the neapolitan500 sketch journal

Goodnight, sweet prince.

2009-08-09T23:54:00.001+10:00

I have moved to The Shiggy Blog.

Bye.

Tilt-shift.

2009-04-15T22:14:00.003+10:00

I came across this really sweet music video that uses the tilt-shift technique to make regular real-life scenes appear miniature:

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

A while ago I came across a tutorial that shows you how to use this effect on your photos using Adobe Photoshop. Here's an image I made with the effect way back in May of 2006:

Bye!

An increasingly rare post.

2009-04-09T17:42:00.001+10:00

Here are a couple of logos I did recently:

And some drawings:

That's it!

Some Video of my Dog

2009-03-26T17:35:00.000+11:00

Sammy J - 1999

2009-03-02T19:51:00.002+11:00

Unbelievably awesome musical comedian Sammy J, who I've worked with previously, has a brand new show lined up for this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It's called 1999, and it's gonna be an absolute killer-diller show. And I'm not just saying that because I wanted to use killer-diller in a sentence. These photos (sent to me from Sammy's iPhone - yay techmologies) are of the set backdrops I created. They're "slices of life" meant to give the impression of a set. One is of Sammy's bedroom, and the other his classroom, both circa 1999. They were heaps of fun to do, and it's amazing to see them printed up all big like this.

I created them all in vector art using Adobe Illustrator, which means they don't lose quality when being blown up to huge sizes. Here's what the bookshelf looks like:

And here's a little ad for the show. Go see it!

Bucky Buchanan

2009-03-02T02:29:00.000+11:00

New Computer

2009-03-02T00:56:00.002+11:00

My new set-up. Click it to big it!

Where I've been and what I've been doing - Part 2.

2009-02-27T23:30:00.002+11:00

Where I've been and what I've been doing - a photo essay.

2009-02-23T21:50:00.002+11:00

Uninhibited Scandinavians

2008-12-28T13:20:00.000+11:00

My faves are the guy in blue at 0:50 and the girl in blue at 1:20.

Just some awesome clips from YouTube

2008-12-16T22:22:00.004+11:00

"How Crayons Are Made" - An old-school Sesame Street clip. (I'm obliged to give "props" to Lucy Rogue for this.) I almost lost my shit when I heard this music:

"ZOOM" - An early 70's kid's show, for kids, by kids. You really only need to watch the first couple of minutes to get a full dose of the awesomeness:

"Swinging the Lambeth Walk" - A 1939 animation by Len Lye. Pretty amazing to think that this is all hand-painted and so superbly timed with the music:

"James Brown Teaches You To Dance" - My hero when it comes to dancing:

That's it!

Illustrators Australia Update

2008-11-29T15:17:00.003+11:00

I've updated my Illustrators Australia page for the first time in a while, just sticking in some new drawings and writing a little blurb to spruik myself.

No new drawings to show, but I don't think I've shown this before, so here's a business card design I did for a very talented violinist friend.

I dunno...

2008-11-26T17:14:00.002+11:00

Feeling an intense lack of motivation to do anything creative. This is the best I could come up with after forcing myself to draw. I hear pandas are in this season.

A bunch of quotes that made me think, smile or both.

2008-11-23T19:00:00.004+11:00

I don't believe in everything these people have to say, but these excerpts interested me enough to save them. Have a read and think for yourself.

"We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." ~ Carl Jung

"Change is the end result of all true learning." ~ Leo Buscaglia

"he who defines himself
can't know who he really is" ~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Verse 24

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand." ~ José Ortega y Gasset

"The natural tendency of the mind is to compare and contrast everything. One side of your mind says “this is the right choice,” while the other side says “you’re joking right?” This discord creates a battle of a judge and a victim inside your mind. To free your mind you have to transcend the judge and the victim. After all, does it make much sense that the same voice that caused you to do something is now chastising you? Regain the freedom of your mind by being impeccable with yourself, and never using your mind against you." ~ Jonathan Nasman

"I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning." ~ Aleister Crowley

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way." ~ Charles Bukowski

"If you're not amazed at how naive you were yesterday,
you are standing still.
If you're not terrified of the next step,
your eyes are closed.
If you're standing still and your eyes are closed,
then you're dreaming that you're awake.
A caged bird in a boundless sky." ~ Jed McKenna

Stolid.

2008-11-23T00:13:00.003+11:00

Hi guys. Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I could give you an excuse, but it wouldn't fix anything.

Here's an oddity from a Peanuts animation that I thought I'd share with you. I fell in love with this piece of music the first time I saw The Man Who Wasn't There.

I'll leave you with that. Catch ya soon.

Orca-smic

2008-10-30T20:26:00.002+11:00

My drawing tablet died on me last week, so I got a replacement. It arrived today and I did this:

Click the pic for a wallpaper-sized version.

There Was Blood

2008-10-23T00:43:00.003+11:00

The following is comprised of the faint recalling of an incident, probably best left buried in the bottom drawer of my memory, and a dash of literary license to flesh out the details.

It was the winter of 1998. A Monday morning. I sat in the waiting room of our local GP, my mother on the chair next to me. To everyone else in the doctor's office, she seemed completely engrossed in the celebrity gossip rag she was reading, but to me, her expression was saying two distinct things at the same time. Number one, "I hope nothing terrible is wrong with you", and number two, "You'd better hope something is actually wrong with you for me to leave work and pull you out of school for this." She managed to communicate this without even as much as a glance in my direction. I kept quiet and thumbed through an old Reader's Digest. The feature article was about the Statue of Liberty, and although the monument had never held my interest in the past, I absorbed myself in the text. Anything to keep my mind from wandering towards more pressing matters.

Just as I was educating myself on the Statue of Liberty's French counterpart, the doctor swung open his door and read my name from a clipboard. As we followed the good doctor in, my mother raised her eyebrows and narrowed her gaze at me, as if to say "the next few minutes are going to be a true test of your resolve, young man". She knew what was to follow. I, on the other hand, did not.

