My Dad calls him the 'smiling assassin', but despite his budget blowouts and interests in mining some of New Zealand's most precious land, I'm 100% sure we'll be seeing just as much of Mr Key over the next 3 years.

Just for Kicks.

THIS
IS
NOT
A
TEST

The Appearance.

... 

Blogs are interesting things. How do you go about creating something interesting without sounding like a self-centred piece of arrogant trash? How do you freely express your thoughts and feelings without giving away the whole show? How do you write for an audience that may only consist of 4 people a week?

I for one do not have the answers.

But I, at the very least, will not pretend to be anymore important than I really am.

And never will be.

If you throw enough layers, textures, layer effects and masks at an image it's always going to turn out looking good. Or not - as the case may be with this image.

So much of this is random - There is next to no concept behind it. I just had a couple of hours and really wanted to post something new and somewhat interesting up.

There was also a story I wanted to tell, but that will have to wait till another lifetime. 

So much to say, with so few words to say it ...

Landscaping.

A quick sketch of another landscape.

Practice makes perverts.

A whole incomplete week.

This week has been a been a bit of a write off. 

A whole week and I have not posted anything. I tried getting something together, but I'm trying to produce higher quality images - meaning it takes more time.

Anyway, excuses, excuses - we'll see what happens.

In other news Mali Mali have made their EP free for a limited time - go download it now.

http://malimali.bandcamp.com/album/brotherly

From here.

A move back to the quick scratchy stuff ...

... through a city.

Is this finished? Who knows... I may come back to it over the next few days.

Haven't been posting a lot lately. I lost my voice, plus this has taken me a little while.

A walk ...

Haters be sayin' I can't lay down a cityscape.

Haters are probably right ... but we'll see how it goes.

So anyway, it's March now and this is my 22 post for 2011. Not too bad considering I only posted 30 times in all the previous years combined. But this journey is a funny thing. The more I study, the more I draw, the more I attempt to create something I'm truly happy with, the further from my goal I feel. Never before have I realised just how limited my ability and knowledge of illustration is. But I guess, until you do something, you never really know how bad you are.

How many times have you looked at a piece of art and thought to yourself "What's so special about that? I could have done it". I have this thoughtall the time, however the now obvious difference between myself and the artist is this; as much as I could have produced the exact same thing - I didn't.

Art and design is about time as much as it is about ability.

There are only a limited number of hours in everyday. And how you choose to spend these hours will define you. Bringing this back to my drawings and what I do, I've realised there are many roads in art, but unless I want to become a 'master of none' I can only travel a few.

So what will these be? Do I pick up the pencil more often, should I throw some paint around a canvas? Should I attempt some screen printing? Do I keep doing these quick Photoshop paintings or should I stop trying to punch images out as fast as possible and begin to focus more on the details? Should I venture into more vector art like Timba Smits and like him, combine illustration with design? Or try my hand at making type beautiful, like Jessica Hische?

In the end I guess picking a medium and method is a journey of discovery. 

I just wish our time on the journey didn't have to be so short.

Test.

Recently I was asked to produce a pencil sketch of a sexy, amazon woman, in action and in a reasonable amount of time.

This is the result.

While it may be far from perfect, I think the exercise was definitely worthwhile. It's been a long time since I took a pencil drawing seriously. Usually I rush them, keeping their purpose only for a base to later complete in Photoshop. The thought of not having any layers or 'Apple + Z' was surprisingly frightening.

Dream.

Early.

 

And while I'm at it - as I was brushing my teeth I had a desire to draw something new.

I thought I'd post the beginning sketch, as it might make an interesting 'before and after' type thing.

Below.

While I generally hate to explain what I do and why I do it, before too many people begin to question my emotional stability, I feel as though I should give a little insight to the image below.

I very recently came across the book '100 Months' by John Hicklenton. I've never followed any of his work in the past, but instantly I was captured by the dark and disturbing illustrations that feature throughout the novel. I felt they had a strong sense on honesty to them. 

This honesty proved to be true, as 100 Months is Hicklenton's final work. He was battling MS and in the end chose to take his own life rather than have the disease take it for him. Serious stuff.

So anyway, with this still fresh in my mind and an hour or so to kill - I drew the 'The Face'.

The Face.

Thought I'd better draw something to post.

I came up with this ...

Songstress.

When you feel like drawing something late on a Sunday night, look to the very talented Lydia Cole for inspiration.

The Letter.

