The Gryphon - Vehicle Concept

A work up I did for a recorded presentation, find out once I had finished it, only 15 mins recorded.  Fun though, took about and hour and a half with faffing about.

New Website

Here's the link to my revamped website

www.jasonpickthall.com

Some thoughts from the Trojan Unicorn was a Horse [sic] event

I'm currently sat on the plane on the way home from an art and vfx conference absurdly named Trojan horse was a unicorn.... naturally.

The 4 day event was a mixture of technical talks and lectures as well as more informal workshop style presentations.  All the big hitters were present and correct. ILM, check, pixar, check.  You get the idea.  There were also some well respected individuals the more famed of which were Raphael Lacoste, Loic Zimmermann, Aaron Mcbride and Scott Ross.

As well as sharing their techniques and approaches there was plenty of opportunity to take 5 or more minutes with them to chat or to get some feedback on your portfolio. This seemed like too good of an opportunity to turn down so after some hastily grabbed some work from my dropbox folder I went- a-hunting, ipad in hand.

I shared a beer with Kemp Remillard ( http://www.kempart.com/kawp) from Massive Black whilst he poured over my work offering me his thoughts. I got on good terms with the very awesome Justin Goby Fields (http://www.justinfields.com/), who again, was cool enough to review my stuff.  So too did Loic Zimmerman (http://loiczimmermann.com/) and Dan Luvici (http://www.danluvisiart.com/). Thankfully the advice they gave were just tiny tweaks here and there so my ego came away pretty unscathed.  It did give me some food for thought though on modern day approach to concept art.  It's essentially summed as this:

Use every dirty trick in the book to make your design look as good as its can.  

This isn't supposed to sound cynical.  Its still takes an eye for design and a skill in application to make something look great otherwise everyone would be doing it. What i mean is that use 3D models, z brush models, photo bases, photo textures anything at your disposal, to give the best look in the shortest time frame.

If you want to be an art purist then production design in games and film is not the place for you.  There are no prizes for artistic integrity and painting everything from scratch.  No one cares how you got to the end result.  The ends justify the means. Now if you'll excuse me i'm off to brush up on my 3d and z-brush

LG - ARES (BOO HISSS!!)

It occurred to me whilst arsing around with the whole Lil Gods universe that I'd not nailed the villain of the piece.  It was quite a tricky proposition especially how James Woods played Hades in Disney's Hercules.  However much I try and steer clear of it comparisons will be made.

I decided that the Villain should be Ares, God of War (no not Kratos) He's the brother of Apollo and Athena and the least favoured of the Olympians.  This is why he has an axe to grind.  He serves on the council of Olympus but he wants to be revered like his revered siblings.

Lil Gods - Forest Walk

Hey so I did this.  In general I am happy with it, though I cant help shake the feeling that I could push it more somehow.  So be prepared for me to update it at some point

Lil Gods - TITANS

Some visual brainstorming.  Im sure these'll get a more detailed run out in a picture or two

Lil Gods - Foliage Sketches

I recently got into sketching with actual pencil on actual paper. Sounds weird to say but I only tend to do life drawing stuff in my moleskin as opposed to creative stuff.  I had a blast and for some reason it was very therapeutic being covered in pencil smudges and what-not.  I took some pics and mounted up some of the doodles. I had to do these as I was working on a larger composition but I needed to work out a visual language before I could do the piece real justice.  I've still got some things to resolve with it and I feel I can push these a bit more but once the major image is done I'll post it up here.

The House of Mouse

July means one thing in our house.  My Daughter's birthday.  Usually this means some overpriced pressure cooker of a party.  Not this year.  This year we decided to go to Disneyland Paris.  I feel duty bound to apologise that its not Florida's big brother for some reason.  Well, she's 5 and although trekking around 5 parks wouldn't kill her but it would seriously harm my health as I'd be carrying her for most part as was the case with Paris, plus she may not even remember it in her later years..and I WANT MY MONEY'S WORTH DAMMIT.

Now this trip could have gone one of two ways.  Disney corp and machine + the French (only joking) = cynicism overdrive. Or what actually happened.  Which was the exact opposite.

In short it reminded my why I wanted to get into art in the first place. The designs, the wholesome family nature of it all.  It was perfect.  Sure I know the piped music and the other mind hacks they employ but I simply didnt care.

Forget gritty sci-fi shots, custom brushes, software packages and office politics. This reminded me what really got me interested in art.  Appealing characters and wonderful environments.

The Studios park has albeit small but sweet gallery showing of the visual development of various features. This was my Space Mountain.

Z Brush? Mudbox? forget them, this is the real deal.  It was the roughness and looseness of this sculpt of the Beast that made it exciting, makes it feel part of a bigger, more energetic process.

My new aim is to try and recapture that raw eagerness I had before I necessarily had the skills.  Often the skills and the niavity are mutually exclusive.  The trick, I think if you can keep both, that is when the magic really happens. Now I dont want you thinking it's going to be all puppy dogs and rainbows from here on in. But I have to try and not take the work I do for granted in the fact I can do it.  I mean, I should be jumping up and down out of my mind at all the infinite possibilities at my disposal.  We as people have a habit of over complicating things, I know I'm certainly guilty of it.

Disney comes in for lot of flack.  Some of that could be deserved but you cannot deny they put on a hell of a show.

some recent commissions

I had a couple of storybook style commissions for fathers day.  These were great fun and an honour to do.

Pixel-Tastic

Hi there,  Thought I best at least mention my other sideline.  It's called Pixel Presents  I make pixel portraits of families as well as limited runs of pop cultural icons.  I also dabble in infographics and graphic design.  Check www.pixelpresents.co.uk if you like.

Lottie and Macy

So last night I went for an evening walk with Macy and Lottie.  Macy was testing out her new enormous magnifying glass! I couldn't resist but to try and make a book illustration style image from it.

Sci Fi - Vehicle Concepts

LG - Escape

Farm Sketchin'

Some fun creature design

After doing some more earnest concept work I thought I'd have some fun with some 'toony creature design.  My main aim was to push shapes and angles more than I usually would.

Cafe Sketchin'

Yaarrr!!

Another Interior

Interior paint

Some Random Stuff