iPad Granimator

It was a real honour to be asked by UsTwo to be part of their creative project for iPad: Graninator - back in the days before iPads existed outside of Apples lab of shiny things. And especially when I saw the other folks involved, like me old pal Jon Burgerman, monsterous hero Pete Fowler, and the super-tight work of James Joyce, Buro Destruct, Airside & Moving Brands.

So, Granimator is a free creative package, for designing wallpapers for your iPad and iPhone - it's super-simple to spray artwork all over the screen, and tweak and edit to your hearts content, and then share it with your friends or the world.

Once you've got Granimator you can buy downloadable art packs, which are about the price of a crayon. and start creating. And obviously I'd love it if anyone bought my one, so I can buy myself some new crayons. Or even, one day, an iPad..

So you can just go and get the REXBOX - HI-DRAMA! PACK but if you want to know more here's what you get from me:

Here's some more artwork, sprayed around ala Graminator:

Go buy. Thanks! Bye!

Meatbook Faux

My friend Spaff left his Macbook Air with arms-reach of my doodling pen. As he's a fan of fine foods and gastrobation I thought I'd give it a coating of pork:

I hope he won't mind...

NYC Sketchbook: Pages 1 & 2

Here's a couple pages from my latest sketchbook, a wonky improv tale of a troubled individual and the tiny Space Jesuit that looks after him.

Drawn while traveling around NYC over the Christmas & New Year. (Happy New Year everyone!)

I'll post some more soon..

Odosketch

While my mac is having its motherboard replaced, after burning out just after the warranty ran out (Thanks Apple) and I'm having no luck installing Cs3 onto a temporary machine due to its crazy DRM which won't let me run the software I paid a fortune for (Thanks Adobe) I've been looking around at what online creative tools there are to see if anything can help my predicament. Aviary looks like a real technological marvel and I'll probably try that for a while.

But, the big news is Odosketch. I love it. In many ways there isn't much to it, but that's the point, it's the way it forces restrictions on you. There's no eraser, limited colours, and you can't change the size of the drawing tools. Just like real life. It's exactly like when you're sitting on the train and you have to doodle in the margin of a discarded newspaper with an old biro because that's all you have. And of course that's also when you can do your best doodling.

Here's a couple I did earlier:





Full size versions here and here

Playful 09

Playful is a great event full of people talking about interesting technology used with playful applications. It's right up my street. So it was nice to be asked to do the branding duties for this years event. Here's some of what I've been doing for them (using the lovely stuff that Poke did for last years event as a jumping off point).



You can see more on the official Playful web home here. Maybe you'd even like to score a brace of tickets while you're there too.

I'll also be speaking at this years event, so would be grand if a few folk turn up to see. I'll probably natter about some LittleBigPlanet related stuff, like about avatars and customisation and remix culture. Or maybe I'll just draw a cock on a flip-chart. We shall see soon enough.

Guybrush Threepwood

One of my favourite games from childhood, Monkey Island, is getting a re-release next week, all smartened up for the HD generation. Personally i'm not a fan of the new HD visuals, probably because I grew up with the old version, I'm a big fan of pixelly retro-ness and the youngsters shouldn't listen to old salty dogs like me.

But in the meantime I couldn't resist a sketch of the games sometime-hero Guybrush Threepwood as he exists in my world of doodles and piratey memories:

Doodlebook Dump One

As I was saying in the last post, I've been scanning in my sketchbook for this months Computer Arts magazine feature. And I'll put them (and a few more) up here on The Internets for all to see. So here's the first batch of impenitable doodling, these examples are more about story development, I'll post some others soon thant show character development.




These all feature work for my Grip Wrench series for MTV. As you can probably see, most of my thought process happens on paper, and really consists mainly of doodling ideas until I get enough of a collection to edit down into something fit for human consumption...

Here's some close-ups:

Stand Up

I'm off to FMX in Stuttgart next week, with Kareem & Francis from MediaMolecule, to talk about how we made the wonky world of LittleBigPlanet. It looks like there's some interesting programmes on, I might have to sneak in and geek out on the various talks on the production design of Hellboy2 and Watchmen.

Talking of Watchmen, here's a portrait of The Commedian, it's not really finished but I'll have to leave it as it is for now..

