Odette Owlle's First Christmas...

Okay, so I have finished the design process for my upcoming Christmas greeting card collection. So next, it's all off to the printers! 

The five card set will tell a "mini-story" about Odette, the baby owlette, as she discovers the joys of her first Christmas spent with family. They are all illustrated on vintage wallpaper, so I am hoping that the effect is as nostalgic as it is festive. 

I have another collection of prints coming out soon.....titled Fortuitous Fair Trade. Featuring personalities from around the globe, the proceeds earned from the prints will actually be injected back into each corresponding co-operative! Keep an eye out kids!

Alice in Wonderland.

So been working on some Alice prints lately. I want their release to coincide with that of Tim Burton's twist on Alice in Wonderland. I think it will theme in well and will bounce off a lot of the hype created by the movie debut. I wanted my version of Alice to be a little dark and twisted.....like something out of a Burton movie as well.

Tonal Paint.

Was batting around a few ideas for some Christmas cards the other day. I guess I have earned myself a bit of a reputation for drawing pretty girls, so I thought it would be a bit of a lark to do a set of "Christmas Babe" cards.....

Tailor-made...

So a group of my arty friends and I have started an artist's collective/guild/co-operative/whatever-you-wanna-call it. We are called 'Tailor-made', (I took the liberty of designing our "badge"), and are still recruiting members. So if you think you have the stuff to join, send me a message!

Painted Doll....

So I have been busy brain-storming what I am going to come up with for my Frankie submission. I won't spill the beans just yet, but it entails one of my friends getting painted up as a doll! I had alot of little ideas flittering around, so I thought I would try and solidify some of them by painting her......everyone meet Stephanie June Ellis!

Grace Arts Life Drawing, take 2!

Here are the sketches from Tuesday night! They range from 10-20 mins......my faves are the two profile sketches.

Grace Arts Life Drawing...

Hey kids!

Went to Grace Arts life drawing again on Tuesday night. Good fun! I will post the rest of my sketches a little later on. This is just a rough digital paint I did over my fave sketch from the night......

Quite frankly, it's Frankie!

I am a bit in love with the current model featured in the latest issue of Frankie magazine. She was staring at me (from the front cover) the other night, so I decided to paint her. It only took two hours from scratch to finish. It's ALMOST an exact representation, but I kinda like my spin on it anyways!

I sent it to Frankie as well.....they loved it.

Damo xoxo.

Grace-ful beauty

Grace Miller. One of the main characters in Wishope Island. It's just a quick conceptual painting I did of her watching the sunset and staring out to sea. Amidst a sea of bobbing 'Wishing Dandelions', it's just seconds before the evening sea breeze will send the thousands of glowing wind-seeds into flight.

In the Mood...

Here is the coverpage for my upcoming folio......featuring the wishing dandelions which are a central motif to the story I am creating, it's just to get you guys in the mood.

The 'Light Sprite'

Solara. A light sprite. She's a character I designed for my upcoming folio, but due to some changes I made, has been re-created and is now called Grace Miller (who happens to be a bit of a hippy child).

Solara is a pretty funky character in her own respect though. A personified 'distillation' of sunshine. She is a demi-god who is a bit of a prankster, very cheeky and a talented shape-shifter. She only takes on a physical appearance when she is in direct sunlight, otherwise she appears as more of a ghostly apparition. Only speaking in musical limericks, she lacks the true wisdom her alter ego Lunar posses.

Stargazin'

Okay, so it's all full steam ahead at the moment with my new folio submission for my impending Disney (hopefully final) review.

I want this folio to be almost decadent in presentation. I want the visuals to be incredibly rich, with a lot of history and back-story involved. You can bet a lot of 'homework' will be going into my latest attempt to ingratiate the 'House of Mouse'.

Anyways, introducing my new illustrative/colouring style. I did this rough sketch of Toad (from Nintendo), stargazing. The way I coloured it is meant to be suggestive or perhaps 'evocative' of that childish, coloured-pencil, colouring-in technique/texture.  I wanted to restore a strong youthful quality/energy to my work to aid in the revival of my 'animated' style of illustration.

HEAPS more to come. I am so ridiculously excited about all this. My entire approach has evolved, subsequently my drawing style has too!

Wind Waker

Just a quick 5 min sketch I did of 'Toon Link', from The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker.

This still happens to be one of my favourite consol games of all time, up there with DK64 and Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time.

I am trying to get back into the flow of my softer more rounded animation-y style of drawing. Disney have reported that my stuff at the moment is too stiff and my story-telling isn't strong enough (which I had suspicions they would say anyway). So I am currently at work on a 'Fix-Up' Folio, to re-submit for my next review. (Which incidentally is in the next few weeks.)

"Vaudeville", Grace Arts...

Okay so went to some more life drawing the other night. Was horrendously late (poor form I know)....but hey I still got some great stuff done....

The final two are just scribbly 5 minute poses.....

Animation Folio Part 1

Animation Folio Part 2

Animation Folio Part 3

Animation Folio Part 4

Animation Folio Part 5

New Resume Coverpage

Thought my resume could do with a bit of a spruce up so I drew a funky new avatar for the front of it.

Hotel Hightower...

There is an extensive back-story that accompanies Hotel Hightower and the mysterious deaths that occurred on the eve of New Years 1899.  If you want to learn the history of the hotel, visit this historical site-  http://www.tot1899.com/english/ , and it will fill you in.

I am however just a young artist that was privately commissioned by the daughter of Harrison Hightower, Harriet, to paint a portrait of her for the hotel's lobby. 

It is however my grievous duty to inform you faithful readers that since sitting for this portrait, the young lady herself, may have followed a similar fate of her hapless father. For when I called upon her one evening to complete the masterpiece, she was nowhere to be found. Instead all I encountered was a hastily scribbled note, detailing some creature named the Shiriki Utundu. What was most disconcerting about the entire affair was that her personal suite was in an alarming state of disarray, with a large pool of blood in the centre of the room.....I hope that the authorities get to the bottom of this mystery.

Death Becomes Her......

This drawing I did a while back, but I have just recently given the colours a spruce up.

It was inspired by Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ride. As you travel down the halls in the mansion, the portraits actually change from these beautiful vistas to grizzly, macabre scenes of death behind your back. The effect is actually quite disconcerting.

This is my rendition of the effect. It's meant to be a beautiful Spanish girl changing into her reaper-esque counterpart.

Coraline

I did this back when Coraline came out at the movies....