An hour or so earlier, I was trying to persuade the school receptionist to let me call my mother.

"You don't seem very ill," she said, unconvinced.

"It's kind of embarrassing," I replied. "I'd rather not say what it is."

She looked me over from top to bottom, as if the invisible ailment would somehow make itself known to her. Eventually she shrugged, gave in, and handed me the phone.

"Mum, you need to come and get me."

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" There was genuine concern in her voice.

"I think I'm sick."

"What's wrong? Are you agito?" My mother has a habit of inserting Italian words and phrases into her speech. It's not that she didn't know how to say "upset stomach" in English, just that she was so used to hearing certain phrases from her own parents, that they trickled down a generation to our own ears.

"Kind of," I replied, somewhat cryptically.

"What do you mean, 'kind of'?"

"I'm just sick. Come and pick me up."

"Joseph, I'm not picking you up if you're not actually sick. Are you trying to get out of school again?"

"No!" I almost yelled, infuriated at the accusation.

"Then tell me what's wrong with you."

I sighed and palmed my forehead with my free hand. "Okay. So I went to the toilet, and after I went, when I looked down... there was blood."

"Blood? Where?"

"In the toilet."

I felt someone's gaze on me, and when I looked up, the receptionist's eyes darted frantically around the room, desperately trying to look every which way but mine.

"Oh my God. Are you okay? Are you sore?"

"Can you just come and pick me up?"

I spent the next ten minutes sitting in silence. There was a palpable tension between the receptionist and I, and it was clear that she had heard more than she'd cared to. She began busying herself with pointless tasks, clearly overcompensating for her discomfort. I watched as she photocopied some blank pieces of paper and then stapled them together. When a young student walked up to her desk and asked her for a tissue, she spent five minutes showing him how to correctly blow his nose. She was occupying herself any way she could. Anything to avoid turning her attention back to me. Anything to avoid the mental image of a toilet bowl full of dark red feces.

Of course, there was no such toilet bowl. And there were no such feces. At least none that I knew of. I had crafted that particular scenario entirely out of my imagination. It was the perfect excuse, born of years of experience with this sort of thing. It was not too minor as to be ignored, and yet not too outrageous as to be seen through as a lie. The imaginary evidence had been flushed away, unable to be sighted, yet unable to be denied. The proof was in the shame of it all. I mean, who would possibly invent such an embarrassing situation for themselves? It had to be believed. It was foolproof. Watertight. At least, that's what I thought.

As expected, the proceedings in the doctor's office were going as planned. My mother explained the situation, and the doctor set about giving me the as-usual once-over. Tongues were depressed, "ahs" were uttered and deep breaths were deeply breathed.

"Have you had a movement since then?" The doctor asked as he knelt in front of me, his icy cold stethoscope pressed against my chest.

"A movement?"

"He means, a bowel movement, Joseph. Have you been to the toilet again?"

"Oh," I replied. "No."

"Okay, well why don't you hop up onto this bed here." He unhooked the stethoscope from his ears and patted the thin, vinyl mattress on wheels behind him.

"Okay."

Between pulling down my shirt and climbing onto the hospital bed, I caught a glimpse of my mother. She had an unexpected expression on her face. It wasn't the gentle concerned countenance that a mother has for her ill child, nor was it the stare of accusation of a mother seeing through her child's rouse. It was something else entirely. Her scalp and ears were sitting a little farther back on her head than normal, and there was anxiety in her eyes. It was as if she herself were the one hopping up on the hospital bed, and she was positively dismayed at that prospect. It should have been fair warning of what was to follow, but it wasn't until the words came out of the good doctor's mouth that the pin finally dropped.

"Could you pull down your pants please Joseph?"

What? Could I do what? Suddenly, blood filled my head and my ears started burning. My throat seized up a little and I struggled eek out a reply. I looked at my mother, who's expression now read "this is going to hurt me as much as it's going to hurt you." Then I looked at the doctor, who was casually blowing into a latex glove.

I don't know if time actually slowed down or if my thoughts were moving at a pace heretofore unknown to me. I knew I had to act quickly. Was this a trick my mother and the doctor were pulling to catch me out? Were they in league together? Were they waiting for me to snap and admit that I made the whole thing up, that there never was any blood in the toilet, that, in fact, I hadn't actually taken a dump since the night previous?

I steeled myself. Suddenly, two disparate futures materialised in my mind.

In the first, I break down, crying out a guilt-ridden confession. My mother apologises to the doctor, yanks me out of the surgery and drives me back to school, and I'm a blubbering mess the whole way there. The receptionist shakes her head disapprovingly as I shuffle through the entrance. She is a prison guard and I the recently escaped convict, my feet now re-shackled and my hands cuffed tightly behind my back.

In the second, I lay on a bed. My bed. In my room. At home. A glass of chocolate milk by my side and a Sega controller in my hands. Peace. Freedom. The entire day to myself. An infinity of possibilities, unhampered by the fascist regime of the six-hour school day.

It was clear what needed to be done. A simple sacrifice was all it would take. An unbuttoning of the waistband, and a surrender to the long, cold finger of fate.

Google makes me unorginal.

2008-10-10T15:45:00.002+11:00

There's this website. I'm not sure if you've heard about it.

It's called Google.

Google steals my imagination and makes me unoriginal.

Just now, I was thinking about corn. Corn kernels, to be precise. I'm a wordy kind of guy, so naturally, upon dwelling on corn kernels, I soon started thinking about the word "kernel". Kernel. Then I thought, hey, that's homonymous with the word colonel.

Within seconds, I had fully realised a character named "Kernel Cob" in the landscape of my mind.

Kernel Cob is basically a giant ear of corn in a military outfit.

Genius, no?

Well...

