Municipal Services

 

City vista

This was a big project and went through a number of iterations before landing on the final look.  

The brief was from an Engineering Company Vista Engineering.  They wanted to include notable buildings in Reykjavik alongside the services they provide for marketing purposes. 

To try include so much in the single scene they wanted was the challenge.  The starting point was way zoomed out.

Then we moved to a grid like structure - ignoring actual geography. 

The early drafts were going to include some sea.  

It was taking up valuble space and needlessly constricting where buildings were sited - so it is ditched.

After that the how to depict each service was worked out.  This version had the pipework above the ground plane. 

In this draft I was playing around with how to illustrate the information on signs and displays

Then it was into fine tuning details and timing. 

And finally locking in look and render settings.

Making a Production

 

I have been working on a lot of 3D projects recently but this is one I made for myself.  Making a model and running a simulation in Blender is sometimes challenging but creating a scene with multiple animations and effects requires that I have to plan it all out. 

If its multiple shots its easier as you can set up seperate scenes and buid to purpose but if all has to live in one shot it is a bigger challenge.  So I deliberately set up a large scene with alot going on to get a better workflow.  I ended up building all the elements and placing them in the final scene.  All the animations were decided then each element was duplicated in a seperate file and animated.  When the animations and effects were finalised they were baked or keyframed and  all moved back into the final scene.   Video is here.  

A Lobster

 

I had this painting knocking around for quite a while.  It was almost complete and other things got prioritised and it got left behind.  I needed a short break from the computer this week so worked on it a little more.  If I remember it was just going to be watercolour but I added some ink.  

This kind pattern of work symbolizes how things have gone this past year.  Balancing working on projects to get more profficient versus making a living .  Some stuff will enevitably get left behind as priorities shift. Some will get picked up again as a sort of normal arises out of the eventual control of pandemic.  Some will be left behind. 

For now I am budgeting on this year not being normal and not planning too far ahead.  Controlling what I can and trying to keep moving forward.  

Tree with friends

 

Tree with friends

A recent commission from before Christmas.  This was painted in watercolour.  I had not painted in watercolour for a while and I mapped everything in Photoshop and got client approval before I painted it. There were a few smaller watercolour practice runs.   I liked the Photoshop take alot.  This was painted on very heavy paper Waterford 300 lb cold press.  I think the better you are in this medium the easier it is to paint on lighter paper.  

Photoshop preliminary sketch

Stay Safe

 

Stay Safe

I worked on a commission a while back for https://beeganassociates.com/ and created an animation for it.  The brief was to prompt people to think about their health and safety at work in broader terms.    For time reasons I ended up using a protion of it. I worked on it afterwards to round it out.  

The hazzard signs were in illustrator.  I imported them as .svg files and then animated the camera. They were the last addition. 

The stick man animation was done first.  The timing on it was slowed  for this version though it still moves along at a fair lick.  I used the lights to change scene colours.  

Music was CC 4.0  "Wants to know" by Soulsurfer.  

 

Off limit chips

 

Off limit chips 

Jumped back into illustration as a switch up from a lot of 3D I was creating.  Worked on these on and off for a month and then eventually called time.  They are chips, chips with garlic sauce, curry chips and curry chips and cheese.  They are off limits during lockdown (outside permitted travel zone) so this is all I have until restrictions are lifted.  

Clouds and rocks

 

Clouds and Rocks ( 9.5"x 7")

Oil painting.  Havent done one in a while.  

This was a practice piece to warm up after such a long break before I launched into a larger commission piece.  It was based on photo reference but I changed up the sky a bit.  I streamed some of the painting on Twitch but the VOD is gone now I think.   The more I paint these the more relaisation that 80% of the work is done before the brush touches the surface.  With composition, paint mixing and stroke placement all decided.  The only thing that happens at the actual painting stage is the brush mark. Important too but not everything.  

This painting is for sale on Etsy.