Alex Clark's illustration work, including works in progress, finished paintings, stuff and nonsense

My true love sent to me

2011-12-19T10:56:00.001+11:00

Very Merry Christmas

2011-12-14T11:01:00.000+11:00

Christmas portrait of a family for their Christmas cards.

Unrequited love

2011-12-10T11:15:00.000+11:00

Pokemon Challenge

2011-12-05T11:01:00.001+11:00

There was a Pokemon challenge on Tumblr (POKEDDEX).

Anna pirate

2011-09-22T00:32:00.001+10:00

Painting Studies

2011-08-02T16:06:00.000+10:00

Have been visiting the NGV for a spate of studies.

Colours and radials

2011-07-11T11:48:00.000+10:00

George Romney study

2011-07-11T11:46:00.001+10:00

Went to the NGV with mum and did drawing practice. Turns out you can draw whatever you like in the permanent exhibition (Anna got swiftly accosted by guards when she got out a notebook in the Vienna section). So, yep, went to the 1700s European section. Lots of portraits everywhere, my favourite. Found a seat in front of George Romney's Leigh family portait and drew a bit of a study. One of the guards said you can bring in colour pencils and that the front desks has foldable chairs to borrow. Shall avail myself of that next time.

Platform

2011-07-11T11:28:00.000+10:00

This is the place I meet my family and also where I farewell them. Sometimes looking down that platform is the happiest thing in the world. Sometimes it's not. I drew this while waiting for my Mum's train to arrive.

Face exercise

2011-07-02T13:48:00.001+10:00

Because insomnia is no match for a bucket of coloured pencils. Drawn after looking at tumblrs of Emma Watson and Karen Gillan photos.

What character sheets look like

2011-06-25T11:00:00.000+10:00

In the last month or so, I got contacted by a publisher who wanted to see how my style translated to their pre-existing character. I was given a stack of specifications, and a bunch of moods/situations to illustrate, and got back to them with a few styles of each. These are those.

Texta doodles

2011-05-08T09:27:00.001+10:00

Doodles; because they're fun.

Easter diary

2011-04-26T09:17:00.000+10:00

I was sick over the Easter break. Comedy Festival ended. My hands felt like paperclips and everything smelled.

Hark! A Kate Beaton on a Pony

2011-04-07T14:30:00.004+10:00

So, Kate Beaton makes Hark! A Vagrant, at present my favourite webcomic ever. I mean, I follow Questionable Content and have done since 2004 or something, it's such a soap. But Hark! A Vagrant has actually got me moderately educated on things and regularly informs my library borrowings (at the moment, some CDs of Chopin and Liszt). Any visit to Hark! A Vagrant is usually succeeded by a generous trawl of wikipedia to get the whole story of an historical reference (because I'm generally not up to speed on a lot of history, I don't know, maybe you are). But it's not all history, there's generous helpings of nonsense / younger self / pony / etc. She also now works with the New York comic collective Pizza Island. Their blog is amazing and the thing of dreams. My dreams anyway. Basically, what I'm saying is, she's a big damn hero of mine. And pretty cool. And this picture is based on her and history bits and Delacroix's Napoleon Crossing The Alps.

Shaun Tan wins awards and why

2011-04-02T12:27:00.001+11:00

So, if you like pictures, you possibly know about how amazing Shaun Tan is. I mean, all I'm saying is, The Arrival made me cry. In a library. Which is awkward. On hearing news that he'd won a freaking Oscar, it made me curious as to how many other awards he'd won. The answer is A Lot. But whatever does he do with all of them? Surely the mantlepiece is full, and there's only so many display cabinets a man can have. I like Shaun Tan, and while he could be winning all these awards because of how good he is, he could also be winning them to feed to the insatiable monster that lives in his basement and thrives on human achievement. That's all I'm saying.

Anyone For Tennis - finito

2011-03-30T20:28:00.003+11:00

So, this is a commission piece that's been a work in progress for a while. And now it's finished (for all present practical purposes). Comedy Festival starts tomorrow, and as I understand it, this is gonna be part of Anyone For Tennis' show. How could it not? It's absurd.

Bjork and Bowie

2011-03-24T17:56:00.001+11:00

So, this one's because Bowie and Bjork, I RECKON, would make a cool duo. This is backed up by a recurring dream where they tour the world playing stadium shows and generally being amazing. Yep, flawless plan there. Also that they're amazing.

