The Quartet of Heroes

The set, dressed and ready to go.

This last Friday I went to see the opening of Heroes, and it was fantastic! It was at once hilarious, yet touching, and sometimes tragic as you got to know these French veterans of the first World War. I would like to acknowledge that the finishing touches to the sculpture were not my own. To that end, it was painted by Anita Stewart, the set designer and Portland Stage's Artistic Director, and fixed with a layer of cheesecloth and some paste-type material to preserve it by Chris Hourclé; who also created the set along with Ted Gallant and Chris Reinhardt. And the set looks awesome!

The first scene of the play; the quartet from left to right: 

Philippe (Philip Goodwin), Gustave (Edmond Genest), Henri (Munson Hicks) and Jacques (the dog).

From the moment I was brought onto this project by Andrew Harris, the Production Manager, to the end of it has been a blast. I believe I've clearly been spoiled by having Portland Stage as my first client, because they were so easy to work with and encouraging every step of the way.

Philippe has an interesting quirk.

The dog moved!

I was given the chance to see the play twice, the second time I was invited to go up on stage after the play for a little Q&A session with the audience. I must say, it was quite the honor and a great opportunity for myself professionally to connect a person with the work. I am happy to say that everyone involved and witnessing the play was quite pleased. I am also happy that Jamie Hogan, who helped set me up with this opportunity was in the crowd that day.

Jacques is made of Styrofoam. Gustave had to pretend it was 200lbs of stone. 

I was told that after the first preview of the play audience members were walking by the dog, who is then at the edge of the stage, and reaching out to touch it and find out what Jacques was really made of. If he was actually made of stone, this may not have mattered, but as it was they put him back on his pedestal at the end of the play for future performances.

Jacques is brought in by Gustave for consultation.

The quartet plan their getaway.

During the second half of the play, I really felt the chance to vicariously experience being on stage as the characters, especially Gustave, acknowledge the dog as a member of their quartet and make plans to bring Jacques along on their adventure (though Henri won't have it).

Getting roped up.

Henri reads dog's journal entry to thunderous laughter.

If you take nothing else away from this blog entry, I want it to be this: go see the play, it was fantastic! Seriously... get out to the theater and support some of the amazing arts in Portland next time you get a chance! It'll be worth it.

The play ends on a serene note of hope and inspiration.

My thanks to Chris Hourclé for providing the photography above.

A Hound on Stage

I just finished working on my first paid gig today, and I wanted to share with you all what I made. So last Wednesday I got a message from a professor of mine that someone had asked if she knew any sculptors. Of whom she mentioned me (if she hadn't, you wouldn't be sitting here reading these words right now). For this I give my many thanks to Jamie Hogan, someone who always knows how to push me to excellence.

So I got in touch with Portland Stage Company immediately and was commissioned the next day to sculpt a prop for their next play, Heroes. Last Friday I got to take  a chainsaw to a block of Styrofoam and make a mess of their workshop. Between then and now, with various power tools, saws and files, I've been going in whenever I got the chance to chip away that block until I found that this had been in there all along. It was a unique challenge for me considering that this is the first time I've worked in Styrofoam and the largest sculpture I've ever worked on.

(This is Anita Stewart in the background, Portland Stage's Executive and Artistic Director, painting the set walls.)

I am looking forward to seeing the play, after which I will be showing some shots of the fully painted sculpture on stage. I've been told he's kinda the fourth character in the play (I hope he gets good lines). 

It is so awesome to be a part of this experience, and I hope it paves the way for many more like it in the near future. As always, thanks for stopping by to see my work! 

A Lady of Pellidar

Here she is, almost complete save for some cleaning up of minor details and the addition of some jewelry. I need to do a little bit of research on the best way to make tiny matching sets of earrings and a beautiful intricate necklace without driving myself too crazy. Not driving myself crazy over detail is something I'm not good at, but I hope it reflects well in the end. 

So as always, I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor and it's good to be back in the game.

Without further ado, for your viewing pleasure, a bust of a beautiful Pellidaran noblewoman!

Portfolio

http://thosdowling.carbonmade.com/

Hello everyone, this should be my only update ever with no pictures attached. I just wanted to announce that I have put together a Carbonmade portfolio, because it's all professional like. So go on and check it out, there'll be a lot of things that you can see on this blog. However, unless you've plumbed all the way back to my first post, you'll probably see some new stuff.

It's a work in progress, as I work on finding my "best work."

The progress on my busts has been slow due to various factors, so there are no updates today, but hopefully at the beginning of next week.

Lady Bust

Here's my work in progress shot for this week. Her hair's a mess, and now that I'm looking at this photo, she may be looking a little mannish from the lips down. These things will be worked on and more.

A bit more work has been done on my other sculpture but I'll be posting work completed pics when they are both done.

Busty

Hello, still not doing as much of that regular updating thing as I've been intending to do. Anyway, tonight was a lovely Autumn night following a few productive days of sculpting.

About 95% finished with this guy and thought I'd share a few shots of it. Thank you for stopping by, and as always, I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Digital Sketchbooks

In an effort to expand into the community a little bit, I have spent this week updating an online sketchbook at CGHub.com. This is a great place where I go to be inspired by the work of professionals and students alike. I'm a bit shy to start really commenting on other people's sketchbooks, but eventually, the better I get to know people there, the more we can share critiques and advice.

What I've emphasized this week in my sketching is that a return to the basics can always do you some good. Especially after a drawn out break like the one I just took. Not only is it good practice to warm back up again, but even more importantly is the emphasis on things that I may have missed the last I did a study on the basics, and may not have been practicing in my most recent artwork.

If you're interested, this is a link to my sketchbook.

Also, I don't like posting here without something to show, so this is a page of studies based on the figures within Andrew Loomis' book, "Figure Drawing For All Its Worth."

Faces of Garda

 You may just want to skip the text walls and look at the pictures, you may not. I place the choice at your fingertips.

Last time I posted, my claim to have returned to the world of art making appears to have been a little bit of a fake out. So I decided that next time I wanted to be sure that I'd been drawing again for more than a few days before announcing the end of my post-Senior year hiatus. So, I believe that this is it, sick of working my dead end cashier job, I feel I ought to get back into my portfolio in earnest.

Firstly, because I'd be doing myself a great disservice if I didn't do some refresher exercises I set into a project I'd been meaning to do for some time. So I set out to practice drawing my faces, and I've drawn a bunch this past week, of which I will present a few here. To give the project a touch of inspiration for myself, I decided to theme each set of portraits as groups of people you'd meet in the world of Garda. I would like to note however, that a great deal has changed these last few months, as I've also been rewriting the history of Garda and the nature of her people. So names of people and places that are familiar from previous posts may mean something new now. Nothing will be revealed until things are more definite, but if I'm successful as an artist you may be able to glean some things from the portraits.

The Varang Kol

Pellidarans

Vitruscans

I'm Back!

Okay, it's time to end my unannounced hiatus from art and stuff. I know, I know, not very professional of me at all. Riding on my post-graduation enthusiasm only made me feel good for so long, because then it was back to my day job, because I need to pay rent.

All that aside, I have to find new projects to work on. Opportunities to get in touch with the people I need to know have been presented, and I would be fool to not take them. Plus, a friend has urged me to apply to Dreamworks. You know, a real company that does stuff and people have heard about. Scary for a newbie out of college like me! However, what do I have to lose, at the very least I can send them my portfolio. So this is the thought that is giving me focus, to create the most badass concept art portfolio I can, and I'm starting now! Okay, that's a lie, but in a good way. I've already started.

Lastly however, I never posted the finished works of my character designs from way back when. This is about to be rectified: