GRUNKK!

..no idea what that means sorry - and I didn't spend too long thinking about it either, but it's the name I've given to this guy. He's based on a couple of quick sketches which I've also stuck up here, thought he could be good fun to paint up, so got on with it! Got loads in the pipeline there should be a real onslaught of pics coming yer way in the next few weeks..so stay tuned!

Back real soon!

Ross

Spare Parts

..yet more from the Spare Parts Archives!

If u like what u see go try the game on XBLA/PSN ! It's great fun!

XBOX SPARE PARTS

Anyways, here's a mixture of stuff....a little more environment work with the Demo level mountain top that you're ship crash lands upon ( notice placeholder ship rough - just not unique enough! ) , there's also another robot ( the girly one! ) , some enemy stuff in the form of the Spider Monkeyz various incarnations, and a little glimpse of some backstory, with the Krokks that inspired some of the levels and backstory throughout the game.

Enjoy!

MONSTERS!!

....under the Bed!

Been a bit slow with the posts in the last couple of weeks, which I will blame on my sons birthday and as such playing too much Dinosaurs/Batman/Starwars games n stuff. Nice :)

Anyways, I should have lots more in the coming weeks, got a bunch more Spare Parts stuff to stick up shortly, plus some Deathly Hallows 2 stuff comin, plus about 5 things I'm in the middle of in the ol' photoshop. So expect more regular doses of sketchtasticity!

But for now, here's a link to a short film for which I did some concept work. I can't stick any pictures up here or it'll kinda spoil it, but it's only a couple of minutes long so give it a watch! Plus it's really good, and was a pleasure to be part of the production, helmed by my good buddy John Fairfield. When he's famous hopefully he won't forget this! :)



Yoy can check out the film here


MONSTERS UNDER THE BED!


Back real soon!

Ross

Sketching...

Been doodling a lot recently, which is always fun....got a few ideas I wanna try and kick into development and pursue, but most of these here are just random scribbles from the train/sofa/bed/toilet.

ok not the toilet.

Back soon!

-Ross

Party time!

Just a quick post of a fun little piece I just finished - my son Elliot turns 4 next month, and I got tasked with putting together an invite - Jungle themed! RAAR!
So here's what I came up with, which Elliot seems to giggle at, so client happy = job well done :)

Man that was fun!

Ross

PS - I just updated the pic by removing details...sorry interweb yer just not all invited! :)

GameKeeper

Another doodle that I decided to colour, similar to the Pirate below...just took the first sketch straight into Photoshop, and mucked around with lighting and stuff.

In other news, I've got a new PC set up at home - feels a bit more studio esque now - albeit a small messy studio ! So hopefully I'll be posting some more stuff regularly, and painting away into the wee hours.

Back soon

Ross

Tarot Sketches

Howdy Went to another life drawing session at my local pub last night, this time Tarot themed. So lot's of fantastic poses inspired by the themes of the Tarot deck, and basically a great night. I'd recommend checking out a session if u can, they are run by the very talented Jake Spicer and are held regularly in Brighton, just occassionally venturing upto Guildford to entertain us. Always good to get back to basics and get some practice in! ..especially accoimpanied by a couple of pints!

Indiana Jones....

Throw me the idol!!

So a few days ago it was the 30th anniversary of pretty much the greatest adventure movie ever put to film - Raiders of the Lost Ark. So that seemed like a pretty good excuse to start scribbling Dr.Jones. Got the dvd out, bit of googling of Harrison, and the sketch pad was out. Right off I wanted to focus on the Idol, the opening sequence is probably my favourite bit of the movie, and it's such an iconic moment that I wanted to use it's power....but then I started to think about how many freaky skulls and corpses there are in this movie that u kind of forget about...for a family movie there's a lot of those guys in there, and most of the raiders pics I've seen haven't featured these prominently. So then these guys got added...and the imposing ball of doom just seemed to make sense.

Anyways, it was a quickie really , didn't want to overwork it...just focus on composition and the feeling of adventure. Who can believe this movie is 30 years old, still looks amazing. Even the melting faces :)

Back soon!


