Merry Christmas! It's the end of 2011

This year, we're having a white Christmas!

Dan and I made a few of these pop-up cards for our family. Done in watercolours and cardboard.

The three of them in their glory.

Some photos from the WIP

A very quick prototype

Makin a mess up on the loft

The cutout pieces are ready to be glued on

And they go on the card

Dan hard at work 

Me hard at work

Merry Christmas, everybody! May nobody eat too much yellow snow.

Comic Book

I've been privileged to work on a comic book project with a team of talented artists.

It's been a long term project which has lasted almost a year (and still going!), but it's exciting to face the challenges of storytelling, and keeping the consistency throughout the series. I guess having to alter my style for the different demographic makes it even more challenging.

Here are a couple of samples of my work.

Dan's been helping me out with the colours and I've been finishing off the pages with the lettering. It's been a fun project and I'm glad I got to try it out.

Stripes

Dan was working on his new drawing for Illustration Friday.

The new word is "Stripes", so I decided to join in. This is just a quick drawing in ink on paper.

Halloween Monster Window

It's almost Halloween! I've finished a few more chapters of the comic book (which I've been working on since the beginning of 2011), so I decided it was time for me to have some fun too. It is totally not because Dan has been working on several Halloween illustrations.

Time for some sexy WIP:

Quick sketch

Pencil drawing

Finalised in pen

Scanned in Photoshop for some colourful times!

It's a little (?) different from what I usually do. But isn't that what Halloween is all about? - To go nuts? No? Why not?

Because this illustration was such a contrast from "the norm", it took a bit of convincing from my husband. He's a comic geek. It only makes sense that he likes this. Right? Yes? Yes.

Three Wise Monkeys

I have been feeling a bit burned out from work, so I decided to work on a personal project.
We have recently been watching Bill Bailey's documentary on baboons. So I thought I'd have a go at drawing those furry creatures - Baboons that is. Not Bill Bailey.
Baboons always seem so emotional, so I thought I'd incorporate their nature into doing "Three Wise Monkeys"

Hear No Evil - They are loud, so when they scream, I imagine they can't hear shit.
See No Evil - They tend to flash their buttoms to initiate friendship
Speak No Evil - They are only quiet when they have their mouths packed with anything edible.

Here's a rough sketch I did to figure out what I wanted it to look like.

And then finalised it in pen before imitating the woodcut look in Photoshop.

I wish I could've done the real printmaking but alas, I do not have all the equipment with me.

Fiona and Ross' Wedding Invite

My good friend Fiona is finally getting married after dating Ross for 8 years. So of course I offered to do their invite for her. They are a couple of really fun and interesting people so I wanted it to show in the design.
She really liked the end result, and because that means I don't have to get her a wedding gift, so am I. (Just kidding!)
Congratulations again to Ross and Fiona. I can't wait till the wedding.

Portrait Marathon

Dan and I have been doing quick celebrity portrait sketches in our spare time.

It's been pretty fun to compare how we've drawn each portrait, although I haven't always got it right with some of them - strangely all females)

Click for larger versions

Great actors:

Comedians:

 

Mythbusters crew:

 

Back To The Future!

Inspiring Stories Film Festival Poster

Inspiring Stories Trust is a new organisation that trains young kiwis to become better film makers.
They have asked me to design a poster for their end of year film festival.

I wanted to keep the essence of "inspiration" in the design, but still fun enough to get the young viewers' interest.
After so many different ideas and concept drawings, I finally came up with the design I liked.

And the final pencil sketch

ReignDrops Music Video

While I was frantically packing up to move to another city whilst getting things prepared for my wedding I was fortunate enough to pick up a project to work on a music video for ScholarMan.

Here are some of the designs that were used in the video.

This project was completed in about a month. The employer was always so enthusiastic about my ideas and patient during the times of silence (the fun editing times, which resulted in many computer crashes).

I could not have had more fun working on it. Once it was finished, I had a calm sense of "THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO EVERYDAY!"