Felling a bit Nostalgic

Hey folks,

sorry about the lack of post last week, had a nerve problem and it sorta stopped me drawing for a bit. Buuuuut here's some stuff for this week,

Pics from the talks I've done recently and I actually found a rake of old drawings. like my portfolio that I used to get into college with aaaaaaaand some pics I did near the end of my days in college.

So here we go, Thursday lats workshop first.  

First off I'd just like to say Thank you again to all who came to the workshop. There was even a few people who came down on the night on the slight chance that there had been ticket cancellations and they might get in. Really appreciate the interest I hope you all got what you needed/looking for from the workshop, very happy to be working on your folios with you now!

Just caught a pic of the crowd as they left the science gallery.

Aaaaand then I went on to do an Ignite talk at Electric picnic last week. An Ignite talk is 5mins long, and every 15 seconds you have a new slide to talk about, so you gotta keep up with the slides as they change automatically. Loads of fun, would love to do it again. The talks were recorded to go onto the Ignite talks website, when it goes up I'll post it here too.

Aaaaaand yep they got my name wrong on the poster outside the tent, didn't put a dampner on anything I enjoyed doing my talk and saw some really interesting talks and met some awesome people.

sooooooo some of you may have seen on my twitter page yesterday that I found some old folio work, well here it is.

Found this chest and some old portfolios in a clear out yesterday, I thought it might be a bit of a laugh to post up some stuff! Well the stuff that lasted, some of the paper deteriorated over the past 10 years so i did what i could with what i had at hand. I apologise now, but I didn't have any internet access in when i was back in the rents house so i had to stick with the camera on the iPhone so some of the quality of the pics isnt so hot, but hey neither are some of the images ;) .

So here's what got me into BCFE... yes I was the guy that had comics stuff in his animation portfolio... rookie mistake

I copied this from a comic book I really digged at the time. Drawn n painted on A2, acrylics were about the only paint i had any grasp of at the time.

Yep I also had the stereo typical celebrity charcoals, here's Enya and some Hopkins, A2 again.

next probably what got me into college I had sketchbooks and sketchbooks full of drawing of my friends in school. there used to be an after school study, I signed up for that and used the first hour to draw hands, bags negative shapes of chairs, people you name it just things I knew that were famously hard to draw things I had heard helped me improve my observational skills. Honestly that's probably all i was aware of at the time. When I went to college I realized EVERYTHING that I was doing wrong.

I drew Loads of hands

More comics stuff I copied for my folio, all A2.

Then i got to college and did stuff like this, all of this is from my last year in BCFE.

10/15 mins pastel

sustained pose (always annoied my that I messed up his thumb) 

 10 mins conté, love conté never went back to charcoal after I got the hang of em

below is a gesture, probably a few seconds I cant really make out how long it is, charcoal on newsprint

below is a 10/15 mins, contour drawing was kind of a favourite of mine

started to get into watercolors the more I got into David Mack's work...

another gesture

 tried some new stuff with inks

More watercolours

this was actually my first attempt with ink i was raging i got the bleed wrong on the legs, the line ran pretty thick.

Pencil, sustained drawing

So there you go, I think a pretty clear learning curve is there to be seen from what I've done over the past 10 years. Here's to the next 10!

Also here's some new places to come see me talk about storyboarding  

 Above you will get a 2 hour workshop where I will talk about storyboarding and how it can be used in animation to inform people about health, kind of how to tell people visually and get the most impact.


AAAAAAAnd one Im really really looking forward to is the DICE con this year

Here I'll be doing an hour talk that will be closer to my workshop last week. So if you want to talk Storyboards come over and say hi. If you dig comics, You GOTTA check out this con it's got an amazing line up!

So Sin é Hope you all digged that, next week I'll have some new stuff to post! :)

Comics stuff

Alright folks

Digging the well here for something to post, posting a lot of WIP stuff as I've been writing more this week than drawing... I dont hink I've ever said that before. so here goes

Another panel from the Carrie and Rufus book I'm working on,

Just a little something to keep the blog ticking over as it's one of the few finished pieces I've knocked out this week.

Here's some other stuff I've been working on some inks and A LOT of pencils. But since it's all soooooooo rough i'm gonna post up bits of the lot so you can see the process of it.

So here it goes, here's some stuff I've been working on in a Northlanders test script. I've re- started this so many times now my plans are a little more abstract or loose than usual as I know what I'm looking for now. I should note that I've started and restarted this sooooo many times now cause I keep going back to it a month or two at a time die to work, this time I'm just gonna get it done.

