Pixar Canada Holiday Card 2012

I was humbled when I was asked to create Pixar Canada’s holiday card this year. I decided to do something with a Partysaurus flavour, based on the short we released this year: Partysaurus Rex. I mocked up a rough in pencil and then finished it in Photoshop to send to our Creative Director, HR Director and CEO for any changes or ideas. The Creative Director had a couple of ideas to plus the work which really helped the overall look of the piece. After a couple of revisions, I finished up the card in Photoshop and it was sent off to the printers. A batch of 500 cards were made.

The first image below is the final rendered image and the second is the mock up idea sketch. I also attached a link to the Partysaurus Short that came out before Finding Nemo 3D.

Happy Holidays to all!

Partysaurus Rex short

 

Making Monsters

Tentacles

Tentacles

Tentacles

What single thing says creature more than that? The mysterious and fearful nature of them have existed in our minds since the first sailors set out across the expansive oceans. What horrors lurk underneath in the deep?

Below is another concept for my Squid Lip idea. I’m not sure where it’s currently going but it’s a nice change of pace from working on the kid’s book and Pixar shorts. The first image is the final paint and the second image is the original pencil illustration. I took a photo of it, instead of scanning, and layered it to create some texture before moving into color. It was painted in Photoshop 5 and Painter 12.

The Hollows

“My memories will be of muted greys.”   - Spook the horses

These three were waiting for me as I arrived at the bus stop this morning. It was nice to have some company.

It’s been too long…

So here we are once again. It still astounds me how time can move and over a year has past since I’ve added anything to this log. New Zealand is now a memory and I am back in Vancouver working at Pixar Canada. It’s been fun and has also given me a chance to finish up my Children’s book. I took 3 weeks off in October to re-illustrate the pages and clean up the script. It’s currently in the second paint pass and I should have it done by the new year. All I can say to that is ‘finally’. It’s been a slow burn of 3 years from start to finish to get it done and find the time to get it done. The next step is to see if I can get it published in 2013.

I have also been illustrating a few pieces on the side for fun and to test new brushes in Photoshop and Painter. One of them is below. It’s a concept for an idea I have been mulling around called Squid Lip. This is a new re-design  of an older character who is part of The Fish Women of Alcatraz. I started off illustrating her on Binfang 360 graphic paper with a blue pencil. I then took a picture of her with a camera under a desk lamp to create some light variation. With some of my work, I don’t scan the illustration but take a digital picture under varying light conditions. I find it gives a great sense of texture once you start duplicating layers in Photoshop and use overlay, color burn, multiply, etc. to get the desired result. She was then painted in Photoshop 5 and Painter 12.

i cAll gOliAth

With the chaos of another film post production subsiding, I finally had a chance to finish off a concept of an older idea I had from the Oz days. I had a bunch of concepts done for this idea when I was working in Sydney but I haven’t touched it for a few years. It was a post apocalyptic idea named ‘i cAll gOliAth’ with a focus around the woman in the image.

This piece started and ended digitally. It was also a test bed to start adding more texture into certain works as well as delivering an emotional response. I also had a chance to start using some new Photoshop brushes that I had made along with using a few new textures as overlays. And surprise, surprise the vivid light layer finally came in handy for the final texture over the piece. It was a great image of an old broken down leather suitcase that I adjusted and painted over to make work.

It was nice to have some fun again…

Finding some peace in a chaotic world.

As you can see, I haven’t had much of a chance to post anything new lately as the film work has taken up most of my time. Luckily, I’ve still been able to escape the rigors of the daily grind and find a wave to surf when something comes through.  This photo was taken by Dave Lintott (http://davelintott.photoshelter.com) at local spot Houghton Bay. A couple of weeks back, Houghton was working pretty nicely for a time and a few of us managed to get some good lunch time sessions in. I also picked up a great new short board (thanks Ed!) that I’m riding in the photo. Man, I love that freaking board….

Art is where you find it.

Free the mind from the shackles of stress and let the inspiration flow.

Fire from the Fairy’s head

I had a chance over the last little bit to get a couple of graphics out for potential surf deck designs. You could say that this is a continuation of the post below, to bring my art to surfing or surfing to my art. There are so many great surfboards out there but unfortunately not enough art on them. I wanted these designs to do the potential surfboard justice while playing a bit with the shape. Even though both of these graphics are for short boards, I am looking to get at least another piece done for both a fish and a long board.

Both of these designs started with ink on paper and then were scanned in and finished in Photoshop. The surfboard template was also done in Photoshop, with paths. Once I have a chance, I will be redoing the templates for all potential surfboards in Illustrator.

The first piece named “Fire from the Fairy’s head” was my ode to the Green Fairy of Absinthe fame. I have always had a crush on her and wanted to create a stronger female fairy than the dainty depictions of yore. On the front top of the board is the Absinthe spoon holding a sugar cube containing the third eye.

The second piece is plainly named “Octo”. The front of the surfboard is the main octopus graphic with some of the tentacles wrapping around underneath.

I also added an image of me riding at the local break, in a section named “the wall”. It’s usually too packed for me to want to ride but some days you get lucky and have a fun little wave to yourself. The picture was taken by Anton Ognyev, a fellow Weta-tonian.