So before sitting down to plan out an entire multi-million dollar franchise based around my ingenious invention, habit compelled me to do a quick Google search for "Kernel Cob". Naturally, I expected it to return a whole mess of results about corn - after all, kernels and cobs are common parlance when discussing corn - but what I did not expect to find, was this:

Not only did I discover, to my utter dismay, that someone had already thought of the idea of a giant ear of corn dressed in colonel's garb, but Google provided me with 31 pages from the book in which Kernel Cob makes his glorious debut.

This is not an isolated incident, mind you. There were countless others, but those ideas are currently dwelling in the dank, dark recesses of my mind, too ashamed to enter the light of consciousness for fear of being seen as the fraudulent conceptions that they are. The "Kernel Cob" fiasco just so happens to be a fresh occurrence, which lended itself nicely to these words you are currently reading.

I love the Internet, I'll be the first to admit that. The information afforded to us by the World Wide Web is incalculable compared to the information that previous generations had access to, and I'm sure that our global society will eventually be better off for it.

But fuck and hell, Google. Fuck and hell. Let me keep some ideas for once, eh?

New Jobs

2008-10-10T14:25:00.004+11:00

Click for big.

Here's a scene mock-up I did for a series of animations titled "Great Moments in Australian History". I was hired to do some character design work, which is super cool and just the sort of work I want to be doing. The series is currently being pitched, and hopefully the pilot episode will be underway soon.

Just realised there's a bit of Guybrush Threepwood in the Wentworth character.

Also, I've been working on a bunch of print ads for "Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams". The people producing the show are doing a great job promoting it, so the ads should be currently plastered all over Melbourne. The show has just toured the UK and is now showing in Australia again at the Melbourne Fringe. They've also got an extended post-Fringe run at the Lithuanian Club, so if you're a Melburner, there's no excuse for not seeing it this time. And I highly recommend you do.

I'm also in the process of designing the poster for The Santaland Diaries, a one-man show written by David Sedaris. Nothing to show from that yet, but I'll post something soon.

And lastly, yesterday I got asked to do an illustration for "Be" magazine, which sounds like a fun gig, although nothing to show from this yet either.

I'll leave you with this radical 90's dude. Hipsters are totally bringing this look back:

G'bye!

More Character Designs

2008-10-08T18:03:00.000+11:00

Character Designs

2008-10-07T22:47:00.001+11:00

Did these today for a new job that I'm pretty excited about working on. Maybe more about it in a later post.

Not dead

2008-10-06T22:23:00.002+11:00

As a result of the overwhelming response to my previous post in which I declared this blog as good as destroyed, I have decided to keep this bastard going. Thankyou to all the wellwishers and friends who urged me to continue on. The azaleas I received were lovely, and the handmade doilies are on display in the drawing room. Despite the current dire state of the Internet, I will soldier on, delivering nugget of gold after nugget of gold, until I can shit gold no longer.

Here's what happened to my face today:

Destroy my blog.

2008-10-02T18:59:00.005+10:00

I've decided to destroy my blog.

So to destroy my site, I invented a link on the World Wide Web that, when clicked enough times, completely destroys the website it's on, eventually destroying it. It will be destroyed. It's a very complicated process. You wouldn't understand, because all you Internet USERS spend too much time CONSUMING the Internet instead of actually MAKING CONTENT FOR IT. THE INTERNET IS THE FUTURE. IT IS WORTH SAYING IN CAPS.

Now, as a symbol of my undying devotion to the almighty Internet, I am sacrificing myself, in the vain hope that some of you may get the message.

Goodbye blog.

Click here to destroy my blog.

Identity Design

2008-10-02T16:00:00.005+10:00

I want to get into doing some more design work, so to pad my folio a little I invented some make-believe companies and designed logos for them.

The giant "O" is supposed to represent those old-timey surgical head-lamps. The greenish colour is a reference to hospital interiors and surgical uniforms (a la Scrubs).

This one was fun to do. I don't know if it really fits the corporate world, though. (Also, looking at it now, I think I should have chosen a different font. The "m" looks too much like "m&m's".) Can you think of another pretend company that would be better suited to this logo?

This design was inspired by retro air-hostess outfits.

I love tracing over fonts by hand. Gives it a real natural feel. I just Googled the company name and found out that it acutally exists! Whoops.

It's fun to play with fonts like this. The "A" is just an upside-down "V".

That's it!

Drawings that have nothing to do with work!

2008-09-29T15:43:00.002+10:00

Did this for Lucy's birthday a few weeks ago (click for big):

Experimenting with simple lighting in this "silhouette" style I really enjoy doing (click for big):

Sketch for the above pic:

Something different. It's a Ninja:

Later, baboons!

Velociraptors are murderous all over your face.

2008-09-16T21:14:00.001+10:00

51 seconds

Some quotes from Aldous Huxley and some music!

2008-09-12T23:22:00.004+10:00

Aldous Huxley is probably best known for his work The Doors of Perception, and for being one of the early popularisers of the recently deceased Albery Hoffman's Lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD. As well as unwittingly fuelling the cultural revolution of the 1960's, Huxley also had a great intrest in mysticism and spirituality. I found a great number of quotes from him on the matter at Opajdara Vox Verbum. Here are some that stuck with me for one reason or another:

"A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention."

"The majority of human beings behave as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor."

"Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself."

"Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength."

Also, here's an amazing Dave Brubeck performance I found on the 'Tube. It's from an old set he did in Australia. One of my favourite Brubeck numbers:

And just to break it up a bit, click here (YouTube won't let me embed the video) for an awesome performance by The Roots, who are, in my humble opinion, the greatest hip-hop act OF ALL TIME. EVER.

One more for the road. Here's another amazing performance, this time by Gnarls Barkly:

That's it!

A World First

2008-09-12T16:56:00.002+10:00

Click for a larger, printable version.

Dapper Giant

2008-09-11T16:53:00.001+10:00

Well... I guess I'm fucked, then.

2008-09-04T21:58:00.001+10:00

Werds.

2008-09-03T15:50:00.004+10:00

Disclaimer: wishy-washy "spiritual" talk abounds in the following paragraphs. This is all based on my own personal experience, so if it doesn't mesh with your world-view, just remember that we're all living out our own stories and this is just part of somebody elses.

