A few months ago, I worked on an ad campaign to rebrand Badger’s Bluff, a bourbon whiskey. Symmetry Media was in charge of shooting the project, and I was hired on to do the edits for the various youtube spots. It was a fun campaign to work on, and provided a challenge to fit the initial premise into the required ads.
The basic story is that some stunt bike enthusiasts re-school an old penny farthing into a stunt bike, then test it out on their stunt track. After a successful ramp jump, the friends then go back to someone’s house where they celebrate with Badger’s Bluff mixers on a sunny Australian afternoon.
It took a few rounds to please Symmetry’s client, but in the end, several cuts were produced for the various imprints: a 1:30min; a 30 second; and a 15 second. Here is the full version that tells the entire story.
I made it to SMASH this year – barely. It was cold, sales were poor, and I failed to turn up on the Sunday on account of the flu. As far as conventions go, this is usually the most fun. The fans are amazing, the atmosphere is lively and the organizers do everything they can to make sure you have a great time.
I feel I’m doing the right thing as far as the stand goes: it’s bright, attractive, and I get a lot of foot traffic past the table, flicking through the portfolio, and even the comics… but in terms of sales I didn’t do great. In fact, I barely scraped by on a handful of commissions and only three sales (1 copy of Book I which someone had seen at another appearance, and two copies of Issue 6).
It’s always a hard knock, knowing you do so poorly. It’s like all the ingredients are right, the merchandise looks fantastic… but it’s just not what people want to buy today. There’s never getting around it. Sure, I could kvetch and moan about how the stands selling posters of fan-art have customers three rows deep throwing them money, and how that’s just unacceptable, but the fact is that’s what the customers want there. Original stuff is a HARD SELL.
It’s also getting harder: two small kids; the constant hunt for work; keeping on top of household chores; trying to find time with the wife when we’re both not so exhausted we opt for an early night of watching some Netflix then getting some sleep… so when the fans aren’t exactly there, it’s easy to wonder what the point is, exactly.
I know my work has improved, and I know that if I keep going for just a little bit longer, it might all be worth it, but… damn if it just feels like nobody would notice if I quit for a while. I still love drawing, and on the plus side, small illustration gigs I get are usually for articles or posts with a big audience. It’s still a bit of a pie-in-the-sky dream that anything will come of this, as the market is always being filled with more talented, more eager, and more time-rich people, and the sad reality is at some point, you hit your peak, and wherever that is – small indie or big leagues – that’s what you’re gonna be remembered for.
I’ll be giving a talk this Sunday on using Blender’s powerful compositing system to render illustrations. It’s a method I’ve been working on for a few years, now. It is a process which falls under the NPR (Non-Photoreal Rendering) category of 3D work. As Blender has become a stronger tool, so has its freestyle plugin, which renders linework based on properties of the objects within a given scene.
This is the end result:
And here is a screen-grab of my demo file:
I will be delivering a talk in Sydney this Sunday, 7th of June for a small function hosted by the Australian Cartoonists Association. If you’re in the Sydney area, you can book via this link: http://www.hagencartoons.com/ACA_NSW_Function.html
I’ve been doing some small, local exhibitions of late. One like the Hungry for Art pop-up at Top Ryde shopping centre, for example. Thanks to Christophe of Hagen Cartoons for setting this up. Here’s a picture of my glorious table, plus a few marker sketches I was able ot churn out during the course of the day.
For artists in Sydney who would like to know more about how I create graphics in Blender for my illustration work, you can come along to a short talk on the 7th of June at Il Bolognese restaurant (150 Pittwater Road, Gladesville) hosted by the ACA. Details can be found here: http://www.hagencartoons.com/ACA_NSW_Function.html
