Man of Moons and The Little Prince

*be forewarned, this is neither a story or poem but a horrible combination of the two. If you appreciate good writing I'm afraid you won't find any here. This was just pure mess and fun.

There once was a man of moons.

The Man of Moons was as large as a planet and wore a mask of gold.

He travelled vast distances, collecting many things.

 From shimmering stars to merry memories, 

anyone would be surely impressed.

But,

what he loved most, more than all the stars 

was his growing collection of moons.

He would travel far and wide, across the universe 

 in search of a perfect moon.

One particular time, 

he came verryyyyy close.

He nearly had the perfect moon.

This moon he found,

was the shiniest around

and was so white it was blindingly bright. 

However, 

on this bright moon 

there lived a prince.

A very little angry prince.

With the reddest hair and a face that frowned,

he guards his moon from day till night.

Always armed and ready,

he rides around daily,

around and around his moon.

When this little prince 

saw the Man of Moons about to grab his moon,

the prince cried out 

"Stop that at once, you great bumbling, buffoon!"

With a startle and stumble 

the Man of Moons froze and in fright began to mumble,

"Hello little prince, I'm sorry if I caused you concern."

"You see, just now I was travelling by 

and happened upon your beautiful moon."

"It glows so bright and is ever so perfect,

it made me wonder if I could buy this delight."

The prince now furious,

fired three arrows into the universe 

and straight at the Man of Moons.

Wack, wack, wack!

Three arrows hit home

and the Man of Moons fell down.

The Man of Moons, however, unwilling to give up,

began to plead and bargain some more.

"Oh please little prince, I did not mean any harm.

I merely want to-"

Before he could say another word, 

an arrow came flying, straight and true, 

blinding him instantly! In eye number two!

With a loud shout of pain,

the Man of Moons was off,

Disappearing in a blink of an eye.

Dave McKean and my 'Man of Moons'

 I think Dave Mckean's work is haunting me. 

I mean they're everywhere I look. I must really be drawn to his illustrations because somehow, a peculiarly large amount of my favourite works are designed by him. 

From MirrorMask 2005 (one of my favourite films) to The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman (a book I love), his work is always there!

 If it sounds like I'm complaining, I assure you I'm not.

From what I have observed, his work seems to be a beautiful marriage between surrealism and cubism using mixed media. One of my favourite elements of his style is his clever use of collage to create texture while not making his pieces too 'busy'.

 This below is an interpretation of Mckean's distinctive style.  

I played around with the different elements of his work and created my own piece from it.

I normally don't name my digital paintings or paintings in general but I think this one just had to have one. 

I call it, Man of Moons and The Little Prince.

I wasn't really trying to draw anything in particular when I started off and was just experimenting with brushes and colours.

Somehow, however, a story appeared in the random characters and I loved it.  

Edward Gorey and his wonderfully dark world

I stumbled across Gorey's work a couple years ago and along the way his name somehow slipped my mind. His work however didn't. Especially his creepy alphabet with children and unfortunate events.

Both a writer and an illustrator, I really admire his gothic Victorian style and strange dark tales.

I've always thought his style was done with wood etchings but was pleasantly surprised that it was just pen and ink.

Pleasantly because it means that I can experiment with the style a lot more conveniently than I had previously thought.

 I love the contrast of having detailed backgrounds while leaving his characters quite simple. Usually with plan white faces and simple lines for their features. Even their clothes are generally kept quite simple.

I was working on an idea over the holiday for a project and really started to get excited about it but still wasn't sure about what style I wanted to explore.

Maybe this might be a good one?? Maybe in colour??

Here are two versions of a drawing I did as an interpretation of his work:

Having in no shadow in this one keeps it simple and to me kind of implies he's running away into the woods on his own terms.

This one however, is completely different to me.

He's scared and running to get away while heading straight into the woods.

Most likely not on his own terms.

Deadlines and Christmas is a coming!

Me looking for more time.

How is it nearly a new year??!

I am not ready for this!

I really want to put up the third year work I've been working on but due to the fact they may be applying to festivals later I cannot share the goodies.

So far the first semester has gone really well and I honestly can't wait for next year when we will be working a lot more in depth on the third year projects and live briefs.

Dissertation on the other hand...more mental preparation may be needed.

Surrealism & De Chirico

For another group project, I had to study and try to imitate Max Ernst's paintings and De Chirico.

I still have a lot more to work on but this is what I've observed and digitally painted so far. 

De Chirico, The Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon 1911-1912

This is a swatch I came up with from observing his different paintings.

Using the same angels that appear in almost all of De Chirico's paintings, I tried to apply it to a background concept piece for the project.

I struggled with finding the balance between the darker areas and the light.

I also learnt very quickly that the colour black was never really used for his extreme shadows but dark greens and reds instead.

For some reason, this was my favourite part of the digital painting I did.

I really like how subtle the circular window looks.

Compared to the other areas of the digital painting, this area looks most like a real painting and also naturally three dimensional.

Reminds me a lot of Shaun Tan's work and his paintings.

My show-reel, updated and re-edited (2015-2017)

Test animation for The Monk

Short 'proof' animation to show and test out style and backgrounds.

Really happy with the progress so far :)