Ross

Conrad Concept

Howdy! Thought I'd stick up some more of my work from Spare Parts. When we found out Simon Pegg was going to be lending his supreme talents to the game it was pretty exciting - when I found out I was gonna be desiging the character he voices - well that was hot dang awesome. As the pic shows, originally we were going to make this guy in 3D , like a floating retro computer terminal thing. Eventually the design moved to 2D , and also started to reflect more of an actual face rather than a more abstract lifeless object. So we went with something that definitely had a hint of Simon to his look, with the little moustache that also lends itself to the expression set. We ended up with the fun little digital hologram face - how's that for a slice of fried gold! :) I've also put up the Krofax starship - for this one I looked at a variety of inspirations, including Wierd bugs, Prawn like molusk things , the Sydney opera house, and a cool hotel in India. Drawing spaceships is never dull! Last one is another of the robots - this one more Samurai inspired, again sticking to the template to fit the animation skeleton for all robots, but pushing it where we could. One of the more bad-ass of the bots! Back soon with...stuff! Adios!

In space....

..no one can hear me draw!



Maaaan, drawing Xenomorphs is fun. A friend said to me the other day that ALIEN is his second favourite movie, and he's Bang on, it is amazing, and my favourite of all the xenomorph movies. So when I was asked to draw this for a friend I defnitely researched more of the classic Ridley Alien, and the background was inspired by the Nostromo, particualrly the mother room with it's orange dotted lights everywhere.
I used to draw these things all the time as a teenager, the Dark Horse comics ( or the titan uk equivalent ) were awesome, and I couldn't get enough. Particularly loved 'Labyrinth' with beaufiful art by Killian Plunkett, no on Clone Wars. So it was surprisingly enjoyable to come back to drawing one of these again properly after all those years. Cheers to Josh for getting me into it! Got some more Spare Parts stuff coming very soon, plus other bits n bobs!

Oh - thought I'd include the original drawing also - you can't beat pencil n paper!!



This is RAB...signing off :)

Aaaarrrrr...

Ok, so recently I've been trying to sketch in a diferent way, where rather than drawing lots of quick scribbles trying to maybe design a character like a pirate, I've just sat down and slowly drawn out a sketch, taking more time to consider each line. So this guy wasn't designed so to speak, just a one off drawing that I did whilst parked on the sofa, and thought 'he could be fun to colour'. So that's what I've done. I'm enjoying it as a diferent approach to doodling, requires more concentration and thought but worth it. Got another one of these almost done, will be up here in a few days. Just loving the drawing right now!

Oh...and a Xenomorph on the way! MOTHER!!!!

-Ross

Clone Wars

Howdy - Quick post before I run to catch a train - I've been working on a CloneWars pin-up based on the trilogy of episodes starring the NightSisters and the wicked Savage Oppress. He's the main focus of the pic, so I spent a little longer on his pose, finally got to one I was happy with, so it's now in the colour and lighting stages, but the pinup itself still has a few other characters required, so don't expect to see it up here for a month or so...but it was great fun sketching this guy, there's been a lot more cool new characters introduced in the last series of Clone Wars, and I've really been enjoying the show, worth checking out. Back soon with a Pirate!

Gotta Dash! - Ross

She-Warrior!

...or 'Orc Fucka' as u might wanna call her. Up to you.


Been working on this one for a while, finally put some time into the finishing touches....you can see the early sketch in one of the sketchbook posts below....I might put up a development progress thing of the stages this thing went through, from scribble to line to flat colour to lighting etc. Been a lot of fun, she's I suppose just my take on Red Sonja really...with a couple of tattoos, went slightly celtic/mayan with those, liked the blockier look, i was gonna go with a proper tattoo sleeve, but it looked too modern.

Got another couple pieces not too disimilar to this one, so it could be a busy week on the ol' blog!

Reptilian Ogre

Thought I'd try painting up one of the sketches that I posted a few weeks ago, so I went for this fat bad man. Thing. I don't paint up stuff in this style that often, so it's definitely good to get practice, trying to lean away from cartoony stuff a little more for a change is probably good for me. It's a little overcooked but hopefully the next one is quicker and easier. Got a few days off so gonna try to tidy the desk, clear the lightbox, resist the x-box, and get some more drawing and painting done.

