Zoo Critters

Hey Folks - I was lucky enough recently to be involved in designing and illustrating the visitor experience for Wellington Zoo's new state of the art animal hospital The Nest - Te Kohanga, which had its official opening yesterday.

The Nest - Te Kohanga is quite unique in that it has a number of treatment and recovery rooms that are glass walled and so able to be viewed by the Zoo-going public, and integrated in and around the building is an educational visitor experience, conceptualised, designed and built by Locales, a company with whom I work.

People can rock on up and watch procedures and treatments be performed on zoo animals and native wildlife that have been rescued within the region - pretty cool! It's a great, worthwhile project to have been involved in, and I got to do a bunch of fun animal illustrations!

Victori and Ash

Hey all - I know, it's been ages since I've had anything to post. I've been up to my ears in sick kids and contract work and, well... life, really. You know how it goes.

This piece is of a couple of the major players from my story - one's a dude, and one's a robot, just in case there's any confusion (the robot is the taller, shinier one at the back).

You may recognise the foreground guy from this painting I posted back in June. He now has a purpose in life! And while that purpose might put him in the line of fire more often than not, I'm sure he's much happier to have goals.

And I'm happier too - because now I have closure with a painting that always seemed a bit lost.

Thanks for coming over!

Spectrum Exhibition

Hey there - I was a bit chuffed to be told on the weekend that one of the pieces (above) I painted up for Christian Gossett's The Red Star: Sword of Lies has been included in the Spectrum Exhibition, currently on at the Museum of American Illustration in New York City.

Pencils by the inimitable Chris Gossett, digital paintin' by me.

Image copyright Christian Gossett.

Character Sketches

Trying to find my main character... I've been avoiding this for quite some time now, having done some initial sketches and paintings a while ago. I guess because it feels like the stakes are higher - like doodling just won't do.

But, jeez - got to start again somewhere, right?

Thanks for coming along and having a little looksie!

It's Friday... it's fat... and it's a dog.

Hey there! Following a brief work-enforced hiatus, Fat Dog Friday returns to thrill you with canine obesity...

Special Haul

Hi there - this drawing is of the car driven by the character I posted sketches of a couple of weeks ago - the rugged dude with the goggles.

This is why he looks so beaten up - he has to try to keep this thing going in a straight line while picking bugs out of his teeth.

Built for long-haul travel, customised for the special delivery service...

Fat Dog Friday...

Hey all - I've had a pretty full-on couple of weeks with freelance work, so in the absence of any decent self-driven project work to show you... here's another fat dog.

Awww - go on, give'im a scratch...

Fat Dog Friday!

So it turns out, I like fat dogs.

Random scribblings

Hi there - nothing to see here...

move along.

(unless you like fat, surprised dogs, that is.)

Some dude

Hi there - this is a piece that I've never really finished, and at this point I'm not really sure that I ever will. It started life as a pretty awful pencil drawing, progressed into quite an average digital painting, and then enjoyed a new lease of life when some time later I worked back into it, adjusting proportions, repainting surfaces etc.

I now quite like it as an image, but I'm still not really sure what it is... I guess just one of those paintings I did along the way...

Character sketches

Hey all - here are some sketches of a secondary character from the graphic novel, but hopefully someone who will be appearing a bit more here on the blog - in his own strip. Hopefully... that's the plan anyway. And we all know what they say about plans...

I used a pencil!

For various reasons I have pretty much stopped doing pencil drawings over the last few years, and have almost exclusively worked straight into Photoshop using my Wacom tablet, and I've been relatively happy with this situation. However, in an effort grab some more time for the development of my graphic novel, I've started using a PENCIL to sketch up ideas and designs in a book, when previously I may have been staring slack-jawed at the television, or crying into my pillow, or eating pies, etc.

Here are some initial ideas for an alien species from my story. They're by no means 'approved' designs, just early indications of what has been lurking in my head for some time now.

Thanks for having a look!

Gnoll Marauders!

Hey all - here's an illustration I did a while back for Wizards of the Coast's Dragon mag. As is true for most of my work these days, I did a quick sketch in Photoshop for client approval, and then proceeded to block it out in black and white. Once I was happy with that, I layed in the colour, and continued to paint (still in Photoshop) into it, pretty much until I ran out of time... that's often my signal to stop.

The Red Star: Sword of Lies wins IPPY gold medal

That's the 13th annual Independent Publisher Book Awards! Me and some of my former Weta colleagues handled the digital painting on this book, and had a blast doing it. Nice to have taken part in such a high quality publishing venture... Congratulations, Christian and The Red Star!

Hello Internet - it's me, Stephen.

Hi there. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome myself to the ancient art of the blog.

Welcome, Stephen.

Better late then never, right?... or maybe not? Why waste what little time I have on posting my stuff up here where people may or may not take time out of their own busy lives to glance at it?

I don't have an answer for that yet... mayhap I never will. So, I'm just going to go ahead and do it anyway, and see what happens. Suck it and see, as they say.

Here's a picture I made quite a while ago now... The first illustration I did based on a character from my graphic novel concept:

Those that know me will be going "Jeez - he's STILL thrashing that painting?"

Well... yeah.