Attack of the BLOG

Birthday Card

2011-10-17T15:59:00.001+01:00

Sketchbook

2011-10-17T15:53:00.001+01:00

Character

2011-10-17T15:04:00.003+01:00

Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens (Sketch)

2011-07-02T19:21:00.004+01:00

Uni's finished, so here's a quick sketch (photoshop) of the lead character from 'Justified' (played by Timothy Olyphant) to keep the ball rolling

Call of Cthulhu

2011-06-12T15:46:00.006+01:00

Final images and motion graphics for uni Cthulhu Project.

Call of Cthulhu: Part One Poster

2011-05-20T16:45:00.002+01:00

Uni: Currency of Cthulhu

2011-05-03T15:10:00.014+01:00

Likely the first of many Cthulhu-Related posts, part of my final project for Uni

Something sentimental

2011-04-13T11:05:00.003+01:00

For a friend, because I'm a soppy old sod.
And also I had some new inks and pens and stuff to try out ;)

Uni - Chapter Mascot Characters (Major Project Proposal)

2011-03-25T17:10:00.006Z

For uni, we recently had to produce a proposal for our final degree project. To try and keep myself interested and to liven it up a little, I drew out some quick, silly little characters to act as mascots for the main sections of the proposal. I'm not going to post the whole proposal, but here above are the mascots.

Uni - ITC Report

2011-03-25T16:44:00.011Z

I did this in January as part of the final year of my degree studies. It's a little report about communicating time in comics. Big thanks to all those who filled out my survey. I was more than a little out of practice at writing so it's probably not the best thing ever written, but my mark was ok, so all is well.

Scribd seems to be a bit funny about documents that have double page spreads though so the PDF below is single pages where it is meant to be displayed as double page spreads with a cover. Oh well.

Competition - Lloyds Tsb Art of Nurture 2011

2011-02-01T00:38:00.001Z

Theme - We take ownership

Uni SVR Childrens Activity Cards

2011-01-16T15:41:00.002Z

The final design for the fronts of the childrens activity cards. One from each category, pose, move, contest and role play.

Couple 'o sketches

2011-01-04T18:35:00.004Z

A couple of recent pencil sketchbook pages to keep the old blog ball rolling.

Some prep sketches for a red riding hood pin-up I'm gonna do when I've got the chance and a creature.

Uni: More kids activity stuff

2011-01-04T18:16:00.006Z

More of the kids activity card illustrations for the Uni SVR project. These are from about a month ago, I'm trying to settle on the look of the cards at the moment.

Uni Stuff - Animal Poses for kids

2010-11-28T17:50:00.003Z

Last time I post this I promise...

2010-10-07T01:09:00.005+01:00

Pretty much ready to call this one done and chuck it in the old portfolio. Might do a mockup cover/poster type deal with some text and an art nouveauxy border.

Also, figured I may aswell post up my process. I get a kick out of it when other people show this stuff so maybe someone out there in internet land will find this interesting one day.

In other news I'm back at uni and vvveeeeerrrrry close to finishing up work on a freelance project illustrating a book of kids nursery rhymes that I've been doing on and off for pretty much the whole summer. 3 Rhymes left to do, gonna be satisfying when it's finally DONE.
Might ask them if it's cool to post some images from it. Hmmmm. Maybe.

Message ends.

Lazy Bones

2010-09-25T18:07:00.002+01:00

My entry for the contest over on sketchoholic.com for todays interview with Ryan Wood.

The theme was lazy bones, I was going for a Jason and the Argonaughts vibe.
Looking forward to the interview, should be good.

2010-09-22T17:38:00.002+01:00

Bit of an update on the moster pic and some assorted Sketchbook Junk.

Touchy Feely Monsters

2010-09-12T17:07:00.002+01:00

Some personal work while I've got a minute here and there.

Work in progress.
Son of Nosferatu style guy. Needs some lovin.

Rough Fairytail Sketch for a possible Beauty and the Beast image.

Sketchbook Pencils

2010-09-12T17:05:00.001+01:00

Character Sketch: Father Time

2010-07-24T17:18:00.003+01:00

Initial Sketch for this weeks CHOW activity over at conceptart.org, topic: Father Time

I wanna try and get this done in time but the deadline is 9pm tommorrow and I've gotta do some real work, which doesn't leave much time, so we'll see...

For my Brother loves CHEESEY METAAAAL

2010-07-24T16:06:00.003+01:00

Well Uni's been finished for something like a month now and, aside from a 2 week bridging course I've been pretty free so there's been plenty of drawing for fun, some freelance childrens book stuff and lots of playing video games.

This was a quick digital painting for my brother who turned 17 last month. He's a big fan of his metal and quite the little guitarist and this is something he's wanted me to do for a while. It was printed A3.

Happy birthday Tim.