Back soon!

HOT GONK FOOTY

NOT the third of my Jabbas Palace postcards, but a quick side doodle of the torturous droid 8D8. Gotta love the screaming Gonk droid in this scene from ROTJ, had a lot a fun fuckin around with this. Got a couple more pics in the pipeline, maybe get another up this week, and of course the third postcard is on its way. Adios!

JET SET RADIO 10 - TWEAKED!

Yo! soooo....yup, I know I posted the original version of this poster a good few months ago...but I glanced at it the other night, and it bothered me. I think I rushed it to meet the anniversary deadline, and my original teaser image of Gum skating away from us was stronger than my final pinup of the gang, so I thought I could definitely make a good stab at fixing it up.

The main things that bugged me were lighting and the the wierd border that smacked of photoshop a little too much. So I've gone in and played around, hopefully it's more dramatic and exciting now, and just works better as a pinup. Glad I went back to it! I've put up a comparison so you can play spot the diference! Have fun!

Actually...wowzas, I just checked and I posted the original almost a year ago! Time Flies eh!

Spare Parts Concepts

Howdy folks...

Finally getting around to putting up some concept work from the game I finished last year.
It's been out on xbox live for a few months, and was one of the most enjoyable projects I've ever had the good fortune to work on. I was lead concept, and although I occassionally got the odd concept artist to help me out, it was quite a small team, which meant I got to draw and colour a lot of the cool stuff myself. SPACESHIPS! ROBOTS! AWESOME! :)

So first up I'm gonna stick some stuff from the 'Hub Ship', basically the crashed ship wherein you start the game, and your main hub area that you return to again and again. I'm also gonna put up one of my favourite of the alternate robot characters - Issa4c. He's heavily influenced by retro 70's/early eighties robots, and basically rocks.

So I'll be back in a few days with some more stuffs, like the villains spacecraft and some more environment stuff....if you haven't tried the game go check it out .

Cheers!

Ross

Jedi Pic 2 - Rebo Band

These guys rock - literally! These guys have always been one of the coolest things about the jabba scene in Jedi, and I've based this pic on the original version, so the lyrics are what i reckon she 's singing with a little help from the internet. It's not that I don't like the special edition version, I think it's very cool, but in CG-ing Sy Snootles herself I think she lost something, ok she gained much more animation and movement, but she has a cool puppet look in the original that I referenced when sketching this up.

Plus how cool is Max Rebo! A blue elephant dude on a flashing lights organ piano bowl thing! He's the Billy Joel of Jabba's Palace! ( google it kids )

Anyway, a heck load of fun drawing these guys - now just the last of the 3 'Postcards from Jabba's Palace' to do....although I sketched up the Amanananamanaman version I am tempted to draw Hooded Luke instead, force choking a pig. hmmm....

Boushhhhh

Howdy

First of my starwars pics is finally coloured, just been squeezing in the odd hour here and there to gradually work it up. Decided not to clean up the pencils on this one, just coloured straight over, if there's no need then why waste time! Originally had more browns and oranges in chewie and boushh closer to their actual colour schemes, but decided it was more atmospheric and ominous pushing it all more towards the blues and greens of the dark palace. Always loved Leias disguise, fantastic design, and was a great toy when I was....31 ;)
I think I actually got Leia Boushh in a bag of 8 figures for a pound in woolworths all those years ago, when they had surplus stock after Jedi had come out. Happy days!

More astrofunk coming soon maybes, but probably Sy Snootles next! Adios!

Ross

Return of the sketches

Howdy

Just a quick tease of some new sketches that are work in progress....I'm in the middle of three Return of the Jedi sketches, all Jabbas' Palace themed, which is just great fun to draw, and was always one of my favourite moments in the movies, with such a wealth of cool characters. Anyways, been sitting over the lightdesk most evenings, so now just gotta do the photoshop leg of things.....back soon with some finished product!

no Strings Attached

Quick post from a life drawing night last week....

Rowan and I spent a night at the keystone for 'Strings', a life drawing class themed around puppets and mannequins - which meant that there was the odd puppet string thrown over the model, and every song included the words 'puppet','string', 'doll' or...well u get the picture. Needless to say, Cliff Richards 'livin doll' was played too many times!

