Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas, Happy 2013 and all of that. Catch y'all again next year!

Sebastian Vettel

The dreaded Sebastian #Vettel finger. All Zbrush +f1fans

Ahhhh, Blood

Count Dracula knows fine blood. He drinks it out of a glass. Refreshing.

All Zbrush. Quite like the hard surface tools.

Happy Halloween!

Worldwide Sketchcrawl 37 - Flinders Street

Holbien Watercolours + LAMY Safari pen

I have a new LAMY pen... yeah those ones that exist inside a glass cabinet signifying that they are somehow more superior-er.

The flow is really something else - I'm guessing catered for connoisseurs of calligraphy. It comes out dark, and stays dark even if I applied watercolours on first.

Not to mention, I sat in the rain doing this. The drops splattered my page but it gave it a nice effect.

Here are some other sketches from the day after the jump. Started off at Starbucks (as you do) and then some heads on the train back.

Blue Mountains - Corel Painter Plein air

Not too far out of Sydney are the spectacular Blue Mountains. A clear, crisp and seemingly endless landscape full of inspiring locations to paint.

Which prompted me to try something different; haul a laptop and bushwalk over rocky terrain. Yes, I figured that traditionals were too messy and bulky to carry, and the iPad was too cumbersome to paint on. What I found out in the end was there were alot of disadvantages using the laptop method too.

Running against battery life was part of the problem. Poor screen brightness in the open sun was another (I hid under the shade of my coat to block the sun off my screen to the bemusement of passers by). And ofcourse, laptops really aren't meant to be exposed to drizzle or any other of nature's extremities - so it's limited physically.

All in all it was a fun experience - one where I think I'll spend several days calmly picking spots to paint rather than to rush around with an immanently setting sun.

Below is a screen capture of the experience. I think you can see how I struggled at the beginning to lock in a value structure - with the rolling clouds and what have you. But towards the end I began to enjoy it alot more.

Made it onto TV! ...

Albeit for a brief, brief period.

But I'm glad ABC arts reporter Annemaria Nicholson gave the work a shout out at the Bald Archy exhibition.

Although the other networks picked up the Bald Archy exhibition, they didn't show any ailing Rupert works at all. I think we all know why right?

Click to see the full story!

Worldwide Sketchcrawl 35 - Sydney

Last weekend was my first Sketchcrawl in Sydney and there were 30 artists, young and old, whipping out their pencils and drawing. Having done Sketchcrawl's in Melbourne for so long, I was inspired (and secretly jealous) how large the community was here - to see how eager they were to sketch the world around them.

The group went to Cockatoo Island, a relaxing 15 minute ferry ride from Sydney. It was a beautiful and alien looking place. Old machines, warehouses and buildings over looking the Sydney skyline. The one above is yet another iPad sketch. I was barely on Cockatoo Island when the scene just grabbed me. It was an overcast morning and a little damp, this seemed to saturate the colours on the cliff faces. Yet right next to it was a giant, man made warehouse which was coloured a fading sky blue. Rarely in the modern world, I think, would this exist anymore, nature would just get mowed down. But here they seemed to co-exist, frozen in time.

The sketches below are from a more traditional media known as "pen". They are shot on a more prehistoric thing called a Nokia phone camera. Unfortunately I don't have all my equipment here so for now, this'll do.

Please do yourself a favour and check out the brilliant work of the other Sydney sketchers. And while your at it, the rest of the world!

Sydney Town Hall - iPad Plein air

This was done on the iPad again on the Brushes App in front of Sydney Town Hall. I was lucky enough to get it on a gorgeous day.

Sydney isn't a bad place at all. Great weather, beautiful landmarks lots of inspirational places to sit and draw. Here I sat inside the Kinokuniya book store opposite Town Hall painting for about 2 hours. The security guard was sussing me out every 15 minutes trying to figure out what I was doing. Although it's on iPad advertising now, I guess painting is not what normal people do when they visit a bookstore. Looking forward in seeing what else Sydney has in store.