I've been on a bit of a "seeking" kick for a while, I guess you could call it. Asking myself the big questions. A while ago I had thrown myself in the spiritual deep end, in a way, and wanted to see if I could swim without the floatation devices that years of belief and blind faith had built for me. I'd always been interested in spirituality, probably through being involved in church most of my life, but at one point, the beliefs that I had cradled and lived with for so many years became somewhat meaningless.

I saw the purpose of belief for what it was - security. I saw belief to be a surrender of my own freedom to a set of ideals that I had no hand in creating. Instead of trying to live on my own two feet, with my own mind thinking for itself, I had given over a large part of myself to belief. It was the security of belief that was it's main drawcard. In the cocoon of a belief system, a lot of the big questions about life are answered. Life is presented as a package, handed down from one generation to the next, with a set of rules and guidelines sealed with the guarantee of thousands of years of tradition. Even if you don't have it figured out, there's still the comfort of believing that someone else knows what's going on, so just follow their rules and you'll be fine.

However, the answers that my belief system provided were only semi-satisfying. They left me feeling either not smart enough to understand them or not "spiritual" enough for failing to completely surrender to the blind faith required to believe in them. So while I thought I had a set of beliefs and ideals, what I really had was the fervent feeling that I should be believing that which I found impossible to believe. Of course, guilt quickly followed. Probably a result of my Catholic upbringing.

Eventually, through writing and talking, belief and the lack of it suddenly seemed a lot less scary. In talking to people I realised that a lot of others in my circles felt the same way, but hadn't been able to put it into words. There was really nothing to be feeling guilty about. I was still here. Still doing the same things. Still living my life in the same way. I was just no longer deluded into thinking that I should be following somebody else's philosophy of life, without giving it some clear objective thought myself.

Through all this, an intuition emerged. It was something that I'd felt lingering under the guilt and "shoulds" for most of my life. It was the very strong intuition that all I needed was my own self and a clear mind to really probe the deep mystery.

Perhaps paradoxically, I began doing lots of reading. My mind felt like a blank slate and it was ready to explore and absorb some new information. Lots of it. I led (and still continue to lead, to some extent) a somewhat cursory investigation into Eastern philosophies like Vedanta and Zen (via Alan Watts), and also into what would probably be outdatedly labelled "New Age" teachings like those of Eckhart Tolle and Robert Anton Wilson. I found that these readings placed a big emphasis on the lack of a belief system in spiritual progression, and an empowerment of thinking for one's self.

A few years ago, the thought of reading anything from the New Age section of the book store would have made me roll my eyes, laugh and shake my head. I was a much more cynical bastard back then, and I judged most things that didn't fit my little vision of the world as bullshit. I would have seen my current "seeking" self as a cliche - a twenty-something liberal interested in Buddhism, personal development and generally "bucking the system". I dunno. Maybe this is something a lot of people my age go through. Maybe it's "just a phase". Regardless, it's where my life has led me, and I would feel a lack of integrity if I gave it up for fear of becoming "cliche". Besides, cliches are cliche for a reason - because they undergo the necessity of actually occurring.

Anyway, back to the seeking. So pretty much immediately, I found it much more challenging than I'd initially thought it was going to be. The comfort and security that the blanket of an organised belief system brings is so soft and dependable that it seems necessary to function a lot of the time. I would bounce from believing nothing in one moment, to becoming totally dependent on a series of beliefs and presumptions the next. And back again. It became frustrating at times, but at other times, there was a growing feeling of clarity that led me to keep it up.

While the philosophies I was reading about placed a strong emphasis on the lack of a belief system, they also ran the danger of becoming a belief system of their own. The "belief of no belief", if you will. And this happened on occasion. I would get too tied up with "what should be happening" according to the readings, and often forget to think for myself and sincerely ask the questions that needed asking.

I haven't denied Christianity entirely, if at all. I still think the words and story of Jesus hold great value, but in my opinion I think that the Bible has been largely misused by the church and misinterpreted by it's members. Going on this path of personal discovery has led me to find new and fresh meaning in Jesus' words that would have otherwise remained dormant.

I don't know how well I've explained myself here. I don't pretend to be any sort of authority on life, wisdom or spirituality, and when I do, something comes along soon enough to knock me back on my arse and remind me that I don't know shit. Too often it's easy to get caught up in chasing some kind of wisdom or spiritual experience and forget that life, happening right now, is the spiritual experience.

"The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity." ~ Erich Fromm

Anyway, I could go on, and probably should, but I'm a little talked and thinked out for now. I found writing all this down really helpful, though, so I'll endeavor to write down my thoughts more often.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Some sketches for fun and final art for work

2008-08-17T13:14:00.002+10:00

The Big Book About Water

2008-08-05T17:35:00.003+10:00

Here are some roughs for an extra chapter that was added to the Yarra Valley Water book, which I've just found out is titled "The Big Book About Water".

And here's the cover:

Oh yeah, I'm living in Darwin now.

Yarra Valley Water

2008-07-08T19:49:00.002+10:00

These are for an educational picture book about water and stuff. Haven't done all the pages yet, but I'm plugging away. These were all done in Adobe Illustrator in a much "looser" style than my usual stuff. Still unsure how I feel about it.

Goodbye!

Trogg returns to Zartor with a gift for his fellow warriors

2008-07-04T14:50:00.002+10:00

Man, I'm so glad I got the roughs done for this book. Shortest deadline ever. Not looking forward to getting the final art done in just two weeks (not to mention the other book I've got one week to finish).

Early Jim Henson Work

2008-06-30T11:37:00.001+10:00

Check out these ads for Wilkin's Coffee done by Jim Henson, before the Muppets even began! Funny stuff.

Out of this World

2008-06-25T13:18:00.002+10:00

These are character concept sketches for a new job. It's a sci-fi story for young teen boys who are reluctant to read. It's called "Out of this World". Super-imaginative title, no?

