TITANS!

Sit down Kids, I have some bad news.

So, you recall my last post? The one bearing exciting news the likes of which made me a very happy man for a very happy... couple of days?

So yeah, that may have crapped out... I have no idea what happened but since Thursday last week I've done no work for the project because my employer hasn't got back to me... I designed one of his 8 characters in his 2 costumes, College clothing and Superhero clothing and did a rough sketch of another... As he asked, but it has now been over a week (for some reason, the email app on my phone is calling it 2 weeks, just to make it sting more, I guess) and I have not heard from the gentleman. Now, this leaves me in a rather terrifying situation, One moment, I couldn't be happier, I had my dream job and was about to end up getting paid for something I do as a hobby, something I do in my spare time because it makes me happy... 

Rather than getting paid to stand around faking a smile and giving myself back ache trying to file away millions of little DVDs alphabetically in their little plastic wallets. 

Now, I can't say for certain that I definitely don't have this job, who knows, his internet may be down, he could have gone to visit family for thanksgiving... For a week... 

Whatever the case, I have no idea what's going on, and now, a week later, I've moved the project's folder to a more organised area in my past designs folder... Symbolizing it's frozen status... Where it may possibly stay. Unless some contact is made.

Aside from all this, I've also been driven crazy, sat by my phone and computer all day constantly checking my freelance account for messages and leaping up to check my email every time my phone makes it's little bicycle chime noise... 

So, to occupy myself and keep myself from wallowing all day I've devised a nice little project for myself... Something I was hoping to take somewhere when I had the experience from working with the gentleman who chose me as his illustrator... 

Anywho, the project, for now, is called 'DblTaps Titans' and consists of 12 titans of 12 elements. It is a well-thought out, and if I may say so myself, brilliant project with an excellent storyline. 

I won't be telling you this story just yet, not until all 12 are complete. I have completed the designs for 6 of them and am extremely excited to show you them... Alas, my organised and methodical mind finds it impractical to show you 6 when another 6 shall remain, so for that reason I'm going to save them for later... However, I will give you some information on the 12 Titans....

Titan 1:

Name: Aethralis

Element: Air

Gender: Female

Titan 2: 

Name: Aguera

Element: Water

Gender: Female

Titan 3: 

Name: Anovita

Element: Life

Gender: Female

Titan 4: 

Name: Concedere

Element: Death

Gender: Male

Titan 5:

Name: Cotysterio

Element: Stone

Gender: Male

Titan 6:

Name: Gletscher

Element: Ice

Gender: Male

Titan 7:

Name: STBN(Still To Be Named)

Element: Storm

Gender: Male

Titan 8:

Name: STBN

Element: Fire

Gender: Female

Titan 9:

Name: STBN

Element: Earth

Gender: Male

Titan 10: 

Name: STBN

Element: Time (subject to change)

Gender: Female

Titan 11: 

Name: STBN

Element: Metal

Gender: Male

Titan 12:

Name: STBN

Element: Plant

Gender: Female

And that concludes that. I imagine it will yet be a while until you hear from me, unless of course I hear from the elusive gentleman about my dream job. In which case, internet, you will probably be the first to hear... Well, probably not... I'll most likely tell my girlfriend first... Then my best friend... And maybe my dad... But you'll come somewhere before my mum and after my best friend so... Look forward to that.

So unless it's about that comic, expect news of my Titans... And another essay-like post about them...

Well, if you made it this far, first of all, congratulations, and secondly, thank you for reading. 

AMAZING NEWS!

Well, Oh Well, hasn't it been a while?
Well, I'll tell you why.
I moved house. Yep, it took us a week but we moved house above a pub.
That's hardly a viable excuse though because we moved last week... My other excuse is that moving house tired me out big-time and I then had to work for the next 3 nights and my feet swelled to twice their size...
And lastly, I've been working on a huge project, which is the amazing news I mentioned in the post title...
So, I've been trying to get freelance work for a long time, with no luck. I only ever got a freelance job once and that was to do this:

Which, in my opinion, looks great.

But recently I finally got a proper, decent project. My dream job. I'm the illustrator for a comic series. I can't really give anything away because I don't know the rules of disclosure with the person who hired me just yet, but I'll be sure to tell you guys everything I can tell you as soon as I can tell you.

And, there are other things... Last night I did 2 designs which have needed doing for a looooong time. The first of these, The owner of Lovebuzz Clothing (http://lovebuzzclothing.bigcartel.com/) has been trying to get me to do for quite a while now and I finally got around to it. It's a digital painting of Marilyn Monroe as a scene/hipster girl (I'm not good with social stereotypes so I have no idea what I'm talking about). Here's the design:

I used the recent GTA V posters and artworks as my reference for the style and I actually love it. It looks awesome... If I may say so myself...

And lastly, the other design was something I had to do for the pub I live above. The reason we moved here is because my Step-Father is taking over ownership for the place and he asked me to make this poster.

It's nothing amazing, but still, it's design work so it goes up here.

Alright, thanks for reading :) See you guys again soon! 

Heavy Metal

My latest piece is a revamp of an old piece I did a loooong time ago called 'Heavy Metal', this piece featured Iron Man and Master Chief from the amazing Halo series. This piece started off in a comic-like style and I revamped it in my new painted style, it looks totally amazing and quite realistic. I hope you guys like it, thanks for checking them out, leave some feedback if you have the time, thanks :)

Spacecraft concept

So, as I said, I would be re-drawing many of my older pieces. The first of these which I did was of a spacecraft concept which I named 'vaelen fighter vessel 36-B' back in the day... I'm renaming it to 'vaelarien fighter vessel 36-B' just because it sounds better... Anyway, I will now show you the old version (which is worthy of many a cringe) and the new version, which i'm actually quite proud of... I'm sure you can guess which is which...

