The Backstreets
Author: Ant Mercer
Conk reet
Crows.
Dinosaur Park Set design/storyboards
Often in my role as a storyboard artist I can work on a project and never hear of it again – projects get cancelled, clients decide to use another concept – many reasons.
But I thought I’d show an advert by one of my clients, NeamTV, for the VTech playset “Toot Toot Friends.” It’s got my dabs all over it.
First of all, I was hired to create the back drop of the set. Here’s a few images from the set of my artwork, printed IRL at huge size.
In addition, I was asked to storyboard this advert too:
…and here’s the final broadcast advert.
*Set photography courtesy of NeamTV.
Geeks
Another 2000AD related post. Drew some Geeks from one of my childhood favourite stories, “The V.C.s”. Sketchbook doodle > paint > to a couple of finals.
GEEK_LINE_1
GEEK_LINE_2
Geek 1
Geek 2
Geek 3
GEEK_SINGLE_DEC21
GEEKS_GROUP_DEC21
Harryhausen
As part of the lockdown sketchdump I produced an image of Calibos from the Harryhausen film “Clash of the Titans,” included here with this collection of other images inspired by the work of Ray Harryhausen.
Portrait sketch dump
Early on in the 2020 lockdown, with a bit of time on my hands, I started to do a bit of digital archaeology and dug deep into my archival hard drives for the first time in years. Part discovery and part clearing away an accumulation of digital detritus I unearthed numerous dead projects, ideas, doodles and other crap.
One of the things that I found was a folder called “To Draw” where I’d stored images and reference for later study. From anatomical study, interesting faces or statues or, as in a batch of images, photos taken off the TV of some unusual guests on the late not-lamented-at-all Jerome Kyl-e show,
The Great Hall, Hampton Court Palace.
For this project, my client requested some visualisations of a wedding event to be held in the grand setting of The Great Hall, Hampton Court Palace. An amazing room to model, with detailed world-renowned stained glass, tapestries probably commissioned by Henry VIII and numerous other wonderful details. It was a balancing act to incorporate as many of these details as possible, whilst ensuring that the project came in on budget.
This is a pipe
Specifically, it’s my Granddad’s pipe.
As a kid, I was always fascinated by the details – all the creases and folds, the fingernails. It’s a lovely object. Made of meerschaum, I think. My Ma cleared out the attic a few years ago and it finally came to me. My Granddad was a blacksmith, pretty handy with DIY I would guess. Not sure what he would make of my skills making the frame, but it’s framed and up on the wall.
Classic Computers
BBCMicro & Acorn Electron
Illustrations of two classic computers from the early days of home computing, namely the BBC Micro and the Acorn Electron. Originally, the models were made to produce technically accurate illustrations of the machines for the superb “Acorn – A World in Pixels” Book published by Idesine. Working from detailed reference; photos, old manuals and archival drawings, these detailed models were created, textured and rendered in Blender, initially I produced the wireframe illustrations and some realistic renders for the second extended edition.
The models have found a life of their own since I made them, for instance, go to virtual.bbcmic.ro for a fantastic project to virtually recreate a functioning computer. Here’s some info about the entire project by Dominic Pajak.
In addition to the main computer, I also modelled a Cub monitor – you can buy them on Blendermarket, if you want to get your hands on them, just be sure to credit me with whatever you use them for. I will be releasing the Acorn model through Blendermarket too in the near future.