Some work, why don't I?

2008-06-24T20:31:00.003+10:00

Here are some pictures I did for work.

Moby Dick 2: The Dickening

Math is boring!

Mary had a little lamb and it did stuff. Teacher does not like.

This was for a rhyme about a dude with seven wives. And each wife had seven sacks. Look at all them sacks. I think I kinda pimped the guy out a little too much. Maybe I should have gone for more of a Catholic look (they can have more than one wife, right?) I've yet to hear the feedback but I suspect they may object.

Don't ask me what is happening here. You can just make it up yourself.

"Rain, rain, go to Spain." Spain has the odd misfortune of rhyming with rain. Hence it has forever been doomed to use in occultish curses on the weather.

Goodbye.

Some old lady for work.

2008-06-18T14:45:00.001+10:00

Roger Raindrop REEEEEEEMIIIIIIIIIIIX!!!!

2008-06-13T13:34:00.001+10:00

Roger Raindrop

2008-06-05T16:07:00.001+10:00

Did this today using Adobe Illustrator. It took far longer than it should have.

Toot, Whistle, Plunk And Boom (Disney - 1953)

2008-06-02T12:38:00.002+10:00

Found this marvellous short on YouTube. I'd never seen it before. Disney doing their take on the stark "modern" look of animation that was picking up speed in the 50's, blended seamlessly, of course, with beautifully animated characters.

Bits and Bobs

2008-05-28T12:15:00.002+10:00

For the English text-books I'm working on:

Logo for a production company:

Album cover concept for The Five Venoms:

Did these for a Canadian comedy improv group called PROJECTproject. They've got a festival on at the moment called Combustion:

And finally, here's a poster I did for comedian Sammy J's latest show:

Later!

Werk

2008-05-20T15:40:00.003+10:00

I did an earlier version of this singer, but they asked for it to look more "Amy Winhouse-ish" only without the skank:

Definitely a Jurassic Park influence here:

Wake up early, drink some milk, eat your breakfast and brush your goddamned teeth:

This is the second time I've illustrated "Mary Had a Little Lamb" for work:

I thought this was cute:

Bye!

2001/2008

2008-05-14T01:43:00.002+10:00

Just joining on on the "draw yourself as a teen" meme.

MOO minicards

2008-05-07T15:42:00.003+10:00

My MOO minicards arrived today, and they're awesome.

Where did he get that straw?

2008-05-05T17:18:00.003+10:00

For work.

WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-04-29T16:49:00.001+10:00

Don't ask me why he's walking a dog indoors.

Work.

2008-04-28T17:30:00.002+10:00

Here are some boring pictures that I got paid to draw.

Textbook Stuff

2008-04-22T23:53:00.001+10:00

These are for work. Not much to add.

Images

2008-04-13T23:56:00.002+10:00

I haven't been making much art lately that isn't work-related. I don't know why that is. I feel like I want to.

I have, however, been collecting images for some time. Images that inspire, make me smile, laugh, think, frown. I thought I might post some of them here.

I'm not going to reference the origins of these, so I apologise to the original creators in advance.

Here we go.

Fuck yes!

2008-04-06T17:11:00.001+10:00

Click!

Animation Test

2008-03-28T17:48:00.002+11:00

Backgrounds

2008-03-26T21:53:00.002+11:00

These are some backgrounds I'm doing for a flash game involving the mining industry.

More work sketches

2008-03-26T15:57:00.000+11:00

Professions

2008-03-26T02:04:00.002+11:00

Work's pretty crazy at the moment. Here's a sketch I did of a bunch of "professions". See if you can guess all 15 of 'em! Click the image for a larger version.

Work Roughs

2008-03-14T16:50:00.001+11:00

Nothing too exciting here, just some sketches from a job I'm working. I would have liked for these to be a little wackier, but the client is very specific about the style.

Work stuff

2008-03-12T11:50:00.001+11:00

Looks like that daily sketch thing died an early death. I'll see if I can revive it later today.

In the meantime, here are some concept roughs for a job I'm working at the moment:

Less Grotesque

2008-03-06T12:17:00.002+11:00

I was asked by my client to make the characters I was drawing "really cute", so here's what I came up with:

They didn't much like it. In fact, they asked for the characters to be "less grotesque". And here they are:

I still like the look of my original characters better, the newer ones look a little too generic to me, but I'm working for a very fickle Japanese market, and they apparently like their cuteness.

Daily Sketch

2008-03-05T23:55:00.001+11:00

Did the line-work for these in Illustrator - which is surprisingly nice to draw in - and the colour was done in Photoshop.

Daily Sketch

2008-03-03T20:26:00.002+11:00

I've decided to start doing daily sketches aside from the work I'm doing to keep things fresh. I was off to a great start today when my computer decided to have a small heart-attack. Unfortunately I wasn't able to save the file, but I took a quick screen-grab while everything went to hell:

Hopefully tomorrow's effort will be more solid.

Workin'

2008-02-29T12:11:00.002+11:00

Seems like I've been updating this thing less and less often, which is a real shame. I've gotta get back into the habit of drawing just for me. Everything I've been doing lately has been work related, which is good, in a way, as it means I'm actually getting work. But my work morale is suffering a bit from the lack of personal projects. I might implement some kind of daily sketch thing starting Monday. Or I might not. We'll see.

Here's a sketch for an educational text I'm working on:

And here's the completed Lucy's Crown poster:

The band has been in the studio recording their first EP and they want to use my poster art for the cover, which is pretty sweet.

Finished work on the Sammy J job. I went to the first performance the other night. It was a secret show for family, friends and industry peoples. It was completely kick-ass. Seriously, if you're in Melbourne during the Comedy Festival, or Adelaide during the Adelaide Fringe Festival, you must check out the show: Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams.

Peace out, homeslices.

My celeb look-alike!

2008-02-06T22:26:00.000+11:00

Uncanny!