However, the class was excellent, and yet again it proved the old equation worked.

Sketchbook + Naked ladies x Beer = Awesome.

Drawing turned out pretty well, unfortunately most were too big to scan, so I took photos instead, hence the low average quality of images. Anyways...got Return of the Jedi on, off to draw some StarWars....back in a couple of days with something hairier. :)

Cold as ice....

Howdy

I got back in contact with an old comics buddy recently, and wound up with a comic flavoured request - could I fill a 3 page gap in 3 weeks. Black n white, A5...so I thought 'yeah why not'.

A week and a half later I still hadn't nailed the exact story I was gonna draw, and was throwing around about 4 ideas.

Skip to the deadline at the beginning of this week, and those 3 pages had somehow become 8!
Anyway, it was a lot of fun working on a real quick comic project, so I've put the first 3 pages up here...you'll have to wait until the release of the comic to see the rest....it's gonna be part of the second 'Birdsong' anthology, wiht a bunch of short stories by some very talented folks - I'll be sure to put links and details up here when it's out.

Think I've got a digital painting needing finished, so might get onto that now if I get the chance - back real soon with more scribblings! Lemme know what ya think of the Frozen preview...

cheers

Ross

More sketchbook stuff

Back again! ....

Been trying to draw as much as possible recently, and really enjoying just scribbling away, hence another post of sketchbook random stuff. Again, some of this will remain a sketch, might work up a couple ( the barbarian chick is currently sitting in a half painted state ....one day i might return to her ! )... my forgotten love! :) Most of my sketching these days is on layout paper rather than in actual sketchbooks, i love that i can just tear it out a page and muck about with it, get it on the lightbox, play around more. But I end up with piles of loose sheets of sketches, which is kinda why these sketchbook pages have the layouts I've gone for......currently finishing off a short 8-page comic for an anthology due out soon, so should be posting some of that next week, plus maybe finally some painting stuff. Have a good weekend all!

-Ross

Pulp Fuzzball

Evening...morning....or wait, it is pretty late, goodnight! I just jumped in my quantum accelerator and vanished, awakened in the past with a mirror image that was not my own, bought this classic Captain Fuzzball comic book, came back to the future via a lightning strike and the help of a perverted hologram and BAM - stuck it up here on the blog. Orrr....I did a quick Captain fuzzball sketch on a lunchbreak a few weeks ago, started playing around with it, limited astrofunk colours palette, retro comic stylings, and ended up with this. Not to say that there's a new Captain Fuzzball comic coming anytime soon, but u never know. This was great fun anyway. Back in the next few days with more comic stuff and some doodles - see ya then! - Ross

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.......

..ONLY FOR U!...

.the passions that collide in me, wild abandon something something...

gotta love Bond themes!

anyway....listening to some Bond classics as I finally post some new artwork. Been pretty slack this year, but I have been scribbling a lot, so I figrued I'd put some of those together into a little sketchbook sheet. Some of these may make it further, some will perish in history! But I'm trying to draw as much as possible, and really enjoying it, got a ton of ideas going on but isn't that the fun ? Juggling all the crazy stuff?!?

Always have an escape plan :)

Ross

ASTROFUNK issue 2 - SOLD OUT!

Howdy folks - Just a quick note to say I have zero copies left of Issue 2 of ASTROFUNK! Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy, muchos appreciated. Hopefully I will get more of issue 2 re-printed soon, but at the moment you'll have to make do with ordering issue 1 if youwant any funk - of which I still have a few copies left.

But fear not - if you're desperate for an Astrofunk flavoured fix you can still download the online edition of Issue 1 from SuperRealDigital at the link below

Super Real Digital - Astrofunk 1

Issue 2 will also be available for download there real soon!


As for issue 3 - I've been doodling some Astrofunk recently, so you never know, it might happen in the near future..... I'll be getting a lot more artwork up here in the next few weeks anyways, so check back in with the sketchtasticness real soon! Adios!