Rad Bromance - Shaw and Chesterton

2011-03-22T01:28:00.001+11:00

So, when I was little, I read a bit of Chesterton. Read 'What's Wrong With The World' when I was a teenager. He was pretty cool then. I'm revisiting his works, generally, and he's still pretty cool. And Neil Gaiman thinks he's pretty cool too. So, yep, he definitely must be.

One of his cool traits was his way of arguing passionately with people, and remaining magnanimous with them. Except Wilde. But one of his famous argumentative-bromances was the one he and Shaw had. They'd fight furiously, with debate and wit and excellence. People would pay to see it. Hilaire Belloc would adjudicate.

So, their bromance was one that I looked into. And it turns out that their bromance is fairly big and excellent. Chesterton gives his own account of it, including tales of Belloc, J M Barrie, H G Wells... apparently it was all amazing parties and drunken swordfights.

So, in that vein, I drew this

Hairy Man Reboot

2011-03-16T00:21:00.004+11:00

So, it seems I like drawing The Hairy Man (evidenced one, two and three). Here's the latest in the series. This time in biro, texta and paper cut out. Available as a shirt/sticker too.

ThreeThousand Review - Daily Diaries Zines

2011-03-06T02:32:00.001+11:00

So, a couple of entries back have included the Daily Diaries challenges I set myself. It lasted two and a half months. It gave me an increase in short-term memory loss. Since calling it quits on New Year's Day, I photocopied it up into a zine and have it selling through Sticky Institute. It's in two volumes: Daily Diaries and Our Lives Most Of The Time (because more than 32 pages per zine is just... hard to fold)

So now it's been reviewed on ThreeThousand, that prestigious Melbourne guide to Melbourne things. Click here to sashay on over to the review. Written by the lovely Candace Petrik.

I quite like highlighting text and linking it to things.

Lifesavers Vector Complete

2011-03-05T16:02:00.001+11:00

Yep, it took a while. Wow, five months. Yep, it was a learning curve of 'Getting the commission clear before starting anything'. But there you go. Now I have learned that clients are reasonable and lovely people, and that any problems that arise are usually from confusion. So, in future, here's me negotiating exact terms of what they want, what format, how much I'm charging, and a deadline. Yep. In the meantime, I guess, I'll just keep being an idiot in various ways. And re-learning where all the right buttons are in Illustrator.

I Am Typewriter

2011-02-13T12:40:00.008+11:00

So, today was I Am Typewriter's Zine Fair in Flinder's St underpass. It was amazing. Sold a lot of zines, swapped a lot of zines, got to meet lots of cool zinesters. It was so great. I made a couple of print runs of A True Story, I believe in tea, and the Daily Diary (got two zines out of that). But yeah, thanks to everyone for coming down and buying zines, it was the best.

I believe in tea - new zine

2011-02-04T00:59:00.004+11:00

So, this was the zine I made in a day. I had a day, I had brain spew, and drawing cartoons in a food court... while drinking tea. It was all very exciting. And I wanted to see if I could make a thing. Yep. Yeah. So. It's stocked at Sticky Institute. They are having Festival Of The Photocopier soon, Feb 2nd to 13th, Zine Fair on the 12th, Flinders St Underpass 1-6pm. I'll be selling zines. And possibly other relatedly zinely things.

Click it to get it ^

2011 RedBubble things

2011-02-01T22:50:00.000+11:00

Not two thousand and eleven actual things, but you know, new year sort of stuff.

A calendar

And some shirts

As always, rest of the shop is up here.

Book Spots

2011-01-29T22:00:00.000+11:00

So, I previously mentioned landing gigs in two books. One is the sequel to A Stutterer's Survival Guide. Another is Liturgical Latin: A Language that Lives. Here are the small scale illustrations. Because, you know, it's nice to see what goes into books n that.

Millais Study

2011-01-21T22:13:00.001+11:00

So, I've got a soft sport for Pre-Raphaelites. In a recent library visit, I hefted down an encyclopedia of the Brotherhood and picked out some elements to draw together. You know, a hairstyle here, a collar there. Anyhow, after I'd finished, I went through to note down all the painting names. So that I could find them later. Out of an entire encyclopedia... turned out I'd only chosen works by Millais. Usually I wind up with a lot of Rossetti, this is the first time I've rolled straight Millais. So yeah, there's an exercise to try: pick all your favourite elements out of a book, see what pattern turns up. I think I may have to look into this Millais a bit more.