 Well, Thank you greatly for viewing, please, leave some feedback and check back again in the future :)

Redrawn

So, you remember the digital painting of a dragon I did last night? ... No? Well, not to worry, I'll show you again shortly.
I have been watching videos on www.ctrlpaint.com and wanted to try out some of the techniques to improve my digital painting... So I just re-painted the dragon from yesterday, here are the two for comparisson:

The one on the left is the new one and the one on the right is the old one. So, which do you think looks better? Let me know in a comment or via twitter (@TheDblTap)

Next... I have a few ideas lined up, one of them is just something I thought of recently and the others are to be reboots of designs/concepts I've created in the past, so look out for those.

Thanks for viewing/reading :)

DRAAAAGOOOON!!!!!

That's right, A DRAGON.
I spent the last 6 hours scribbling and doodling until it looked like something, then refining details adding effects and making something quite pleasing to look at. A freaking dragon.

This is a first, this right here is a style I've never attempted before and I have to say it worked out quite nicely. Although, I drew so many dots that one of the knuckles on my right hand has swollen...
Anyway, not much to say about this really, there wasnt much of an idea or a concept behind it as it began life as a doodle, but yeah, thanks for viewing :) Please, take the time to let me know what you think :)

Suggestions

So, doing the 'invincible men of iron' piece didn't have the effect I wanted it to... I don't feel more motivated at all, and at the most, I feel even less motivated to do that comic I mentioned doing... So, as of now, there are no promises that I will actually get round to doing that comic, I just can't bring myself to see it as a good idea anymore, not enough time has gone into thinking it through, it was never a genre I particularly enjoyed and I feel it would turn out to be pretty cliché in the end...

So, with that idea in the dust, I don't really have any ideas, any pieces to work on or anything, but then I thought, I'll do what you guys want to see! So, I'm looking for suggestions, drawings that you would like to see done and even a style you'd like to see them in, suggestions I enjoy will be added to a list which I will then begin to work on. 

So, to offer me suggestions, either tweet me @TheDblTap or leave a comment here. all comments and tweets will be read and none shall be ignored.

Thank you for reading and a double-thank-you to those who left a suggestion! 

 

INVINCIBLE MEN OF IRON!

IT'S DONE! It's finally done!
I finally, after god knows how long, finished my largely ambitious project. Featuring 29 of Iron Man's suits, I named this piece 'Invincible Men of Iron' and I sincerely hope you enjoy it! :)

So, for those who were wondering, here's a full list of the suits I selected for this piece:

Mark I, Mark II, Mark IV, Mark V, Mark VII, Mark VIII, Hypervelocity Armor, Exosphere Armor, Power Assault Armor, Hulkbuster Armor, Inferno Armor, Subterranean Armor, Hotzone Armor, Advanced Armor, Stealth Operations Armor, Arctic Armor, Classic Armor, Shield Breaker Armor, Ultimate Armor, Deep Dive Armor, Stark Racing Armor, Vibranium Armor, Heat Blast Mission Armor, Mark V Stealth Armor, Shockwave Mission Armor, Exosphere Mission Armor, Inferno Mission Armor and Fusion Armor.

I'm so proud of this and it took SO LONG. So if you appreciate this piece and want to help me out, Tweet this blog post or go to my twitter (@TheDblTap) and retweet me, or post this on facebook. Thank you so much for reading/viewing and especially if you shared this :) 

Blog design!

Just a short post to point out that I have finally put the effort into making my blog LOOK better, which really is a necessity for a graphic design blog...
Just for the sake of the archive, incase anybody come back here reading this post sometime in the future and I have a new blog design, here's a picture:

I'd also like to talk about a t-shirt design brand which my girlfriend's brother owns, it really is a very cool brand and he produces some brilliant designs. Recently, my face was used for one of the designs, taken from a photo of my second hallowe'en costume (excuse the hairy teeth, I wouldn't sacrifice my beard):

So, go check out his great work and buy one of his awesome t-shirts: http://lovebuzz.spreadshirt.co.uk/ 

Also, the make-up on my face in the above picture was done by my brilliant and talented girlfriend, who also has a blog which you can find here: http://emilyguysfx.blogspot.co.uk/

Follow her on twitter, also: @PyxiCakes

And, as for the 'invincible men of iron' piece I've been going on about, there are 6 more suits to draw and I've done the background, so, if I stop playing Halo 4, watching Dexter and generally procrastinating, you can expect it in the next couple of days.
Thanks for reading! :)

The Iron Spider.

So, the reason I haven't been posting anything lately (even on twitter) is because, aside from working extra hours to save money up for christmas, I have been doing exactly what I said I would, working on a large piece featuring many of iron man's different suits... I'm not sure how long I've been working on it now but out of 29 suits I've selected, I've finished 18. 11 more to go!
But, as I hate to come here empty handed, and I hate to leave it too long without posting, I quickly whipped up something for you guys. It's an idea which came to me while I was drawing the 'invincible men of iron' piece and I know the title 'iron spider' is taken for the suit which tony stark actually develops for spider-man, I think the name is fitting anyway, so here it is...

It's no HUGE change from the original Iron man suit, all I really changed are the colours, visors and the chest-piece, but I really like it, which is why it's my desktop wallpaper at this moment in time.
So that's it, check back soon for my finished 'invincible men of iron' piece! thanks for reading! :)