Mecha-Zoo: Pardus

Merry-Mecha!
Drawn with ball-point pen, ink wash and enhanced with photographic elements,
I was on holiday when I drew this guy, guess that's why he looks so lazy :)

Speaking of holidays, I wish you all safe and outstanding New Years!

Mecha-Zoo: Loxodonta

More Mecha-Zoo!
This one's still one of my favourites, it all just came together and worked. The vaccum attachment was suggested by a friend :)

This is also one of the few that I sketched out using pencil and not ball-point, I then added ink washes and photographic elements in the same way as the others....

Mecha-Zoo: Leo

Another Mecha-Zoo beastie, Leo was part of MZ version 1.0 exhibited in 2005.
With the exception of the angler fish, version 1.0 was all about the Big 5...
Drawn in ball-point pen, ink wash and photography, all the bits are then comped digitally and voila!

wednesday night drawing - last of the year

This week was pretty laid back, a couple of warm up drawings followed by two long poses... and wine!

loco man, loco

Earlier in the year, I was asked to design and illustrate a music album for Margaret's Daughter, a local indie band of great talent, have a listen...
The theme came from the title track: Blackhole ExpressEach page features the locomotive in some way, creating a story-like visual narrative throughout.Using the usual tricks by combining line art, ink wash and photography. Give the lot a digital stir and leave to simmer for about a day then refrigerate.
Serve chilled with with a healthy glass of good tunes :)There's been talk of doing a vid.... who knows?
What I do know is that this was lots of fun and I look forward to having more opportunities to work on other albums!
>hint< >hint<
;)

introducing: Jerry!

Thought I'd follow this up...
This is Jerry, a character I've been working on for a while now. Originally designed as an excuse for me to experiment with comics, it seems that I now might get the chance to get him published! :)
It started with this sketch, waaay back in 2003, he's evolved a bit since then and like the ship, his jet-pack and gun were rendered in 3D and added to the final comp.

wednesday night drawing - this week

Been another slow-blogging week, as the dust of deadlines settles I'll be able to get back onto the ball...

In the meantime, here's this weeks life-drawing (missed a couple before that)

You know the drill, quick gestural drawings followed by longer poses...

Action gecko

That end-of-year-crunch is back, being that time of year, and whoo-boy it's been a doozy and it's not even that close to the actual 'end' of year.... oh dear...

Anyway, while I'm up for breath and snacks I thought an update would be nice...
One of the projects I've been working on is an activity book for kids; but don't be decieved, this cute gecko character's been one tough little critter (23 pages in 2 weeks tough) This is the cover in it's various stages...

pencils and inks, for this particular job I didn't have time to use graphite pencils over the blue ones, it was direct to ink which is sometimes quite therapeutic.

the finished inks

space: the funny frontier

No, this isn't about Spock an' co but it's a treat none the less!

You may remember that I recently changed the banner of this blog to the current awsome space theme :)

Well, here's how it all started...

These doodles were the inception of a story that's been gestating in my head for many years. The ship was influenced by retro-sci-fi and those old WW1 bi-planes, that and I loved Porco Rosso!

And here's this is were it ultimately led, I had fun rendering the ship in 3D (which made sense since it'll be a regular feature)

Curious yet?

wednesday night drawing - last week

I know, I know...

I'm late with the update I promised, there a cloud burst of deadlines and a lot of stuff had to get shunted to the side. Storm's past now, got a bit wet but these freak torrents are to be expected this time of year...

Metaphors aside, here are the drawings...

Started off with gesturals (ball point)

followed promptly by some ink experiments (turns out ink takes FOREVER to absorb into cardboard)

and the last, hour-long drawing.

atomic blimp

Shoo hey (popular Cape Town expression) today was a bit of a doozy.

I'm putting up another oldie today, tomorrow I promise goodies but today all I got is stale crumbs...
Anyway, this is probably my first successful experiment with photo-clouds over inks. Did it as a study for a movie concept, this was still back when I did 3D Animation for a living and drawing as a hobby.

I like the top right corner, it reminds me of a stamp :)

campfire stories

Well, not so much a campfire as one of those you light in a barrel on those cold winter nights, when you've been outside too long...

This is another page from the abyss, did this one last year just before a well-deserved holiday to Malaysia :)

It was this illustration that got me hooked on this technique for doing fire!

I was asked to do a few character designs and a pinup page to sell a comic book idea, the project's still pending, as far as I know...

Mecha-Zoo: Osteichthyes

It's been a looong time since I posted any Mecha-Zoo, so here we go:

Osteichthyes is in fact the name of a group of fish: The bony fishes (ostheichthyes) are 95% of all fish and the most common among vertebrates. They are also the most diverse group among fishes. They include air-breathing lungfish and the lobed-finned coelacanths whose ancestors ventured on land and gave rise to amphibians. They are typically oviparous (egg-births). The common bony fish that are popular human food are the ones that live in the photic zone including sardines, anchovies, herrings, markerel, swordfish, and tuna. Those that live in the disphotic zone tend to have bioluminescent features.

Osty was part of the first MZ range (version 1.0) that I completed and exhibited in 2005, the only fish I've done so far, he's also been one of the most popular!

My long term plan, back then, was to do about 6 a year... which worked for about 2 years but then I got busy... lank busy. And any project not generating an imediate income had to be set aside.

But things change, after licencing some MZ to Toyota (my first post), I've begun working on MZ Version 3.0 but I'll post these old ones here and there :)

1000 Nights of Drawing 09

Last week Thusday was one of the last drawing sessions for submissions, I took with me some old washes I'd done years before intent one recycling them into more fun and interesting images, basically trying to make a story from one picture...

Stupidly, I forgot to take pictures of them for the blog, luckily Ed had, so 'thanks Ed, you rock, dude!'

The event itself was great, a very good turn out, many people, lots of familliar faces and a good vibe all round. I was able to track down most of my stuff, and this year we actually bought some awesome pics of our own :)

One of them though, didn't have an e-mail address... who drew this? Will the real Karl Curson please stand up, I wanna say, thanks!

And finally, the 'Doodle-Off'. Being one of those people that doesn't deal with crowds particularly well, I'd planned to be somewhat 'lubricated' enough that I wouldn't mind so much...

however...

This plan was dependant on the Doodle-Off starting at six (the whole thing was kept VERY hush-hush) so by the time we did start, at 10, I was about 2 hours past my expiry date... o_O

wednesday night drawing - last night

This week we started with a bunch of quick gestural drawings and moved into longer poses, the last was about an hour.

Our model was great, like a statue she was. We were supposed to work on our compositions this time... I dunno about mine, I forgot all about it around about the time I whipped out the water and having messy fun.. :)

I really like that old paper though, it takes the ink very well and adds such great texture. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone by using a ripped up book and drawn all over it, it was already partially ripped up when I found it so it's a mercy-killing, really. But the paper! The wonderful paper could be saved - I have a weird paper fetish that makes me, arguably, the biggest fire hazard on my block, city even!

ps... if you're in CT don't forget to come to 1000 nights of Drawing, starts at 6...