New job and National Portrait Gallery sketches

Apologies for how long it's taken to start posting again, I have been very busy, as I started a (temporary) job at Lupus Films, London, working on The Snowman sequel!

It's such an exciting project, and the studio is full of inspiring and ridiculously talented people, not to mention some of the friendliest and loveliest people I have ever met! I started on the 2nd July and am scheduled to work until mid-September. It's been utterly fantastic so far! So look out for the film at Christmas, it should be airing on Channel 4 on either Xmas Eve, Xmas Day or Boxing Day!! 

I have been drawing out-of work too. Every day I commute home I try to sketch a few things in a sketchbook I carry round with me. I will upload some of these sketches over the next few weeks.

Last Friday, I went to the National Portrait Gallery with a friend from work who has been going for a few weeks to sketch also. I wanted to go with her to do some sketching too, as her sketches inspired me to do some observational skecthes of paintings too. Here is a compilation of the sketches I made. Titles of the paintings are below, and are read left to right.

1. "Lady Colin Campbell" (1897) by Giovanni Boldini.

2. A study of a woman, from "The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari" (1857) by Jerry Barrett.

3. "John Philip Kemble as Cato" (1812) by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

4. "Coventry Patmore" (1894) by John Singer Sargent -> (my absolute favourite painter)

5. A study of a Marble bust of "George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland" (1830) by Sir Francis Leggatt Chantry.

More to come soon! 

---jkl

New Business Card Design...

I love stars... and duvets.

:)


---jkl

For Nessa

A little Birthday sketch for a friend!


---jkl

Mad Hatter WIP...

A WIP of the Mad Hatter for a request/commission for the Neoflux "What is the Use of a Book Without Pictures?" Alice In Wonderland Project...

I got the assignment aaaaages ago, but only now have I had time to begin! The hatter is done so far, but this will be part of a bigger picture...I'll upload here as soon as it's done...

Have a look at the album (on Facebook) already for what's been contributed - there are some great ones in there: What is the Use of a Book Without Pictures Facebook Album

Enjoy!


---jkl

Annecy!

I'm flying to Annecy tomorrow to attend the International Animation Festival there!  Hooray! This will be my second visit!

Am looking forward to it!

Au Revoir!

:)

---jkl

An Embrace at Cardiff Station...

I drew this from memory after a day in Cardiff on Saturday... It stuck in my mind as it was really sweet..

(Text written below the image for those who cannot read my writing)

I saw a guy with messy hair and a beard..

In one hand he was holding a small bouquet of flowers (unknown) and in the other, he held a Crabbies Ginger Beer bottle..

I only really saw him from behind as he was walking very quickly towards the station..

He suddenly embraced his partner who received the gifts very quickly.

---jkl

Don't Cry, Daddy... WIP

"Don't cry, daddy, I'm all right, daddy, please don't cry here, let me wipe away your tears..."

A little colouring FAIL attempt of a scene from the stage musical "Matilda" playing at London's Cambridge Theatre in London at the moment...

I went to see it at the end of December and absolutely loved it. The music and lyrics were written by Tim Minchin, and the songs are all brilliant.

As I am a soppy git, I love all the highly emotive songs where the characters are really expressing something, or verging on tears to put it bluntly! This scene is from the song "I'm Here" which is one of my favourites. This moment in the show really hit me. The father, (in Matilda's imagination) bursts into the room and hugs her singing, "Don't cry, I am here, little girl..." It was spine-tingling in the show, as the actor BELTED it; full of emotion! I just LOVED it. So this moment stuck out for me. The moment after this, Matilda sings to her "daddy" asking him to not worry...

But anyway... I'm just having a chill-out arty moment because we have just had a film critique and I am absolutely knackered!! 

So I will hopefully keep going back and finishing this off....as you can tell, I am not one for colour, but this is sort of practise! I'm liking the funky colours and having a bit of fun with it! :)

Based on the song, "I'm Here" from "Matilda" the Musical.

Attempting to colour in PS....(CS5 w/ wacom tablet)


---jkl

A few skecthes...

Finally had a little time to do some sketching in spare moments...Deadline for this term was Monday, everything went well thereabouts!

So here is a sketch of Rapunzel done the night before the deadline... (to relieve the stress..)

She is so lovely to draw.And a quick colour version...

At the actual critique/feedback session on Monday (after we'd handed in the digital copy of our work)we spent 6 and a half hours watching everyone's final rough animatics and hearing what the next step of their film was going to be... So during the 6 hours, I had to draw/doodle or I might have gone mad....

So I decided to draw my friends' characters! I really like drawing my friend, Zara's character "Roberta" who is the little girl with the large hair, glasses and dress with circles on it.

Zara's characters - Roberta and Emelina, for her film; "Fy Chwaer" (My Sister) - Zara Williams' Film Blog

Bry's character - Swamp/Frog creature, for her film; "Pond" - Bryony Evans' Film Blog

Claire's characters - The Stag and the Snake, for her film; "Catharsis" - Claire Spiller's Film Blog

Gemma's characters - Amber and the Tree Spirit, for her film; "The Little Tree Spirit" - Gemma Roberts' Film Blog

Vikki's character - The Ballerina, for her film; "Dancing Shoes" - Victoria Clark's Film Blog

Rob's characters - The Girl and the Dragon - (no blog available)



As well as this, I drew a sketch of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.

