You live in the UK, you know what a pantomime is! A family comedy theatre performance, with audience participation, usually based on folk tales, with local / lower level celebrities in some parts. “Panto” for short. They show up during the Christmas season; Aladdin is currently running in Halifax, while Bradford’s Alhambra is going with Peter Pan.
Now that I’ve opened with ‘Panto season coincides with the Christmas season’, I’ll start the double bill with Pantoland’s Got Talent… which was performed in Spring.
Act One: Pantoland’s Got Talent
Pantoland’s Got Talent was a completely original play, the writing debut for a member of Shipley Little Theatre. It featured all the denizens of Pantoland putting on a talent show.
For an Illustrator / vector advocate, quite a lot of this was made in Photoshop for the effects… then layered back in to Illustrator.
Lauren is an editor by day, author by night. An old friend, she’s been co-writing one of my (eternally in development) comics. Lauren’s been compiling a collection of short stories with her friends and peers, which is about ready to self-publish. The cover art was already sorted – I was called in for the publisher’s logo. That final pro touch in the bottom corner, you know?
Being fascinated with history and archeology, she decided on a Celtic style. Plenty of research was done via Google Images (filtering out the Scottish football team of the same name), finding a surprising amount of ancient finely-carved nudity.
Click for the full uncropped image if you really want to see a bull’s, ahem, “bullocks”.
We agreed that a face / mask would be neat. Lauren liked the Lord of Glauberg statue… but the product needed to work on laymans like me. The Lord reminded me of Mugatu from Zoolander, so was vetoed.
Now THERE’S a comparison you didn’t expect to see today.
The winner of this round was a Celtic horned god of nature, known as… *checks spelling* …Cernunnos. That’s him at the top of this post, on the same artefact you can find that bull.
…said the March Hare to the girl wearing a pinafore. Lots done, and lots to do.
The Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals (BUSOM) hold their 24 Hour Show this month. They enter the New Bradford Playhouse on October 10th, learning that evening what musical they’ll be performing a scant 24 hours later. It’s exciting, it’s team-building, and it’s funny if the actors mess up due to sleep deprivation (in a charming way).
I need an un-lined notepad!
There’s only a handful of ways to do a logo for a 24 Hour Show, and they’ve all been done a dozen times over. Being original is hard, but worth having a crack at!
Regular collaborator John (he of Final Boss Fight) is always expanding his media network; the latest from his team is Nerd Night, a tabletop gaming podcast. Like comics are so much more than Superman, tabletop games are way more than Cluedo.
‘Nerd’ always makes me think of Homer shouting it in The Simpsons. Me and many of my friends are nerds, it’s fine. I’ve lived with several people who play tabletop games / card games / pen-and-paper RPGs, and they’ll often get a set out whenever groups come to visit – Last time it was a few rounds of the interesting but unpronouncable Hnefatafl, then watching them conquer Europe’s rail network in Ticket to Ride.
Hi. So, how are you keeping? Around exchanging time for money, i’ve been doing these odds and ends.
One picture, based on a scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was mothballed in 2009 after reasonable progress but unsatisfactory results. Now it’s being reworked – The characters have been re-drawn, while the background and border are next. Quick preview:
A Hungry Hungry Hippogriff.
I also have a new typography piece based on Minecraft, uploaded to DeviantArt here. A black background looks fine but boring, whereas dark green makes it all a bit muddy. It currently lives in anticipation of a better solution being cooked up.
An ongoing thing has been the branding for games-and-comics news site Final Boss Fight. It turns out i’ve mentioned this before, but now the site’s running properly and i’ve made additional images. I even helped out with the camera work / logistics at the Manchester MCM Expo, which was nice.
The earlier examples have at last been added to the Illustrations page, along with a pic from my Puffin Digital Prize entry (see this post).
The Indie image is based on Commander Video, fact fans.
The second tick-over is again Minecraft-related (play it, it’s fun): A texture pack.
The textures default at 16×16, so it teaches pixel art & “economising” at the best of times. In addition, the pack i’ve been updating is in the style of the original Game Boy handheld: This means working in 4 colours. Some of the textures are taken from Game Boy games – some are modified from the defaults – some are completely new. Anywho, it is called CraftBoy, and this is where it lives.
This is the default texture pack…
…and this is what CraftBoy does.
