Nun done,...hey that rhymes.

Design for charactr #4; Nuns with Guns (actually it's a flame thrower).

'This is Sister Emmanuel of the Sacred Fire; cleansing the world of its ills with Holy Fire.

Sister Emmanuel was always caught playing with matches during her formative years, so the Convent sisters thought it best to find a way of using this fascination to their advantage.'

I  tried her with trousers for a while, but that wasn't quite right.

Still trying to get my entry for charactr #4; Nuns with Guns, ready. Pencil design is going well but the legs are a bit off at the moment.

 I have less than 24 hours to get it finished and a very busy day tomorrow. Its going to be close...again.

The final nuns are starting to come in to the forum; http://www.charactr.co.uk/final-voting-thread-for-charactr-3-t105.html. Some good ones already.

I set the new task on Friday. This one is 'Tattooed Spider Woman'. That means I could get anything from a shadowy, smouldering femme fatale from the days of film noir, to a mutated spider-human cross-breed. Should be some interesting submissions.

I made the sheet below to give some inspiration, and to show that there are many ways that this one could go.

INK 2012 artwork

INK 2012 – Mini Print Exhibition 

Just about to start work on my entries for “INK 2012” – an exhibition of mini prints by the Staff and Students of Staffordshire University’s Arts Media and Design Faculty running from 15 June – 22 June.

I am going to re-work some images of tin toy robots, like the one below (done a few years ago) 

This time I want to prepare the images for the laser cutter so that I can cut some printing blocks. Then, rather than use ink, I am going to use the blocks to emboss the image onto textured paper. 

Nuns with Guns

These are my silhouettes for charactr #3: Nuns with Guns. This task started over the Easter break but the input has been slow so far. Everyone is very busy right now.

 #1 is a really old Nun carrying a stack of decomissioned weapons that were found hidden in a ditch.

 #2 is armed with a flame thrower...and why not.

#3 is a foul cliche that will probably get more votes so I will have to us it as the final design.

charaqctr #2 Emaciated Jungle Explorer

 

This is my charactr.co.uk entry for the second brief; 'Emaciated Jungle Explorer'; a Conquistador running for his life through a South American forest.  I am much happier with the final image than before, though I did not get the last hand drawn layer  done...

These are the three initial silhouettes; #1 is, as you can see below, based on Amy Winehouse [one of the first images that comes up when you search 'emaciated', god help her], #2 comes from an actual jungle explorer and #3 is based on a prisoner from a WWII Japanese camp.

As it happened Amy won, which was nice. It was clearly the most dynamic image. Next stage, lots of reference. Small selection here...

I thought I would make him look like he had gone a tad native at some point. The image below is a concept for the Nazca Warriors from Indiana Jones IV. From these I got the grass/reeds tied to parts of his body and the tattoos.

 

This is the pencil sketch scanned in. I put it into Photo Shop, copied the level and hit 'multiply'.

I was now able to draw under it and basically colour it in.

Pretty much done; I selected the outside of the figure and used it to make a silhouette, made a new level and filled in the silhouette, Then I put that behind the figure and skewed, knocked the opacity down, it till it made a good shadow. Added lens flare...

Cut it out and found a descent jungle background.

At this point I had planned to ink in the pencil sketch with a brush to give it some descent mark making skills, scan it and overlay that onto the digi-paint. But time ran out, maybe next time.

Seriously though, I will try that technique on this design soon, to see how it looks.