Lach's progress

Katie Koala WIPs

2011-02-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

There's still some amount of love required yet on these images but here are a few.

Just so's you know I'm not just lazing around having a fine time.

There was a tiny opportunity to get a dinosaur in, which I seized

so that's a Kronosaurus knocking the kooky karaoke machine.

Some books

2011-02-02T18:54:00.000-08:00

Heres some of what's been printed so far.

Little Mates Bouncy Ben - some 'unfinals'

2010-11-11T03:46:00.001-08:00

From January- the final version he has boots on- but I like him au natural.

Snow white's Birthday

2010-11-11T03:24:00.000-08:00

From january's NY SCWBI winter conferenceillustrator intensive homework

Christmas Present Tags

2010-11-11T03:22:00.001-08:00

Tree Thing

2010-11-11T03:20:00.001-08:00

Schrodingers Cat

2010-11-11T03:19:00.001-08:00

Well time for a catchup- a year in a day maybe?

2010-11-11T03:16:00.000-08:00

(All the news thats fit to print- the rest is on my other blog)

A forest

2009-11-10T17:57:00.000-08:00

2009-11-06T23:51:00.000-08:00

2009-11-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

Dragon in Progress

2009-10-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

2009-10-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

2009-10-12T18:19:00.001-07:00

2009-10-08T17:11:00.000-07:00

2009-10-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

2009-10-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

2009-10-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

Two men and a frog.

2009-08-29T16:02:00.001-07:00

Things have sort of been getting busier in the last couple of weeks and soon it will be crazy. Crazy because we are expecting our third child in about 3 weeks, but also there are couple of things on. After a fair bit of toing and froing it looks like I will be working on a series of small childrens books with Scholastic. Theres a fairly ambitious plan to turn out 26 small books in 2 years- although the new baby will slow production a little at the start. I've already done the linework and the basic shading for one but I don't think I can show it as yet.

Instead a few weeks back I began doing rough ideas with a pencil for a book called the
"The Frog Who Lost His Croak", so I'm posting a couple of those.
I think I'll do the same colouring as I did with my fox.
But in the faint sketchy lines so far theres a few good moments.

I think I'm going to settle with the little guy with the shorts and the long legs rather than the Tom Sawyerish one.

On top of that there is my ring in performance at the Ipswich Festival of Children’s Literature.
Lucia(see link at side) and I are presenters at the festival one afternoon,- and I've also volunteered to man a marquee as a sort of "caged illustrator" on display for a couple of days. I was initially feeling under pressure to produce a big presentation with little video compilations of drawings- and I'd written down some ideas and spiel, however it appears our speaking session is spectacularly under subscribed. Everyone else is wanting to see a lady called Jan Omerod-in fact Iwouldn't mind seeing her speak but I'm supposed to talking at the same time- somewhere else.
Oh well I'll push on regardless- I might instead take a computer in and the couple of people that turn up can huddle around it.
A bit like my Supanova experiences maybe.

I went to a dermatologist and it turns out my Cintiq is part of the problem affecting my hands. The heat from it is giving me this horrible eczema thing on my hands (which was very bad in January...nothing like drawing with cracked and bleeding hands).
So I have to go and buy a little airconditioner I think, and cotton gloves to give a bit more distance from the surface.
- I'll be popular in summer I think, but there you go...score 1 for using a pencil- cintiq 0 for causing me hell.

Quick character

2009-07-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

Cheery Picture

2009-07-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

Scribbly quick image- guess I could transform it to a Lambton worm image- just need some spiky armour on the horseperson really-
....in the meantime I'll call it "What we're up against".

Wasabizilla

2009-07-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

A quick image for my friend Jacob's chip flavour entry.

Not so great cat day

2009-07-15T23:32:00.000-07:00

Think I need some reference.

Trying to redecorate the blog

2009-07-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

Not much success, why does it clip the stupid frame blogger adds?
Time to move to wordpress?
Might rearrange it so the title is across the top or bottom and put some idea phantoms in the dream cloud.

Morning dino colour idea

2009-07-07T17:17:00.000-07:00

A quick image this morning- a start of colour/dino ideas. Looking at it right now I think I'd need to make the first band on its bum follow the curve of cross section more- its a bit 2d.
Anyhow its a sketch...in the morning...only one coffee in.....