For yall.

Again, not really a fan of the whole 'work in progress' post, but I thought I'd throw this up just to keep things fresh for yall.

Also - wow, it's February already.

Forever.

Haven't been posting a lot lately. Last week my internetness was lost, and on top of that I'm still in the mind that I should be filling this thing with new work rather than general chit-chat. Hopefully I'll be able to produce pics regularly enough to keep the posts fresh.

Funnily enough, the idea behind this pic had nothing to do with the content of the message, but it seems to tie in well.

Kind of a shame really ....

Favouritism.

No questions asked.

I'm not explaining.

Deadline.

Sue - I'm calling this done.

So it seems ...

6 posts a week?

Could be a little OTT.

It's only been a week and I'm already going back on promises I've made. But it wouldn't be the first time and I promise, it won't be the last. But believe me, it's for the best. If I post just for the sake of posting, the end result is going to be rather dull - It will be become the diary of a very boring person.

And if I just post up random images the end result will be a blog I'm more likely to be embarrassed of than proud. Not that I'm all that proud of the work posted thus far ... give it 3 - 5 years ... maybe more.

So, let's just see what happens. I'll try to post a few times a week with the aim of posting a half decent illustration every week. Deal?

Anyway, the above was a submission for a shirt design. It was rejected ... I cried for weeks.

It's ya birthday.

Also, it's my good friend's Tanya's 30th today.

Happy Birthday Yo - I drew this badass picture for you.

Completely different.

While Activision may be creaming it every year with their Call of Duty franchise, in my books the Street Fighter series will always stand strong as some of the best video games ever made.

Sure, I'm not actually very good at many of the Street Fighter games, but to me, the old school fighters will always hold a special place in my heart. The childhood memories of friends talking about invisible throws and super combo finishes are always bought back whenever I see an arcade machine.

As a kid I always thought there would be no greater joy in the world on own a Street Fighter 2 arcade. So it comes as no surprise that, now I'm older, I find myself with a strange urge to live out this dream - over and over again.

I've owned 2 old arcade machines in the past, built numerous custom made joysticks (see earlier post) and built an entire Vewlix cabinet entirely from scratch.

This photo is my latest time waster ...

And again ...

I'm already looking forward to working on something other than this ....

More of the same.

I'm not that comfortable showing a work in progress, but I think this piece will be needing a lot of attention, so it may hold me back from posting up a variety of work this week - sorry in advance.

At the moment it looks to be all kinds of wrong.

Due 17.01.11

There are times when doubt creeps in, and threatens to take away the little hope you hold so dear.

By the end of next Sunday, I shall see what remains.

Intuos

Looks like I missed Friday - good thing I said 6 times a week and not once a day (minus one).

So, I just plugging in my new tablet, started drawing some lines and then realised I needed to post something. A little while later I'm posting something ...

I tried to keep this fairly basic and not too over worked (that's what you say when it's not actually any good). I tried adding a bit of texture to it, but in the end thought it was best left in it's original state.

It can be difficult to say 'no, put the pen down - stop now', but it's made easier when you want to go to bed.

Graphical

Ere's some more junk fo y'all.

Nothing new, just something I worked on last year for The College Herald. I wasn't 100% sure how this stuff was going to turn out, but in the end I was mostly happy with the result.

Oh, in my aim to post at least 6 times a week I've decided to throw in some stuff I do at work. With a family and other interests it's not so easy to create 6 original pieces every week, plus this way I get to post up more design work and stuff that might be a bit more commercial.

I'm just keepin' it real yo.

The new me.

And here's the rubbish I was talking about ...

It's ink on paper. It was a result of having no Photoshop or drawing tablet.

It begins again ...

So this is 2011. Not quite as bad as I had expected, lets hope it stays that way.

Anyway, last year I posted only 3 times - that was after producing quite a bit of interesting work and even promising I would post more.

The year before that I posted only once.

This year will be different and it starts now.

My aim is to blog at least 6 times a week. Hopefully once a day. In making this goal I know I will be uploading some pretty horrible stuff, but hopefully practice will make perfect and every now and again some wheat will appear among the chaff.

I also fear I will say too much and start to get a little too personal with the internet - but posting everyday and trying to remain passionate about drawing can have this affect, and therefore I apologise in advance. I also apologise if this will seems a little dramatic. I try not to be too dramatic, but it happens, so we're all gonna have to just deal with it.


Let's see how it will play out.