Diamond Doggy Jubilee

Image and character property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd

Jewel the corgi celebrating a four day weekend in style - enjoy yours too!

Shane S

Creative influence map

Loads more I wanted to include but decided to stick with the grid ‘rules’ on the bottom of the template instead.

I mainly included artists that have influenced my work and technique directly rather than just a bunch that I loved but didn’t consciously take anything from, hence no James Jean, Da Vinci or Watterson.

I'm always interested to find out the creative origins of artists I admire, so have been checking out a whole bunch of these things online lately.  A few highlights are those of Sam Nielson (surprising how similar my own influences are to his, unfortunately I left off Monkey Island but I haven't been able to draw clouds without including a spiral since playing MI3!), and Sebastien gallego.

Download the template file from the creator's DeviantArt page at http://fav.me/d2vx881 and create your own.

Shane S

Tatty Teddy Rainbow Lake

Image and character property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd

An experimental Tatty Teddy painted a few years ago.  Although the concept wasn't quite right I still like the colours so I thought I'd post it anyway.

Shane S

Blue Nose Friends springtime pond

Image and characters property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd

Really enjoyed painting this illustration as it was a good chance to mess around with water effects, plus it's kind of two images in one which is never a bad thing if you enjoy a bit of variety.

Promotional image for the plush launch of these four characters.

Shane S

Elvgren digital pin-up tutorial

A brief step by step tutorial of the process I used to paint this Gil Elvgren study.


Clicky for full size...



Shane S

Elvgren digital pin-up study

Thought I'd try my hand at this Pin up thing, so here's a test I did trying to emulate the Gil Elvgren style digitally.

I focussed more on the technique than an exact likeness of Elvgren's original but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Look out for some original paintings (and a step by step of this piece) in the near future!

Shane S

Farmyard magical door concept

Image property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd

As part of the development of the new Blue Nose Friends toy range (launching in August 2012!) I was asked to develop the concept of magical doors leading to different themed worlds within.

I really enjoyed stretching my artistic legs beyond the usual character artworks that make up the majority of my day job.

This particular door leads to a farmyard area shown in this concept painting.

Plenty more of these to come...

Shane S

Farmyard environment concept

Image property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd

The magical 'Farmyard world' of the Blue Nose Friends.  To see the ornate wooden door that leads to this land have a look at this post.

Quick environment paintings like this are always a pleasure to paint.

Shane S

Toots and Ivory

Image and characters property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd

Another promotional image for the competition of britainsbestfriend.com.

Shane S

Self caricature

I thought it was about time I updated my online persona with something that at least slightly resembled me, and as I'm not quite ready to use a photo I took the opportunity to paint this,

I guess the partially glowing lightbulb represents one of those ideas that didn't get a chance to fully illuminate before it was extinguished by something new and fancy.  I'm assuming other creative minds work in a similar way.



Shane S