Tuesday 3 March 2015

Cabin Fever & February Art Dump!

Ahoy!

My jaw is finally beginning to look more human and less Mr. Incredible, so this is what I currently look like 
(excuse shitty quality and crazy expressions):
So I thought, as I've had some time away from work and more time to do some painting, I'd share the stuff I've been working on/starting over the past month or so. I was hoping to get more done but unfortunately jaw surgery really does take it out of you for 2 weeks!

Below includes a painting of Maddie Ziegler (aka mini Sia from the Elastic Heart/Chandelier videos), a female re-imagining of Khal Drogo inspired by the lovely miss Emma Pickles (who you can check out here), some face sketches, and the development of a female elf character. Why? Because elves.
I drew the first elf sketch during my night on the ward before surgery - she turned out to be an excellent way to distract myself! I've been trying to find some good clothing refs so I can make her outfit more convincing, obviously she's still very much a WIP but watch this space!

I recently bought a Canon 700D with some savings & birthday money, so prepare to see some higher quality snaps once I get the hang of it. Might do a separate post on it if I have anything worth showing.

I am, however, very much looking forward to getting back to work and seeing my colleagues again. I mean, doing nothing and painting all day is all well and good but now that I'm able I'm keen to get out and do things!

Until next time!

Annie
x

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Rhinos, Birthdays and Surgery, Oh My!

W'ello there.

It has been a while, has it not? It's a rule that if you admit that you're doing well with blogging in the post, that will then be your last post for at least a month. You get cocky and then life happens! Life meaning life not interesting enough to blog about.

Well, actually, there has been quite a lot going on this month. Since I last posted, I have up until recently been working full-time as a Junior 3D Artist. And we worked on this spot for 3 Mobile, who are sponsoring the Irish Rugby Team:


Specifically I worked on modelling/texturing for the butterflies, and textures on Mr. Rhino there. Pretty chuffed with how it came out - well done team! When this went out Ireland won their Six Nations match so clearly we helped!

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In other news, I've had to take a few weeks off work due to jaw surgery, which seemed to creep up on me very fast since I found out the date in November! As I'm writing this, it's been almost 2 weeks since I had the surgery (mandibular osteotomy, i think?) so I'm still feeling a little sorry for myself, but I'm already feeling a lot better than last week.

When I came out of hospital I was very VERY swollen (no, no pictures for you) but fairly cheerful (as your entire face is numb so it's not actually THAT painful). But then they put me on antibiotics for 5 days and everything went steadily downhill, I felt nauseous after every meal, got a lovely skin rash, and generally felt completely out of it. However, I think the majority of that was down to the antibiotics, because now I feel much more human, and I've even managed some scrambled eggs in with the very exciting diet of soups and smoothies I've had recently.

My face now looks pretty normal to those that don't know me, so I can go out and about to do little errands and things, but I'm waiting till Monday to brave the morning commute again (and I'm going to be forever anxious about angry commuters whacking my jaw out of place on the tube!). I think the only thing that is really bothering me right now is the nerve pain (as jaw surgery bruises the nerve that runs through your lower jaw), so I am completely numb from my lower lip down to the base of my chin. A bit like a ventriloquist doll.

There has been continuous 'pins and needles' in that area for the last week, so I'm hoping in the next month or so I'll be getting some feeling back (I'm starting to get a little on the right side! WOO!). This does mean I absent-mindedly prod my chin when I'm not thinking about it, so I'll be the crazy on public transport for a while.

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Aaand finally, last Thursday I turned 23! Though I'll admit, my ideal birthday situation probably wouldn't be a hospital visit, face prodding, x-rays and early wake-ups. But I have the most darling mother in the world, who resourcefully made me a birthday cake out of jelly. My brother and I then made a very calorific smoothie to make up for the week before. I also got a new baby, (not really) in the form of a Canon EOS 700D. I've been wanting a mid-range DSLR for video/stills for ages, and now I can video to my heart's content. And then put loads of dragons into all my shots. Yeah.

 Perhaps I'll even Youtube one day. Haha. Ha.

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That's all for now! Hopefully I'll have some more art for you soon :)

Annie

xx

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Braces and Pretty Faces

Hello!

Doing rather well, aren't I? Clearly this is some sort of new-year-buzz that I'm still riding, similar to that gym membership you pay for in January and forget to cancel until April.

First update, and I don't think I've written about this before, but I've had lingual braces for almost 3 years now. Well, until yesterday. I got the lingual braces behind my top teeth about a year into University, and then bottom braces (the normal kind) on my bottom teeth about 6 months afterwards.

