Blue Pencillin' It

yooooooooo

Long time no post, apologies, I've up to my eyes in work for the past while and very happy to be able to say that. I've got a tonne  of these types of sketches at the ready, been doing some traditional work for a spell now as my Wacom is left in studio most of the time.

Here's Marcus, I'm going to paint this up in a similar fashion to my Cuchulainn post. stay tuned, I havent gone anywhere, I'll blitz the blog with posts around Christmas!

Page 1

Due to the last few months being kinda mental I'm getting back into a comic I started. I tweeted some of the designs a while back. Here's page 1 it's still in progress but I just wanted to post it. More so because now that I've blogged it I'll definitely see it through. It's written by a good friend of mine Eamonn O'Neill, check out his work here he's an amazing writer.

What we see here is Jim, a detective based in Dublin and Skull Boy, a person that only Jim can see and interact with. The story begins with a pretty major event in Jim's life, he's just had to shoot a young boy in order to stop him from blowing up himself and everyone else in and around the school. The story follows Jim as he tries to get over the whole situation, while dealing with an extremely violent group of 'soldiers'. I'm being vague on purpose, I'll sell it better when I have more to show.

It's a great story and promises a lot. As ever Eamonn's dialogue is pure genius. I'll keep u all updated with it as the comic starts to take shape.

Ben's Birds

Here's my collective post for the theme "Birds Birds Birds".  It features Black and White from Tekkonkinkreet, a favorite film of mine. I've wanted to draw these guys for a while now and I haven't drawn a city-scape in ages so I thought I'd try do the both here.

And as always I tried something new here too. I reversed my halftone dots, so instead of using the actual dots themselves I used the area around them. Just thought it would give me a more 'square-er' feel when sorting out the building silhouette.

I had a lot of fun with this one. I kept it B&W for obvious reasons. Since the theme was about birds I tried my best to keep them as much a character as Black and White are in this piece.  I like the idea of the crow resting on blacks club and White playing with the only dove in the whole city.

White's imagination is a great element to play with. In the film about half the things he's interacting with aren't really there and some times he just floats in mid air. I thought I'd have him play with a dove that may or may not actually be there, that's up to you.

I'll blog again soon, laters!

Commision Christmas Card

Hi folks,

Here's an update on the blog that isn't just from the Collective Thinking Blog. Brent Pope got in contact with me again to produce a Christmas card for the National Children's Hospital in Tallaght. I thought I'd throw a non 'texty' version up on the blog, just the illustration itself. Here's George Hook and Brent Pope with their snowman. Hope you like.

Merry Christmas!
Ben

Mythology with a Modern Day Twist- Cuchulainn

Okay so it's another collective thinking blog post and it's another new style im trying out. I tried it with Spidey last month but I couldn't really get my head around it, I think it's starting to click with me now though.  As soon as I started painting over mistakes rather than erasing them it all started to work out. I'll definitely do a few more of these, I really enjoyed it, and it's always great to learn a new style. Lots o fun to do and pretty handy to have professionally.

Here is Cuchulainn. I freakin Love Cuchulainn! I've been drawing him and reading about him since before I can remember. But I've never drawn him like this. Actually before I drew this I would have thought it to be near blasphemy to produce something like this about Cuchulainn. Well here we are, the piece is finished and I actually kinda like it, so it cant be that blasphemous.

My original idea about this was to have a close up on him sitting down with "Gae Bolga" ingraved into his gun.  Gae Bolga was the name of his spear,  it was a weapon that pretty much killed whoever and smashed through whatever got in its way.  I really wanted to involve it in my painting and since I've been looking at a load of Ashley Wood lately I thought what a better way to involve it than as a big honking robot. And with the Ashley Wood influence so to came the Steampunk style.

Hope you like it!Until the next post, laters!

Childhood hero

Alright so i figured yesterday that my main idea for the this months post is taking me a little longer to crack, so on the odd chance that it takes me a little longer to figure out than the months deadline here's something I knocked out this morning.