Pencil Scraps

2010-07-24T16:00:00.000+01:00

Quick while no-one's looking!

2010-05-05T21:38:00.004+01:00

A couple of quick doodles snuck in between other commitments

Things that aren't finshed

2010-04-22T17:22:00.006+01:00

A quick environment thumbnail. Post-apocalypse society market street. I liked the composition so I'll probably work on making a finished piece out of this.

Three stages of a piece in-progress. Was a challenge brief "Dark Queen" over at the ImagineFX forums, the deadline passed ages ago but I'm still gonna work on it as a portfolio piece or something. Will probably crop in to just the top half of the image and make it wider. Maybe add a bird or something.

And some assorted sketchbook junk.

Been busy drawing stuff for some kids books recently and from now on the Final Major Project takes over for Uni so probably not so much time for personal work, at least for a couple of months.

Couple of quick lanscapes

2010-04-05T01:16:00.003+01:00

Just a couple of quick sketches of mountains done on using Colors! for nintendo DS.

I am "Ban Vaughany"

2010-04-05T01:14:00.006+01:00

A clipping from this months 'ImagineFX' magazine. I'm at the far end of the table, on the left in the top pic and my sketch is the bottom right one. And my name wrongly written as "Ban Vaughany", sounds exotic, maybe I should get it changed to that properly ;)

Ink

2010-03-22T21:03:00.006Z

Since Uni has finished for Easter now and I've finished up quite alot of stuff recently I figured I could allow myself some time to do an entry for the Character of the Week activity over at ConceptArt.org.

The brief was the word 'Ink' and specified that the character had to have at least 25% of their body covered in tattoos, aside from that it was pretty much open to interpretation.

Done in Photoshop from start to finish. I'd say I spent about 6 or 7 hours on it. Hopefully that time'll come down with practice.

Banditos, Jackal Heads, Girls, Robots etc.

2010-03-20T18:44:00.006Z

I've never really done much work with ink and i don't know what I'm doing with it, so I bought a couple of new brushes and had a go. Hopefully with more practise I'll get more confident with it.

A bit of a test at drawing Eli Wallach as 'Tuco' from 'The Good the Bad and the Ugly' in a vaguely comic book stylee. I'd love to do a short story about him so this is maybe a practise for that.

Colour in photoshop.

Sketchbook. Jackal -headed man-creature. Anatomy is horrible but who cares, just a bit of fun to fill 10 minutes.

My one page story for the 'Okido' children's magazine project at Uni. I'm fairly happy with the actual story in the bubbles but not so much with the way it looks laid out with the big faces. Too late to change it before tha hand in but I might re-jigg it a bit for a portfolio piece at some point, it can go in my ever increasing children's illustration section.

Sketchbook Junk

2010-03-01T16:34:00.006Z

A few unrelated sketchbook pages.

From Sketch meet at nandos

Self Portraits, I HATE THEM.
Can never get them right.

Okido Mini Project - GERMS

2010-03-01T16:32:00.002Z

A mini folded book for children for the ongoing Okido project at uni.

Uni Editorial Illustration week 4 Final

2010-02-08T01:13:00.006Z

Final image for this, fourth and final week.

The image is to accompany a text about an overheard conversation between two older twin sisters who are constantly disastisfied by everything in the cafe (particularly the jam for their scones) and also a little darkly racist in that xenophobic way that some old people seem to get away with. We don't like their characters.

I'm aware that I might have made them a little overly old, but neveremind. I think it works better that way.

Well that wraps the project up. It's been a treat working on some illustration specific briefs at uni for a change. Hope there are more of these sorts of projects floating about to sign up for this year.

Quick Test Animation Running Man

2010-02-07T22:29:00.004Z

Roughly sketched Run Cycle animation.
A bit of a learning experience, I'm gonna draw it up with proper lines and colour when I've got a few spare hours

Sketcha doodle - Victorious Fighter

2010-02-05T17:15:00.017Z

Just a quick messy sketch to experiment a bit with some custom brushes and different types of layers.
I was trying to use more fluid and transparent brushstrokes than normal and keep the image loose, which I tend to struggle with.

Partly inspired I guess by the Victorian bare-knuckle boxing scene in the new Sherlock Holmes film.

Might make it into a finished piece at some point.
Probably not.
Click for bigger version.

Uni Editorial Illustration Week 4 Roughs

2010-02-03T11:11:00.003Z

Probably going to go with the left hand sketch of the old twins surrounded by pots of jam.

Uni Editorial Illustration Week 3 Final

2010-01-31T23:51:00.002Z

My Final for this week.

Just a contest

2010-01-31T00:49:00.005Z

I just finished off work on this, it's just a little something I'm putting into a competition. Bit of fun. The brief was the theme of 'Working together/Support'.

