Cadbury - Share the Joy

So.... it's been a while, hasn't it? I swear I was feeling bad about it! But I was kind of busy on Tintin up until quite recently, and, then busy taking my first holiday in three years, and now busy finishing making a baby, while working on the Hobbit, Prometheus and other stuff... So I dug up some old stuff that I had never posted (because I was busy).

Anyway, last year, I was contacted by some super awesome folks, Andy and Dave from DDB Auckland, to enter a concept, along with other artists, for a Cadbury campaign. I somehow ended up being the selected artist and got to develop some more the concept and roughs... before the whole job fell through. I think we were all a little very sad about it, but this is how things go in advertising.

This would have been part of the Share the Joy campaign and would have been a series of 4 limited edition chocolate block packs. The trick was, we wanted a fresco when you put all the packs side by side, but because we couldn't control in which order they were going to be put up on shelves, the fresco had to work in all the possible combinations. The illustration had to flow regardless of the order the packs were in. HA!
So, we went up to a solid final concept, and didn't get to hit final rendering of anything, but you can still get a pretty good idea of what it could have been.


But enough talk, let's look at images instead!
First up, the concept that got me the job. A single pack as proof of concept for feel, render, colors and grade:

Then a little later, the full linework and flow. You can already swap the packs, the illustration will still flow.

The linework itself, with all the characters (couldn't resist posting this, I love them displayed like this!):

Then we realised that maybe it was a little too busy in there, so we made adjustments, shrunk some of them, discarded others, and ended up with the final concepts for the first pack and the full layout of the series:

All of this is copyright Cadbury, ok?
Ok, gotta go back being busy!

Interlude

Since I'm not posting much at the moment (cue string of work related excuses), why not post some old-ish stuff, I ask you.
So here's a little finger-on-iPod bird for ya.

Brushes on iPod touch

NZ Goes Pop exhibition

Thanks to my friend Jess at Wootini, I got to be part of the NZ goes Pop exhibition opening tonight at the Gallery. Make sure to go and check the pieces out if you're around, or go check the website to discover all the cool artists that are in the show (Becky, to only name here, is absolutely amazing!!!). The show runs until Feb 28th.

Pencil, Watercolor and Ink on Arches, A3.
This pic shows the original frame, which I hear, is no more. Not sure what it looks like now, but I'm sure the peeps at Wootini did an amazing job. Thanks so much guys!

Sneak Peek

Here's a tiny little look at my piece for the NZ goes POP at the Wootini Gallery, in North Carolina.
The exhibition opens this Friday, so be sure to drop by if you're in the surrounding!

Full pic and description coming in a few days.

Merry Christmas to y'all!

I'm a little late, but seriously, who goes on the net on xmas day?
Hope you all had a fantastic, fabulous holiday and are all getting ready for an awesome 2011!

Pencil and Photoshop

In between

Just a quick quick little update, with a quick quick little doodle. I was obsessed with my workmate's tee shirt today - it had a tiny tiny bow right in the middle of the back - so I had to draw that detail to get it out of my system. And one thing leading to another, I ended up with this. Go figure!

Also, it was time for an update.

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Clint the Deer Thingy

I thought this blog started to seriously lack cuteness. Or maybe I did. So to re-establish the balance of cute in this world, here is Clint.
As a matter of fact, I work with a Clint, but he doesn't look anything like this.

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Roughs feat. Juno

I played around quickly in some spare time I had today, and built up this pink-haired lady. Then I turned it to grayscale (well, desat' to be exact) "just to check things up", and now I'm stuck, because I can't decide which one to post.
So I'm posting both. Because after all, they're roughs, so I can afford not to pick one.
Oh, and this is totally our cat Juno, by the way, for the very first time on the internets!

 

Guess what? Photoshop.

About time!

I don't know... It must have been a good three or four years (and a good hundred of lame sketches) since I first wanted to do a Monkey Girl Fan Art for Barth.
So now, it's done. Well, a Wellington version anyway - I don't know how girls do it here, but right in the middle of the very windy winter, they manage to rock out in tiny skirts and backless tops.

Photoshop and that previous-post brush again.

It's not Spring yet

...and in case I forgot, the weather is here to remind me! We alternate beautiful sunny days with cold wind and sideways rain (could have called it horizontal rain too). It's ok, tomorrow will be nice.
I just wanted to test a brush I made for last illustration actually.

