so that final major project thing, huh?

initially this was just going to be a comic designed to be read on a computer or some sort of snazzy digital reader do-hicky thing. my tutor though the we could spice it up a bit by adding some interactive elements but then it turned out the programming skillz required would melt minds. so instead we made a movie. here it is. i hope you enjoy it.



sharp teeth is a cracking read by toby barlow. the super dulcet narration was provided by our print tutor phil shaw

some pages from this year's macmillan competition offering.












will be putting the rest of it once it's all coloured in and whatnot (which'll hopefully be a thing happening once the degree show's out the way). unfortunately, this time round they were having none of our submissions. but that's totally cool- went along to the show up above foils last week and holy moly. there was some very good stuff there.

here's a gloriously incomplete list of winners and highly commended folk. give them a look. they'll knock your socks off:

http://jasonhibbs.co.uk/blog/

http://rubytaylorillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.sophyhenn.typepad.com/

http://lofi-illustration.tumblr.com/

http://saragibbesonillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

http://elladraws.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.samialadawy.com/Blog-2

http://laurenmayillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

bonus content!

'everything is a remix' is a really nifty, bite-sized, homemade documentary looking at how ideas are reused again and again and again in everything from entertainment to innovation. asides from that, once it gets rolling, it is a visual treat. give it a butchers!

more do overs in the key of flat colours and cheeky filters:

(closer look. because for some reason blogger's being lame and not allowing for full image view size. boooo on you blogger. boo on you.)

man. that psycho poster was pretty weak sauce in the first place but i'm not too sure if this is any better. a bit too much all over the place perhaps? (and not an ounce of good composition to be found!)

oh well. TOO LATE NOW SON.

pretty much ripped wholesale by this scene:


ggggooooodddd. this film is so good.


aaaaaaaaaand speaking of redos, someone decided to translate radiohead's ok computer into 8-bit. the results are totally jammy. give it a twirl!

more drips and drabs from the Final Major Project. the comic itself is done, but i still need to 'animated' it for our degree show so i'm going to wait for that miracle to happen (ha!) before sticking the whole thing up here.

gosh. what a tease.

in the mean time, here's a handful of links to some of the other middlesex folk's outcomes for this whole Final Major Project thing. check it. they're totally rad.

fredrik's fake freak show, abi's collaged children's book, and some rather spiffy animations by katie and eileen.

aaaaand then there's this crazy map hector's putting together. it was still in the process of being finished when i took the photos but it is totally one of my favourite things ever:

god damn guys. god damn.

some things are still being worked on. but you can come and see them in all their finished glory at the truman brewery between the 8th and 11th of june. more on that right over--------> HERE

so.it's over.

but not really. apparently the fat lady's booked in to play our degree show because that's when we officially put this degree business to bed.

so. i will hold off getting all mushy and sentimental until then. besides, there's still a crap tone of work to be done before our show at the truman goes up! hell yeeeaaaahhh!!

in the mean time HOLY SHIT YOU ACTUALLY RE-DID THAT BLOODY CHAMBER PROJECT. and just in time for hand in too…

company of wolves:

the bloody chamber:

puss in boots:

cover:

ok. so not quite as disastrous as last time… perhaps? i'll leave that up to you. and the external examiner. oo err.

while we're on the topic of thugs with rather twisted sexual undertones, i recently discovered the rather twisted world of jeremie perin. the guy is responsible for some of the most cockamamie bug fuck insane music videos you EVER have seen. you will be left reaching for the soul-bleach. that i promise.

here's one that's not quite so lude. actually, it's pretty beautifully animated... and the art/ character work is freaking stunning. that said, this started off looking like it was going to be pretty freakin' pervy. but then the two minuet mark happened. and things went more bananas than gwen stiffani could ever imagine….




finally, today is happy norway day- so go out and have yourselves a rip-roaringly good time!

YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE FINISHED YOUR MACMILLAN BOOK BY THE END OF THE DAY. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE IN THIS.

here are some cheeky panels from it. the story's about a magic dog who can't spell. it was going to be called god the dyslexic dog but then it turned out that there was something all ready going by that handle. boo. also, it might have been a little offensive to religious types. double boo.

888

podcast time! oh my god. girl on guy with aisha tyler is totally my jam. i would quite like to be her when i grow up. this episode is with the director of bellflower, a super homemade movie that's an apocalyptic romance. er. i haven't seen it, but it looks super slick and hearing about creative people getting creative is always a blast.

PUT IT IN YOUR EARS RIGHT HERE.

life drawing!

so in the last few sessions a couple of us decided to get all fancy pants on this shit and brought our tablets along. oh man. i wish i'd got on that sooner. it was quite a bit of fun.

NOTE TO SELF. REMEMBER TO PRINT THESE OFF FOR FINAL HAND IN. WHICH IS HAPPENING IN LIKE EIGHT DAYS. OH GOD.

excuse me while i indulge my ability to freak myself out by writing a little list of all the other things i have to do before then:

- macmillan cover
- macmillan title page
- the frames for your fop
- try to make the sodding thing move
- fix up hitchcock posters
- redo two more of your bloody chamber illustrations.

…

PAH. IT'LL BE A DOOZY.

now. let's wash away the taste of all that piteous self pity with a really quite awesome trailer.



NOW PLEASE?

