Monday, May 27, 2013

Dexter's Dinosaurs


When my Son, Dexter, was six months old I started this piece.  It marked the start of my first proper oil painting (shameful I know!) so I was full of enthusiasm for a new project, new medium and it was dinosaurs - what could go wrong?  Well, as it turns out, oil painting is actually pretty bloody difficult which is why my son has just turned two and I've only just finished it!

I could make excuses about house moves, job changes, and wrestling with different techniques, but the truth is that I didn't have a dedicated painting space at the time, and the fact that I'm so accustomed to working digitally meant the mere thought of setting up all my materials, mixing colours, being frustrated for several hours and then clearing up again, every time I wanted to paint, was enough to put me off.


I had messed about with oil colours before but never got much further than a few sketches, the required use of solvents really put me off and is why I didn't touch them again for nearly ten years.

The discovery of Winsor & Newton Artisan water soluble oil paints is what brought me back, the ability to use water for clean up making everything infinitely more convenient and enabling me to paint without worrying about the health of myself or my family.  I would highly recommend them.


But I finally found a technique that I was happy with and fought through to the bitter end, the painting now hanging proudly on my little boy's bedroom wall.



Below are some closeups of the individual letters;









Shane
www.ShaneMadeArt.com

Monday, May 20, 2013

Blue Twit


I'm currently working my way through Nate Wragg's course, 'Character Design for Animation' over at the CG Master Academy and am really enjoying it so far, the creature above was my week 1 assignment.

I've been designing characters for years, but have never really put any thought behind my process, so the course is really helping me to rationalise my design choices, leading to better characters in less time.

I'll be posting my work from each assignment so stay tuned!


Shane
www.ShaneMadeArt.com

Monday, May 13, 2013

The Lost Lumberjack


I'm back!  Life has been pretty frantic lately, but I think it's about time I got back on top of this blogging thing, so expect a good few months of consistent weekly posts.

Since joining the creative team at Gemma last October I've been working on some pretty exciting stuff, but unfortunately I can't actually show any of it until the Autumn at the earliest.  But the good news is that I have a bunch of new personal work to fill the coming weeks, along with the last few pieces of Blue Nose Friends artwork I illustrated before leaving Carte Blanche Greetings.

First up is the guy above, a portfolio piece painted prior to visiting Eurogamer Expo on a job hunting mission at the end of last year.

If he seems familiar, it's because he's basically a rendered version of this earlier sketch.



Shane
www.ShaneMadeArt.com