Unlikely Trio

2009-07-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

Sketch in progress.....

Forest Magic

2009-07-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

Another quick image du jour.
Haven't decided what the boy is fixing or reviving thats in the big furry guys hands yet.
I'll finish it a bit more yet.

(Sorry Ali this wasn't the post you're after...soon)

Quick image

2009-07-02T19:40:00.000-07:00

Air Ballista

2009-07-01T19:23:00.001-07:00

In the absence of publishing people getting back to me I'm starting up my stuff again.
Huzzah!
First decoded thumbnail(into more elaborate thumbnail) is an idea for a turbine powered crank for a dragon mounted ballista. Just need to figure a good reloading system yet. I've got the guy rugged up and tie on cos its cold up there travelling as fast as you do.

More schrodinger riffs.

2009-06-30T17:00:00.001-07:00

Still haven't got on to the funny ideas yet...

Schrodinger cat

2009-06-27T00:23:00.000-07:00

Some of a few ideas for a friend.

Scribbly sketchy Dragony thing

2009-06-25T17:26:00.001-07:00

A scribbly idea I half sort of coloured.

The Soccer Game

2009-06-12T17:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the penultimate pics for the soccer game- an educational book for EC Publishing.
I find it hard when a job is small/doesn't pay much, to stop myself from doing "a proper job" anyway. Hopefully I won't have to resort to pole dancing or growing pot in an attempt to make ends meet as a result-
I think at 40 my pole dancing career is over before its begun(world heaves sigh of collective relief).
I tried again to put more in that expected- but then the whole thing took a bit longer than expected- mainly because there was almost a week lost due to the storms/floods/power cuts of a few weeks back. Then of course almost a week in melbourne as a sort of wake for my 40th. The trouble though is I still didn't feel I had time to do things the way I'd like- ie I sort of fudged their paws and there are a couple of wonky heads etc
But I had to get on and colour it and didn't think kids would appreciate the extra hours I'd have to spend redoing proper construction on said paws.
Also, at the eleventh hour, I realised that the tails I'd done were the wrong colour- the tips are actually very dark. My wife suggested that only kids with aspergers would notice-I however, was grittily determined that what with this being an educational book- that the tails should dark as they are in reality (the fictional premise of lions playing soccer not withstanding.)
Fell work it is deciding what mistakes you can live with and what you can't.
And even in the colouring its a bit dodgy- but still far more I think than the job was financially worth so... I have to rationalise it that way.
I might quickly do another pass on them as I save them out finally- but I'll leave them alone for the weekend.
Still though there are a few good expressions there.

Now that its basically out of the way I'll be getting onto my own stuff/portfolio stuff, fixing up the Brisbane space, and maybe some more dinosaurs.
Also I want to start the full redo of the website.
Hopefully my friend Cam will have moved it onto a non dead server(the server has died-
and so my site has been down for a week or two...ah well.)

I've been very inspired by the beauty of that secret of kells film and also that latest trailer from team Ico- so I'm itching to get back to my own work and really do something.

There's another smallish book job that might eventuate- that "red dog" one for oxford university press has sort of resurfaced- we'll see. I'll have to find a dog for reference.
I'm thinking of having designated days in Brisbane and upgrading stuff a bit there- where I am here on the hill is nice with the view but with the storms and incompetent power people here in Kingscliff/Cudgen I can just lose time when I need it most - so I need to be able to up and move if need be to where there's electricity.