I think I was only kid to prefer Leo over Raph, I just thought he was the best. and when i thought about it as I was drawing this, there are some Leo and Spidey character similarities, that maybe the reason why I love both those guys. But if anyone ever aks i'll say its cause Leo had swords! :)

Tried something new with this as well. I like  the ink spatter and roughness of it all  i reckon ill do more of these in the future and also go on to take em a lot further, watch this space.

The other post im working on is obviously Spidey (there's no way I'd be leaving him out), he'll be done in a different style alltogether

Go check out the rest of the posts under the same title here http://collectivethinkingblog.blogspot.com/

"Remember what master splinter thought us" - Leonardo

Hip Hop - Children's Book is FINISHED!

Here's some illustrations I did for a new children's book called 'The Hip Hop Opotamus". It's in collaboration with Brent Pope, all is left is printing it. I'll be sure to give an update when its in the shops.

I did a pitch for a cartoon series of the same characters with a great bunch of people, I'll post up the finished bible and animations as soon as they all get the go ahead.

Please pick up the book it's for a good cause. Brent and I want to do it for a suicide prevention group, when we decide on the particular group I'll let you know and you can support em all you want by buying as many copies as you want ;). 

Anyways I hope you like what you see, I posted up some more of the images, obviosuly i didnt post up all of em cause I want you to buy the book.

I'll in touch soon with the name of the charity that we have chosen, laters!

Dinosaurs

So I was pretty sly this month, managed to knock out a monthly post with a well over due favour for a friend of mine.  My mate does a lot of racing and he asked me before Christmas would I do some kind of dinosaur design for his racing helmet. So months n months later here it is. Sorry mate, turns out I don't have as much time as I thought I did.  At least u get the rest of the racing season out of it.

His racing helmet is white so I kept the bg white and the rest of his racing gear is red so, red felt like the right colour for the dinosaur.

Above is a test with a font and the bottom is a bigger version of the raptor for the blogs sake.  Nice and early with the monthly post this month so anything else I post will be bonus points!

This is the main graph for the helmet I should get the finished design up after a bit more work with my m8, maybe by the end of the month... I've kept him waiting long enough.

Alright so below is iteration1.  painted in a scale-ly texture on the dinosaur head just to bring a bit more life to it. Obviously its no longer gonna b a white helmet

21st Century Heroes

Above is cartoon I saw last month, in and around the time the SEALS got Bin Laden (duh!).  I just thought it was cool, so when anna picked the theme for this month, I thought I would do my own version of the piece. Just got informed that the artist of the original piece is J.D. Crowe.  It's such a powerful piece.

Turned out referencing these two guys was pretty tuff, couldn't find the same Helmet that's in the original one, but while looking I saw that the SEALS also used another hat so I thought I'd use that one (I was also pressed for time).  This is just my interpretation is all.  I put the two towers in the BG cause thats pretty much what I saw when I looked at the original, it's almost like America is complete again... I dunno, The cartoon really worked for me, just hope I did some kind of justice to it.

Kinda found the time to do this one from my breaks away from complete frustration, went back to pencilling a few pages l8ly for my folio and one day it just wouldnt click (one of those days), I didn't give, I just turned to the monthly post for a breather. I kinda feel like moving away from something can usually lead to a break through as well, so here's hoping the breakthrough will come... still waiting.


 I'll post those pages I'm pencilling up asap.


Also go check out the rest of the posts for this month here http://collectivethinkingblog.blogspot.com/ . theres a few up already and there will be more before the end of the day.


