Category: Uncategorized

Cottage Interior

background image for my webcomic, this is an indoor scene, a bedroom with pale yellow wallpaper. the wallpaper pattern is made up of dragonfly wings and butterfly wings, a white teddy bear and some colourful wooden blocks sit on the floor

the kitchen scene features plain old fashioned wooden furniture, the kind you might have found in a farm house years ago. the kitchen background is completed with a wooden plate rack in the background, inspired by the one we used to have in the kitchen when I was growing up

the sitting room has powder pink wallpaper, with big, vaguely flower-shaped swirls on it. the only furniture visible in the sitting room is a very old television, with a wooden exterior and stubby little legs

the hallway wallpaper is forget-me-not blue, with thin white vines set against it. there is a framed picture of the cottage in the hallway, lest we forget where we are

the bathroom is aqua blue, and has lots of tiny little mosaic tiles as a border. the bathroom has a large oval mirror, and a simple white sink and toilet set

More background images for my webcomic, Emma and the Granny Fairies. A lot of the action takes place indoors, so the cottage interior decor was quite important. Each room has its own colour scheme.

The bedroom has soft yellow wallpaper. The main character, Emma, wears yellow a lot, so this room is a reflection of her. There are some toys scattered around too, a teddy bear and some building blocks. I was going to put letters on the wooden blocks, like maybe spelling out the word ‘trouble’ or ‘wisdom’, but I couldn’t think of anything perfectly appropriate, and it would have made the background too detailed and fiddly. The whole point is that they should just provide a setting and not compete with the characters for the readers attention.

The kitchen has pale orange wallpaper with a gingham pattern, and wooden furniture. Warm colours help to stimulate the appetite, so that’s why this room is so peachy. I planned to make an elaborate apricot pattern for the wallpaper, but it ended up looking too fussy, so that’s where the gingham came in. A lot of the furniture in this scene is inspired by furniture that was in my house as I was growing up.

The sitting room is powder pink. There is nothing really high tech in the house, so even the television has a vintage style to it. The atmosphere is very domestic and safe. The adventures that happen in these scenes are small adventures, the kind of moments you can look back on and smile about easily.

The hallway is forget-me-not blue, with a framed picture of the cottage on the wall, to provide a thread of continuity. It also has an upturned wall lamp to welcome the residents in out of the cold.

The bathroom is painted aqua blue, with a border of small mosaic tiles. It has a white sink, with a large oval mirror over it, and a simple toilet. Sinks and toilets are actually really nice to draw with vectors, because they are made up of such smooth crisp lines, unlike a saggy old sofa or something plush like that.

That’s quite a lot of rooms. The cottage looks so small from the outside, how do they fit everything in! It must be laid out very carefully inside!

Cottage

thatched cottage, with heather covered hills in the distance

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of prep work for my webcomic. Everything is quite well planned out now, and I’m nearly finished preparing all the background images for it. This cottage is the main setting, where the characters spend most of their time. The colours are pale so that the characters will stand out on it well.

Update: I finally caved in and gave it a red door at Barbara’s insistence. She is an expert cottage fancier.

Akarrian Expansion

akarrian expansion, also known as apocs akarra, born of whispers in akarra

This site is for a 2d mmorpg, called Akarrian Expansion. Akarra has charming pixel art, quite complex game mechanics, and a nice community. I tried to capture the spirit of the game by using screenshots of some of the different landscapes and creatures in the header, and snippets of player chat. I think it’s probably the most appealing website I’ve ever made. The design and the content are very intertwined and support each other. Also it was really fun to do!

Update: Akarrian Expansion has come to an end. Visit akarra.com for more information.

Family Portrait

family portrait, painted in black and white acrylics

Over Christmas, I finally managed to finish this family portrait for my dear friend Sinead, based on a black and white photograph from the seventies. She was a long time waiting for it; I had to learn to just put down the paint brush and let it go, instead of endlessly obsessing over the details and repainting a little bit here and a little bit there, over and over. It’s done in acrylics, which was a bit of a foolish choice for such a big canvas, (100 cm across and 70 cm high). It was drying too fast for me to cover such a large area comfortably, but live and learn.