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Sketchoholic - Chris Sanders contest

I feel like I'm saying this all the time, but I'll say it again: I'm really busy at work. And find I rarely have the time or energy to work some more when I get home. Plus I generally feel quite uninspired at the moment, which doesn't help.
But when I heard that Bobby Chiu was hosting a Chris Sanders contest and interview on the terrific Sketchoholic, I couldn't resist, and ended up pulling an all-nighter at the beginning of the week (real smart! I'm still paying the price) to enter the contest. I didn't really make it in time (read, I didn't really finish it), so here is the Wip I posted, that I intend to finish... one day... maybe.

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The theme was "Nightmares" and you can view all the other entries and watch the interview here.

Fot Fan Art

Here's a fan art I made to celebrate Fot's TV premiere tomorrow!

ArtRage, Photoshop and a CQ tweaked cover

Fot premieres 9.30pm tomorrow on RadiRadiRah, is created by Alex Dron,co-written by Karl Wills, and is voiced by Rhys Darby.

Testing out ArtRage

Following the good advice from Christian Pearce, I downloaded ArtRage tonight and decided to try it out. I haven't painted in ages (weeks Digitally and years Traditionally) so it is a little painful but it was real fun!
I'm on the demo version (hence the beautiful duck-poo color watermark). I'll try some more tools and drawings in the next 29 days to make up my mind, but I am already seriously thinking of buying it. Yep, it's that fun, you should give it a try!

ArtRage Demo

Everything but what I'm supposed to be doing

Well, hello there! It's been a while!

I've been lazy busy lately, I changed jobs and have to get used to the ultra-excitement and new rythm, and have been working on a few freebies for family and friends (the usual Wedding Invites and Logos... you know how it is).

So I'm finally back to working on my own stuff in my spare time, and decided to perhaps do the Pin-Up challenge that my Weta-colleague Pascal hosts on his forum (and I've put links, so please, do go, the forum is really great, and since it's not overcrowded (yet), it's real good to get feedback and critics! Plus he's pretty awesome!).
I was doing colour roughs tonight and quite liked the brush I was playing with. Got carried away once again, and did this little tiny doodle:


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I've noticed that I have the bad habit of doing everything but what I'm supposed to be doing.
Tonight, I was supposed to block out my pose for the challenge. While I have explored several tracks already, I am not there yet and will have to work some more on it tomorrow.
Same happened for the previous post. I haven't forgotten I am supposed to finish this jogger-of-the-future girl (which I started when I was supposed to do some urgent wedding invites, of course!), but now I have time, I decided to take on the pin-up challenge. Maybe. If I don't get side-tracked, that is....

Roller Derby?? wip

Posting a quick sketch I did yesterday to relax. Ended up with this...
Does she kind of looks Roller-Derby-ish to you? I think so too! I don't really want to give her the full elbow and knee pads thingies though, so I'll think about it... Maybe she's just some kind of jogger from the future or something.
Anyway, just wanted to share the first step. Not my usual style, but getting out of the "cute" comfort zone is loooooong over-due.

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Table Centerpieces

I got married a few weeks ago. On top of the invites, menus, name tags... and everything you have to do to prep the wedding itself, I also decided to do the table centerpieces and the bouquet, as I don't really like flowers.
I kind of had an idea of what I wanted (very, very rough idea though), and decided to take a punt. I quickly painted a few leaves, like this (in photoshop):

Then we printed them out on some nice card, cut them and I assembled them (without doing a test run, as we were out of time by then). They turned out like this :


And here is a picture of all six of them:


It was so much fun to do! And then we added some plastic animals (just for fun) that we spray-painted white. I also did the little candle holders thingies you can see around the centerpiece...
And then, the bouquet, which is not anything new, but great to do (and a damn good excuse to buy tons of buttons!):


Props go to Hubby-then-to-be for cutting 99% of the leaves, and all my family that came over from France and helped me out cut and paste and put buttons on wires as soon as they landed!
Photos by Stephen Langdon (except the one of all six centerpieces, I sent my cousin on a mission to snap all of them before the ceremony)

Friday Sketch

Happy 2010 everyone!!
I was a little bored not very busy at work today, so I did a quick one.

Photoshop

Avateeshirt!

A couple of months ago, there was a contest in the Animation Department at Weta Digital to elect the three designs that would get printed onto Avatar Crew Gear. I somehow got to submit something -I'm the receptionist, not an animator-, and ended up winning.
It's pretty much everything in the movie.... but there's no spoiler, it's also all in the trailer!
Thanks again guys for letting me play and liking what I did! It meant the world to me!

Ink on watercolor paper, Photoshop.
This is the version that got approved and printed, after a few minor changes.

Goodbye Card

I was asked to do a little "goodbye card" for someone at work. Lovely Miae is off to have a baby and is leaving Weta for a little while. I only had a few hours at night to do the card, but it was so good to get to do something for her!


