Archive for the ‘artwork’ tag
Artwork – The Naked Truth
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode B&B Investigations: The Naked Truth. This is another in the series of Fairy-Tale/Detective/Noir tales, following on from the earlier entry Cry Wolf. Time constraints meant that this had to be a simple cover, so Julie found a lovely image of some film reels since the episode centers on the movie business. With the title of the show, and the name on the cans, you should be able to work out what it’s referencing 
. I treated the photograph with the same lighting as the artwork for the earlier entry
Artwork – Golden Woods
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode CHEMO: The Town of Golden Woods. Julie asked for an abstract cover, and that’s what happened. The story centres around a hive mind, so to express that I used a hexagonal honeycomb pattern (Bees being quite symbolic of collective behavior), that was constructed and rendered in Blender 2.5. I’ve gone for eyes again, and mouths, because they’re such powerful images, it’s how we typically connect with others, it’s where we look when we’re talking to someone. I’d love to see this animated with blinking eyes looking around, and mouths speaking simultaneously.
My own eye and mouth is in that lot somewhere. The (lengthy) attributions follow …
Artwork – Dragon
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode Dragon. So much fun doing a dragon! Especially when such lovely high quality source material was available for me to use. I’ve turned it very McKeansian again — I see I shall have to make a conscious effort to steer away from that next cover. When I did the dragon, Julie asked for a knight, a chicken, a potion and bowl of pea-pods. There was only room for two however. I modified the brilliant Rooster image to be somewhat cartoony like the tradition drawing of the knight, which makes the cover a bit more playful (the play has a lot of humour in it). I was dissapointed to have to eat into the basic cover design to make it work — feels like a bit of a failure. Overall, I really like this cover!
Artwork – Warp’d Space Episode 5
The cover artwork for Warp’d Space episode 5 Peace Day. This artwork was heavily inspired by the beautiful speculative and fantastic images of space travel found in the Terran Trade Authority Handbooks. In particular, the rendering of a space scene in very light colours, away from the traditional blue/blacks. I started out with yellows which became a lovely peach. This is my favourite cover of the series so far. The Drake was rendered in the new Blender 2.5 beta, which I’m starting to get to grips with.
I really need to find some time to re-create the 3D model of The Drake — it was good for my level of expertise at the time, and turned out quite well, but it is really lacking in texture and detail. This will be a project for the remainder of the year, neatly dovetailing with my goal to improve my Blender3D skills.
Artwork – Cautionary Tale
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode Cautionary Tale. A story about folktales. This cover wound up with a very McKeansian flavour. Dave McKean is certainly an influence on my artwork and compositions, however it’s usually not as pronounced. Maybe the folklore angle kicked in with some Sandman nostalgia.
Artwork – Warp’d Space Episode 4
The cover artwork for Warp’d Space episode 4, the second part of the story “For the Record”. The photograph of the actor was supplied to me, however I had to conceal a rather stylish hat, and replace his suit with something a little more functional and utilitarian to make it look like he belonged on a space ship — a digitally altered set of fireman’s clothes!
Artwork – Force Majeur
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode Force Majeure. We kept it simple for this one: the business card of one “Beelzebud”, an infernal recruitment agent specialising in “Fat Male Comedians”, falling and burning. The unsubtle “We’ll Make You a Star” with the inverted pentacle “star” was a nice little elaboration.
I quite enjoyed this episode — the sound design was especially strong, and the deadpan world-weary investigator was funny.
Force Majeur is actually a legal term — which, in a story about infernal contracts, is a crucial point. It means “superior force”.
Artwork – Il Professoro’s Daughter
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode il Professoro’s Daughter. The story was loosely based on Rappaccini’s Daughter but thoroughly modernised.
Artwork – The Idiot Box
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode The Idiot Box. This release was swapped in the schedule with Ill Professoro’s Daughter, due to a rather timely reality-game-show psychological experiment being conducted in France. This cover was done in about two hours, at very short notice. Luckily, I’d previously taken images of TV pixelation I could use. Most of the work was progressively distorting the series of eyes to look like scary jagged broken up television images. I like the eyes suggesting the audience, and the voyuerism of reality-television.
Artwork – Haunter of the Dark
The cover for the 19 Nocturne Boulevard episode Haunter of the Dark. This is another in the series of “The Lovecraft Five” — retellings of HP Lovecraft stories by some people at dinner (see also The Picture in the House).
The original concept for this cover was an eldritch gemstone in a wooden box, but my 3D rendering abilities weren’t up to it, so Julie suggested an alternate of a church with lightning. I found a lovely image of a church, and a stunning shot of some lighting, and I think they go together well to create a moody and creepy image.