L8rs

Doodling a crazy hobo

here's a doodle from my sketchbook, was workin on a crazy hobo theme for the monthly blog post but work got int the way of me finishing it (a good complaint).  but here's the doodle anyways, i was playing with the idea of one of those crunchy nut weirdos u see on the ads. this guy has just gotten so addicted to them he is now homeless, unshaven n unhealthy.

this is Eric. Eric was once a really successful business man, but now Eric has lost everything and has actually sold the shirt of his back just to get his hands on a box of crunchy nut corn flakes.  he is now the worst kind of junkie... a crunchy nut, poor Eric

Hip Hop - kids book

 Here's some teasers of the kids book I'm working on for Brent Pope. 

The above one i did for Brent, he brings round some of my art to readings for kids. The kids get him to sign the pictures so i did this one for him to  sign rather than just have a page from the book.

 This is a page, 3 of the boys wrassilin'!

Here's another page, sum monkey's making fun Of Hip hop

Schtuff!

Hi folks,

Here's some work I did yesterday while winding down from Pegbar and blitzed in inspiration from The Book of Kells.  I try do some figure studies as often as possible, but usually end up having my ambition being beaten up by a thing called life. But yesterday i got a chance and I took it.   I really find that this kind of drawing exercise is really important and immediately you can find it helping you out in a number of ways. As David Colman says figure studies are as important to the artist as weightlifting is to the footballer.  so here's some very rusty 'lifts'

no:1

Memory drawing - This girl was really interesting, clearly very into fashion. Great haircut, thick framed glasses, skinny and reaaaaaalllly tight clothes.  she also seemed to have some kind of staring competition with the car parks pay machine

no:2

Figure study - This girl was really summery, a back half slung over one shoulder and kept tugging on her cardigan, don't know why. She was standing around waiting for her bf to come back from the pay machine.  its the only figure study that I'm posting up, the rest were pretty shocking.  Used pen on this one, as it makes me more decisive with my line. which is kind of important when you're drawing people who aren't posing or know that they are being drawn.


no:3

Memory drawing - This dude saw me drawing people, he didn't approve soooooo i drew him... he looked angry

no:4

Memory Drawing - my favourite drawing of the day by a long shot.  I left the carpark and did some drawing outside (it was actually nice out in Dublin)  and when i did i saw this oul fella.  He walked out of a shop and started rolling up a smoke.  Not once did he actually look at what his hands were doing! not once!  he just kept looking all around him n before u knew it he was smoking his way down Henry street.  awesome.  In my figure study i did something i thought was interesting where i scribbled in his legs while having no outline, didn't really carry that idea the way i wanted to in this sketch but here it is anyways

laters!

Plants Take Over in progress

Hi folks here's this months monthly post, it's still a work in progress, I really rushed this so I reckon when I actually go to colour it I'll prob start from scratch again, I just put blacks and grey more so just to have something in to hit my monthly deadline.    watch this space I'll prob do a full break down from start to finish with this post when its completed.  Back soon

New studio and a revamped home studio

Here it is!  our (Flip n Roll and Pegbar's) new studio in the media cube, massive big space, plenty of light, kitted out and rent free for one year! Boom!  more pictures to follow as soon! theres a whole other side of the room!

aaaaaaand heres my home studio

still rockin the animation disc

aand the newest addition, band spanking new iMac.  hanging up above it is stills from Spidey 2 and a signed Romita Snr and Alex Ross Spidey print. and of cource wanda wacom. and my big lebowski mouse mat... it really ties the room together

2 constant sources of inspiration

set up an-mhaith!

Happy Birthday Post for Micks Blog

Hi folks!

a piece i did for the awesome artist Will Sliney for the Eclectic Micks Birthday is up!  Go over to their blog and take a gander at their awesome posts and wish em a Happy Birthday!  http://eclecticmicks.blogspot.com/

Nosce Te Ipsum - monthly post

BIG NOSE BIG NOSE BIG NOSE!  Okay this months post was really hard, struggled to find the time for it these were the best i could muster, by the by i submitted a piece to the eclectic micks blog for next week, if/when it goes up ill post it up here too, its a tad more interesting to look at than 28 sketches of myself, did my best with em to make it as interesting as possible tho.

laters

Ben