WibbleDone

The cream has curdled, the rackets are splintered, the nets are packed away, and Cliff Richard has been returned to his sound-proof cage. And now we are left with the artwork that Cookie & I frantically generated in our Layer Tennis match last friday, and the fine prose commentary of Anne who managed to write it up at a zillions words per minute.

Each volley lasted 15 minutes, here they are all stacked up. Cookie won the toss and went first, creating the beautiful image of Albion which set a fantastically high standard. A standard that I fumbled with in my first volley, panicking about time-management rather than getting on with making something nice. At least my return had a sea monster in it, and an obscure reference to LittleBigPlanet with him saying YARG! (the name of cheese that was chosen as a codename for our latest game update, which is produced in Cornwall, where I'm from).

Anyway, here's the collected volleys. Scroll down for more waffle.



I think I managed to improve with subsequent volleys, finding my stride and just getting more comfortable with working in this way. I guess the x-ray of the cod-piece is probably my favourite round of my images, I'm not really sure that's what a gentleman would keep in his cod-peice, but if I could carry around some ninja stars, a pint and a cod with me at all times I probably would.

It was great fun to participate, and a real honour to play, exhausting too. A combination of exhaustion and a couple-too-many post-match Margaritas led to me falling asleep on the Tube on the way home and me getting picked up by the police. Beat that Mr McEnroe.

Photoshop Tennis

The Pims has been poured, the lawns have been trimmed, the strawberries are on ice. It's must be almost time for my Photoshop / Layer Tennis match with Cookie. You can follow the progress of the match here, commentary will be provided by Anne from I Like, and many thanks to Coudal and Adobe for running the whole thing.

For those that don't know the procedure, the 2 of us will be taking it in turns to create artwork in a series of volleys, building on what has just gone before. And with only 15 minutes for each turn its going to be a mad flurry of paper, crayons and Wacom pens. Here's an image I warmed-up with, it was done in 7 minutes so maybe there's still hope for me.

Sofa Surfers

Some very brave friends decided to supply alcohol and pens to all of us that came to their housewarming party to decorate their sofa. Here's some photos of its development/deterioration. I like the photo of me, Nicky and Cookie each beavering away on different cushions - wish I'd worn a single coloured t-shirt too, my plaid ruins the composition!







I really need a haircut, Nicky nearly used-up a whole Sharpie pen trying to draw my portrait...

Branson Pickle

I don't understand why so many of my doodles turn out looking like millionaire "playboy" Richard Branson. It's quite disturbing.

Especially with the absence of any clothes.

Doodled Arm Tactics

Thanks everyone that came down to the exhibition. It was a whole load of fun, and great to see so many friends and meet so many strangers (some more stranger than others). Hopefully all those that attended managed to scrub off whatever drunken doodlings I did on their bodies by now (I hear a bath full of bleach, tippex and fake-tan are the best way to remove them). 

If anyone has any photos of it all, or links to Flickr pages, blogs etc, let me know, as me and Brynley would like to collect them all together, to preserve the event in digital form.

Here's my arm, at the end of night two. It's waving you all goodbye until next time...

Being Industrious

I've just been finishing off a canvas for an exhibition I'm exhibiting in next week - the show is called Art In Industry, in Shunt (in the amazing catacombs beneath London Bridge station) and features the work of several friends of mine, built round the loose theme of showing things produced away from of their main commissioned work.

I'll also be screening some episodes of my Grip Wrench show in the cinema area, which will be the first place to get to see them in the UK. Not only that, the now completely finished tent by me and the other members of 70p (7-Tipi) will be on display too.

And here's the extra canvas I've been painting for it. And if you're free next week come along to the exhibition, its going to be a fun one. Details here.

Tipi doodled

Thanks everyone that came along on Sunday to Stokefest, and to all those that offered encouragement while I carried on doodling with what felt like a broken hand. It was a great day: hot sun, cold beer, felt-tip pens, bikinis and spray paint. Thats what I call a good day.

Here's some of my doodling on the tipi. More photos on Facebook, and a few are starting to turn up on Flickr when I did a search earlier. 

It's hopefully going to have some more work done on it this week and then the final piece will be displayed in a exhibition very soon, watch this space..