Alright so this how I start planning out everything, the VERY first thing I do is make a mess.  Plans for how I think I'll tell the story sporadically placed among plans I have for character designs. This time it just happened to be on an A3 sheet cause that's what was in arms reach of my animation disc. Other times its an A5 book or A4 paper i use for my printer, just something to get the ball rolling and get some kind of idea down. At this point I'm just trying to get a feel for what I'm drawing.

As they say in Pixar, "fail early and fail often". Start trying things at this point, test how far you can push a design, do it all here not later. I spend a lot of time working on this. There's a rake of other drawings done as well but since this stuff is soooooo sketchy and almost abstract I thought it would be more interesting to show, we all got to start to somewhere.

All the little images are panels featuring what I think needs to be shown according to the writers script. After I do this I figure out how I want to break down the page. I always break my pages down by using focal points... this part is pretty abstract, panel shape & bleeds are all figured out here in just their basic shape. Squares, rectangles, empty space, if a shot is going to have a dutch angle or a camera tilt, whatever it is that im going to employ to lead the eye around the page correctly. That's what happens here.  

After that, it's pencils

loose, very loose, any elements that need fixing are done so on the fly while inking, and then it's inked

 

well sin é! More vikings next week!

Storyboard Workshop & A New Pin Up Girl

Hey folks,

a day late with the post but better late than never. I've just been busy this week.

Before I say anything else I want to say THANK YOU so much for showing such an interest in my storyboard workshop. Amazed with how quickly it sold out, i promise i'll make it as good and worth while as I possibly can. Thanks again!

Big thanks to Pegbar, Animation Skillsnet and The Science Gallery too for making all this possible.

Aaaaaaand below is something I drew up yesterday. Clearly I haven't had enough fun drawing pin up girls so here's another.

It's actually a character for a poster I put together for a friend of mine who's running a striptease aerobics workshop in Wexford. If any of yee are interested in the deets, give me a shout on facebook/twitter and I'll send em your way.

Kinda dig the character so here she is in all her glory.  As usual I prefer the black and white.

I'll do my very best to get next weeks post on time as it's been two late posts in a row now.

Anyways, chat then folks!

Storyboarding Workshop and COMICS

Hey folks,

Pardon the lack of posts last Friday but I wanted to get all this stuff together.

First things first, Pegbar in association with Animation Skillnet will be back this month, there will be a storyboard workshop in The Science Gallery Thursday the 29th of August. I'll be giving the workshop. All the details are on the Pegbar website here and you can buy your tickets via the Science Gallery website here.  you can also call inot the science gallery and get your tickets if you have any tech issues just ask em at the reception desk when you go in.

 The workshop will cover basic board techniques, I'll share some tips I have picked up in my time as storyboarder and provide a storyboard production package for anyone looking to build a portfolio.  I'll even review your folio and help get you ready for the industry.

And here's somethings I've been working on the past few days/weeks you might dig.

The first is a page from a short story I worked on for Coimicí Gael's Rírá with writer Dave Hendricks and letterer Aidan Courtney. It'll be out soon so keep an eye out for it, it'll be a great book and it's aimed for readers of about age 8is + I'd say. Had a lot of fun working on it!

and here's a WIP panel of my Carrie and Rufus book,

It's slowly taking form I'll keep you all updated as I go along with it. Having an incredible amount of fun working on it.

That's it for another while anyways, I'll be back blogging again on Fridays.

Laters1

Fun Stuff!

Hey folks so here's this weeks blog post.  2 black and whites this week!

This is a birthday card I did for a mate of mine, she's been asking for a picture of Shakira's ass for a while, I felt it was my moral duty to oblige. Here's Shakira doing that 'bum lift' thing from the she wolf video

Aaaaand this is a project I've been ticking away at for a while now, just getting pieces done in  small pockets of free time. It's for my mate Paddy Lennon, he's a writer and he's currently sorting out his superhero novel 'Flare' and he was sound enough to ask me to do the cover. I've been one of a lucky few to read this book, It's Class! Recently Paddy has put excerpts of his book up on his blog so give it a read here so you can get a taste of the book and then spend all of your monies on it when it's out!

The characters your looking at here in the cover are (going from left to right are) Aimee DeWitt and in her superhero uniform she's kicks ass as Revenant, Ryan Curtis also known as Flare and Hiroshi who rocks it in a pretty awesome Mech suit, or as Paddy put it so elequently ' basically War Machine on steroids'!

Hope you dig em. See you all next week, same Ben time(ish), same Ben channel.

