Friday, December 20, 2013

Merry Xmas to you all!

It's been a while since I last posted, but things have been very busy at "Chez Raven".  I've had quite a few commisions, been given a FREE upgrade to Xara Designer Pro X9 (thanks Xara!), and I've discovered a new colouring technique, using colour pencils with Zest-It pencil blend (the xmas card above is a good example).  I've moved to using Paper Mate Flairs (Ultra & Nylon) with Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils, and I'm really loving the "painterly" effect it gives...

The change in technique has sparked a few other changes too.  I want to do more animation in 2014, so my lovely wife has obtained MotionArtist for me, so I can animate my drawings (I do own Anime Studio, but I think MotionArtist will sit in my workflow better).  Tying in with that is the ambition to do more musical compositions to tie in with the animation, so we'll see how that goes.  My main change however, is in focus - I think this new style lends itself to childrens illustration work, so I'm going to combine everything and do some sort of crossover project - I'm not sure of the details yet, but I'll work them out over Xmas.

One last thing - I've got some fab news that I can't share yet, but hopefully I'll be able to let you know after Xmas - here's a teaser...



I think 2014 could be a VERY good year for me - keep your fingers crossed everyone!