The 8-Bit Cosmic Pixel

The Cosmic Adventures of Bernie Rambles: Bernie and Poot visit Gus

2011-07-21T02:10:00.000-07:00

A comic I did for Rakuten Wednesday, an online comic blog curated by the Gern, Jimbo Round and Mr Louis Roskosch.

Ive been drawing this character for a while but never did a comic. I really enjoyed working on this and im glad Gern gave me a deadline or I would still be working on the colours now! I did two panels in one sitting and two in another. Im still figuring out what im doing with colours, but something good is happening for sure! Theres no big story, just a little glimpse into the world of these characters.

gut wrenching

2011-07-04T15:28:00.001-07:00

Colour doodle brain fart

From Tiny Seeds

2011-06-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

This started out as a wedding present for two friends but then I decided it just wasnt right. I was happy with the drawing but the colour is just the first draft, but i quite like the way it looks now and wouldnt want to complicate it too much. The scanned paper background makes me think of a page ripped out of an old yellowed comic.

Ghost, Post, Back

2011-06-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems like it's been almost a year since I last posted something..woah. Why is that? I''ll think about it and get back to you on the next post...

This was drawn with a fine liner, just straight onto the page, freestyle enjoyable doodling. Then I coloured it up in Photoshop, again not really aiming for something, just going with the flow of the shapes. I like his arms.

Pixel Parade

2010-08-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

A parade of miscellaneous pixel art I have produced over the last few months. Some good, some...not so good i guess. But they were all a step forward in the name of self- improvement!

New Blog Header

2010-08-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

I thought it was about time I personalised the site a little more by adding some artwork as a header, instead of just text- we are in the business you know!!?

Lots of Animation News in One

2010-08-03T02:19:00.000-07:00

So over the past months I have been working on various paid and unpaid animation projects. When I think about it now the work has been varied and challenging and on the whole satisfying. It;s good to look back on what you've done because at the time it sometimes becomes a flurry of work just to get it done on time!

Firstly is a link to the NASA Project music video for their song "Strange Enough". This was done by the small group of super talented and super hard working fellas over at Studio Giblets. It is a visual feast for the senses with the awesome art of illustrator Stephan Doitschinoff brought beautifully to life. The scenes are beautifully crafted and thought out and add another dimension to the original still images. Check it out and other work by the team members here.

I did a little bit of 2D animation in flash for this and it was nice working with the guys at their place for a couple of days. I animated the smoke coming out of the beakers that swirl around the floating skulls.

Next up is some animation work I did at Blue-Zoo a little while ago. The project was the creation of new idents for Cineworld Cinemas. In the PG rating ident I animated the flying ship contraption with the big hot air balloon and spyglass face. It was fun getting this big innanimate contraption to fly and look like it was thinking about where it was going. I also animated the directional movement of the bubbles and the camera. Then the good folks at Blue-Zoo added all the textures, lights, sound etc and gave it all the atmosphere. Also for this project, for the cool Big Bang ident I animated the chair coming together at the end. All the other crazy animation by the obviously very talented Sabrina Lecordier.

Also at Blue-Zoo more recently I worked on a project destined for Hong Kong. It was a 3D animation that is to be projected on a huge wall of water for an ocean park in Hong Kong. I mostly worked on fixing/changing existing scenes. The most work involved splining blocked out scenes, the easisest was changing the timing of some animation and I did a bit of everything in between. It was all good fun though and I learned a heck of alot about Maya along the way- working is obviously the best way to learn. You can see some of the work I did on that in my updated showreel posted below. Its the awesome looking water and fire dragon stuff near the beggining!!!

Lastly I have posted a new Animation Showreel with alot of the new work mentioned above added and some of the old cut out. Please check out this and the individual links to see the whole picture.

Send me comments!!

Storyboard sketches

2010-08-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

Some older storyboard sketches coloured up- I really enjoyed doing that little sequence for my first 3D short.

Bear Breat Bros and A tribute to Peter Parr

2010-07-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have recently been invited to join a group of illustrators/animators collectively known as The Bear Breast Bros!!! This is basically a load of friends and aquaintances from the Arts Institute At Bournemouth, all with a mutual love for drawing, comics, animation and the like and we will be posting challenges for eachother to draw.

The tone is lighthearted and sometimes a little risque- so if you have an aversion to nudity and human genitalia attached to animals, LOOK AWAY!!! The posts aren't and won't always be dirty (we are not a bunch of pervs!) and just to prove it, here is my entry for the first challenge.

It is a tribute to the head of our animation course at the AIB, Mr.Peter Parr, who retired a little while back. Many things were learned about the way of the pencil under his guidance and for that, much respect is due.

Hayasa Panther Design

2010-07-28T08:43:00.001-07:00

Well, it seems I have had a bit of time off from posting! That also means that I have quite a bit of work to post. I'll start with some stuff that I have been doing for the green stuff (money).

These are some facial expression sheets I produced for a mascott I designed for Hayasa Productions. They are web design company based in Cyprus and are an extension of a much larger company that deals in all kinds of stuff.

The character changed in the final product as these things tend to go, but I was pretty pleased with some of the drawings I produced. The character is a panther, meant to be smooth and non threatening with the company logo hanging round his neck. After the design stage I moved on to doing some animation of the character for the company website ( which you can see by clicking on the link). I basically used Flash to animate some simple actions that the web designers could then place and loop to their hearts content.

The final animation is quite a small resolution so alot of detail is lost but you can get the general gist of what I was doing.