Pacific WIN!

Hey folks,

Started this late last night so it's only a work in progress.

Went to go see Pacific Rim this week. Holy Wow, I don't think I've had as much fun in the cinema in aaaaaaaaages! Really enjoyed it, if you haven't seen it I recommend that you do before it's out of the cinema, it's definitely a film that deserves a watch on the BIG screen. 

Reasons to go see this film - GIANT Monsters fighting GIANT robots, one of the best omoplatas you'll ever see MMA & Jui Jitsu fans, All of the Action, if you like anything post apocalyptic, FUN, cheesey dialogue & end of the world speeches, if you're a del Toro fan and if you like watching people stick fight! That's right it's got all these and waaaaaay more so I thought I'd throw my hand at some Pacific Rim fan art.

Here's Mako, she's pretty class in fight, as long as she's got that staff she might even beat Ronda Rousey.

As I said it's just a work in progress at the mo, I'll try finish it for the blog next week!

Hope yee dig it

Just Playing

Heya,

not much to report on this week, been doing some writing for Carrie and Rufus, finishing off a couple of other gigs and starting a few new ones. I did these in what ever time I had spare ( spare time is hard to fins at the moment cause it's really nice and sunny in Ireland at the moment and that never happens so I'm taking advantage of it while the sun's around!)

Here's something I don't usually post my warm up drawings, cause usually it's a page of circles as I don't really give the warm ups the time you see Young and Colman give them ( their warm up sketches are pretty amazing) but this week I drew up some heads, just for the sake of it really.

these are actually influenced by some failed figure studies of people I drew on the bus or in a café. Just trying to add some new shapes for myself to play with future character designs.

And the next is something I knocked up yesterday cause i thought just posting up the warm ups was a bit of a cop out. I've wanted to do a series of cartoon figures in real backgrounds for a while so I decided to scratch that itch last night. I'll do a better version the 2nd time round, this one was rushed and was a first effort. You might remember the girl from a previous post?  I guess this is what she looks like chillaxing at home.

Here's the original picture I drew over, next time it'll be photos I'll have taken myself.

Laters!

Oh Yeah and here's a banner I was mucking around with earlier in the week, at the moment it's just my facebook cover pic

Ben's Doodles!

Alright,

So here's more Carrie & Rufus, I wasn't going to post anything about them this week but this sort of transpired throughout the week.

Those of you who know me know I'm a massive David Colman fan, if you don't know about his stuff check him out here, the mans got skills. He did those great designs for Class of 3000, there was no straight lines in the designs, which kinda blew my mind!

And just for a change in the studio lately, I have a pic of his up by my work desk, it's one of my fav's, here it is.

So I've just been doodling pics of Carrie and Rufus in similar poses, while being on the phone, taking a little break or just trying to warm up. This pic constantly in front of me so I thought maybe I'd try my hand at doing my own rendition or homage so to speak with Carrie and Rufus. And so here it is

There yeh go, David Colman, still and continues to be one of my greatest influences.

Miki's Comic "The Jolly Roger!"

 More writing for Carrie & Rufus than drawing Buuuuuuuuut some awesome news! My friend Cara has joined up & is going to letter the book! Huzzah! Cara's an awesome graphic artist & when it comes to any thing to do with type she's a hero! Check out her stuff here,  here and her twitter here

As promised in an earlier post, here's some fan art of my friend Miki's comic the Jolly Roger. I remember Miki saying on one occasion that this character from the book was the most fun to draw, he wasn't wrong.

If you don't know this book or Miki, you're really missing out, here's a link to his artists facebook page, hit the life drawing album, caricature album and obviously the Jolly Roger album, you'll leave inspired.

Anyways, that's me for this week. More next week. I'll have some more Carrie and Rufus work & something to go with em!

G'luck!

Everything Is In Blue Pencils!!!

Sooo Friday post!

It's been a messy week with work so unfortunately not a lot to post up.

Everything, projects I'm working on in my own time and the work I'm doing professionally is either under NDA  or in rough blue pencils. I was hoping to clean up some of the blue pencils this morning but work got a little busy so I didn't get a chance to clean anything up ( and they REALLY need some cleaning up)

So I'm gonna stick up an oldie of Carrie and Rufus and a Hulk and Harley Quinn commission I did this week. Hope you dig em!

In with The New, Out With The Old

Hello,

Things have been a mixture of busy and messy these past two weeks, so only getting to blog now.

First off, here's the final version of the Fred's Got Slacks cover. Differences between this and the last WIP are the paints on her back, some hue changes and obviously font and background changes.