Rexboxhornypants:

A glimpse of SteakZombies panel alongside mine:

Time to pack up and find a pub:

70p at Stokefest

If anyone is around east London this Sunday I'll be at Stokefest, the free festival in Stoke Newington, Hackney, doing some live urban art next to the stage. As the festival is a little oasis in the city we've decided to work on a different kind of canvas, a tent!

They'll be around seven of us working on the tent. Tortoy, one of the collaborators on this, came up with the genius name for our tent decorating collective: 70p (Seven Tipi). 

Hope to see you there!

Unitard

I knew my latest episode of Grip Wrench needed a unicorn scene, so during the weekend started sketching some whilst sunbathing, which brought on much amusement from my lazing-around-in-the-sunshine companion. I couldn't see what was funny until she pointed out I drew my unicorns with the horn on the end of the nose, rather than on the forehead.

(the other unicorn on that page was drawn after being shown the error of my ways)

I'd never thought about this before, and had always drawn them that way. I must have been been the laughing stock of the Fantasy Arts Guild. I don't know if they have a Guild, but I expect they do, and spend many a fun-filled evening in the tavern ordering flagons of ale from the "barkeep" and taking turns with the Cloak of Invisibility(+3). I better make sure I don't draw my dwarves too tall or my dragons with fur or I'll get punched on the nose by invisible assailant smelling of Real Ale.

Anyway, thanks to her input I've managed to draw a proper Unicorn now. Here's the final result which I'm currently animating. Horses (and horses with mythical horns) are a nightmare to animate, but a nice challenge.

Funny how all girls, no matter if they are artistic or not, seem to be able to draw perfect horses, when its the one thing that most artists say are particularly hard to draw. I guess it comes from huge amounts of doodling in the back of school-books before discovering they were more interested in having a boy than a pony.

BAD-EGG

Todays egg-based theme inspired me to doodle a egg wrestler. He's warped from years of performance-enhancing drugs, with a bulletproof shell and yolk-stained underpants:

Vikings!

Not many posts from me lately, as I've been racing to get work done, and also just got back from a entertaining holiday in the deepest countryside, where me and some friends hired a cottage, and a bouncy castle. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to live without one now.



Anyway, just before I went away I got a call to do an editorial illustration. I love nothing better than doing some doodles and seeing them floating around the world on bits of paper, but I've been turning down these sort of jobs lately, as I'm so busy animating stuff. But I decided I needed a change for a day, plus the brief specified an army of SWEDISH VIKINGS (two of my favourite things), so I sharpened my Wacom pen and set to work.

So I started off with the rough, I wouldn't normally do a rough for anything I do for myself, as I like to keep everything spontaneous, and full of those weird little ideas you get when "Ad-Libbing". But understandably clients like to have an idea what they are paying for before its complete, plus I needed to work with the designer on how it would fit into the double-page spread. Here it is:



Its really rough and sketchy, but I don't want to get bogged down with too much final detail at this stage. I drew the rough in one single pass, to hopefully keep some of that spontaneity that I'm trying to cling onto. Here's a close-up:



And having got that approved it was full-steam-ahead with the final, which I tried to incorporate a few new ideas into that weren't in the rough stage to keep it fresh, whilst not deviate too far from what the client had actually approved..

Which turned out like this.



Which is far too small to see properly here, So here's some closeups:







Personally, I think the sketch version maybe has something that the final doesn't, especially when reduced down the restrictive size of my blog. But I'm pleased I managed to combine doodley style (how I wanted it to look) with a slightly more restrained vectory style (how the client wanted it). So everyone is happy. Well apart from the Vikings themselves, who stay perpetually angry, like the crazy, fish-fueled pillage-mongers that they are. And we'll love them all the more for that.

Armful of Smack

Thanks everyone that came along to SmackIII on Friday, it was a load of fun. Merf, Brother, Superstar PJ, and Forward-Thinking-Tam all did fantastic sets, and I was able to doodle on everyone that was too intoxicated to fight me off. I'll try and collate photos from anyone that has any (let me know if you do), but here's a couple to start with:



I got a bit carried away, doodling on myself.




An innocent piano-playing child is approached by DEATH.