The first piece is a supposed to be funny joke, but it was originally done for the Character design challenge on Deviant Art. It was done in Photoshop, I created the texture for the wallpaper myself. I always feel then when I do a really rendered piece in PS, I learn so much. Quicker ways of doing things, and learning to not work harder, but quicker. Theres things that I've missed here which I will go back to one day, as I think its a fairly good portfolio piece, but overall I'm fairly pleased with it.
Click for a better picture
If you cast your mind back to when we were given a brief to design characters for Ambic, the company that makes school furniture, I jumped at the chance becase mainly, I love designing characters, so it was right up my street, also, the chance to win £300 pound is always nice. I didn't have long to do it but did manage to come up with something which I think fitted the criteria. It was due on the Monday and as I only finished it on the Sunday, I decided to drive from Hexham to Chester le Sreet to personally post the disc. Unfortunatley, once I arrived, I discovered a giant fence which Alcatraz would be proud of was blocking my way in. The drive back was disheartening, but there was a glimmer of hope as my Step Dad works in Chester le Street, so I managed to convince him to drop it in for me before he started work. A week after the hand in I made a courtesy call to Jonathan, who was my contact there. We had a good ol' chat about animation, and he was pretty clued up and a really nice guy. He said they hadn't really had a chance to look through, but he did remember my entry, and it was a very high quality in comparison to some others. Its always nice to hear people appreciate your work, so I put down the phone feeling fairly confident.
A month or so passed and I was getting slightly anxious about what was happening, I decided to send Jonathan an email, as I dind't want to be too desperate and call him again. A few days passed until I got a reply from Jonathan, he was currently in Dubai on business, must be nice! He told me the company was extremely busy at the moment and they'd put the characters on the backburner. Now, I could look at this is two ways. Firstly, I was slightly frustrated that I jumped about trying to get these done, as had a number of people probably, and now they were just saying there not doing it at the moment. Another way of course is that they still haven't picked anyone yet, so I still have a chance, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I suppose this kind of thing happens alot in the industry, part and parcel, and something I'll have to learn if I want to make any kind of career. While I'm on this rant, I do think that people take what we do for granted. If someone wants a character designed for there business (especially if its someone you know) they think that it should be for free, or for a couple of pints. The fact that we draw cartoons is almost looked down on. Perhaps this is because its seen as child like. But more to the point no one should really have to work for free, you'd expect to pay for a plumber, joiner, hair cut so whats the difference? I'm not going to work for free again, as it is basically saying your work is worthless, and I think I could do a better job than alot of work I see around. Its all about putting yourself out there, something which I'm going to talk about in a later post.
Anyway, here is the characters I did, I hope I'm not breaching some confidentiality of Ambic and blown my chances of winning! These were sketched out in PS, and inked in Illustrator. If I'd had more time I would of changed a few things, and looking back at your work you always spot the flaws, but it is what it is and I think its of a fairly high standard and represents my style quite well. Click for a better image
In trying to keep up with a proactive not reactive way of going about things. I've redesigned a character from the football magazine Match. A bi weekly football magazine aimed at the younger audience. Football and drawing are my two passions in life, so it seemed like a no brainer to do this. Once there finished I'm going to send them away to the publishers, and see if they want to use them or me in the future. I know its a long shot, but I want to get my name out there. Noone knows you exist if you're just sitting in your bedroom and not showing your work to anyone. This is what I have so far, again these were done in PS. Once again, click for a better view.
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