If you feel like adding some new tunes to your playlist check em out they're pretty class band! Here's a Link to their stuff, all the songs that are on this EP are here and there's a few more as well!  Give em a listen you'll be happy you did.

Before I go any further is should say a BIG congrats to my friend Miki who has just finished his book The Jolly Roger and it looks AMAZING! Be expecting some fan art here of his book The Jolly Roger soon, check out his work here . And another BIG congrats to Darrin & Shawn for getting Earthruler sorted over on Kickstarter anything you pledge from this point goes towards an extra special stretch award! Check that out!

And here's the next thing. This is something I've been toying around with for a while now and since well, what seems like ALL my friends are doing comics of their own now, I'm going to bite the bullet and get a comic of my own on the go.

 That's right John you'll no longer have to ask me when I'm going to bring out my own comic, it's happening.  I haven't chosen a name for the series yet but it's 8 issues of short stories about Carrie (the character above who you might remember from an earlier post ), and Rufus, the fox below.

It's early days yet, still writing the majority of it and still working on the designs. Rufus's design is essentially finished but I'm still playing with and trying different things with Carrie's design. But here it is, I've said here now and I will finish it.

Because I love post apocalyptic EVERYTHING! That's the kind of story this is going to be, where these two survivors happen upon each other by chance and grow to be a formidable duo against the dangers of the post apocalyptic world they now live in.  Yes, there will be zombies. I like zombies.

I'll post up my progress with it as I go along. I'm also working on two other comic related gig's at the moment. With two awesome writers and all around really sound blokes! Aaaand if I get their permission I'll hopefully have some character designs posted here next Friday. I'll also have some samples from a Northlanders sample script I'm working on at the mo.

So there it is, many irons in the fire, at least one's gotta come out with some kind of notice right? ... right? RIGHT?

so Sin é as we say here in Ireland. More to come really soon. Laters!

Shelter From the Storm

New piece up. Playing with black and whites again. Enjoyed this one, it's a bit different than stuff I've been working on lately, this was just a drawing for drawings sake.  Just about got this done today,

I was about to start work on a friends wedding card, looked over some old reference. I was always a big fan of Rodin's 'The Kiss', such an awkward pose for both people, so you get the idea that it's something that only lasts a second before one has to completely change their position. but the way they are just so entwined together really hammers home that feeling of 'one-ness'. Decided I'm gonna start doing some of my own versions on famous pieces I like ( big ask right?) for the mean time, here's a piece I've called 'Shelter From The Storm'... yes I was listening to Bob Dylan recently

Still blogging once a week! See yee next week!

Fred's Got Slacks WIP

So as promised, a new blog post.

This is still a work in progress but I really wanted to keep the weekly blog posts going so here's Fred, she wears slacks REALLY well! A mate of mine asked me to do an album cover for their band Fred's Got Slacks ( awesome name right? ) You can check out some of their stuff here .

It took me an AGE to get around to it but I finally am. Pretty happy with how it's going so far, when it's finished, I'll post up the final piece.

Really enjoying doing my black & whites lately so here's another!

And here's the colour in progress. More to come soon. I'm hoping to get a bit more time next week to work on some new blog stuff as well, between trying to get to the 2D Fest this weekend and clearing out work for it, it was next to impossible to do a whole lot more this week.

Anyways go enjoy the bank holiday weekend, I'll see you all next week! Laters!

Back to Blogging!

Hi folks apologies for the lack of posts there for a while but work has a way of taking up a lot of time. Here's some stuff I've done recently. Hope you dig em!

Here's Raph,

There was a TMNT week over at the Irish Sketch Society last week, I submitted this guy late in the week and some of you might remember my Leo pic from a while back? I'll actually draw the rest of the TMNT team and have a complete set over the next few weeks... ah sure what the hell I'll repost Leo here, Raph looks lonely.

Was pretty happy this week when I noticed Rob Paulsen ( the original voice or Raph, current voice of Donny and you'll know him as Pinky from Pinky and the Brain & Yakko from the Animaniacs and many many others) had actually RT'd my pic of Raph, I was delighted, I'm a big fan!

And here's another piece I knocked out this week.

It's Agent Moss from my friend Stephen Mooney's new comic Half Past Danger.  I really recommend you check it out! If you like Indiana Jones and just wished it had DINOSAURS then you're in for a treat! Check it out here and if you can't make it to your local comic shop you'll find it on comixology.

Hope you dig all the pics, I'll blog again next Friday! See you then !