Also this was done in response to all the daily diary cartooning, and some need to get observational drawing done.

Whose Roses Are Those?

2011-01-15T22:09:00.001+11:00

So, a friend of mine does a blog about comedy and comedians and things and whatsits. And she asked for a banner a while back. And I finally got around to doing it. And now it's there. And it's nice: (picture links to her blog)

Daily Diaries part 2

2011-01-02T21:35:00.009+11:00

Yeah, so I continued the Daily Diary challenge-to-myself. But taking a month off to regroup (also because I scored a couple o' spot illustration gigs for books. One on latin, one on stuttering. More news on that later).

The Daily Diaries were good fun to do. Helped especially with remembering what I had done recently... ever. Also nice to practice drawing every day. Which I should do. And something all this cartooning has helped me realise: I need to do some observational drawing, because I am forgetting how to draw things.

Bee and me

2010-12-31T22:33:00.003+11:00

So, I was approached to do a pro-bono Honey design for some microfinance business in Ghana (friend of a friend knows a friend). Anyhow, I told them it was no worries, I drew a bee, scanned the bee, sent the bee. So sometime, someone in Ghana will have honey with this picture on. The internet is great. (picture links to blog concerning the guy who wanted a bee design)

Also, I was sick recently and had a bed-bound day and a bit. Drawing haphazardly with enthusiastically coloured pencils was a fun distraction. Also good practice at self portraiture. Which is good.

New shirts/stickers - Ready for Christmas

2010-12-05T14:16:00.000+11:00

New from my RedBubble shop, Hula Hoopla and This Is Just How I Roll.

Hula Hoopla from the At Last A Dragon album design

Click picture for shop link

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This Is Just How I Roll. From a specific request to flesh out an old sketch. Also done as a concept rough for a local cafe themed after the penny farthing.

Click picture for shop link

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Assorted shirts / prints / stickers

More at http://www.redbubble.com/people/lexxie

Daily Diaries

2010-12-05T10:50:00.002+11:00

In an effort to keep myself in daily practice with drawing, I've set myself up with a daily diary comic. It's a combination of drawing exercise, storytelling, succinct text... that and it helps me remember what I did and when. It might also grow to be some sort of zine thing to be published, who knows. At the moment, it's practice.
Click here to view it on Facebook

Screenprint Adventures

2010-11-28T11:36:00.000+11:00

So, today I went to a screenprinting lesson at Learn2Screenprint. It was pretty great. Got to meet some brilliant people (it's lovely to see all sorts of avenues that lead to screenprinting, everyone had their own reasons for being there). And I got a stack of prints done. All designs made on the day with stencil-contact cutouts. Very satisfying, very clear instruction, really lovely. I made some cards (with a rather beardy gentleman) and some prints of The Numpty.

The Numpty is the giant mist monster who surrounds you when you fall in love. He makes you behave like an idiot, aka, like a Numpty. Symptoms include Mentionitis and Vague-outs. He was made up through conversations between Anna and I. Someday, he may get a life of his own. For now, he is emblazoned across my jacket and bag.

Learn2Screenprint is run by Laura Day, information up at:
http://learn2screenprint.com.au/
http://learn2screenprint.tumblr.com/

Vector work

2010-11-25T11:04:00.001+11:00

Did a little vector work digitizing some vintage signs. Nice to get back into some digital work. It's been a while.

More Monsters

2010-11-01T10:50:00.001+11:00

There's been the Got-A-Job-Yeti, and the Monster-Who-Wants-To-Know-Which-Is-Better-Sydney-Or-Melbourne. Now there's three more.

Benny Davis aka The Human Jukebox

2010-10-02T13:41:00.000+10:00

Commission piece for Benny Davis' Human Jukebox work. You nominate it, he can play it, because he's brilliant.

AFT poster

2010-09-05T11:20:00.004+10:00

Work in progress. Show poster for 2011.

Sera Seraphim

2010-08-27T11:18:00.000+10:00

Seraphim as her namesake. Work in progress.

