I made a coconut crab. From the Chelsea days.
Materials: Old T-shirt, button eyes, white thread, polyester toy stuffing
2 days ago
Bigger girl. 55cm tall apoxie sculpt doll. This is my 4th attempt at her. This project has transformed the way I draw and sculpt women.
My next job is to complete sculpting her full form, then to cut her up and decide what jointing system is most suitable for her build.
My next job is to complete sculpting her full form, then to cut her up and decide what jointing system is most suitable for her build.
My doll Mitsy started as a joke. I was sick of a larger doll project which was eating all my money and materials so I decided to distract myself.
Those are a few progress pics. About a week of work and she was ready to string.
This is past the stage of crazy where I'm taking her to college to sand her during lectures. I may have just doomed myself to be known as the crazy doll girl.
She originally was conceived around the idea of having a tiny cat-girl. I'm glad to say she has a working and fully posable tail and cat ear pieces. Still a work in progress.
I was told to design a puppet for a music video. The design was of a monster who was build to chase a rock band full of teenagers around a haunted mansion. I first tried out silly things like a monster with a chest which opened up to reveal a repulsive giant mouth full of teeth. That didn't seem practical and it was pretty messy looking. I then tried things which looked slinky and sneaky but they didn't seem threatening enough either. My boyfriend, Max, visited me after a long afternoon of brianstorming and helped me out with the monster design; muscular, faceless and built to run. He deserves credit for the idea. There's a hint of inspiration from Half-Life 2 in there too.
These are some of the pictures from the development:
The legs were bent initially because I thought the animators were capable of inventing the various poses from just a single profile photo. If I knew they were going to make me joint him I would've straightened them, making it easier for him to stand.
He's less professional than the adult but this model was built first and was more of an experiment.
He also had interchangeable face-plates; yawn, snarl, delight, and anger.
I'll post the photo-shoot another time.
These are some of the pictures from the development:
Here's the baby;
I'll post the photo-shoot another time.
During the summer my Australian friends came over and wanted us to show them around London. I don't think many people who live here even know about this place. It's a disused road tunnel, roughly half a mile long, covered in graffiti. The first time I came here was purely by accident. My boyfriend and I were just exploring the city by taking random buses to anywhere and we were lured in by the sound of choir music.
Part of the spirit of graffiti is that everything is temporary; either washed away by the council or tagged by someone else. The tunnel is like a gallery that's always changing it's exhibits so it's good to visit once every few months.
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The first time we visited there were speakers set up all around the tunnel and we could hear the choir music all the way through, kind of like a graffiti heaven. The speakers are gone now and the art won't be the same as shown here but if you want to visit (or even make some art), it's behind Waterloo station on Leake Street.
This is my Summer holiday project. It'll be interesting to see this in a few years. I apologise if the images are too large. Click on them for a closer look.
Left: Amanda Visell is something completely different from the rest of my selection. This is a collectable wooden designer toy of one of her designs. Everything so so simple; satisfied crocodile, unhappy babies.
Ashley Wood has is a concept artist, cover artist and art director. He's also worked with Konami to create Metal Gear Solid digital comics. He also has a line of amazing articulated robot figures. His work makes my heart ache. This one picture alone doesn't do him justice; go Google him.
This is by an illustrator called Joao Ruas. I stumbled on this artist recently and the majority of his works are very strong tonal pieces and sketches. He uses tone very effectively; his pictures are bold, striking and often abstract. In this picture he uses charcoal and gouache.
Hayao Miyazaki's created very distinct worlds often influenced by European architecture. His work feels very natural in both it's movement and appearance. He believes the key to becoming a great animator in experiencing things first hand and living life to the fullest.
I think that rule ought to apply for many illustrators too.
Shaun Tan has such fantastic visual communication skills that he was one of the first I thought to add to this list. The picture above is from his book "The Arrival" where a man leaves his family in order to make a fresh start in a new country where the language, customs and landscape are alien to him. On this page he is struggling to negotiate with the immigration officers to gain entry to the new country.
