.J.Woods Scribblers

Belated Earth Day Earthlings

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:27:00 +0000

Happy belated Earthday, earthlings! Here's a cup'o'doodle of a new project I'm working out right now!:) Everyone has a Family tree.

Also, this fall I'm moving onto a new adventure, making some dreams come true! 2013 has thrown me upside down, but it's pretty nice.

(sorry if you've already seen this lol, it hadn't made it's way to blogger yet)

Bee-yolk

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:42:00 +0000

Me and my good friend Raquel saw our favourite, Bjork in Paris Last month.... She kind of blew my mind

Check out this video from the show I went to. She uses a lightning gun, tesla coil contraption to play the bass line...

She's doing her final shows in California next month and I encourage anyone to go, if only for the fact that David Attenborough narrates the concert.

P.s. (not my vid)

Swamp bottom

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 05:35:00 +0000

I only paint once in a blue moon, because I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, but figured it's time i sucked it up and started to learn how to do this thing. I think I can count the times I've done a rendered environment on one hand:S
Again, this is some development from a uni project I'm working on.

2013 Portfolio

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 21:53:00 +0000

So I spent the last few days completely reconstructing my portfolio, condensing, rescanning, tidying, nitty gritty erasing, nurturing and reformatting, but I now think I have a body of 2013 work. A portfolio is NEVER finished...BUT I think I can sit back and chill for the time being! The last year has been pretty crazy and I recently ended up immersing myself in so much work that I kind of burnt out, but I took a bit of time to come up to the surface and breath so I'm more pumped then ever to work my ass off! Never forget to take a bit of time for yourself, because no one else will do that for you. James Woods 2013 Portfolio

Swamp womp wompppp

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 20:32:00 +0000

More of my swampy critter. He’s a bit frog-ier than I would like. I need to explore some more!:)

And a quick old lighting test I've had lying around!

Reviving the swampy

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 07:20:00 +0000

An old projet revival... I'm all over the place right now

Overshot

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:14:00 +0000

Happy Valentine's, MWAH X

500 Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:11:00 +0000

A post to say thank you so much for the 500 follows

I'm totally dumbfounded but sincerely and humbly grateful to have people interested in my work, so thanks:)!

I'm just getting into the first strokes of my newest and final university project and this is a sneak at a potential character in the works. I don't really have much else to say about it apart from the fact that the 'D' on the flag is the roman numeral for 500?

Also, you can check out my ramblings in a recent interview I did for the Animation Insider website! A super resource of artist experiences, in (or hoping to get into) the animation industry.

As per usual here are some instagrams of doodles and life drawings as of late. My username is 'Jamwooders' if you're interested in hitting me up!

Life and Movement

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:07:00 +0000

Some quickie life drawings from a recent session...

A year ago today, I was interning and animating my ass off (never worked so harddd) at Uli Meyer's amazing, mini, magic studio in London. Whilst there I was animating my first ever lip sync test of a character from one of the cereal commercials Uli's team had worked on... I haven't animated anything for months now and am starting to reallly miss it... There's something about working yourself into a nervous, dillusional wreck at the expense of making your drawings come to life that gave me the biggest buzz... Maybe it's time I got back to it?

Here are some of the keys... I can't believe how off model this guy got at points...

It feels kind of weird posting work that seems so 'old' to me now, but it's weirder that I've never really posted any animation on this blog, even though it's the reason why I want to get into this industry.

These Old Wrinkles

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:48:00 +0000

Some more Baba Yaga designs I managed to spruce up. This little old lady is a forest dwelling hag who lives in a hut built on chicken legs and rides around in a pimped out pestle and mortar. Cute, no?

Most of my current time is taken up with dissertation writing and turkey, so it took me a while to find the will to colour these. But here they are anyway =)! They also taught me how much I need to get to grips with colouring, because in all honesty, the line work spoke to me a lot more. Maybe I need to just strip it back, because these look a little burnt to me? Funnily, I actually like the bottom, black and white Baba Yagas the most. They're pretty simple and too the point.

These characters are from the old folk tale, Vasila the beautiful. It's a classic fairy tale (pretty Cinderlla-ish actually), but it's been fun trying to come up with characters.

Here are some rough lines to boot,

As a side note, I have a tumblr and twitter if you're interested in my ramblings (links are under my 'shameless self promo' section on the right)

Baba Yaga Galore

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 04:45:00 +0000

Here are some quickies for a new mini project I have on the go to tie me over this crimbo break!

I also wanted to say a HUGE thank you to the massively talented and generous Victoria Ying, who's been mentoring me over the last few months through the online Motivarti mentorship scheme. The 3am conference calls (time differences can be a kick in the shin) have been worth their weight in gold and I recommend this scheme to any young artist looking to expand, understand and tie up loose ends in their doodles. (Corny spiel finito)

It's Finished... (Finally)

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:48:00 +0000

So I handed in my kids book project last week... Finally!

No more Peruvian things will hit this blog in a while... Here are some of the images, but none of it runs sequentially so you probably won't be able to tell what's going on anyway, ha!:)

And now I only have 5 more months left before I graduate... Scary stuff.

