Favourite Pokémon

Bulbasaur

What more do I need to say? Ash's Bulbasaur was an absolute beast when he was introduced in the original anime, quickly becoming my favourite. Pikachu gets so much of the attention and glory as the series mascot, but Bulbasaur is one of the best Pokémon in the entire series.

Stand-out moments for the anime character was his resistance when all of his fellow Bulbasaur were ritualistically evolving into Ivysaur around him (Bulbasaur's Mysterious Garden S1 E51) and a commendable battle in the Pokemon League, beating a Beedrill and Scyther (The Fourth Round Rumble S1 E77)

Bulbasaur has one of the best designs of the Pokemon starters. It uses a combination of complimentary colours within its design, as well as a lots of curves, lending well to the animation principle of appeal which dictates that every line, curve and colour should contribute to how pleasant a character looks.

As a side note, Bulbasaur is also a solid pick for starter in Red & Blue as it has an advantage against many of the early gyms leaders and doesn't really get a type disadvantage until Blaine on Cinnabar Island.

(Another) Long Awaited Update

I’m finally getting around to updating the blog and giving a little rundown of what’s been going on over the last few months.

I’ve been majorly busy recently, which is not a bad thing, but it has meant that I haven’t been able to keep on top of updating the blog, & even sometimes updating content on Youtube & Facebook.

First up, I created another few “Coachy Bear”designs. These are just a little bit of fun that I create to share on Campbell Animation & another local page. Generally when I create these, I try to tie them in with a season or holiday, such as Christmas or Halloween.

I also have a few different logos to share since last updating the blog & I can do so now. These designs were actually first commissioned in 2020, but due to some unforeseen issues & then an NDA, they were only made shareable recently.

I can also proudly say that I’ve created another 2D animation recently too. Animation (though its used in the title of my blog AND Facebook page) had taken a slight back seat in recent years due to the more prevalent graphic design projects that were arising.

I created this intro video for Hashtag Live 10, the Christmas show, which was now my 3rd Hashtag Live intro & 5th Hashtag animation in total.

The content of the intro was… interesting to say the least. Written by Mallorca Lee & Scott Gibson, Hashtag Show creators, it involved their usual antics, introducing the audience to the show and, on this occasion, proudly showing off their cartoon genitals.

The request for this piece came in quite late- about 2 weeks before the show. With all the free time I could spare, I managed to get the animation completed by the deadline, sacrificing only a few intended visual jokes.

Overall, I’m pleased with the end result & the audience at the live show responded well to it - one of the biggest laughs was from a gag I’d added at the last minute to solve a pacing issue, which was a strangely encouraging moment.

Lastly, I dabbled in a bit of photo editing a few months back. Originally, the client had asked me to draw a superhero design, similar to the ones I’d done before. I suggested that I do it as a photo edit since I was struggling for time between projects & this was much faster than drawing. She was fine with this & you can see the finished product below, which the client was overjoyed with.

I do have some more updates to come in the next few weeks in regards to what I’m currently up to but will discuss this in due course. A range of work (with a well known figure) that I was hoping to have started by now is still in limbo but I hope will still go ahead soon.

Still Game Wedding!!

As promised in the previous post, here is the Scottish based artwork I created for a wedding a few weeks ago. Due to Covid the wedding kept getting pushed back & felt the work would never get shown.

This piece is based on characters from the hugely popular Scottish comedy Still Game. The characters used are Jack, Victor, Isa and Winston, alongside the happy couple, Nicola and Gary Keyes.

This piece was printed on A2 350 gsm high quality card then framed in a simple white frame. 

This was a very enjoyable piece to work on & may be the last drawing of this type for a while as I look to get back to animating.

My next update will most likely just be some graphic stuff for nothing in particular, so stay tuned. 

 

 

A long overdue update!

As promised, I’m back to update the blog with various projects that I have produced since June last year. Firstly, I have a piece of art that I worked on for a family friend, requiring her grandson Murray to be turned into a wizard in the Harry Potter universe. The final piece was printed in A3 on 250 gsm card. This was the first Harry Potter themed project I’d worked on but as fate would have it, it wasn’t to be my last of 2021.

Shortly afterwards, my next piece was also Harry Potter themed. I was tasked with turning Sarahanne into a Hogwarts witch, specifically for her 30th birthday. This was a great little project to get involved with & allowed me to explore the Hogwarts theme a little further. The final piece was printed in A3 on 250 gsm card.

I recently got permission to publicly display my past logo work for Moorlife & Moorbeauty, both based in New York. On this occasion, the work was left uncoloured as the company opted to complete this part themselves. We do not have the final coloured logos but will share as soon as they become available.

 

I created these fun little designs as Christmas/Halloween posts within my local community- these were not created commercially. These designs are based on the urban legend in the village of Twechar that a bear lives in nearby woods (known as the Coachie) supposedly named after a headless coachman, yet another urban legend.

 

 

Additionally I created a logo for BBM in Buffalo, New York. At present that design is still under an NDA so as such I still can’t say much about it or share images of the completed piece but will update on it as soon as it is cleared.

Finally, I am happy to say that another project, for a wedding, is nearly able to be shown off and I will update soon. This project was previously hinted at as a Scottish project.

So, as mentioned above, the next update will feature a wedding piece & I will also take that opportunity to update on what I have planned next.

Miners Project

As mentioned on the previous blog post, a while back I did some graphic design for my local pub. 

This was finished a few weeks ago but I waited until it was hung up to post the pictures below. I have a number of other projects in the pipeline which I will post about soon.

Slowly returning to normal

In the weeks since my last post, I have worked on a number of different projects and now have several more proceeding behind the scenes.

First off, I created a simple Viking design, mainly for my own use. However, I really enjoyed designing this character and I'm happy with his final look. I have a few ideas for what I can do with him in future so watch this space.

A future project..?

I have recently completed some artwork for print, which I will post in another week or so and will discuss in further detail when I do.

Additionally, I completed numerous logos and advertising pieces for Kenny at Moor Life, as mentioned previously, and I am now able to show these off in all their glory:

 Different colour variances of a design for Moor Life.

-These designs were a lot of fun to work on. Kenny was inspired by Snoopy when he sent me the idea for these designs and this is particularly evident in the "Moor Sleep" piece.

I have suspended development on "A Cartoon About A Balloon" for the time being while I continue to do logo and graphic design work.

Next update will show the aforementioned artwork and then shortly afterwards I should be able to show recent graphic design work.

Updates!

So, as previously posted, I have some ideas for a new project that I have been developing recently and have been working on the main character. After much toil I have finally completed my first, albeit still rough, character sheet for the project. The character is still without a name at the moment but as I start to develop him further I will come up with a suitable name.

I will continue working on the sheets for the character until I am fully happy with them. After that I will progress into creating him digitally. I also plan to create an animation with a previous monkey character I designed named Rufus to get back into the swing of animating before continuing with this project.

Side, back, front and 3/4 view of the new character.

Wow! Has it really been almost 2 years?

The year has started like all other years before it, with a resolution. One of my many resolutions for 2017 has been to update the blog again and much more often. Seeing as the last post I made in 2015 was in relation to my pirate character designs, I have decided to kick start this years posts with an update on the pirates. I have designed another two characters for the crew since my last post and can now proudly share them below. I am currently developing a character for an animation which I hope to have completed over the next few months and I will post any updates here.