The Melbourne wake/40th.
I love going to Melbourne- or should I say my stomach does- but I notice the servings are smaller and meaner now(I'm talkng to you Laurent and also Brunetti's of Carlton).
Also I love the zoo's and aquarium. Any city I visit I head to the zoo's museum and art galleries.
I bought a book of Paul Bonners work from Minotaur- some of his dinosaurs are quite neat.
Annoying though is Minotaur wrapping eveything in plastic- apparently you can't just stumble upon a good book you need to know about whats inside in advance- what fanboy wank.
I was also quite annoyed about the galleries being closed(?)- (WAKE UP Melbourne), also annoying were Indian students protesting in intersections when theres a perfectly good location(Federation Squre)right next to them for a rally.
I power walked (as you do when you are given 20 minutes freedom without children) through to the atrium and bookshop of the Ian Potter Centre- I think there were a bunch of people selling zines and self published things on tables-.
I think there was also Elise Hurst sitting there( who I think is an illustration rep for the Society of Authors which I've just joined). And glad I did join- they seem to represent people actually trying to make a living out of what they do and not just sit around having cups of tea.
Anyhow ..
Thats the trouble with the net- you can find out a whole bunch of stuff about people and then go and stand next to them and they don't know that you know.
You know.
I had a meeting with Five Mile Press during my wake- which incidentally is seemingly halfway back to Brisbane. Its located in an industrial area beyond the reach of tram or train- and without breakfast of coffee I don't think I was functioning properly. I meant to leave a bunch of prints with them(and didn't) and when asked if I had any questions I didn't have any ( except of course you get the urge to say "yes, ...can you give me lots of money for this drawing I have on a napkin" but of course you don't-
The idea though of course is to become some sort of James Jean or Ashley Wood whereby people might instead beg you for any spare napkins you had with drawings on them.
Disturbing though was that no-one knew what bottersnikes and gumbles were- I think I might have been regarded as you regard a person with a tinfoil hat.
Don't worry mister Wakefield I won't forget you.
Nor will I forget "The Little old man who could not read" or "The Laughing Dragon" or anything by Brian wildsmith or "Down with Skool"(Searle).
Speaking of Ronald Searle- visiting my parents I found a book of his war drawings, and also a great small book by him called "Secret sketchbook" which was full of drawings of german strippers and nightlife scenes. It was dated the mid 60's I think, so clearly my parents must have cunningly hidden it while we were kids.
So there,- you never know your luck in the big city.

I also wanted to visit that Books Illustrated place, and chase down Peter Ford and Mista Buckree but my punishing zoo and aquarium schedule didn't allow it(Punishing because I was largely support crew for my two boys- got a bunch of good reference of those few animals that brave Melbournes weather-funnily enough including lions,
which is sort of like gettng the answers after you've done the test.)

Thats Ok. I'll do a bunch of new work and be down again soonish.

Murdoch never never.

2009-05-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here's one of a bunch of ideas I had over a month ago for a Murdoch books competition before I realised after all I wasn't eligible-(I was barely published- they wanted unpublished).
Therefore they are largely consigned to the never never,- but I did have some offshoot ideas as a result
I'll add a little bit more to make them legible and post them.

This is one of the vampiric nose hair/ear hair inserters.

*Just added a few others*

Further on that other dinosaur

2009-05-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

But not finished. Need to relight the scales adjust the thickness of the dark lines etc.

Some 'Soccer' test images.

2009-05-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

Springbrook troll

2009-05-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

Possibly a bit scary for this blog.
I'll do a friendly one to balance things up.

Springbrook inspired

2009-05-03T06:45:00.001-07:00

A few test images in my scribbly way,
there are some very cool trees and rocks at springbrook-
perfect homes for monsters.
So I'll try a few more orge/troll ideas- or gnarly faerie-house-in-a-tree ideas in a springbrook setting.

Plesiosaur

2009-05-02T20:10:00.001-07:00

Quick plesiosaur in a leatherback turtle styling

Quick dino in progress.

2009-05-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

Actually I've had thoughts of doing a really epic one- I'd sort of thought maybe I ought to try and enter the Waterhouse Art Prize with a dinosaur pic-
It'd be tricky from here on in because the deadline for it would be 2 weeks and I have to finish that book in that time.
Still it would be awesome. We'll see.

Blue Mermaid

2009-04-30T23:39:00.000-07:00

I'll do a few more kids book like drawings soon,- EC publishing finally got back to me so I have to do the final art for the book I'm doing for them("The soccer game") starting next week.
In the meantime here's a quick mermaid idea.

Son of Dino ahoy (ie the sequel)

2009-04-30T04:49:00.000-07:00

Its not finished yet - need to finish the feet, back, more countershading etc, colour...

It sort of a Rhoetosaurus /Jobaria/ Lach-o-saurusy thing.

Dino Ahoy

2009-04-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

More dino's in progress

2009-04-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Project dino!

2009-04-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

The plan is to do some dinosaur images - maybe for posters- maybe for my own self publishing- anyway heres the start of colour ideas- top is" hippo meets galapagos turtle" then "komodo dragon meets ground hornbill" bottom is "reticulated python type'. I'll try some really bright ones next- mainly around the head and neck- a-la cassowary or scrub turkey etc.
I should add that they are all "lach-osauruses" and kind of made up.
Theres a bright one so far- nice and fruity/display like around the head.