The etchings by Gustave Doré are so complex and beautiful. This piece taken from the "Paradiso" series shows Danté and Beatrice staring into God, shown as the brightest point of light being circled by angels.
Tetsuya Nomura is a concept artist for the Final Fantasy series. Although not the most popular game of the series Final Fantasy X is one of my favourites because of the impact that the game's art style had on me. I chose Valefor as one of my inspirations over the other summoned spirits such as Ifrit and Shiva because it's not like anything I had ever seen before and it's what sparked my fascination in creature design.
Right: James Gurney is well known for his series of childrens books; Dinotopia. He also has a very interesting blog which explains some of his painting techniques. He writes books on painting such as "Imaginative Realism" and "Light and Colour". This is the cover art of "Light and Colour" showing how effective it can be even on a fictional character or object.
Ashley Wood has is a concept artist, cover artist and art director. He's also worked with Konami to create Metal Gear Solid digital comics. He also has a line of amazing articulated robot figures. His work makes my heart ache. This one picture alone doesn't do him justice; go Google him.
Frank Franzetta's women need to be included in this post. They're beautiful and voluptuous but don't lose any personality in his art. James Gurney posted about his women on his blog which in turn introduced me to Franzetta's art. "A strong-but-vulnerable, exotic, baby-doll type." He sums them up nicely.
Yoji Shinkawa's concept art for Metal Gear Solid 3 has so much personality; so dirty and bold. My boyfriend and I saw him at the MGS: Peace Walker signing and it's surprising to see how shy he is in real life. I'm finishing on this piece as I'm puzzled by his mark making. He has the right balance of technical skill and emotion in his art which I hope to achieve.
I've just enroled for my BA illustration course at Camberwell college of Art & Design and my first assignment is to "Find 10 images and upload them to your blog".
This grabbed my attention all summer;
I've been sculpting and trying to create Ball Jointed Dolls. (BJDs) Commercial BJDs are usually 60cm tall (SD sized) and sell from $250 for the less well known or poorer quality sculpts to $1000 for the rarer ones.
The picture above is a doll created by Hanano, a japanese BJD artist, who's blog you can see at the side panel of this page. Hanano seems to make them for sport rather than having any intention of selling them which is the same reason I've not been getting any drawing practice this holiday.
My interest in sculpting was reignited by my 3D/Spatial rotation at Foundation course Art but my fascination lies with trying to balance aesthetics and flexibility in a sculpture.
Her understanding of the human form is astounding. She's stuck to a purely Asian identity in her sculpts whereas other artist tend to stray by Western influences. The quality of her home-made doll exceeds that of many commercial brands' dolls available on the market. Her sculpting ability and her eye for creating complex jointing systems is incredible and there is nothing else I've seen like it. You can also see how she sculpts her heads and faces on Youtube:
ps: I have been too shy to ask for permission for these pictures and they all belong to Hanano's blog.
This grabbed my attention all summer;
The picture above is a doll created by Hanano, a japanese BJD artist, who's blog you can see at the side panel of this page. Hanano seems to make them for sport rather than having any intention of selling them which is the same reason I've not been getting any drawing practice this holiday.
My interest in sculpting was reignited by my 3D/Spatial rotation at Foundation course Art but my fascination lies with trying to balance aesthetics and flexibility in a sculpture.
Her understanding of the human form is astounding. She's stuck to a purely Asian identity in her sculpts whereas other artist tend to stray by Western influences. The quality of her home-made doll exceeds that of many commercial brands' dolls available on the market. Her sculpting ability and her eye for creating complex jointing systems is incredible and there is nothing else I've seen like it. You can also see how she sculpts her heads and faces on Youtube:
ps: I have been too shy to ask for permission for these pictures and they all belong to Hanano's blog.
