Busy Busy Busy

OK so I know I've been really bad at keeping this up to date lately, though that is about to change very very soon. but in my defence, I have been super busy of late, firstly I've gotten a new computer set up, after being a life long Mac user, I've go a PC mostly because my work is moving more and more towards digital techniques rather than simply paint. That being said I've recently had the honour and privilege of designing and painting some stamps (that's a great job to get, one most illustrators aspire to.) the stamps are themed to the upcoming island of culture and will be on sale from January 6th 2014, so keep your eyes open for that:: 
more exciting island of culture stuff coming soon..

Updates from the mists!

Ok since my last post quite a bit has happened. Firstly I got the results of my MA in 3D computer animation and I passed with a distinction (Woo Hoo! :)), I've returned to the Isle of Man for the time being mostly because I'm flat broke, I will be seeking employment within the computer arts from here on out. I've resumed my old teaching job at the Isle of Man college, teaching illustration, drawing, painting etc.. it's quite fun, which is good. a couple of projects on the horizon that I can't really talk too much about at the moment, but trust me when I say they are very exciting.
for now though, here is my showreel:  Juan Moore showreel from Juan Moore on Vimeo.

FINISHED MY MASTERS!!!

So here we are then, It's the 16th August a date which i thought would never arrive but has snuck up on me rather quickly it is of course the deadline for my masters project. I have handed everything in and feel weird, with nothing to do. I'm fairly happy with what I have produced, I have a debrief meeting on Monday, so i guess I find out then. results will be sent out on August 30th, I return to the island next week and have secured some part time teaching work for at least a year, so whilst I'm looking for work, freelance or otherwise, I will have something. just excited to be finished: here is the finished project:

WATCH THE ANIMATION HERE

In the midst of things

Feel very much in the middle of many unfinished and uncertain things today, My masters project is proceeding, but is 13 weeks away from hand in, so it's at the early stages. It's odd being a student again, though I'm looking forward to going out into the world and no longer being a student. Ironically I've come up with a number of possible illustration projects, which will have to wait until I'm finished my MA. So keep your eyes peeled for those.
I thoroughly enjoyed painting Clara's album artwork last week, so I'm going to try and continue painting in what little spare time I have. today I'm feeling a little old and in need of a shave so here is me, half way through being 33.

Clara Barker: Fine Art and the Breslins

Well, so in amongst all this masters madness, My good friend and drinking buddy Clara, has been working on her second full length album and not only did I get to do the cover but also it's named after me too (wooooo!), one nick name I have is "Fine Art" and as some of you will  note the fellow who did the music for the MNH animation last summer was Steven Breslin, The Breslins refers to him and his lovely sister Sue, both of which are great friends, and awesome drinking buddies.
Anyway when the Album is released later in the year you should all go out and get it, it's fantastic.
Also it was so nice to do some real painting again, I hadn't realised how much I had missed it.

Masters project

So I've finished the pre production for my masters which took me all round the houses, I started off looking at computer games, then 3D printing and to what I will actually be doing: I'm going to model the little girl from my werewolf narrative and through the course of 5 models get her to be a werewolf, worst case scenario this will be just 5 models, best case there will be animation and will hopefully be a nice little short narrative.
I have deluded myself a few times, thinking that I could be a digital painter, however now I feel I'm actually getting somewhere with it, though I doubt it will ever replace my traditional work, I can see myself using it more often.
I will endeavour to update this a bit more often, but the masters will likely be very intense, so no promises.

3D printing

So everywhere I look at the moment, I see 3D printing absolutely everywhere, so as part of my Personal inquiry (a sort of research project I had to undertake for my MA, which ends in a presentation of the findings) I chose to have a crack at it, in order to do this I used the imp-like character I used to use a lot for art and illustration (pre welcome to the neighbourhood project).

I then took the simple character sketch and began modelling it in 3D, everything I read about 3D printing stated that as long as the mesh is water tight (no holes) manifold (no open faces or shared edges) it should be fine, there was no mention to ngons or unquaded triangles (sorry for the tech talk, these are things to avoid when creating a model for animation)..

So I deliberately left both of these things in, I kept the model low polygon (it's under 2k polys) and did not equally space the polygons, again this is something not mentioned in any of the write ups I've read about 3D printing and so after an afternoon I had this:

I then took it to see the 3D printing researchers here at the NCCA (who are doing amazing things) and I printed it on desktop 3D printer they have in their lab:

This took 11 hours to print and is around 3 inches tall (i didn't have to be there the whole time, we left it printing over night) As you can see, the structure is there, but that's about it, most detail is lost, partly due to the printer used and the plastic not being hot enough at the start. an unusual wood like pattern appeared on the model too, though unexpected, it has a nice quality to it.

Convinced I could get petter results I sent the mesh to a commercial printing service, who produced this:

The detail is all there, even down to the un-smoothed polygons. this has opened my mind up to all kinds of possibilities. Many people have asked me about sculptures of my work and the main reason why I've never looked into it is because of the spindly nature of my characters, I didn't think they could stand up. when I'm finished with the MA, this will receive a lot of  more of my attention. look out galleries!!