The Well

Hey ho! A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of editing together a little show reel for the online game 'The Well'. This was a game that the company I work at, Splinter Design was rather involved in a few years ago. And I got the job of making a little video to feature on our new website (coming soon)!
I quite enjoy editing stuff together, and this video was particularly interesting to do as it had a whole different feel to the usual upbeat videos I edit. I had the chance to experiment with utilising the games sound effects/music in a variety of ways to see which was most effective in achieving a spooky atmosphere. And here is the show reel:

TheWellShowreel from Splinter Design on Vimeo.

I hope to improve my After Effects/editing skills in the next year, as I really enjoy developing my skills in this program!
You can still play The Well games on the BBC website over HERE. Remember to watch the episodes that coincide with the games too - it makes the experience all the more engrossing! (I find the story really interesting)!

Japan Book Part 2

Okay, I haven't finished it - but I'm nearly there! I just thought I'd just quickly share the completed painted pages with you!

Phew! There we go! I used watercolour paints for the majority of this book and a smidge of acrylic paint for lights in dark areas and such!
I really enjoyed painting these pages, it makes me want to learn about more watercolour techniques, as I pretty much taught myself how to use them, so I'd like to get an official book to see if I'm actually using them correctly!

I'm now working on just tweaking the scanned pages in Photoshop, and laying it all out and such - so now, NEXT TIME I blog about this book, it will hopefully be completed! (Fingers crossed)!

Los mejores cuentos de los Hermanos Grimm

Can I speak Spanish now? No. No I can't.

I was rooting around some lovely old book shops t'other day, and I came across a Spanish version of a selection of fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. And I rather liked them, so a lot of photos were taken...

I really like the messiness of the style and mix of mediums - its something I'd like to try out myself! There is also a vivid use of colour, which appeals to my love of bright and colourful things!
This book was illustrated by a man called Janusz Grabianski - all the information I can really find on him is that he was from Poland, was born in 1929, and passed away in 1976. I am going to be hunting for books he has illustrated from now on.

Japan Book Part 1

Phew, its been a while since I've done a blog post! I've been keeping myself quite busy the past few months with a side project. I wasn't going to write a blog post on it until I'd completed it, but well...I've still got a little bit to go on it at the moment; so I thought I would share the first half of this project!

Since I returned from my whirlwind trip to Japan in March, I've been focussing on creating an illustrated compendium of mine and Emma's adventures there. Its been a long process as I decided to hand draw and watercolour everything - and each page is kind of jam-packed full of stuff! (Which is the way I like to do things, but obviously it takes a while to do)!

The first thing I wanted to do was establish the style in which this book would be drawn in - which was a very quick task, as its just my regular style but the characters are shorter and more rounded!



I drafted out a layout and started thinking about page numbers and just how the whole thing was going to be written.



I made a couple of mini mock up versions!



Wow, I'm going through this quickly! I can assure you the next stage was a long un'! It probably took over 2 months to complete the drawing stage of this book (juggling work and social outings throughout, plus I took a month out to work on my E4 sting)!



Woo mama! It took a long time! I tried to draw buildings and such in a lot of detail - I was trying to convey everything as best as I could from memory and photos, I just didn't want to miss anything out!

So THEN, it was on to inking!



Which brings us to the stage I'm at now! I'm currently painting the last page of my book - its taken a while, but its been a whole lot of fun! I enjoy the spontaneity you can get from watercolours - and you can accidently end up with some very pleasing results! No pictures of this stage yet I'm afraid! But all in due course!
I'm coming up to near the end of this little (which has turned out to be rather big) project and I'm hoping the next time I blog about this it will be finally completed! (And then I'll be on to another little project that has become massive)! Hooray! So until then, Sayonara!