15 minute wakeup bird

...before I start the dreary task of assembling another portfolio.

I'm in print- finally!

I worked like a fevered chimp over the summer on a bunch of projects, one of which was this where's Waldo-style Shaun the Sheep book. And it's on sale now! er- in Germany. But, there are no words, and if you like this kind of thing, it's here on Amazon.

The very simple premise was that Shaun and his buddies bust out of the farm and go on holiday, while Bitzer tries to restrain them. The readers are supposed to find just Shaun, but I had to entertain myself with a few easter eggs, like a UFO breakdown, and extensive bike race, a duck party. That kind of thing.

First I sent the client roughity-roughs like this:
Just to get their buy-in to the angle and subjects.
Once that was done I penciled the illustration at full size. This was important because in Illustrator I would be zooming in so close, I would lose sense of scale pretty fast.
Then into Illustrator; first time I used this programme, and I really enjoyed it. The fun part about using the brush is that it can fill your strokes instantly. Which meant I could ink AND colour at the same time. I had only 2 days for each image, so time saving was crucial. My kids loved how fast a full colour character would appear on screen.


So I made layers in illustrator. The program would often complain due to the amount of vectors. My computer cried.


And finally, comped it in photoshop, added shadows, maybe texture and a bit of lighting. And onto the next one. The question is, where is he?

Edit: sketches

I can't seem to get blogger to play nice with my images lately, so I've reposted the sketches if you want a closer look. :)

Grecian 2000

My friend Kris calls from Greece. He's on a round the world trip with his wife, and has taken some time to hang out in greece and volunteer with the salvation army in Thessaloniki. I've been having a crazy summer and his invite to come on a wee adventure proves irresistible.

So we met up, and took a boys road trip. Of course, he's going round europe in a classic convertible. No other way to do it, right? So we headed for a town called Meteora, famous for it's absurdly mystical monasteries, all teetering on rock pinnacles. I have a thing for things built on the tops of mountains, and it's nigh impossible to do an unappealing sketch of these places :)

I'm a real spiritual guy, you know?

And here are the wheels:

Of course- A little beach time was in order too.

The director in me demanded a decent 'road' shot. This one almost involved rolling off the back when the car changed gear. Clever

Fluffy dice an absolute necessity.

Heading through sheep country. Picture by Kris

Shark

A Collaborative Shark with my six year old. He's just keeping the blog warm while I prepare an awesome post for you.

Issue 2 in the works

Hey folks- I'm working on the cover of issue 2 of Duck and Cover, hopefully the last late night before I nip off on holiday. First up- camping with the family on the shores of Galilee, and then a few days in Greece with an old, dubious friend.

Here it is, after colour in photoshop:

And here's how it looked in inky form. The layout/sketch was done by my talented compadre Mysh. I took the sketch and figured out how the light would work in photoshop beforehand. I like this approach because you can play with light and get it figured out before you start throwing paint around.

And for you Tel Aviv folks:

We'll be presenting the project and doing some live painting at the ICON festival, Tel Aviv,

5 oct, 4 pm. Hope to see you there.

I'm off. Take care,

J

doodlin'

I like the freelance life. Means I stop when my brain is fuzz (4 in the afternoon) and do what afternoons are good for. Doodlin with a kid. (-mine, of course).

Music: Hello chanel from Imogen Heap's speak for yourself

Painting and arranging

Here's a WIP for our comic Duck and Cover. I love painting on paper- The way it takes the paint, and shows the history of brushwork. I always enjoy others artists work when I can see their hand moving across the piece. This is on Hot Pressed watercolor paper. I've done a blue underpainting here, in acrylic, then I'll move on to oils for the colour and finish.

Talking of art materials, I've finally got them organised. I wanted to set up a kind of chef's station-style area, because I often stand when I'm working and want to be able to grab any materials that take my fancy for the piece, but also keep the clutter off my workspace.

Yikes. I'm boring myself.

Have a great day. Don't take anything too seriously,

JPX

It's in our hands....

It's in our hands...., originally uploaded by jpvine.

It's a lot of fun holding something I worked on in print- and I can imagine it will get dangerously addictive. I enjoyed an evening selling them with mycomrade Oren at the Tel Aviv animation festival yesterday. Trying to decribe the story arc of this series in Hebrew was something of a challenge, but after a couple of hours and a beer it got easier.

Big plans for the series, future editions and live painting demos. So I'll keep you posted. :)

About the comic;

Only animals have survived the last nuclear conflict, but they have been mutated by the devasting effects of the war. Duck and cover roam the chaotic earth in a mysterious mechanical egg. They are pursued by the cohorts of -er- a megalomaniac chicken, desperate to lay his hands on the egg- a miracle of human engineering. But they are yet to discover what it is capable of...

It's epic. And needless to say, a bit silly.

Concept/Script: Oren and Mysh
Interior art: Mysh
Cover: Me

Got to get back to boarding. Have a great day, jp

Something Fishy

Ink, charcoal, and Photoshop. My book 'glum, defeated creatures'will be published soon ;)

I'm loving indian ink, and think I prefer the directness of the the black and white raw painting before the colour work. As usual.

dispatches from the UK

At Aardman, where amazingly for the UK, the sun is wafting through the windows. A big break from Israel where the sun hammers incessantly on your head. Miss the family though.

Here's a work in progress for a comic, due to debut at the Israeli Animation festival. I'm fighting with this one a bit, but hopefully she'll come through in the end. :)

Watercolour and digital.

Of sheep, aliens and cyber cities

I'm enjoying a celebratory gin and tonic. Finally completed 8 huge illustrations for a book involving a lot of sheep, which I'll show you as soon as I'm allowed: maybe I'll give you a peek:

Why draw just sheep when you can have aliens? I thought if would be fun to work in a few different storylines into the illustrations. Some of you from the UK might remember the 'What-a-mess' books, about an afghan hound getting up to no good- but the most fun part were the tiny little backstory characters in the background.

In other news, my other business venture The Missing link is making another online commercial short, which I'll have on here soon. Here's a Bg for you:

More to come soon. Back to the Uk tomorrow, Rain, family, and a decent pint and a curry. :)

Watercolor

A little doodle in progress. I'm halfway through my children's book....1 week to go before the deadline strikes. This one's a marathon.

The days of curly sheep

THIS IS A SCREENGRAB from last night, a little sneak preview of my current project- I hope I can tell you more soon. I think I'm going nuts with drawing tiny little sheep.

On that note; My story crew has finally wrapped on 20 episodes of storyboards for shaun the sheep. Phew! I think I can call the period of my life between ages 30-33 the 'sheep period'. I can't wait for the 'chicken', soon to be followed by the 'toucan' which should take me to retirement.

Got to go draw some more.

JPX

Non kosher

Piggy, Ink, charcoal, PS.

What's not to love about pigs? Good to draw and good to eat.

This is in honour of my 3 year old. Last night I told the kids to choose the books they wanted me to read. My son chose a children's book, whereas my daughter chose Muybridge's 'Horses and other animals in motion'.

Heheh.