I coloured it earlier with Copic marker pens and gave it to a friend as a Christmas present.

---jkl

A quick illustration...

for a friend's belated birthday..



---jkl

A few background characters...

As background characters are needed in my film, I thought it'd be a fun thing to draw my friends on my course as children to be the background characters!! Just a quick set of sketches - It'll be so much fun to do in the final film though. Might as well make the most of it and I think they'll really like it! :)

---jkl

Can you tell I'm excited....

...for Brave!? I literally cannot wait!! :) Roll on August 2012!!



---jkl

When my mind is bored...

Done with a mouse on Photoshop CS5......(no reference)

Most of the animals are from the BBC's 'Frozen Planet' series on at the moment (except for the golden monkey obviously).....And then there's Mrs Incredible.....and a bear cub (from the Pixar's new 'BRAVE' trailer).... 

Very random! But good fun.

---jkl

Christopher Robin and Mollie...

Please click on the image to enlarge...

I'm using Ernest H. Shepard, illustrator of the original Winnie-the-pooh books, as inspiration for my final film development.

I came across this charming photograph of the real Christopher Robin (A.A. Milne's next door neighbour's son) with, I can imagine, is a special teddy called Winnie the Pooh...

I loved the image so much, I wanted to interpret it with my own character, Mollie and her special friend, Babbit!

I love old photographs so much..!

Please check out my film development so far @ arabbitcalledbabbit.blogspot.com


---jkl

Babbit - Final Year Film!

 

I am now officially a third year Animation student! So it's final film time. Scary!

I have started a new blog where I will be posting the whole process over this next year!

Please visit and have a browse, any feedback would be most appreciated.

Here's the address: http://arabbitcalledbabbit.blogspot.com/  Please follow.

Thank you Bloggers :)

---jkl

Doodle....

A quick doodle done on CS5... I'll use it as my birthday thank you card design. I'm 21 now - scary!

---jkl

Uni Side-Project - Joe Sharp..

A few months ago I posted the work myself and two of my uni friends did for a project on the side of our uni course. We created a comic in the form of a leaflet to be handed out to students at open days and other such events promoting higher education (and Newport Uni) to Secondary school pupils across Wales and some parts of England.

We were asked this year to complete some more comics that will be put on the website for younger pupils (around year 9 age - so about 14-15 year olds I'm guessing).

The uni created about 8 scripts of "life situations" for the character Joe Sharp to go through.. I was given "Joe Sharp on 6th Form/College" and "Joe Sharp on Work Experience".

They took about 3 weeks in total over a period of about a month and a bit.

They're not showing great drawings, or layout, colouring etc, but it was good practise.

So here is "Joe Sharp on 6th Form/College." Click to enlarge!

And here is "Joe Sharp on Work Experience" -(note: I chose this one specifically so I could draw lots of children. This was definitely the most fun to draw. Especially page two with the messy paint scene!! :] )

---jkl

Last Batch of Annecy Sketches...

More swimming...

Sketches done on the plane home from Annecy..

And even more swimming..

---jkl

More Sketches from Annecy...

Whilst at Annecy, myself and my friends went to the comic/art book shop literally every day. It's a tiny little shop with some of the best comic books Ive ever seen! (Well, we were in France after all)..

Anyway, towards the end of the trip I decided that I was going to try and find a nice comic book that I could buy. I spotted a book called "Le Gout du Chlore" (by Bastien Vives) which (I think) roughly translates as "The Taste of Chlorine" (?)

Just the cover alone caught my attention, (I do not, under any circumstances, believe in the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover" It's absolutely untrue) and after flicking through a few pages I knew that I just had to buy it! The whole book is just so beautifully done. The anatomy is amazing, Vives has this organic understanding of anatomy that looks effortless. I'm not brilliant at long explanations, but all in all, the book is just amazing. Really inspiring, lovely pacing on the story, easy to follow and read, beautiful and convincing little characters, gorgeously drawn and presented. Absolutely visually stunning.

Do check it out. I really recommend it to anyone who loves anatomy or swimming or just comics in general! It's a nice one to have on your shelf. I can see myself picking it up a good few times each year if I'm looking for a bit of inspiration.

Here is the Amazon UK link if anyone's interested: http://www.amazon.co.uk/go%C3%BBt-du-chlore-Bastien-Viv%C3%A8s/dp/2203012161/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310076783&sr=8-1

So, being inspired by this comic, I started to draw lots of swimming-related sketches!!

I'm actually now obsessing over the "swimming" theme. I absolutely adore it.

There's more to come soon...


---jkl

Some Annecy Sketches...

None actually of Annecy though...I do have some life drawing but have not scanned those drawings yet!

Here are some sketches from my sketchbook whilst at Annecy... Only a few for now. More to come soon..!

---jkl

Lovely Larger Ladies!

These sketches are from about a month ago... Apologies for how awfully these have been "cleaned" up... It's very messy... I think these were done during a deadline, so I was a little distracted to say the least..

I really want to try animating these characters... They were really fun to draw. My tutor liked them.

Apologies as well for how long it's taking me to get up to date with my life! I have been so busy I haven't had a chance to update 'til now!

I have been drawing nearly everyday for the past two weeks though, Ive been on a really brilliant work experience placement and am feeling inspired. So I will be scanning and uploading sketches this weekend most likely :)

---jkl