Sunset

2010-08-20T11:17:00.000+10:00

Private commission, sunset with tree detail

Morrissey sketch

2010-08-15T11:16:00.000+10:00

Study of Morrissey on newspaper (for a friend)

Drawings with four-colour pen

2010-08-06T13:26:00.000+10:00

Chooty Cat

2010-07-30T14:06:00.000+10:00

Commission portrait of a beloved cat.

Space Ship

2010-07-14T14:05:00.000+10:00

A request for a ship sailing into the moon. And to be beautiful.

Magician + DJ Duo

2010-07-10T14:04:00.001+10:00

Another modelled on real people. The fancy dress isn't FAR removed from them, but it's all fanciness here.

The Awesome Foursome

2010-07-01T13:55:00.005+10:00

My nephews modelled for this one, along with their very own superhero personalities.
Left to right is: Bunny, Hypersonic Boy, Megastrength Boy, Lightning Boy.

Admiral Quickstep Thistle

2010-06-15T09:56:00.002+10:00

Portrait of a friend ala nautical admiralty. I love these sort of portraits, they're so fancy. That and I'd take any excuse to do a portrait.

Three days, acrylic on MDF, approx A2.

Captain Red Dragon

2010-06-12T22:06:00.001+10:00

Also Seraphim, this time as a busty pirate.

All acrylic on back of a picture frame thing. With sleeve chevrons from an American Sergeant's uniform. 2 days. About A2.

Seraphim - Red

2010-06-11T00:06:00.002+10:00

A three hour study after a photo of a friend, plus freestyle patterned details. Using reference from James Jean and Audrey Kawasaki. Trying to learn something from their method/look.

Acrylic and graphite on MDF

Hot Rod - Toy Study

2010-06-09T00:01:00.000+10:00

Five hour exercise in painting from life. Flames added for... the excellence of being on fire.

Andy and the Possible Project

2010-06-06T09:10:00.001+10:00

So, here's some sketches from a thing that might become a poster at some stage. Done up for a man by name of Andy McClelland. If his manager agrees to this possible project, then it becomes a poster. If not, then it becomes a forgotten thing. Or a thing I pull out later and hash up into a painting anyway. We're probably talking months until anything's definite. Still, it's a nice bunch of sketches I reckon should be up here. Gives people an idea what sort of thing you get with a batch of concept sketches.

Pirate Pete's Relationship Advice

2010-06-01T22:39:00.000+10:00

For a zine-challenge to make a zine within one week. This is one day's drawing out of it.

Queen Mab and Pete Davies

2010-05-25T22:40:00.002+10:00

Private commissions.

Hula Hooping - At Last A Dragon

2010-05-18T08:36:00.003+10:00

Album design for Melbourne band At Last A Dragon. Also with hula-hooping based on Marawa the Amazing

Silo: Contemporary Illustration

2010-05-11T23:22:00.000+10:00

So, I'm part of this new exciting group of illustrators (fancy!)

At the moment, Silo exists as an umbrella for 12 illustrators, with an upcoming book (Not available at all good retailers, alas. It's basically for industry professionals as an illustration catalogue).

But yeah, click on through, check out the rest of Silo's wonders. Tell your friends. The website is like a preview of the book. So if you're not an industry professional, you don't miss out! Aha, everyone wins!

Axis of Awesome - Horse, Seahorse and Hen

2010-05-07T21:53:00.006+10:00

This is my foray into making work that I'd love to be employed to do. A poster/thing of 'Axis of Awesome' ala their song "The Glorious Epic of Three Men who are Awesome".

Angel of Heartfelt Pity

2010-05-01T01:39:00.000+10:00

Because, quite frankly, what this blog lacks is a good angel statue study. Other than that, it's a study into fabric folds and what great life models statues are. They don't move a muscle, it's great.

Not much work done since Melbourne Comedy Festival. Between last post and this post, I also experienced The Great Laptop Death of 2010. This great death involved my laptop having a bad reaction to a software update, having to be formatted, and my frantic searching of CDs to find important data. This search was mostly successful, tempered by the discovery that some of my back up discs are broken. So, as a result, prints are now only available through RedBubble until I find some way to reclaim the files, or rescan acrylic work.

Melbourne Town Hall

2010-04-18T12:28:00.000+10:00

So I've been in Melbourne for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (which has been great), and in the process of waiting for people outside Town Hall, I've done a couple of studies. The last post of the iron arches was an earlier study of this same building (albeit only the arch detail).