First try with Adobe Illustrator

2008-02-06T18:27:00.000+11:00

Guzzle it, kid!

2008-02-06T15:27:00.000+11:00

Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams poster and more work...

2008-02-05T23:54:00.000+11:00

Hey readers. Here's the poster I finished today for Sammy J's comedy festival show (click it to enlarge).

Had a great deal of fun working on this and the shadow puppet stuff (which is still in progress). It was probably the most satisfying and gratifying job of my fledgling career. And I wasn't even very well-paid for it!

The next couple of months are looking to be fairly busy. Apart from finishing up the work for the Sammy J show, I'm starting work on some illustrations for a design firm up north. They're putting together an interactive website for a mining company (as far as I can tell - it's still early days and I don't have the full project details yet). The illustrations are going to be animated, which is pretty exciting.

The other job I got is through a local design firm putting together a picture book for Yarra Valley Water, who provide water and sewage systems to a large chunk of Melbourne. The book is to educate kids on the basics of the water cycle. It's going to be printed in large format (1 metre!) for classroom reading. I'm planning on learning Adobe Illustrator for this job, something that I've been putting off doing for months, but it's finally becoming a necessity, so I guess I'd better knuckle down!

So yeah, looks like 2008 is fast picking up speed!

Illustrating Fables and Rhymes - Part 2

2008-02-04T23:11:00.000+11:00

Here's the second and final part of the Fables and Rhymes essay posted by DB Dowd. Some more great examples in this part.

Illustrating Fables and Rhymes

2008-02-02T19:21:00.000+11:00

DB Dowd posted some great insights into illustrating a fable or rhyme, with particular attention paid to "what we leave in and what we leave out" (economical composition) to achieve a focus on the narrative. He uses some great examples as well. Highly recommended reading if you're interested in this kinda thing.

You can almost taste the graphite.

2008-02-01T17:17:00.000+11:00

Did these using some sweet Photoshop brushes I found via Cedric Hohnstadt's blog.

Return of the BLOG!

2008-01-28T20:27:00.000+11:00

Hey what's chillin' homeslizzles? Long time no blog, eh?

It's 2008 now, and I'm fast coming to the realisation that a new year does not a new man make. But this is a good realisation, I suppose. I'm getting back into the swing of things after an extended psychological holiday.

I've been working on a number of small projects, with some bigger ones on the horizon. Here's a bunch of backdrops I did for the shadow-puppet portion of a larger live comedy/musical/puppetry/awesomeness experience titled "Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams".

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be party to a live read-through (full performance) in a lounge room in Brunswick. Friends, this show is funny. If you're in Melbourne during the International Comedy Festival, you must check it out.

Um, what else? Here's something I did for my girlf:

And here are some leftovers:

Later gators!

"Lucy's Crown" poster update

2008-01-07T11:49:00.000+11:00

2008 has been good to me so far.

Keri Smith

2007-12-28T16:16:00.000+11:00

I like reading Keri Smith's blog. She helps keep the artist in me ticking along.

Merry belated Christmas to you all, by the way. The last week or so has been action-packed, and I haven't allowed much time for drawing. I'm really looking forward to the new year for that totally psychological "fresh start" feeling.

Here are a couple of snaps of my two favourite pets...

Wesley the Wabbit:

And my ol' faithful Joey:

The cat can go suck a big one.

Some more responses from Portfolios.com members...

2007-12-20T14:10:00.000+11:00

This post is a follow-up to this one, which is a follow-up to this one.

I received a couple more responses from Portfolios.com members (I sent them e-mails asking how the site worked out for them).

Here's one:

Hi Joe,

I've been on portfolios.com for about 7 years now. I've had one illustration job from the US. After getting that job I was inspired to pay the hefty fee for 1 year. Nothing else ever eventuated. The year i signed up they promised that they were going to start promoting the site in Australia, they never did. Australian clients don't use it. My advice, go for the free listing because you might just get lucky - but to ensure your name ranks as high as possible on the search listing, change details on your page weekly - simply adding a new keyword helps because it ranks the most recently updated pages higher.

And another:

Hi Joe

Thanks for your email. Your website and work is great!

Yep I agree with the other illustrators. I have got nothing out of it, but I did get a very cheap deal when both my husband and I took a folio, but still have not made our money back!

I don't think these sites are supposed to work to get you jobs per se, but there are just so many portfolios to sift through, (and in my opinion on Portfolios.com does not have a particularly outstanding level of illustrator) that you just get lost in the crowd.

I say invest your money elsewhere. If you are not a member of Illustrators Australia it's worth joining to have your work in the book and on our site

So there it is.

I am a member of Illustrators Australia, and it's worked out pretty well so far. For the first time in my fledgling career I'm having people contact me for work, rather than the other way around, which is a big step forward. I have Illustrators Australia to thank for that one.

Looks like for the time being I'll just focus on promoting my work locally.

A response to my anonymous commenter...

2007-12-20T12:03:00.000+11:00

Yesterday's post in regards to Portfolios.com prompted a response from an anonymous reader:

You might want to check out their testimonials, rather than accepting the opinions from illustrators who have too much time to spend online because they aren't working.

My hero is Drew Struzan, one of the most successful illustrators in the world. He's using them.

I put my money where the most successful artists are promoting themselves.

If you are not serious about wanting freelance work, then stick it out in places where art directors don't go and won't find you.

Exposure and marketing is the ONLY way to succeed, free and cheap generally means you get what you pay for. People looking to "hire" someone on spec or for little money.

How many people really make money off of being on Deviant Art or Myspace?

If after looking over hundreds of portfolios a week, someone sees potential in you, shouldn't you be appreciative instead of maligning them?

First off, thanks for taking the time to comment. Here you will learn that I am not so stubborn as to ignore any opinion that differs from my own. A trait I pride myself on.

But before that, I'm gonna nit-pick a little.

