Contact Me At: michaelnolan1983@gmail.com







Tuesday 11 October 2011

Meanwhile...

I have not been getting my art on much lately, I have been sketching a lot but nowhere near as much as usual, nor have I been animating as I should be. Tonight however I was filled with the desire to do something a little more worthwhile, so I started on a promised traditional piece to a friend. I'm sure you all remember the Cúchullain piece from a week or more ago, well its that, but as I said, traditional. So far, just a pencil sketch followed by alot of very faint ink washes until this
Apologies for the poor quality, its an A3 page and my scanner is only A4 so I had to take a picture. I have never been very good at fading my washes away in a smooth gradient, but I'm a lot better than I used to be, so I suppose practice does indeed make perfect. 
That big white line aross the corner is my headphones cable by the way and theres my sexy liquid holding tray at the top, I dont know what it's actually for or where I got it, but it does a great job where it is now.
So just a load more washing to finishing him up, then the easy task of a some complicated knotwork to finish it off that I definitely wont make any mistakes with.
Definitely.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

shiori and gnaf wip

Something Im working on for my love. Her character Shiori and her pet wolf Gnaf, I wanted to do something a little different, so I went for a sort of transitional walking image, you get it.

Sunday 2 October 2011

Oisín the poet

Oisín (pronounced ush - een, for those non Irish amongst ye) was the son of Fionn, I drew him already remember. Oisín's story is the saddest of all of them, a sorry end to a great warrior poet. If you want to know more about him you may as well buy a few books and get to reading because there are a lot of different versions of what happened to him, my personal preference is in Lady Gregory's Irish Mythology, my bible. But if you dont want to go to any trouble, check him out on wikipedia link Now they say on there that his son Osgar or Oscar was born and raised on Tir na nÓg, but in most stories he grew up in Ireland and was a member of the Fianna, so I dont know. Its all very confusing

Cúchullain again

The greatest warrior of all time, Cúchullain, the hound of Ulster.
He was never a King in life, but in the tale of his death a prophecy is made that on that day 3 kings would die, it is explained to Queen Mebd the three kings were Cúchullain, the king of warriors, Laeg his friend and the king of charioteers and Macha the grey, Cúchullain's horse, the king of horses who went on to kill another hundred or so warriors even after Cúchullain died. I shall do them two next.
After giving Fionn in the previous piece a big giant sword, I thought the savage Cúchullain would be better shown with just bloody fists.
In all the books on Irish myth that I'v read, there has never been a very accurate description of what Cú looks like, even though everyone else is described in great detail. But of the fleeting descriptions, they normally say he was small and of a grim countenance with dark hair.

Saturday 1 October 2011

Inking away

I got back from Dublin this afternoon, myself and Beena went up for the night to see Batman Live. Great show, go see it if you can. Anyway, on the long drive I did some scribbling and filled my pocket sketch book so I scanned out anything I liked and was inking them there for a bit of practice. So, I present my version of Mr. Hyde (Toby's favourite for some reason) and a cowgirl in the wind

It should be noted, we popped into Forbidden Planet whilst in the big smoke and I bought a wolverine graphic novel drawn by John Romita Jr. His style makes me drool and cry, but I think my inks on Mr Hyde there a direct influence of staring at his work since I got home.