Day's Painting - Girlface

2010-04-16T12:42:00.000+10:00

Thought I'd see what I could paint in a day. Turned out to be this. Acrylic on canvas, eight hours all up.

Iron Arch Sketch

2010-03-29T12:21:00.000+11:00

RedSketches - including Tim Burton's Alice, architecture, and hands.

2010-03-20T18:22:00.001+11:00

So, today I saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in IMAX 3D. It was amazing. Every still shot all composed with exaggerated loveliness and angular bits and *sigh*.

Some architecture from Maternal Heart of Mary chapel, Lewisham.

And miscellaneous sketches; some observational, some doo-dads, some angular hands.

All These Dashed Parties - New York commission

2010-03-14T00:51:00.002+11:00

A nine-figure portrait commission, acrylic on canvas. 24” x 30”

This was a fantastic challenge in painting. I was provided with three months, a great swathe of reference photos, and lots of back-and-forth with the client.

Painting now lives in New York.

Making of:

Bowie T-Shirt

2010-03-02T00:57:00.000+11:00

Based on an old design, now jazzed up for a t-shirt.

T Shirts and Prints, now up on RedBubble

2010-02-14T01:36:00.001+11:00

I've knocked up a few tidy, shiny editions of existing designs for t-shirts; The Hairy Man, Magic Girl and Cosmic Crayola. Three new t-shirts, now available exclusively from my RedBubble Shop. Also available are assorted prints.
Check it out by clicking here:

Pre-Dream Themes

2010-02-08T19:33:00.001+11:00

Insomnia drawings. aka Drawing-While-Trying-To-Get-To-Sleep.

Portraits o' Friends

2010-01-05T21:46:00.000+11:00

This came about when I was drawing pictures of friends, and Anna (second from top) suggested I actually use photo reference for a change (mostly because my pictures of friends, while delightfully cartoony, didn't look anything like the intended friends). Four photos later, and I'm all chuffed that there's still some observational skills in the ol' girl.

Red felt tip pen, black felt tip pen. It's nice, like when you do a scribbly pencil sketch and then finalise the edges with pen. Only it looks nicer in colour/black. And pen doesn't smudge. And this way all the edges are nice and crisp. And there's more lee-way for shading with the tonal difference. Life drawing made great fun when I did it in two colours of pencil, so I might try going with this approach a bit more. Good times.

Ziggy Stardust Marionette

2009-11-20T13:21:00.000+11:00

I made this marionette for a Famous Person/Character brief. I felt Ziggy traversed the definition of Person/Character quite nicely.

Photos still to come, you'll have to make do with a video of him dancing about

Abominable / Accordion

2009-10-26T16:32:00.002+11:00

Further progress on the yeti, now amended to incorporate elements of TMBG's John Linnell. Because, he plays accordion, and is fairly excellent.

Continued from an older unfinished piece.

Tripod: Live at Woodford

2009-10-25T10:17:00.003+11:00

Tripod's new DVD is out. The one I did animation work for. The featurette "How to train an Attack Dog from scratch" contains a flash intro, and three hand-drawn montages of backstory narrative. So, if you're into music, laughing seeing my handiwork in the context of a DVD, then this is the DVD for you. Or maybe you know a person who'd want it. Then you can say "Aha! I know that person who drew that! Amazing!". And your friends/relatives will be astounded by your knowledge of contemporary australian illustration/animation. And then you'll be glorified as some sort of knowledgeable wunderkind, and you'll be offered the best of the cabanossi and cheese platter in recognition.

You will witness the wonder of over 50 hand-drawn pictures, including such as these:

So, to own this marvellous tit-bit of excellence, head down to your local DVD purveyor and demand this item. Or buy it off the internet by clicking the picture below.

Octopus hat

2009-10-16T19:33:00.003+11:00

This is my contribution to this year's Get Trucked exhibition. Available for $60.

Get Trucked is an annual group exhibition presented by 696 to raise money for CanTeen.
This year over 100 artists from different artistic genres and backgrounds were asked to use their talents to decorate a trucker cap.
This year we are happy to be hosting Get Trucked as a side event to Semi Permanent Melbourne, featuring some of the best local, national and international artists.
Opening 8th October 2009 at Per Square Metre 191-193 Johnston St, Collingwood.

Magic girl and Hairy man

2009-10-12T23:49:00.002+11:00

I like drawing, it is fun.