It was fun and challenging doing something like this ( drawing animals is HARD!!) and also was a good reason to get stuck into using Flash CS4 wich is pretty cool for getting animation done quite quickly.

Strolling Montague

2010-03-11T07:03:00.000-08:00

Videogame Concepts

2010-02-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

These are some concept drawings I have done for a job I am working on. The project is a videogame by Gareth Thomas. The game is based around finding and photographing fish over several screens of blissed out underwater loveliness.

I have also started working on the level tiles, but more of that later. For the full lowdown check out Gareths site.

Mr.I say,I say

2010-02-09T02:01:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with the company TravlNet, I was just doodling in a promotional notepad that found its way into my hands. Very nice it was too.

Keeping busy

2009-09-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

A few months ago before the summer I took a job as an exam invigilator for a university here in London, which basically gave me a lot of opportunity to silently draw lots of people looking down at an exam paper!That and other sketchy sketchiness. So I scanned some and coloured them.

(80's stadium rock voice)"Gat ta keep aaaawnn draaaaaaawwwwwiiing!!"

My new Animation Showreel

2009-09-09T06:26:00.000-07:00

Heres a link to my new animation reel on Youtube( cos it is better quality and therefore too big for the blog!). I will put up another smaller sized video up here very soon.

This is basically alot of work from uni, personal projects and work done for a client, with both 3D and 2D work. Ive left it a bit long because I though I might as well show what I've got- and the tune I put along with it is worth listening to anyways!! Chet Atkins- guitar legend genius.

Anyways, the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgmGF6n1-EI

Axe Warrior

2009-09-03T02:26:00.000-07:00

Work in progress concept art for a videogame idea- a super colourful,speedy tough, arcade platformer Super Ghouls'n'Ghosts homage. Most of the games I dream about playing that dont exist are basically that idea(with some Castlevania and Super Mario World thrown in too). Wear your influences on your sleeve, loud and proud!!

Great Hero Popporo

2009-08-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

Little Joe in GhostLand

2009-06-15T03:43:00.000-07:00

Ive also been doing quite a bit of pixel pushing. I am slowly but surely moving towards making that first little platform game, and here is a doodle/sprite sheet(dont say that too fast) of a possible contender for the first game. Little Joe in GhostLand is going to be a one-screen platformer where the object will be to find the key and unlock the door on each level, with lots of quirky little characters and animations, very colourful and strange. Simple gameplay with lovely visuals.

I think its best to start simple and so much can be done with the one-screen level format to keep it interesting. Ive been playing alot of Donkey Kong 94 on the Gameboy and also Parasol Stars- 2little one-screen-wonder(my phrase,ok?!) gems.

Keeping up the posting

2009-06-15T03:16:00.000-07:00

Look, Ive got a blog and im gna use it. Here is some more colour stuff ive done over the last few months. To be honest, alot of it stays unfinished as they start off as sketches and experiments in painting, and i always keep it away promising i will finish them off before posting. But i might as well put them up cos i feel they are at least interesting.

Also,I saw a bit of a documentary on Manet which reminded me that great paintings take months and years before beeing called finished and I dont really spend that long on something.

I always felt that was one of my weaknesses, but maybe thats just me! I guess if something holds my interest for months and years then it just will, and i wont have to force it. Go with the (brush) flow, innit?!!!

Some other stuff I've bin doing

2009-04-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

Some Pixel Art

2009-04-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

Here is some pixel art I have been doing recently. I've bin doin this stuff for about a year and I love it as I love old videogames and 2D pixel drawn games in general. I'm gna try get some freelance work doing this stuff to build up a portfolio and will start messing about with GameMaker to put my own platform game together sometime soon(like in the next year or so!).

The series of pics with the little orange guy are mock-up screens for a platform game. They are all done in the Nintendo DS screen size of 256 x 192.
The little smoking ghost is an image I think I'm gna enlarge and print- he is a herb salesman.

This is a mock-up of an old-school style RPG. I did this after playing through the Gameboy Colour conversion of Dragon Quest I. My first DQ and I loved every friggin grinding minute of it!!!

So if there is anyone out there who needs pixel art done for them- CONTACT ME!!

Nickelodeon Open Mic Pitches

2009-04-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some character designs for two TV series I was developing for Nickelodeon International Open Mic compo where anyone could pitch ideas to them. I was quite happy with the designs at the time and I got some positive feedback from Nickelodoen UK, but basically they thought the ideas were too young for them.

To be honest I can't see that they are for toddlers and feel that anyone could enjoy them, but there you go...

These are from the first idea I sent about a class of kids training to be forest rangers on a planet called Apple Moon.

These are from the second idea about a load of kids who live in a neighbourhood reserved for people who work for secret government research labs. Therefore the residents (and their kids) are mutants, aliens, zombies, demons and the occasional human.

The Second Post

2008-03-02T04:15:00.000-08:00

I thought to abandon this here blog, but i shall not. I built and i shall use. Behold my drawingness!!!

And it begins!!

2007-10-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hello peeps! Ive finally got round to gettin a blog up as well. In my mind I thought this to be an elaborate, time eating and option filled process. It took me 3 minutes.

Ill soon get round to putting up loadsa artwork and links to animation and stuff but for now heres one to my showreel on YouTube and some pages from my old portfolio just to get something up.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PrXB7ngnjlk

Thats just a little taster. Im gna put up some designs for the platform games im making in my head (and sketchbooks) pretty soon.