Video here:

Rupert Murdoch at the 2012 Bald Archy

This year I decided to enter a caricature of Rupert Murdoch who, in 2011, fell waaaay from grace and was whittled down to a blubbering old man in front of the world.

As always, tried a different process for this piece with mixed results. This time I started off with a sketch of basic shapes and lines and worked out my key exaggeration points. Then straight to Zbrush where I quickly sculpted his head to get information about lighting and form. Finally off to painter where I used the render from 3D and painted it in 2D. So you could say it was a caricature on top of a caricature on top of a caricature?

Others than my first initial sketch, photographic reference from that point was rarely used. Whether that was a good idea or not, I'm not sure, but I definitely learnt a lot about the advantages and disadvantages.

Make sure you get down the exhibition wherever you are in Australia! Lots of great entries.

Julia Gillard sculpt WIP

I started modelling this late last year, but wow, wouldn't it be a waste of work if Julia Gillard somehow manages to lose tomorrow in the Labor leadership battle. So to ensure I get at least some use of the work I shall post this Work in Progress of Australia's...at least for now, current, Prime Minister.

And what a face she has too. So many unique forms, funny nuances and those ear lobes! Beautiful.

From a technical standpoint this was modelled from an ordinary ZSphere in Zbrush and retopo'ed a few times. The suit is hand modelled to achieve its crispness.

Still have a long way to go on it though. It would be a shame to stop now, so she better not lose!!

David Beckham, OMG

When one of your boyhood heroes rocks into town, there's really no stopping the childish giddiness associated with it. Late last year, David Beckham came into Melbourne in what would be described, a lacklustre game with crowd engagement at an all time zero. That didn't stop me however, from printing a portrait I did of him and holding it up in the crowd like someone would care.

Specifically for digital painting I wanted this roughness and bite to it that's rare in printing. After talking with the printers for awhile we settled on a paper called 'Breathing colour - velvet'. And although in photo form it doesn't show up very well, in reality the texture of the paper really lifts the stroke work. So I would recommend giving it a go. It may not be the cheapest thing to do, but it's certainly rewarding having something tangible to hold.

And for reference, here is Becks at the game. If I could just say, everyone writes him off being a superstar and only caring about his image - but on the field, my eyes fixated on him - I thought he had brilliant presence and sense that he actually cared about the team. Not to mention that he still has those skills.

Lux St Sin and Corel Painter 12

I spent alot of 2011 just experimenting with my digital painting and going to every brush and tweaking them to my liking. I began to make a switch from Photoshop to Painter because I believed, somewhere, there was a better engine that could create the look I wanted.

I wanted some 'guts' in my painting, some randomness. There are ofcourse brush settings in Photoshop that emulate this but nothing that makes the canvas feel as if the paint is still active.

Which brings me to brush attributes in Painter like 'resaturation' and 'feature'. You can control these to bring out surprises that actually make you feel excited about your work as you do it.

Coupled with the 'arists' variant brushes that create interesting shapes and mix paint accurately to what's already on canvas - every time you open the work you see something different that you've gotten for free.

Another piece of greatness about Painter is that it recognizes the pen you have in your hand. I've built up a collection of various Wacom Pens over time and I physically switch pens based on the tool I want. Yes you can set up a palette for your brushes, but some reason I found this method more intuitive and speedy.

This piece was of a Dr Sketchy's Session late last year of Lux St Sin - who was wearing a striking Asian outfit with strong makeup. Great model. I tried to stick to only a few brushes

• Sargent Brush (edited with less spacing)


• Loaded Palette knife (reduced 'feature' setting)


• Grainy Water (Blender that reacts to Canvas)


• Soft Flat Oils (with a pen that detects rotation, this brush is excellent)

I've stuck by these brushes over the break and hopefully can post more of these experimentation's for you soon.