Ross

Spare Parts: Launch Trailer (HD)

Today is the day! SPARE PARTS is finally out, now available on
XBOX live or PSN, at a measley 800 points - around 6.20 - what
a bargain! :) This is the new launch trailer, which the guys here
at ea did an amazing job with, so give it a watch then go download
the game, it's a lot of fun!

Cheers

Ross

Spare Parts - Concept Review

so this is a new Viral video for Spare Parts, which is about to appear on PSN and XBOX LIVE very shortly, and shows...well, maybe some of the fun we had whilst working on this game with some great people. Even the crazy ones in this video :)

So I will be posting lots of Spare Parts related stuff over the next few weeks, there's also a nice little feature on XBLA just now with Inside Xbox, plus some Themes and Wallpapers up on PSN, so everything is ramping up. Good times!

Back soon!

Ross

Spare Parts: Simon Pegg Interview

Howdy folks

It's been a while, and I've not even finished off the last post...but wanted to quickly throw this up here, nice little interview with Mr. Simon Pegg, who voices one of the main characters in Spare Parts. It was very very cool getting to design the character of Con-Rad knowing it would be Pegg, and certainly influenced its design. The video shows off some cool footage of the game, and if you keep your eyes peeled you might even spot some of my concept art towards the end. The game should be out real soon, so I'll keep everyone posted on that also...

Might eventually post some new artwork up here soon! Maybe Santa will bring me a new sketchbook!!!

Ross Burt and the Lost Map of Influence!

So i spotted these kicking around the internet recently, and thought it sounded like a fun thing to put together - just didn't realise how long I would take picking which images to use, where to put them, how big they should be....but finally got there. There's a template u can find easily on google if u fancy putting one together yourself. The idea is something like to remind yourself and show others what has influenced your art over the years....now for me and I'm sure most of you, that's a heck of a lot of things, but I've tried to stick to artwork itself that has influenced my artwork, rather than get into toys , movies, and everything else - although some of my choices kinda involve elements of some of those areas. What I have tried to do is pick images that represent more than one thing - so not only an artist, but a topic or theme too.

Anyways, I'll put together a proper description to go with this shortly, talking about each image, but it's getting late, so for now u can just look at the nice pictures :)


ok...so here we go with a run down of the pics:

Cheeks - Panthro - Starting at the top left, one of my favourite current artists is Sean 'Cheeks' Galloway. Love his stylisation and simplification, and the fact he designed the recent Spiderman animation means I can now enjoy his work with my son which rocks! This image also covers Th-Th-Th-Thundercats, which was a massive influence when i was about 9, one of my favourite cartoons from my childhood that i occassionally watch again these days, just a fantasticly strong and varied set of characters, and a great mix of sci-fi and fantasy.

Jamie Hewlett - Gorillaz - next up is another of my current faves. First got into Hewletts work at Art College, i kinda missed the Tank girl comics first time round, but I still remember first spotting Gorillaz on the cover of Dazed magazine , and pouring over the Clint Eastwood video. There's a lot to love about Hewletts work, it's contemporary and unique, and the characters have real life and personality...plus i love that u can see it's hand drawn, he doesn't hide the pencil lines. Quality.


8 bit MegaMan - so this covers a bunch of stuff - first up, i love retro video games, the blocky stylings of the NES and the sweet old school arcade cabinet graphics look amazing and have always stuck with me. Plus when i was like 8 or 9 I used to keep a Megaman scrapbook, and draw all the Robot characters. GoodTimes.

Calvin and Hobbes - the genius that is Bill Waterson had to take a large chunk of this map. I first discovered these guys in my early teens, during our Saturday library trips. Finding comic books of anykind in there was hard enough - but this was amazing...these days I own all the books, and I find myself going back to them time and again, pouring over Bills amazing work. And this image best sums it up for me - whenever you read Calvin and Hobbes it feels like you're a kid again, in front of the fire on an autumn/winter day with the comics out. These guys were also the biggest influence behind my Captain Fuzzball comic strip. I only wish Bill would come back to them for one last volume..... Amazing.