In regards to your "opinions from illustrators who have too much time to spend online because they aren't working" comment, I think you misunderstood the type of web community they come from. It's a relatively small, close-knit forum made up of seasoned illustrators and young freelancers/comic artists looking to further their skills and knowledge of the industry. I won't reveal it to you (I haven't asked permission from the posters to relay their comments here on my blog, which is why they remain anonymous), suffice to say that the the community in question is nothing like MySpace or DeviantArt. I haven't even attempted to promote my work on those sites as it seems largely fruitless to me. The illustrators who responded to my initial query on the forum are all successful practising freelancers. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, back to the question in hand: Portfolios.com. Perhaps I was a little hasty in dismissing the site altogether. I am just naturally suspicious of unsolicited e-mails asking for $400. I don't think you can blame me for that. However, your response prompted me to find some fellow Aussie illustrators on the site and e-mail them asking how it worked out for them. I've only had one response so far, and here it is:

Hi Joe, well as it happens, I'm just updating my website [on Portfolios.com] now. I have sent out quite a few direct emails to US contacts (given 50 of my choice as part of the deal) and have had absolutely no response. But I have found it useful to send to Australian contacts to keep them up to date with my work. I've been on it for six months and have had no response, but as I said, it's helpful as a website address.

So there you go, probably not very illuminating, but I guess I'm still in the dark myself about it. I keep thinking if I just get one job from it, it'll be worth it.

I'm in the process of creating a new portfolio site at the moment, so I don't think another web address to call my own is worth the $400. Still, I'm not going to make a concrete decision until I've had some more responses.

Again, thanks for the comment, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous. Let's keep this dialogue open.

On joining a portfolio site...

2007-12-19T00:01:00.000+11:00

Hey guys and gals!

So I received the following e-mail recently:

Hi Joe,

Recently I viewed some of your illustration work online - this is great illustration work! Very talented and creative!

Are you interested in marketing your work to North America?

I'm a creative consultant here at Portfolios.com. I'd like to talk with you about further promoting your portfolio to our advertising, corporate and publishing clients in North America, and discuss how we can help increase exposure of your work to creatives and art buyers worldwide.

I should say we are not an agency, we do not represent artists. Our business is to help you market, promote and expose your work directly to various art buyers and increase freelance job opportunities for you.

I've worked with many Australian based artists who do very well on our site.

When would be a good time to call you?

It seems fairly clear, to me at least, that this is just a generic promotional e-mail with the name changed to the recipient. I'm assuming it's not a coincidence that I received this not long after I joined Illustrators Australia and got listed on their site.

I'm still at that early, first-year, starving (not really) freelancer stage, so I'm finding it difficult to justify the $400 annual fee (although there is a by-the-month fee trial sorta thing).

I posted the above on an illustration forum I frequent, and got a couple of responses from some of my favourite illustrators.

"Creative Consultant" is just a nice way of saying "salesman." Just after high school I almost took a job as one of these guys that you got the email from. Basically, my job would have been to surf the net and go to Comic Cons looking for fresh meat. I would get a commission for every artist that signed up under me. Then I would send a form email describing how the artist could set up an account with the company and list their portfolio on the site, then I would send form emails every few weeks reminding the artist to update their profile (because "current profiles got the most traffic"). I never felt to good about the whole thing so I never took the job.

Now, all that said. It was not for portfolois.com, and it wasn't $400 bones (if I remember right it was $50 to start, then $5 per month set as a reoccurring transaction billed directly to a credit card [very hard to cancel]).

If it were me, I would see if they would give you a free trial to see if it brought back any real work. Plus I would look for somebody that had already put up the cash, and I would ask them if it was worth it for them (just go to portfolios.com and search the artists there, get some of the contact info from their profiles, and send some nice emails. Hopefully they won't mind the question).

I hope this helps, and if you end up doing it, I hope you get lots of work and make lots of money and become famous and retire young and do whatever the hell you want for the rest of your life.

And another:

Creative Consultant say in email: You give me money and I maybe give you more money¤

The small print in left corner: ¤ that is if someone wants to give me money for your work, and if not, we do not care about what you earn or the money you have given us. )

Creative Consultant 1 say to Creative Consultant 2: "I got 6 today so far."

Creative Consultant 2 say to Creative Consultant 1: "I got 7, this is just a great job, sending some emails and then the money come flowing in."

And one more:

It's all advertising.

Making money off of wannabe illustrators is a huge racket. I used to get calls from Black Book and I still get them from Directory of Illustration and others.

My Rep puts everyone they represent on the iSpot. I've got friends who say it's gotten them work. There are a few reputable portfolio sites out there, some in particular are the iSpot and Illos, and there are a few others.

Do research, figure out who gets work from where, maybe contact some people who's work you admire on the site.

Lots of people knock advertising, but it's just an investment in your work. You have to spend money to make money. You might not get any hits, but the idea is more folks will get exposed to your stuff.

Useful advice from some respected people.

I love that the Internet allows me to converse with people who inspire me and have a wealth of knowledge about the industry I got myself into.

bears in ill-fitting hats

2007-12-12T14:58:00.000+11:00

Made a pic for this flickr group, which I found via Drawn.

Moon

2007-12-12T13:00:00.000+11:00

Decided to quickly colour a mindless little doodle:

Doodlin'

2007-12-11T18:44:00.000+11:00

"Lucy's Crown" poster sketch

2007-12-10T18:21:00.000+11:00

hair Again

2007-12-09T13:44:00.000+11:00

Found something similar to an image I made around two years ago. Here's mine:

And here's the one I FFFFound!

Lady Be Cool

2007-12-06T22:26:00.000+11:00

"And her cigarette is as stylishly long and tastefully cool as she is."

If they made commercials like this these days, I wouldn't mind if they advertised cigarettes.

Here's another weird one. This lady seems slightly insane yet somehow mesmerising:

Found these clips via Uncle Eddie.

Warm-Up Sketches

2007-12-06T13:22:00.000+11:00

Facebook Steals Creative Works

2007-12-06T12:09:00.000+11:00

Here's an excerpt from the Facebook user terms of agreement. I'm glad someone reads those things, 'cause it's almost always "scroll down, click accept" when I'm signing up for something.