GOOD MORNING CAMPERS!

oh my stars and garters are we in the thick of it now. here's some fmp stuff.

yesterday, fourteen hours were spent trying and sort of not totally failing at running it through after effects.

that was… an experience.

many thanks to eileen, katie and amber for their endless patience and tolerating my total inability to grasp that program.

aaaaaand in other news, FINALLY got around to making amends to the bloody chamber brief. more on that soooooooon. hopefully.

SNEAK PEAK!!

but enough about those things. other folk are doing some crazy cool shit for this fop malarky. do yourself a favour and take a goosey gander at some of these works in progress:


http://abimoulder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/brother-sun-sister-moon-help-please.html

http://edensworkblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/sideshow-freak-banners-fmp/

http://bydionnekitching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/screenprint.html#comment-form

NOICE!

podcast plug! do you like listening to people rip the shit out of shitty movies? if so, give this episode of HOW DID THIS GET MADE a spin. up on the chopping block this time round is burlesque. and it is glorious.

ADIEU!

so last week we got to have a go at pitching ideas for the communication pathway's catalogue that'll be doing the rounds at our degree show. here are somethings my grey matter shat out:









i don't know…. kinda liked this idea (if only because it meant you got to draw a 'ham-era' o ho ho ho) but alas. it didn't even make it to the pitch meeting on account it would wig out all the vegetarians. plus it's pretty friggin' gross.

needless to say, these will not be adorning the catalogue because someone in graphics came up with a totally kick-ass idea involving vhs's. delicious!

***
this post's podcast recommendation come way of the nerdiest. again. but this episode is freaking of the chain. mr hardwick and co. sit down with the voice actors from pinkey and the brain and insanity ensues.


and now it's time for a totally unrelated photo.

FRIENDS. THE END TIMES ARE NEARLY UPON US.

that's right. in three weeks time, middelsex illustration's class of 2012 are going to be done (sort of) with this degree business . good fucking gravy.

asides from getting all misty eyed and nostalgic about the good times, that also means IT'S TIME TO HIT THE GAS AND FLY BY THE SEAT OF YO ASS.





so for my FINAL MAJOR PROJECT, i was going to try and turn the first part of toby barlow's sharp teeth into one of those super cool, free flowing digital comics a little like this:

http://www.ryan-a.com/comics/sarahandtheseed01.htm

and this:

http://emcarroll.com/comics/outthedoor.html

(but really you should check these cats out anyways- they really do put the awesome in awesomesauce.)

aaaaaaaand then you realised that adapting 50+ pages was a little ambitious and it was maybe going to be some sort of animated thing instead? ok!

after a whole lot of hmming and hawing, finally figured out how to draw the damn thing in week eight of this 12 week project. awesome. BUT THAT MEANS I CAN JUST CHURN IT OUT TOTALLY IN TIME FOR SUPER FINAL DEAD LINE, RIGHT?

totes.

so stop writing this clap trap and get back to work.



(p.s. if you like stories about organised werewolf crime in nourish LA with wereolves, you should pick this book up. you two will be very happy together: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sharp-Teeth-Toby-Barlow/dp/0099512467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334985771&sr=1-1 )

(p.p.s in other news, TURNING TIGER CAME OUT ALL PHYSICAL LIKE THE OTHER DAY!!!



for those of you going "aahhhBWWAAAHH???", this is the comic i did with richmond clements for the good folk at renegade arts like three years ago? it's got robots. and heart. if you fancy snapping up a copy or even just spreading the word, that would be holyshit levels of amazing…

you could get it here.

or maybe even here.

and i even got to go on one of those podcast things to talk about it here.

#ABLAHBLAHBLAH

so roughly this time 365.25 days ago, we were gearing up to send our entries off to the macmillan prize. this year some of the more masochistically inclined of us decided to go toe to toe with it and well... let's just say i'm nowhere near dotting the i's and crossing the t's on that one this time round. ack ack ack.

but it's totally gravy because you've got three weeks to do 9 dummy pages, colour three of them in, pull some end papers and a cover out your ass... and finish your final major project... and make the metric tone of corrections to all your previous project.

fucking cakewalk mate.

ah well, here a throwback to better days when time management was a thing in your skill set:



so yeah, finally got around to making a cover for last year's offering. i don't know, figured i'd finish that bad boy off so we could hopefully sell some copies in order to make some greens for our degree show...


(ta for the photo, eva)



"i can't believe you bound this yourself"- martin ursell



so yeah, if you're interested in maybe snapping one up, shout us a hollar and i'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement...

****
so recently got turned onto marc maron's podcast. holy crap. the rss feed for that thing is a treasure trove of wonder. here's an episode that destroyed all my preconceptions about russell brand:

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

and then some shit from my sketch book:

oh final major project. i just don't know what i'm going to do with you. on the upside, today i finished thumb-nailing you (... gosh, is it me or does that really sounds like some dirty off- shoot from finger banging?). on the downside, i have no idea what you're going to look like...

first crack was uber heavy on the inking. grand-high tutor didn't really dig that- thought i should lighten that shit up and maybe go for something a bit more graphic-sy in the vein of the hitchcock posters. bbbbut then i spoke to our tutor from last year and he seemed to be all about keeping it draw-sy. those two's approach to art couldn't be more different than chalk and cheese and i think i might have got myself stuck somewhere awkward between the two...

HO SHIT. ARTISTIC IDENTY CRISIS. WHAT TO DO??????????

crap post is crap.

to make up for it, here's a rather awesome site katie flagged. DO YOU LIKE MAKING YOUR ART LOOK MORE ARTY WITH TEXTURES AND FILTERS? WELL THIS MIGHT BE THE WEBPAGE FOR YOU!!!