Baked Beans

This post was intended to be about a new art reel I've recently uploaded to Vimeo, well .. I was going to begin this post with something like; "As a freelance ... " and at that point i became stuck! a freelance what? what exactly IS it that I do? I really have no idea. Is there a job description for someone who from one project to the next is asked to do something completely different, using different techniques, different skills, different tools. Well let's see; I create digital artwork, mainly for film and TV, sometimes games, and now and then for print, this artwork can be anything from 3d animation, to concept art, matte paintings, textures, game assets etc. In the dumbest sense it seems like I create artwork for people with the intention of having an attractive embrace, developing a connection between the media and the viewer, pulling the viewer into the experience, creating a feeling of Ooooh, aaah, that's pretty! ... creating a feeling; an emotion. I'm the .. emotionATOR? a freelance giver of feelings! Ooh this is sounding creepy! *shivers* ...

Anyway;

As a freelance can of baked beans, it's important for me to continuously develop my skills, learn new techniques and push myself to create new work as often as possible. Sadly, often is less frequent than I would like, but when i do get the opportunity I try to embrace that time and be as productive as possible. Now this work that I create, which builds up on my hard drive for months and years, well, it really should be seen by others right? I mean, artwork can equally be appreciated by more than just myself, hopefully, adding to that if I don't share my work, how will anyone ever know I can actually do anything! It's not enough to just tell people I can animate characters, build sci-fi cities, fantasy landscapes, paint creatures that have never existed, in the end words can only take me so far, there comes a time when I have to actually show people what I can do. Which brings me to the whole point of this post, I've been working non stop for the last 4 years, and in that time I've amassed a LOT of work, both personal and professional, I've worked on some very cool projects! However until now, very few people have actually seen this work! .. well, that's not exactly true, some of my work has been seen by millions of people in cinema screens around the world, but still for the most part, I've yet to shout out and say; Hey! I created that piece of work! All too often, it get's delivered to the client, put in storage and onto the next project. So at this point, while I have a little free time, I'm not going to create any new artwork, instead I'm going to use this time to compile the artwork I have and share it with the world! To begin with I'm compiling a collection of concept art and creating a few demo reels. I think I'll split it up into two or three different videos and upload them to Vimeo. Once I have a some concept art online, I'll move onto 3d environments and various matte paintings i've done for film and TV. Eventually I'll have a number of new shiny reels to replace the one I've had on my website for the last 4 years, which let's face it, is very old in the digital world!

And a few examples from one of my new concept art reel: