The Fig Project

Monsters in My Room

2009-06-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Monsters in my WORK room, that is...

One thing about my day job is there is certainly never a dull moment, nor is it a surprise to walk into my paint room and see some new monster or other unknown creature coming to life.

For the last week and half, this Pachyrhinosaurus has been coming together bit by bit, starting from my computer and my original mockup art, going through various office members' computers and the legalities of contracts, making its way to the shop for prototyping and the creation of the full size creature, and finally, to the very back: The Paint Room.

I'd like to show you more photos from the entire process, but for now, here's the before and afters of the actual sized piece (and mind you, this is a VERY small "full size" compared to most of the characters we create, but still--it filled my paint room!)...

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Rudolph

2009-05-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

I just had to post this! It's a cold air inflatable I designed today (started with concept sketch, drew it in Adobe Illustrator, and colored it in Photoshop), and I personally am pretty happy with the cuteness factor. :)

I'm back, and with a bang!

2009-04-20T13:53:00.001-07:00

Ho ho! So, all of you who thought I had dropped off the face of the planet (all one and a half of you!), I am here to set the record straight!

Today marks my first day back without having a massively hugely impossibly time-crunching job on my hands.

For the past couple of weeks, I was literally pulling all-nighters (fitting a few hours in to sleep once in a while) to get a major project done by deadline for the company I work for. (For those of you who don't know, I'm the head artist for an inflatable company owned by my uncle. :)

We only had a few weeks to go from concept to finished product, and a job like this would normally take about about 3-6 MONTHS.

In a nutshell, the job was an inflatable dome, designed (including the artwork) by an artist who sent us vector art to work with. Normally that is awesome. It's perfect. I have to do nothing more than scale it to the right size.

HOWEVER... the vector art was a flat image. Very long, VERY detailed and complicated, and we had to adapt that into a dome shape. Not only THAT, this was no ordinary dome with slice-like gore-shaped patterns. No! This dome had the most complicated ring-like pattern. Every pattern piece was different and had to perfectly match up all of the artwork when it was sewn together, which meant many, many, MANY revisions and printed prototypes before sending the final artwork off for printing!

What this spells out to an artist and staff of seamstresses who have three weeks to put it together: NIGHTMARE.

Somehow though, after pulling double duty, working until 3:30AM and back at it bright an early the next morning, SOMEhow, our team pulled it off. Because THAT'S what we do! :D

(Fortunately for me, my aunt--married to the boss--is also an artist and was able to lend a hand with some of the revisions!)

Here's a few photos of the finished piece:

The New Photoshop??

2009-04-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

Best. Thing. Ever.

Check it out!

Yellow Elephants, Oh My!

2009-03-07T20:05:00.000-08:00

I've been working away at the illustration project from my last post, but continually being interrupted by... yellow elephants.

Well, I guess it's not fair to say I'm being interrupted by them... I work for my uncle's inflatable company during the day, so it IS my job. :)

Last week was spent designing floats for the College Football Hall of Fame parade, and then I spent a couple of days airbrushing this yellow elephant for another company's outdoor advertising. (I think. Truth be told, I have no idea what they were using this for.) The end product also had a blanket over it's back with the company's logo and slogan, so it looked pretty good!

Here's the before and after (by the way, excuse the bad photos... they were taken on my cell phone :P):

So that's all, folks!

New job on the horizon!

2009-02-13T05:47:00.000-08:00

A lot's been going on here on the east end of Windsor lately... but there's even MORE going on in the west end––we're moving! Again, yes. Back to the old homestead from whence we came. It's been under repairs and renovations for the last year and a half, and aside from the final cleaning and painting of some of the rooms, it's ready to be lived in again. :)

But that's not the new job on the horizon. The new job is a very exciting opportunity to do some illustrations for a narrated story/animated movie! When I was first approached with the job outline, I thought it would be your traditional animation with moving characters and so on (which I've always been fascinated by but have never spent any time learning much about or how to do it), but I was shown a sample of one of their last stories and they take still illustrations and just zoom in and pan out a various times to create a sort of "animated slideshow" of the story that's being narrated.

Anyway, I was given the manuscript a couple weeks ago, did a few character concept sketches and a mockup of one fully laid-out illustration, and I've been hired! :D I'm so excited!!

The targeted deadline is the end of March, and since there are to be 20-some fully illustrated scenes, I'm gonna be working like a house on fire! I start storyboard sketches this weekend for first-draft approval, and the goal is to start the approved drawings sometime in the last week of February!

I'll keep you posted. :)

A pretty cute cat

2009-02-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

So among the many concept sketches I've been doing at my day job, I have here a sketch of a little kitten. Maybe it will be turned into an inflatable someday. :) Maybe not. Who can say? But for now, I'll just put it up because I'm allowed, and most of the other artwork I'm in the middle of I am not. Yet. Hopefully.

Contemplating an Update

2009-01-26T13:54:00.000-08:00

I suppose, now that this blog is an actual blog, I should update it fairly regularly.

Well!

It's not that I have nothing going on to write about. I'm just not entirely sure how to put it all up here! I guess the answer is "one at a time." (Thank you all for those subliminal messages.)

I suppose I should also post something pertaining to my art projects, hm? Well, let's see what I can dig up here...

I'm actually working on two projects right now along with the potential of two more coming up. (As well as my full-time job AND my photography business which is keeping me VERY busy right now!) I'm not sure I can post the progress on any of those jobs yet though, so you'll just have to wait in wonder. ("Wait in wonder?" Or "wait and wonder?")

So instead of posting the workings of a REAL project, I'll show off an amazing portrait I drew of one of my coworkers:

Burning Light––cover finished!

2009-01-19T15:50:00.000-08:00

It's SO finished, in fact, that it's up for sale already! I even have my very own copy sitting neatly on my shelf, next to the first book in the trilogy, Worlds Unseen. :) Be jealous...

Burning Light is the second book of the Seventh World Trilogy, written by my ever-so-talented sister, Rachel. You simply must read her work! It's unbelievable. My blog-writing skills could definitely learn a thing or two. Here's her website where you can find the skinny on everything you could possibly want to know: www.rachelstarrthomson.com

Anyhow, I guess this is my first official post on this blog! I used to keep somewhat up-to-date on my artistic projects on Xanga (look for me... xanga.com/thefigproject), but I have since fallen away from blogging in a BIG way... I've been reinspired to get back at it though, so here I am. Hopefully this time it will stick.

So to start us off, here's a few photos/images of the Burning Light cover progress.

From original rough concept to finished cover:

Rough character sketch of Nicolas:

In process, painting... (very bad quality photo, taken with a cell phone. :P )

Various stages of the cover painting. If you're wondering why there seems to be a bit of rough patchiness goin' on in the center, it's because I had to scan it in four separate pieces and merge them together, and unfortunately, I didn't have time to do a good merge job on these unfinished pieces.

And finally, the finished wraparound! It's always exciting to see the book in printed form, looking all official and stuff. :) Of course, you still haven't seen it that way... so go order it! ;)