Ralph McQuarrie - Rebo Band - oh man. StarWars. Well, Return of the Jedi. I'll go into the entire SW thing later with the main image, but this pic is up there for a few reasons - first up, McQuarrie was probably one of the first concept artists i was aware of, I got the Jedi portfolio for christmas when i was only 7 ish, and it was stunning. This is one of my favourite pieces from that folio - I loved Jedi mainly for the Jabbas Palace scene - so many wierd and wonderful creatures and characters that it blew my tiny mind. Mcquarries work captured moments from the saga in breathtaking style. Wow.

Bryan Lee O'Malley - Scott Pilgrim - I discovered this about 4 years ago when I moved down to London, and quickly caught up on the first 3 volumes. I loved the fact it was simplified with bold lines like an animation, in an almost Cartoon Network kind of way, but it wasn't a kids comic - and it's mix of smart dialogue and original action was a big influence when putting together my first issue of Astrofunk.

Chris Warner - Predator - This is a blast from the past. I remember sitting drawing around the age of maybe 13, and my Dad asked me what I wanted to be - and I said 'Comic Artist...like Chris Warner'. This guy was one of the first artist names I recognised, he was drawing a lot of my favourite comics at that age, when I was getting the british reprints of american stuff - so his Predator strip was one of the first, then Terminator, then his Aliens vs. Predator. I used to sit and just copy some of his covers or splash pages. I guess his work was a kind good balance between cartoony and realistic, and he was working on these cool movie tie-ins. Loved it.

Joe Madureira - Marvel Heroes

J.Scott Campbell - Mary Jane

Gendy Tartakovsky - Clone Wars

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Street Fighter - Third Strike

Mike Mignola - Aliens

STAR WARS - Drew Struzan


ooft..this is taking longer than i thought...to be continued !

In space....

...no one can hear you sketch!


So i saw some pics from the Aliens Blu-Ray a couple weeks back, which got me doodling Ripley...aaaah, sweet Sigourney.....anyways, then I started doodling an alien, then a bit of henriksen, and before I could say 'HIGH-FIRMATIVE ' it had turned into a pin-up thing of some kind. So I thought I should finally finish it up, and get onto some proper concepting nonsense, get back into some more drawing. But drawing Aliens whilst watching Aliens has been awesome fun, infact I am very tempted to do an alien sketch with dallas and the crew, but that should really wait....

backsoon!

Spare Parts Adventure Trailer

New Trailer Alert! This one is all about gameplay, showing off lots of cool new stuff, so don't sit around reading this nonsense from me - HIT THE JUMP BELOW!

SPARE PARTS ADVENTURE TRAILER

Back Soon with a Bishop, a Queen, and a Newt!
Adios!

Spare Parts Website

Hey folks

Quick update with some news on Spare Parts, the most awesome robot adventure game xbox live has never seen but will soon! The website has just gone live, so hit the jump below to check it out - it's got all the latest news, screenshots and trailers, new bios and pics, cool wallpapers.... and if you scour the site u can unlock cheeky concept sketches, so what are u waiting for ? get over there!

WWW.SPAREPARTS.EA.COM

March of Dimes Auction Links

hey folks

So the cards i posted below have gone up on ebay.....remember this isn't you giving money to an old git like me, all goes to a great cause helping new born babies. So if u fancy any of them , here's all the links u need below....spread the word!

Harry Potter

Voldemort

Slave Leia

Jabba

Gamorrean Guard


Cheers to all bidders!!

Return of the Sketch Cards

Back again with some pics of the sketch cards I've been doing this week...

These cards are for 5finity, and will be on sale this weekend on ebay ( links coming soon), with all proceeds going to charity March of Dimes, dedicated to baby health - click on the link for more info

Anyways, I was just gonna draw Star Wars, but the temptation to draw Voldemort was too much, and I didn't want him to be all alone, so Harry got thrown in there too. I'm pretty excited about Deathly Hallows, so it was a good excuse to watch the trailer again. ...and again :)

The Jedi scene was a lot of fun, and includes some of my favourite characters - I always loved Jabbas Palace, as a kid it was this amazing place filled with fantastic characters and creatures, just awesome. This is 3 cards that join together, so if someone wants the set they gotta cough up the moolah!

So this was a lot of fun, hopefully someone picks them up and helps out a good cause whilst getting some original art in the process. Or check out other cool sketch card art at 5finity