Die Roten Punkte

2009-10-05T09:52:00.003+11:00

Die Roten Punkte are an excellent act.

WORK IN PROGRESS

High Vibes

2009-09-21T10:05:00.003+10:00

Northcote High St has these brilliant shows, you know, all the time. Yesterday was High Vibes, so, just shows everywhere, on the street, and hundreds upon hundreds of people. So I found strategic points around the place and drew people. Got talking with some people too, and they were so lovely. Now I've got a pile of sketching practice done, and lots of people reference for later.

9x5 "Twenty"

2009-09-11T14:13:00.003+10:00

Part of Illustrators Australia Annual 9x5 exhibition. This year's theme is 'Twenty'. So, I figured a twenty headed beastie was in order. Trying to get some Adam Rex colouring panache into it. There'll always be more practice needed. Still, I'm pretty chuffed with all the toothy dudes. The second sketch shows how only one of them had that toothy smile to begin with. Then I figured he was so cool, the smile caught on. Now they're all guffawing in that toothy way. Oddly, none of them have teeth... except for Ol' Tusky at the top. Tusky's a funky dude.

All done!

Sketches

2009-09-08T12:03:00.003+10:00

Illustration class in post-exhibition fugue. Illustration class really is this fun. Especially when 'brainstorming ideas' turns into 'drawing a picture of everyone in the class'. With teacher approval, of course.

Self-portrait, to get my hand back into drawing good. Done using pencil, paper, and a cabinet mirror door (sans cabinet)

New book of old hymns, book cover. Actual project for real book thing. Should be good.

Snobbery

2009-08-28T12:21:00.003+10:00

FINISHED

This is a painting that's taken about three weeks. It started with drawing lots of snobby faces in my book (as seen in the first process picture), and the composition happened somewhat accidentally with the foreground and background figures just, sort of, slotting into place. The process sped up when I found the reference I wanted, then it was all late nights and paint spatter jeans right up until exhibition. Still, got it done. And I'm chuffed with the result.

Process pieces

Checkers - Professor and the Princess

2009-08-19T12:57:00.006+10:00

This is according to the brief "square shaped design illustrating an adult and child playing checkers."

In an effort to make it more interesting, she's a princess and he's a professor. At the moment, he's looking a bit like a villain and she his captive bairn. But this can be fixed, all in due time.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Abominable

2009-07-27T12:42:00.004+10:00

"A is for..."

Abominable. Also accordians. Which are awesome. Still got to settle on what sort of face to use. Maybe a lady's face.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Sheila

2009-07-26T12:40:00.002+10:00

Done in a cafe in an effort to out-do the man who was also drawing ladies with swishy hair all about. Then the man left, and the sheila got more interesting.

Attack Dogs

2009-07-25T14:02:00.008+10:00

I've been working for the past two weeks on animations for Tripod's upcoming DVD 'Live at Woodford' (out around Christmas apparently). Here's three of my favourite stills.

Bjork

2009-07-15T16:15:00.006+10:00

Bjork portrait time! She crops up in sketches, but it's been great fun to study her face further. She's a bit brilliant.

Mess

2009-07-07T00:06:00.004+10:00

My sketchbook gets these in it. I like drawing detailed realistic things, but mostly I like drawing little bendy dudes.

Drawing on suggestions from children

2009-06-28T14:17:00.005+10:00

Children are geniuses for breaking mental blocks. So, to fix my drought of keeping a drawing book, these kids egged me on to draw whatever they wanted. They were hilarious, jumping about and shouting at each other.

"draw another dude" "that dude needs a beard" "i like that dude"

"i like her" "can i draw some swirls?" "she needs more circles"

"but can you draw a tank?" "and a possum! getting squished!" "and this is a jet fighter, and his head has cracked open"

Final Fashion - The Seasons

2009-06-25T21:22:00.003+10:00

Digitally coloured sketches to show the seasons, as pictured like fashion illustration. Fashion illustration is brilliant. All those bendy dudes and sheilas.

Man Man adventures

2009-06-23T14:11:00.002+10:00

I prefer overnight train to plane whenever I can. Mostly for all the sitting down and drawing time. And the relative ease of getting to the railway station as opposed to an airport. It's all taxis and buses to the airport, and luggage checkins, and passports, and fuss.

The point is that these drawings were done while on an overnight train. There's something fantastic about enormous hairy people when you're in an enclosed carriage.