"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."

Via The Little Chimp Society.

Wizardy! in Colour

2007-12-04T12:19:00.000+11:00

Didn't end up getting the job that this was originally for, but I decided to ink and colour the sketch anyway. I kinda like how it turned out.

Saxaphone-Playing Monster and Chubby Kid

2007-12-03T23:43:00.000+11:00

Bears in Matrimony

2007-11-29T18:39:00.000+11:00

I think I just weed a little in my pants.

2007-11-29T16:01:00.000+11:00

Trucker in colour

2007-11-28T17:17:00.000+11:00

Chewie sketch

2007-11-28T00:04:00.000+11:00

Final WOFE Cover

2007-11-27T23:17:00.000+11:00

I'm calling this done for now. On to work on some more pages.

Trucker sketch

2007-11-27T16:49:00.000+11:00

My first rejection(s).

2007-11-27T11:42:00.000+11:00

So last week I got two calls about different jobs. One of them was for a logo for a car wash business (you can see the sketch I did here), and the other was a much larger job.

My contact for the car wash job was a graphic designer who the client hired and was outsourcing the illustration. She seemed pretty happy with me and wanted to move forward. We were just waiting on confirmation from the client. Apparently he found someone himself, making redundant the money he was paying his graphic designer, but whatever. I wasn't too upset about losing the job. It wasn't really that exciting and the pay wasn't huge. I was actually kinda glad that the first job I'd been rejected on wasn't anything big.

The other job was somewhat more interesting and a lot more higher paid. My contact was a Marketing Director for the client. She had found me via my portfolio on the Illustrator's Australia website, and she'd also checked out the work on my site before she called me. We talked for a bit on the phone about the job and then back and forthed via e-mail. I spent some time giving her a pretty detailed quote and she told me there was another illustrator she was looking at for the job. She'd let me know if I got the job the following week. Long story short, I found out this morning that I didn't get the job. I was pretty bummed out.

I'm all about learning from my mistakes. Thankfully, my contact was kind enough to tell me why I didn't get the job. Here's the e-mail she sent:

Hi Joe, I have decided to give the job to another illustrator, my decision was mainly based on the fact that she had done a lot of children's illustrations that were close to what I need, she also sent me through some visuals, making it easier for me to get an understanding of the style she would apply to the job.

If it doesn't work out I will be in touch with you in the future. Good luck and thank you for your prompt follow up.

So what can I learn from this? I thought that being prompt, clear and concise with my responses was enough to set to me ahead of other illustrators. Clearly this other illustrator went an extra mile by sending through some visuals, something I'd assumed was unnecessary because the client had seen the work on my site.

I've learnt that it's not enough to make the client feel comfortable with me as a worker, they also need to feel comfortable with my work.

I'm going to double my efforts next time, and triple them if I know I'm up against other illustrators.

C'est la freakin' vie, I guess.

This nigger needs a little mustard.

2007-11-24T13:00:00.000+11:00

To understand the title of this post, you must read this brilliant blog post by Dan Harmon, screenwriter and co-creator of Channel 101.

It's definitely worth your time.

WOFE cover detail

2007-11-23T19:05:00.001+11:00

No birds.

2007-11-21T18:43:00.001+11:00

Saw this on Ffffound!

It took me a little while to figure out that the sign was Photoshop'd. Still pretty sweet, though.

Musick

2007-11-20T16:35:00.000+11:00

When I'm not listening to podcasts like Get This and SModcast, I've usually got some music playing. So, inspired by a post on John Mayer's blog, here's what my ears have been tasting lately:

Beck - Guerolito
This was the first Beck I'd ever heard, and I instantly loved it. It's totally unique. A wonderful blend of folk-pop with some lo-fi electro mashed up in there. Here's probably my favourite track from the album Girl.

Beck - The Information
After hearing Guerolito, I had to find some more Beck. I found The Information somewhat darker, but still full of pop hooks with some great beats. Totally drivable music. I found it hard to pick just one track from The Information to share, but here's Think I'm In Love.

Sean Lennon - Friendly Fire
How anyone could manage to produce such a unique and honest album after following in the footsteps of John Lennon amazes me. Friendly Fire is full of playful melody and unexpected chord changes, and Sean Lennon delivers his lyrics beautifully. Again, it was incredibly hard to pick just one song to share, 'cause they're all so good, but here's the first single released, Dead Meat.

Jeremy Fisher - Goodbye Blue Monday
A fun album from a Canadian singer-songwriter. Upbeat riffs, lyrics that reveal deeper meaning on subsequent listens and a great Paul Simon-esque sunny feel make this an album that's been on constant rotation for a while now. I sure hope this guy makes it soon. Here's Scar That Never Heals.

Kanye West - Graduation
Just a very solid album from an artist who I'd previously ignored. You've all no doubt heard Stronger by now, so here's Can't Tell Me Nothing.

There's plenty more, but that's enough for now. Enjoy!

Wizardry!

2007-11-19T23:50:00.000+11:00

Sketch for a car wash logo.

Should you forward that e-mail?

2007-11-17T11:06:00.000+11:00

Via Shoebox.

MOO postcards

2007-11-16T16:03:00.000+11:00

So a little while back I came across a free promotion via Drawn. It was one of those "be one of the first xxx and get some freebies" things. I usually never win those things, but thanks to Bloglines, I was notified as soon as the promotion was active, and I got 20 free postcards from MOO with my art on them. BOOYAH. (Are people still saying that?)

I chose these pics very hastily as I wasn't sure if I was in time to get the freebie deal. In hindsight, I may have chosen a little differently, but I'm not too disappointed. After all, shit's FREE.

You even get to put your name on the back!

I'll probably end up paying for some more of these. The quality is much better than I expected. Nice, thick card, with a light waxy finish.

Who wants one?

It's coming...

2007-11-16T01:51:00.000+11:00