Friendly cat, Green, spotted frog, big yellow dog...

2009-04-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

Rough work pitch images, dragons, and a disreputable Ms. Muffet

2009-04-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

Littlest guy gets sick.

2009-03-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Well my youngest son was sick the other night- poor little guy,
so' bad beasties' is my medieval assessment of the cause- horrible beasties. Mind you we don't have a cat and said nonexistent cat would never be allowed to sleep where it is if it did exist.
At top is the cure for other child injuries-"ice cream planet"- as yet uncoloured. Our intrepid explorer will have to ditch his helmet before using the aliens welcome gift.
the kids with the torches- just a recent doodle that happened.

At bottom is an under the bed type monster taking a break,
- actually it was probably a self portrait as sleep deprived dad at the time.

Sprawling sketch in progress and older sketchbook image.

2009-03-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

While waiting for Eleanor Curtain Publishing to get back to me on the roughs, and inspired by the great work of some of the Jacket flap Illustrators I've begun the next drawing push.Which sort of goes like- study anatomy books and animal books at night - sleep on it, and start drawing in the morning,
then after a few alternations my eye should be in and I hopefully I canthen get some nice new stuff quickly. I'll probably try a few watercoloury things since I often get a nicer mood drawing on paper(probably because I'm more comfortable-
that said these days instead of an eraser I find I'm searching vainly for an undo button on my drawing board.).
So heres a sketch that I started today- theres more of it I just haven't materialised the other monsters to the left enough to show yet.
Also theres a quick watercoloury dabble of about 6 months ago just to break up the monster vibe a little..
Watched another episode of Mathew Collings 'This is Civilisation' tonight- its become my art pep talk.

Black and White

2009-03-24T02:01:00.000-07:00

A collection of fairly recent black and white sketches. Not too dark (in mood). The trolls are part of my 'Billy goats gruff' exploration. On my lost world blog I had more (but once I start thinking about an actual design the need for self consistent fantasy kicks in and leads me too far away from the mood/character I was really after- so I might end up with something that makes total sense from a 'I'm a monster what doI need to survive under this bridge' but a bit humourless.)

Book Pitch Images for Weldon Owen Publishing

2009-03-23T01:11:00.001-07:00

Blue and grey Phases

2009-03-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

Here are a few older drawings done in blue pencil. Some of the tireless followers of my Lost World blog might remember.
Brillig is of course a drawing of the start of Jabberwocky- which I haven't coloured yet.
Cook off is one of those drawings that just happen, but I like the characters I made there.
The other two are ideas for my take on a red riding hood inspired world/book/computer game.

Bottersnikes and Gumbles

2009-03-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'd like to see a film made of Bottersnikes and Gumbles so heres a few of my own ideas for them as posted on my Lost World blog not so long ago. Its a bit like redesigning a cat though, its hard to reimagine something when the original seems so right.

Rough stuff from the not for kids book.

2009-03-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

Well the penguin's aren't too rough but the owl and squirrel and canada goose are.

Kids Style but .....

2009-03-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

Sadly not for kids. All of these images were done (quickly= 1-2 hours each) for a client working on a book on financial advice /planning. Originally I wanted to do a style a bit like some of Richard Scarry's painted stuff (which I'll post too) but then there came this impetus to be more serious or factual so I reverted to a modified 'Lach' style (for speed also).
The trouble when you have no time to do proper research/studies of the animals is that by the time you get to the end of doing the images you're starting to see the details and key forms you missed in your rush. But then its still supposed to sort of kids bookish so its not life or death that the some things aren't ultra realistic. Also none of the animals are australian so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage there. Still its about trying to trigger a feeling or a recognition to associate with the words more than pictures in themselves so hopefully I did that.

2009-03-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

2009-03-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

2009-03-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

2009-03-21T02:29:00.000-07:00

2009-03-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

The Lach-Land blog

2008-12-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

Here I'll begin posting new work suited to a more general audience and also toward kids books,- as opposed to my Lost world blog which sometimes has far darker content. I might put up some old stuff from the Lost world blog too.
Here's a very old watercolour cat to get the ball rolling.- with a hint of Searle I guess.