Scary monsters

2009-06-01T12:00:00.006+10:00

A publisher recently held the Monster Maintenance Manual competition. The prize was a book deal and a pile of money. I entered, and didn't hear back. But, it was great fun to make these characters.

And a tile wallpaper! For your enjoyment

Aesop's Fables

2009-05-27T23:31:00.004+10:00

Aesop's Fables, as demonstrated in Hare and Tortoise, and the somewhat lesser known Jay and the Peacocks. My sketchbooks fill up with bendy dudes in suits, so it was great to incorporate this into something slightly different. Oh bendy dudes.

and sketch:

Bowie

2009-05-25T13:29:00.001+10:00

David Bowie is brilliant. So, being fed up with not being able to draw him from memory, I pulled out lots of reference photos and did a big study of him. Reference all from here. Best website ever. So much Bowie, all over the place.

Spaceghost dances

2009-05-22T13:28:00.004+10:00

Saw a show at Comedy Festival (saw many shows, MICF is excellent) by Suitcase Royale. It had a character called SpaceGhost. Space Ghost appeared in my sketchbooks a lot after that. He even made it into this animation.

SpaceGhost wears a sheet over his head. Animated SpaceGhost has no sunglasses, though.

Dudes in suits

2009-05-19T13:27:00.002+10:00

I end up drawing lots of bendy dudes in suits, so I thought it good to actually practice drawing suits. Now, I am more informed about suits. And dudes.

Wendigo costume plans

2009-05-15T13:19:00.002+10:00

Wendigo are awesome, and oft forgotten, beasts. In an effort to raise awareness, a costume of a wendigo would be excellent. Something like this.

Jacaranda

2009-05-12T00:46:00.001+10:00

Boy swinging from a jacaranda tree. I was painting something else, and this sketch happened on an adjoining piece of paper. He's terribly gleeful.

Zine launch!

2009-05-08T11:26:00.002+10:00

For the launch of my brain story zine and a myriad of other fabulous zines and original artwork from the second year illustration class of nmit, head to disco beans on the 28th of May. Details on the clickable picture:

Brains - A True Story

2009-04-30T20:37:00.007+10:00

I've got a 5 1/2 inch scar down the back of my head. The story behind it is now available as a zine. It can be bought at The Sticky Institute under Flinders St station. Also at the sticky shop online.

Autobiographical zine DRAFT. (click to view the story)

Autobiographical zine. A little different to the finished product.

Fristensky is a strong man

2009-04-27T14:49:00.006+10:00

The process of drawing a strong man. From the starting point of not having drawn a strong man before.

First step, drawing strongmen from tinted photographs of circus men. (edit: or professional wrestlers, as the case may be)

Second step, drawing more contemporary strongmen until there's a design made all of your own.

Third step, painted first in greyscale, then more layers of orange and pink and beige and white and all sorts.

Dudes on tram, and fictional dudes

2009-04-24T14:53:00.003+10:00

Bit of my sketchbook bits.

Idioclips- Santa Fe

2009-04-09T13:39:00.001+10:00

Entered Idioclips again this year. Made it into the finals! My entry last year was played at the start of the show. Which was excellent. But yes, might do this next year as well. But a different song, and better, and stuff.

Sloths with balloons

2009-04-06T14:29:00.001+10:00

Sloths inspired by Brian Coldrick.

Wooden furniture

2009-04-05T13:47:00.000+10:00

The wonders of permanent marker, symmetry and somewhat inaccurate fibonacci sequences.

END OF DAYS

2009-04-04T14:27:00.001+11:00

Progress post of a hypothetical computer game cover for class assignment. Given no characters, no context, just the title "9: The Last Resort". So, everything's on fire and stuff.

Trolleycoaster

2009-04-03T14:22:00.002+11:00

A progress post of a class assignment to illustrate an article about the detrimental social and health things of the current economy on the general populace. End long sentence.

Mucha, kittens, monopoly.

2009-03-29T14:20:00.003+11:00

A possible elaborated picture for the future.

Top left: Designs for crocheted hood for Belinda

Bottom left: Dudes and sheilas on the tram

Top right: Dude on the tram who had these massively sunken eyes. I mean, those eyes were pushed way back into his skull.

Bottom right: Study of a dress by Diane von Furstenberg as requested by Anna.