It's been a long, slow process, but finally I'm beginning to reach the end game, which sadly involves some fairly scary jaw surgery that should be happening mid-February. So yesterday, I had to have my linguals removed, and replaced with some rather uncomfortable, chunky ceramic ones on the front of my top teeth. All I can say is I am not a fan and it's making me fairly miserable, and when I'm miserable I like to paint! (Though the painkillers are probably helping as well.)

So tonight I decided to finish a painting I started a few months ago of a blogger/fashion vlogger that I follow called Helen Anderson. I'm not really a 'girly' girl in that I don't spend hours watching clothes hauls/make-up tutorials, but I like her as she's a little bit more interesting than your average beauty blogger, and her videos make me laugh. She's also in a very good band which you can check out here!

She is also obviously very pretty, and so I thought I'd have a go at a face study, which resulted in this:


Though it's fairly sketchy, I really enjoyed painting it! I was experimenting with different textures for the skin and I quite like how it came out. Could have spent more time on the hair maybe, and it's not 100% accurate but I'm no portrait artist yet haha, always on the lookout to improve.

Anyhoo, time for bed. And then work, and then bed and then work and then bed and then.... Haha. Hopefully I'll be able to do some more painting soon :)

Annie
x

Monday 5 January 2015

Art Dump: 2014

Well, Hello!

So this is a great big pile of some of the things I created last year, and failed to blog about. So what better way to present them than dumping them all at once into one post so no one has to do any complicated clicking. As you can see I went from doodling to actually trying to create finished digital paintings and more detailed work. My head is perpetually full of beautiful fantasy women and Game of Thrones/Lord of the Rings references, which I think this proves.

In order of Oldest to Newest, from top to bottom:


Still have a long way to go in terms of my art, but it's not been a bad year at all!
I do think I'm improving slowly, but having been so busy it's not been as easy to practice. I can see a definite improvement, but comment and let me know if you do too!

Back to the grind now,

Speak soon!

Annie
x

Sunday 4 January 2015

Oops!

Long time no see. Haha. Aha. ha...

I HAVE REASONS. Genuinely. Hear me out!

So the last you heard from me, I was diving head-first into the wild world of VFX, and learning from my wonderful tutors at Escape Studios, who I cannot thank enough. I would also like to give an honorary mention to Mr. Liam WOTO (not his real surname, rumour has it), who is a very talented artist and all-round-nice-guy, for recommending Escape to me. Go check him out, he draws good.

Realising that this was almost exactly a year ago makes my head spin a little. I need to sit down, hang on. Deep breaths.

Right, so for those that are interested, I completed my 18-week-course at Escape, (and yes, it was very intensive indeed!) and then, two weeks afterwards, somehow managed to land myself a job as a Freelance Junior in Soho with a very up-and-coming company in VFX, working primarily in ads and music videos.

Since then, I have been lucky enough to have worked on a bunch of fantastic projects, including a music video for Alt-J, a Freeview ad involving some charming, if not slightly creepy, singing toys, and some upcoming promos/ads that I am very much enjoying being a part of. I'll plug myself horribly below so you can check these out if you fancy! I'm getting to do all sorts of work from modelling & texturing to sculpting, lighting, rendering, you name it! We won an award about a month ago for Best VFX on Alt-J's Hunger of the Pine at the UK MVAs, which is absolutely mental.

So it's been a pretty darn busy year. I've also met loads of great, nerdy and extremely talented people, and made some amazing friends and colleagues along the way. And hence, this blog has been very neglected, which is why I am giving it a make-over!

Other things that have happened include going to Latitude & Boomtown Festivals over the summer, working with a friend on a Youtube video, going the farthest north I've gone so far (not that far, in all honesty, not even Scotland), Christmas, New Year and overall not having a huge amount of time to blog ;)

But hey, let's start the new year optimistically.

I'll be updating later this week with some recent digital paintings/sketches and doodles I've been doing, but for now, I will leave you with lots of super fun links to click on. G'wan.

Alt J - 'Hunger of the Pine', Directed by Nabil.


Freeview - 'The Left-Behinds'


King - 'Release the Magic' spots for Candy Crush Soda, Pet Rescue, Bubble Witch and Farm Heroes.


Aaand the Youtube Video I helped out on, which now has a crazy crazy amount of views, directed and mostly created by the very talented Mr. Mat Hill, who definitely deserves all the praise he can get. But those rocks tho.



More soon, I promise, but for now this is getting far too long and everyone needs a KitKat. I hope you are all having a brilliant start to the year, but now I desperately have to go to bed in preparation for work in the morning. More arty things coming your way soon!

Best,

Annie
x