Took about 7 hours on this in total, including the pencils. The fullsize version is bloody enormous so photoshop took about 10 minutes every time I had to save towards the end. Nightmare. My fault I suppose for working on about 30 layers and at 600dpi. But hey, I'll be the one laughing if I ever need to get a decent quality print done.

There are two types of people in the world...

2010-01-27T14:38:00.008Z

... those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.

Clint Eastwood as the man with no name. I'm into old westerns alot lately.
Bottom image is pencil original, top has been photoshopped alittle.

Wanted to draw that character all week. Now that the A-Z project for uni is handed in and no longer looming overhead like a shadow made of upturned hedgehogs it's time for me to make some progress on a childrens book illustration comission I've been wanting to get on with for weeks.

DEADLINE FREEEEEEEDOM! Temporary but still. Pretty sweet.

Uni: Editorial Illustration week 3 ROUGHS

2010-01-27T11:37:00.002Z

My roughs for this weeks brief about a girl working as a private dancer.

The first shows her calmly reading a book on stage while the men in the audience hoot and holler at her ass. (not exactly the same as in the story but its meant to convey the girls overall attitude)

The second shows the dancer as literally a robot on stage, with the blokes silhouetted in the forground.

I am genuinly torn between these two ideas and not sure of which to go with, I want to do them both.

So if you are reading this and have and opinion, let me know. I can't decide.

Uni: Editorial Illustration Week 2 Final

2010-01-25T06:09:00.008Z

Something a little less serious than last week. My final for this week.

Now I have to finish tying up loose ends on the A-Z ready to hand in later today. Feel like I haven't slept since forever. As soon as I get home this afternoon my head's hittin the pillow and I'm not getting back up until Tuesday morning.

Scratch that. Might buy a pizza first. Fckin STARVING and I drank all my milk so I can't have another bowl of Alpen. Sad face.

Mostly listening to: Koyanisqaatsi Soundtrack by Philip Glass

Uni: A-Z project opening pages

2010-01-20T14:58:00.005Z

Figured I may aswell post this. The opening double page spread to the 52 page A-Z section of a current 100 page pdf project. Due date is monday. Still got quite a few empty pages to fill up.

It's meant to look like an old intertitle card from a silent film or something. Most of my pdf will be styled similarly.

Uni: Editorial Illustration Week 2 Roughs

2010-01-20T01:31:00.004Z

So, week 2 of the project and we've got an article overhearing a group of men on a train talking about cars and one of their cousins various insurance scams and the like. The article ends with the group's silent disapproval of the cousin for making their man take his shoes off inside his house.

I'm not totally sure yet but I'm leaning towards the top image of the cousin reclining smug and shoeless as his car burns.

But with less hideous colours for his furniture probably.

Probably something a bit more cartoony than last week
.

Uni Editorial Illustration Week 1: Final

2010-01-17T14:52:00.003Z

My final image for this week's brief.

Uni: Editorial Illustration WIP

2010-01-16T15:14:00.003Z

Altered the layout a bit and started adding some colour. Still a work in progress so it's kinda all over the place at the moment. I'll refine it before monday.

Uni: Editorial Illustration. Week 1, Pencils

2010-01-14T01:39:00.006Z

Quite likely this will be victim to a bit of cropping and moving things around before I colour it up but this is the pencil drawing based on the roughs from earlier.

The man just arriving with the pints looks shit so he's probably going to get erased and redrawn from scratch digitally but I'm fairly happy with the main guy. Usually when I don't use references for specific facial expressions I'm not too pleased with the result but I think this dude is looking ok so far. Onwards.

Zombies

2010-01-13T11:39:00.001Z

When I was scanning the stuff for the previous post I came across some other sketches from the last few weeks in my moleskine.

Here are some Zombies.

Uni: Editorial Illustration Week 1 Roughs

2010-01-13T11:28:00.000Z

Rough initial sketches for the first week's brief depicting an overheard conversation by a man drowning his sorrows comforted by a mate over the christmas period.

I'm going to go ahead with the top image which has some quick value washed over the sketch.

The miserable drunk will be surrounded by a swirl of shining christmas decorations floating around his head. His friend has just arrived with the next round in the top left (I think I'll leave his face out of frame so he doesn't get too much attention) and the bathroom (where we eventually end up) is just visible in the top right. I should be able to lead the eye around the page with the shape of the shiney swirls.

I'm also tempted to switch the places of the friend and the bathroom. I think the light from the bathroom being in the top left, instead of the right, would flow better.

Brave New Worlds

2010-01-13T10:29:00.000Z

My name's Ben. I didn't have a blog before and now I do. This is it.

This blog will be a place for my personal work (Illustrations) which I feel like putting on the internet and for a currently ongoing project at uni.

And because I don't like empty posts, here are a coupe of things from the last few weeks.
Hope you like.