Quicky Firgures

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:32:00 +0000

Some figures from a short life drawing session today

Three in a row Skadoooosh

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 13:28:00 +0000

Sorry for clogging your blogger with a third day of Peruvian designs. This will be the last one for a while... I'm sure:S

Edit: I redrew Mama's face because she was pretty torn up...

Pesky Herd

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:37:00 +0000

Some more from ze ol'Project!

And a pissed Money at the zoo yesterday. The day was wet and cold... And this monkey was feeling it... Classic Brit...

Some more of the same

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 02:01:00 +0000

Some more of my project... I'm not sure how I feel yet:S

Some lifes... And Life

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:01:00 +0000

Just a small, sketchy update of some life drawings, a quick sketch of the main character of a project I'm working on right now and some instagrams... Art life is up and down, full of slumps and bursts, but I'm trying to get the momentum rolling again...

Peru Fam

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:34:00 +0000

A lot's gone on recently, but here are some characters I've been working on in the mean time for a Uni project I'm hoping to make over the next term.
It's funny how much I've realised I miss getting back into traditional work. Half the time, double the satisfaction!

Anyways, here are some characters in the making and thumbnails to boot.

P.s. My twitter is a bit more active then my blogger right now if you want to check it out!

Beggar Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 04:18:00 +0000

So I just got back from a beautifully inspiring, short holiday in Rome. Whilst out there, I saw many grand sites, but the one that stuck with me most was this intriguing beggar woman. I never saw her face and couldn't take a guess at her age because her hair was grey but her hands were young. She didn't have much, but still had style.

Also, here are some instagram doodles.

Since blogger is dying, I finally (and reluctantly) made a tumblr to run parallel with my Blogspot... I'm not catching the hype in the slightest...yet....

My Tumblr

Lastly a HUGE and humble thank you as I reached 300 followers!!:D

Thannks

Dressed to impress

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 01:56:00 +0000

Second speed dater...

Montgomery, you old dog!

I'm pretty sure that isn't even his real name.

My main goal with these was to try and design regular, pedestrian looking characters for some practice. This resulted in a few posts that I think are kinda boring, but, ah well, it's a bit of versatility I s'pose. I know a few months down I'm gonna hate these, ha!

Design Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 03:19:00 +0000

Me and the crazily talented Nadya Mira are gonna try out some set design tasks each week to get our juices rolling. This week she suggested the theme speed dating and this is the first piece I drew this evening. I'm not sure how much of it actually looks like speed dating, but it was pretty fun to draw, especially with a Pekingese in the mix. I'm gonna try and get some more interesting speed daters drawn for the next few, but right now I'm trying to work on building draftsmanship in my design, and this kind of couple helped me a ton.

I'm not sure if I made it obvious enough that the guy is Scottish... ;p

More Medusas

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 03:57:00 +0000

Armed with the hand and head of the man she could have loved... Time can mend a broken heart, but how do you mend a broken head?

Sappy shit!

Here are some more of the aforementioned 'Modern Medusa' designs. Basically I'm still brain storming for one of these uni project book ideas and I also wanted to get some regular looking girls churned out since I don't think I've ever really designed one. I mainly wanted it to be about her and her hair, so for the most part, she's pretty plain. Anyways....

Cheap tricks

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:04:00 +0000

I was pretty pissed the day I found out my gran wasn't really a witch....

I can't wait till the day that I can pull out this kinda sorcery on little kids...

Also here's another instagram! This is a quick doodle of my twin. He looks nothing like me and I'm pretty sure everything apart from our sense of humour are at polar opposites. But we get along pretty well because of it:)!

Modern Medusa

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:11:00 +0000

So next year will be a pretty awesome and new experience for me as I'm transferring from animation across into illustration at university to try and develop some character designs and become more versatile as a 2D artist. Over the year, I'm planning on making a couple of short illustrated stories and a final year film and here's one of the rough book ideas I'm storming through right now. I'll blog some more about it in a few days with a few more designs but I probably won't post too much about it until it's finished. I thought I'd actually try and restrain myself and create someone pretty...for once... I enjoy uglying things up way too much... It's actually kinda funny, I just noticed that pretty much exactly one year ago, I drew another mouse being dangle fed to animals... I guess it's that time of the year! Ah crap

Also, here's an instagram of Anita being bad ass that I doodled whilst watching Westside Story.

Tudor Fanboy

noreply@blogger.com (James Woods) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 01:59:00 +0000

It's summer! And because me and my fam are suckers for a bit of British history, we did a bit of a Tudor tour around some medieval castles... ha....
When I was back in junior school, I must've visited Henry the VIII's home at Hampton Court about ten times... And back then all I was interested in was how Anne Boleyn was beheaded and how long her head could stay alive for... Not much has changed, but this time round, I got to figure out a bit more of Henry VIII's story. I guess he was pretty much an old school Hugh Heffner... That killed his wives... Anyways, along the way, I found the dorkiest picture of him when he was a weedy 18 year old at his coronation... He looks like a mum with a bad hair cut... I kind of wanted to draw a comparison between the young Henry and older more familiar one...
Here's one of the instagrammed rough sketches. It's a shame how much energy gets lost in the line work when images are digitally cleaned up. Because of this, I want to try and get back into working from traditional sketches again.