which I would have been more than happy to spare if the city hadn’t sucked my wallet dry.

10 – There’s a space anomaly in Stanley Park, so that a centimeter on the map equals a billion kilometers walking.

Huge Demon In A Really Bad Mood

I am leaving for Italy today.
My wife and I are going to one of her friends’ wedding, which makes this month one of the busiest I’ve had in a long while, since next week I am flying to Canada for my holidays.
No wait, this year has been dead busy from the beginning, full stop.
Anyway, with all the things to set up before we leave I had to skip the gym for an awful lot of lunch breaks, which, if on one hand will make my attempts at not becoming a plump lazy guy more difficult, on the other hand gave me the opportunity to do some speed painting while having my veggies at work.

I started this as a simple mood study, at the beginning there were just some generic ruins with the giant leg of a non specified creature in the middle. Then my friend Dave passed by and went “A-HA! Godzilla, LOL!” and I had to do something else.
In the end it didn’t turn out too bad, I changed the dinosaur-looking leg into something closer to a humanoid, and I eventually decided it would have been a huge demon in a really bad mood.
I gave him flaming whips because they fit the character and they were the best weapon to be seen from ground level, since the upper part is out of sight.
When I realised that reds worked pretty well in contrast with the overall mood of the painting I started playing on that by adding red lights bouncing from the debris on the left hand side.
All in all I think I’ll ask Dave to come and take the piss out of what I’m drawing more often.

Spider Rider Garage

I’ve always been fascinated by excavators.
When I was a kid I would stare at workers digging dirt with machines that looked like mechanical monsters.
I recently saw one of those machines in action, and the driver was actually using the arm and the digging bucket to perform what to my eyes looked like incredible stunts (they then turned out to be pretty basic practices).
Anyway, I imagined how cool it would be to combine a few digging arms and use excavators to climb mountains and stuff.
I mean, I would pay for a machine like that.
In instalments of course.

Scary Monsters Smells Bacon

Another exercise with values and low lights, done in a couple of hours.
To be honest I’m not that happy with the results, the monster isn’t quite obvious (umm, can it be a plus?) and the figures are merely sketched.
But well, it got to the “I can’t be asked to work on this anymore” point, and here it is.

New Website

Well, I’m back online, again.
As you can see (since you’re here) there’s an entirely new website, thanks to Ale’s
m4d sk1llz.
Whoever was subscribed to the old blog will have to delete the old subscription and
do it again.

This time around I didn’t have to mess around with html, flash or any of that stuff I’m
completely incapable of, which is about the second best decision of 2010.
The best one was jail breaking (legally!) my iPhone, which is also kind of sad if you
think about it.

Anyway, as for the drawings, I have to admit that the galleries are far from being
complete, I still have about a dozen illustrations waiting to exit the limbo of the half-
finished projects and a few sketches to scan, so it will be some time until it’s really
done.
Plus, I’m starting to dislike the oldest ones and I’ll probably get rid of quite a few of
them, so let’s say it’s still and probably always be a work in progress.

In the last couple of months, which I spent pretty much drawing all the time, I came
across a few nice digital painting resources and tutorials worth sharing with fellow
artists.
Some of them were recommended by my friend and colleague Dave Barker, whose
website I’d be happy to link if it wasn’t down at the moment.
In no particular order:

This online tool http://colorsuckr.com/ allows you to extract a colour palette from
an image, which is priceless if you are diligent as I am and you saved a whole lot of
random pictures (creatively tagging them “Palette Resources” on Bridge) with the
sole purpose of using their interesting combinations of colours.
The tool also allows to export the colours as a Photoshop swatch file, ace.

This online Gamut Mask http://www.livepaintinglessons.com/gamutmask.php is an
awesome tool to create nice palettes of logically arranged colours. Play around with it
and see how it works.

Gurney Journey. About colour schemes. http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/02/shapes-of-color-schemes.html

How to extract a colour scheme from a photograph http://www.fudgegraphics.com/
2008/06/tutorial-how-to-extract-a-colour-scheme-from-a-photograph/. This is actually
how I rip a consistent palette off a picture. Basically a filter that has been there since
Photoshop 1.0 and I had never thought about.

Then the following videos: all these people are incredibly good. Follow the other links
in the side bar of each page to see their other stuff (and crush your ego).

Marco Bucci http://www.youtube.com/user/marcobucci#p/u/3/_43fr4LLYDY

FZD School Channel. Start from number one of course. http://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL#g/u

Painting Lessons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1RrEVyk9RY but I think this
series of tutorials should be mandatory in schools. I mean, that’s how reality works.

Steampunk-gloved powerlatex-wearing nasty chick

This evening’s effort.

Heavily referenced from a picture found by chance on the internet (thanks again, the internet).
I’ll be damned if I can find her again, it was on a separate layer. Deleted forever.
Anyway, steampunk, you never get tired of it.

Back to The Internet

Stop being sad, Internet, I’m back!
It’s been a shamefully long time since my last post, but it has been a busy and eventful month, and not everything that happened in it was good.

First I had surgery (which is among the good things). Nothing serious, but something that had been definitely bothering me for quite a few years (I am THAT lazy) has finally been sorted. Now I have one more scar, my admiration of Modern Medicine has increased and I can say I’ve experienced the best and most satisfying nap ever.

My return to work after two weeks of sick leave has been all but trouble-free though, my company is laying off employees and the process of selection has been long and painful.

Apparently I’ll keep my job, but some dear friends of mine will not, and the place has necessarily become emptier and sadder. Really, it won’t ever be the same.

One of the many consequences of all this, is that during the two weeks when everyone’s head was on the chopping board I started working on my new portfolio.
You know, to be prepared, just in case.

I’m quite happy about the first results but there’s still broad space for improvement.
Even though I’m no longer at risk (or so it seems) I’ll complete it anyway, I don’t like unfinished things and, well, you never know.

It will be a concept artist’s portfolio, so yes, characters, lots of spaceships and things like that.
It will take a couple of months, hopefully a bit less, so I’ll have to put aside *The Book* for a while. Too bad I had already done the first storyboards.

Anyway, these are the first characters I came up with, more to come.

In other news, my wife just won the prize for being the clumsiest woman of the planet. So proud of her <3 <3.
She poured a mugful of coffe over our MacBook, which passed away on the spot without even a sigh.

The guys at Apple told us they can fix it, but we’ll have to shower them with money.
It’s just a hunch, but I’m under the impression that the next month won’t be any easier than the past one.

Illustration Friday: Ahead

The entry for this week’s Illustration Friday:)

Who Needs An Optician?