Now that I'm a fourth year animation student, I have two significant projects - amid a sea of smaller ones! - to concentrate on over the next few months. And I'm excited about both! I can't wait to share some of the ideas I've been developing for all of those, but first, I've been wanting to share an older story pitch that I developed last year! 

For some time now, I've been thinking about my little pocket watch logo, wondering whether or not I should update that as my icon across social media. I had a few good brainstorming conversations too, which made me wonder if it was time to start using something digital, something more characterful, and/or something closer to a visual representative of me as an artist. With all that in mind, I decided to draw up this little stylised version of myself as a character. I'm not 100% sure that I'll use it as planned (I'm pretty attached to my pocket watch!) but it was a fun little experiment all the same. :)

I've been thinking a lot about music lately. Craving new music, falling in love with old favorites again, and working with music in a lot of my art and design work too. I realized the other day that of the four projects for/with other people that I've got in the works; half of them are for musicians, directly related to their music. That, together with the news of Bowie's death, I couldn't help but draw inspiration from the great joy that there is in listening. 

After the VFX Summit last week, I was chatting with a new friend who had volunteered at the event (check out his work here!). He told me about Virtual Plein Air; drawing or painting a real scene - as though you were there - using photography or Google Maps as reference. The idea appealed to me, and I immediately wanted to give it a go! All throughout my childhood, my family would go for a walk on Sundays, and when I'm not too busy, I still like to go on little adventures like that. These days, I don't have a lot of free time to go exploring, so I figured I'd draw one of the places I've explored many times before; Roches Point, in Cork (with some artistic license). It's a speedpainting, but it's definitely a project I want to do again!