Finally, this site’s seen a slight header update, code fixes and item shuffling, as always.
As covered in previous posts (and highlighted on the right), i’ve been heading a 2-part project to create a children’s mascot for Keighley’s Cliffe Castle Museum. Well, the second half of Cliffe the Caterpillar finally came to pass in March.
This chapter required more complicated / exciting imagery than the first. There was also a tighter deadline this time round, but it was still brought in on time!
Below are two of the five images made:
Cliffe as a great detective – Cliffe with Centurion
As I was working on the above, a second freelance project came in. An upstart called Nexus Education wants some branding and promotional material creating, and I started off by providing a logo:
An agency supplying and screening substitute teachers.
Then freelance disaster struck – I was offered one of these things called “a job”! No, it’s not in a design studio, and it’s temp ongoing, but I grabbed it with both hands!
So here’s the rub: Now i’ve had to put my involvement in the Nexus project on hold, and can no longer help the 3D group mentioned last time (not for a while at least). Shame.
I can, however, afford to buy more than food now, and it’s not a bad place. Onwards for a wage!
Logopolis was taken. So was Logopalooza. Besides, I think you need more than three to use those terms. Onwards!
Over the Single Positive Integer Increment of Gregorian Calendar Occasion (New Year’s) the University of Bradford Students’ Union ran a contest to redesign their “Friday Night Disco” logo. Since for the last couple of years they’ve been using this…
Old & Busted.
…I thought it couldn’t hurt to enter. Equal parts crafting and waiting later, I won! This is what they’ll use now:
New Hotness.
I was generally thinking of glow-sticks and star wands.
They were so eager to get going that the image was put to use a few hours after the contest deadline! My reward is free entry into any of their events (including the FND of course) for the rest of the academic year – something to bear in mind when passing through the city. The slight profile rise and achievement feel grand.
Part two of two: My associate Filmstock is part of a brand new collaborative that blog about video gaming (they met working at GAME). Final Boss Fight is being knocked into shape, and as some retro identity imagery was requested, I once again sallied in!
Website logo (left) – Podcast logo (right)
Mmm, pixels.
Oh yes, there’s an accompanying podcast too. I like the name. The podcast logo needs a little re-jigging to meet Apple standards, but the current one can be used on Filmstock’s site just fine.
I’ve that many logos to show off now, they may need to break off into their own portfolio page (or some lessers need culling).
Part three of …two. A little tinkering means I can give blog images captions now. A nice feature to have. I might go retcon some into older posts. Tata.
This post title was brought to you by The Nightmare Before Christmas.
One of the last months highlights has been applying to a company that sells fancy dress costumes online. They’re genuinely nice people, so here’s a link to them. Sadly, that application goes no further; I gave 125%, and someone else gave 150%. I can now show you some of my application project.
We were given one week to create a bunch of specified assets. Themes were picked from a hat – mine was Halloween. Score!
A ‘shop window’ splash image, to highlight some male and female costumes:
Codename “Dead Wedding”, it’s loaded with gravestones, bats, pumpkins and other seasonal paraphernalia. The costumes are for sale on their site. Insider tip – the black flowers in the lower-left corner are also available for purchase.
A matching banner was built too.
Also, a re-design of the site logo:
Notice how the whole thing is enclosed in a box, to represent their delivery service. The shiny look imbues glamour and fun, as the current logo does, while the choice of accessories shown (pirate hook, fake moustache) show that the site is not just for girls.
Progress through the concepts below:
As you may have noticed, Halloween is not the season we’re currently in. Let’s end on a festive note. I may get coal in my stocking this year, but that’s OK – there’s a wood burner in the living room, it’ll help get the fire started. HO HO HO.
This weekend was the 48 Hour Film Project 2010! My mate John (Filmstock) has once again taken part this year, and I helped him out by quickly making a couple of logos for his short film. One is a future version of the Metropolitan Police insignia (different but still recognisable), and the other is for a device called Proteus:
And there you have it – one symbol for a shape-shifting Sea God!
Update: Filmstock has now put the short film featuring both insignia onto YouTube for all to see.
My film-based buddy at Filmstock FX updated his site yesterday. I designed his site logo for him, so stepped in this morning to get it matching the new layout. Threw in a little favicon too. Head over and check them out… and his services, while you’re there.
