Sketchs from Sangion: Behind the scenes

Sketchs from Sangion: Behind the scenes

Around this time last year I did a picture for a musician from the Isle of Man - Clara Barker. Back in January 2009, Clara posted a bulletin and a blog asking for art inspired by her yet to be released song “Sangion.” I did not immediately reply to the blog. In fact if you do look at the blog you will see a good two months went by until I replied. My thinking was that out of the 10,000+ friends she had, hundreds had to be better and more specialised than me. The moral of the story, don’t hesitate!! Give it a go!! Who knows?! And that goes for anything.

After two months I was getting a little impatient. I thought she was waiting for artwork before posting the song in her player. I thought the picture would be just for that small image in the player. A year later and Clara still hasn’t posted that song on her page :D (although there are a few new ones from her album on there).

I wasn’t really sure what to do for the picture. 

During the two months where I didn’t reply I did a few scribbles of clichéd scenes (the usually mushy lovers embrace or what ever), but because I never intended on being part of the project at the time, these scribbles look worse than my doodles.

Because I was so late to the party, Clara already had a few submissions which meant she wasn’t afraid to tell me what she actually expected from my picture. I would have made her tell me what she expected anyway. Basically she wanted the characters to be based on real people (which has in a way become my speciality these days).

Reading the lyrics is very different to actually hearing the song. For some strange reason I imagined it was about the characters battling either a war, the world, or each other’s emotions when they were apart. To give it a Japanese flavour (and because my style isn’t very manga to begin with) I set the image in feudal Japan. I based the samurai uniform on the one Tom Cruise wears in the movie "The Last Samurai." I did a second version of the image where they are wearing more modern clothes, just in case I was going in the wrong direction.

More Sketches from 2007

More Sketches from 2007

These were drawn in a skectch pad I bought in the tourist shop at the National Musem of Country Life (Turlough Park House), Caatlebar, Co. Mayo

Images: 31 (a few are made up of 2 or more pictures edited into one picture)

Beauty of the Beast (5 mins) - 2005
My final year college film.

Story Board - 13 images

The following images are what little of a storyboard I had to work with. A lot of the ideas shown below were cut out of the final product based on time and energy requiered to actually animate them.





note: The writing is by a tutor. The notes suggest an extra scene showing the angel actually getting her wings removed.








This may have been the biggest mistake - I did not actually have an ending planned after this page of the story board - I originally wanted a fight scene to end the film.

Painting for Confirmation (Pentecost Sunday)

Originally posted on MySpace:

It's Confirmation time again, which meant the church was in need of decorating. I had drawn out different kinds of fruit and presents to represent the 9 fruits and 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. I got the kids that are making their Confirmation to colour and paint them, in my absence.

There was still the problem of designing the altar. This year flowers were going to be arranged around the altar. However, this meant that the pulpit was bare. The original idea was to buy an already made banner or poster. I could not find one which left me with no choice but to paint one myself.

I used stretched canvas (3ft) and acrylic paint. And for some bizarre reason I left it until the last minute to actually paint, even though I had the canvas for just over a week.

By this stage I had already transfered the dove onto the

canvas. I don't think you can spot it though.

First Blog

I'm not really one for blogs, but hopefully this will be the start of a new trend. It might be the excuse I need to do and publish new artwork and animation.

Anyway, I have here some of my animation feats for your viewing pleasure.

...and I said 'pull yourself together!'

The Green Goblin invades the St Paddy's Parade...

Originally posted on MySpace:

I have here the pictures of the second head I was working on. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it during the parade. I'm usually the photographer but instead I was asked to wear the 

blasted thing instead. 

The Universe hates me and I hate myself...

Originally posted on MySpace:

Where do I begin...

Ok, the paper-mache head I was working on decided to collapse today!! I guess I simply put too much paper on it (3rd layer). The combined weight of the paper and glue was incredibly heavy. I had no idea it would get that heavy! damn it to hell anyway. While I was working on it, it started to keel over. I quickly grabbed it making holes for my fingers. That wasn't a problem. The problem was the speed with which I caught it combined with gravity causing the weight to pull down on the head, pulling it out of shape. I cleared big gaps of the paper so that I could pull the wire back into shape. That turned out to be a massive mistake (put the damage was already done by this stage anyway). The paper had no grip of its own and just peeled off by its own accord. Damn it to hell. It was  just painful to look at in the end. I didn't even bother to take pictures of it till I took all  the paper off. But I did take pictures of the project as I went along and I have them here. . 

In the beginning. You can see I was ill-prepared for its

future weight, but that did eventually change long before

the real trouble...

This picture was taken on Wednesday. The school (where

I was working) was closed Thursday. It was looking pretty

good, no? This was the result of three steady days of

pasting...