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I will hopefully be back soon. My wedding is in a couple of weeks and there's still heaps to do... I will try to post the Crew Gear Tee-shirt design I did for the Animation Department as soon as I can (which means after Avatar is out =) )...

i can haz more doodlez?

I've been eagerly waiting for this moment since I finished this bunch of commissioned artwork for EA's NFS Nitro... Actually, I've probably been dying to show them ever since I put my pencil on the paper and started drawing the first character. That's pretty much how excited I've been to work on this project (with those awesome peeps).
But you know how it is, NDAs and stuff, and I had to wait for a few months. Luckily for my nerves, I didn't have to wait for too long.

So, you remember that post? Well, they are bits and pieces taken from that one, that I did overnight:

Then I did that one. Cool, I had a full weekend to do it:


A few months later, I got asked to do some more. This time, I had to follow the theme of the different tracks in the game for the cities of:

-Madrid:

-Cairo (my fav'):


-Singapore:


-Dubai:

-and Rio:

For the Cities ones, it was total luxury time-wise - I had a week for each. On the side of my normal day job hours of course.

And then (why stop?), I also did two more pages of elements for the User Interface:


Pencil on Paper, A4 (apart from number 2, which was slightly bigger). Copyright Electronic Arts.

I also did some logos, but can't get my hands on them right now... Funny thing is, I don't believe any of those made it to the final game. Haha.
I hadn't looked at them since I finished working on the project. Now I understand why I was a little tired and drained out. But man, I had the best time!

French frog and other cliches

So. I know I'm not posting as often as I should, but here is one for the road I just did tonight. I am always quite amused by the cliches about us little frenchies...
I've been up to a couple of things recently but am awaiting approval and print before I can show anything.
Tomorrow or in a couple of days, I should be able to post the work I did on NFS Nitro... Yay!



Photoshop

Birthday Card

I did a quick little birthday card yesterday. We got a print of it, and for some reason, the dress and the eyes came out super black, instead of blue-green. I hope you guys can see it properly (here at work it's pretty damn dark too actually!!)...

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Yuki Wip

I'm not dead, I just have a job at the moment and some freelance work, contribution, birthday card and wedding invites (mine, this time) to do in the evenings.
But I had time to do this one today at work, between two phone calls. It's just a wip, I'm exploring different possibilities for the treatment, but I wanted to have a go at the awesomeness that is Yuki 7...

Photoshop

Bumblebeeing around

Ha-ha! I'm sure you weren't expecting our little bee to be in such a cold place, huh? Well, me neither.
I was originally just testing a brush I had made for fur (and, what's better to test fur than a BumbleBee?). And then I thought I'd make an environment for her. And then I got carried away.
And now I even have thumbnails for some other layout of their adventures...
So below is the first concept. I'll go and refine the background and stuff later. And for once, I've posted a "detail" of it... Well, I had to show you the fur, right?



Photoshop (not sure yet, but I actually think I might have lost the brush I made in the re-install)

Sneak Peek

Can't resist to show you a little sneak peek of an illustration I'm working on. I'm doing the concept right now, and it might actually remain a concept for a while... I don't really know how to tackle this idea. Anyway, I'll post it when I'm happy with it, whatever it will be.

Giant Clouds

That's the view I had from my window this morning. I tried to do a speedpainting of it (by the time I finished it, it was actually raining... u_u I'm obviously not fast enough).
Those giant clouds were taking up all the sky and looked just... well... gigantic. I've tried to draw those mountains several times now, and I just can't get them right. Pity, because they're quite cool in real life.

Photoshop

The pug at the Cafe

I was catching up with a friend on Saturday and we went to the cute little cafe two bays away from home. At the table next to us, there was this little fatty dog. He looked super laid back and comfortable and he spent all the time we were there, staring at his owners in a pug kind of way (you don't really know if he's actually looking at you), with a tiny bit of his pink tongue sticking out.



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Gonzague The Elefun

Yeah, I started giving them names - proper names.
This one took me waaaay longer than I would have wanted, but I really wanted him to be shiny-shiny... I guess he's quite shiny now.
I knew I wanted to paint something shiny and pink, but thought (and I know I'm right) that a piggy bank was too easy a choice. So I went through the tee, and discovered that one. Yeah, discover, because I have to say, I have no recollection at all of drawing him, or even coming up with the idea. I don't know where he comes from. But he made me laugh enough to be picked.

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I have added the proper names of the other ones too.

Reggie The Masked Spaghetti Dude

And another one from the tee... Not sure about this one. Or his name... Anyway...

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