Hardnut Update

have done a bit more to the concept drawing and have started constructing the body and hands in maya and zbrush painting elements in mudbox

messing about on photoshop here.

zbrush model im working on

Really enjoying modelling in zbrush this is my first one jumping between Zbrush and Maya. Anatomically the model is pretty basic as the muscles will be covered with clothing but am learning alot from this one.
hope in the next few weeks to finish the model rig him and animate him doing some nice realistic actions.
Loving the boots! part of my belfast animation course under Greg Maguire Conann Fitzpatrick and Chris Murphey.

Join the Digital Painting Revolution!

I love this concept that artists like their impressionist predecessors are going out in open and public spaces with the new technology and capturing the world through their computers, carrying around a whole studio is an attractive prospect for any artist, but the technology is still catching up to the artists needs my tablet pen from wacom is good enough for my needs at present but the line it produces is pretty rough in comparison with my real pen on paper. Also problems arise with the cost of the hardware and in an age were you can be mugged in the street for your smartphone or laptop, sitting on a bench drawing on your £500 Ipad is asking for trouble lets face it. 

Last year i completed a series of digital Paintings on my iphone and although the results where pretty nice the small screen was pretty aggravating. 

 Starting with the Sketchbook app from autodesk some still lives in my kitchen excited me with the super fast range of colours and was delighted to find the app supported layers. However.....

...... i realised early on that the medium had a very limited size ability
and it would only be possible to create small objects close up as the resolution was pretty low. I tried a number of apps  and finaly found
Paintbook a really powerful vector app that basicly has an unlimited canvas size and the work took a huge leap in scope...















This series of ice-cream vans (http://ciarangallagher.carbonmade.com/projects/3102798#1) I cant seem to upload were produced on Paintbook App and were heavily influenced by Olivier Kugler (more about him later)

David Bolinsky animates a cell | Video on TED.com

David Bolinsky animates a cell | Video on TED.com

Loved this medical animation illustrating the unimaginably small machines that work tirelessly keeping our cells in order.

definatly one for the animation students in my maya class.

And until i watched this i really couldn't visualise what alot of modern thinkers were talking about when writing about how the arts and the sciences are more linked than people realise. as an art student in the ballroom i literally thought that meant painting portraits of Sigmund Freud !

Hardnut

This is some character design work im doing at the moment for my long term animation project lets just call it belfastards for now, its early days as im still learning 3D Maya software but watch this space.

Animation Assignment Week 1, brief: 3 bouncing balls + some steps

First post!

Dear Nobody in particular,
                                           am currently studying for my masters in Belfast University of Ulster better known as the Art College. Over the summer i've been working for Willie Jack (old school patron of the arts + socialist) the owner of the Duke of York Pub in the Cathedral Quarter in Belfast. Myself and my beautiful and highly talented girlfriend Kathryn Bannister (http://kathrynbannister.carbonmade.com/) spent just under three weeks thrashing out the black and white movie themed mural in the car park, just in time for culture nights unveiling. Very pleased with the result.  Photo at Culture night. Need a better Photo of that.
 Doing a bit of reading for the course and so far have made my way through this great little graphic novel by Scott Mc Cloud Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Which feels a bit like John Berger's ways of seeing in comic form, I thought it was enjoyable to read and had some interesting points one being that the simplified symbol of the face so popular in comics an cartoons in general is far easier for the reader/audience to project themselves into the role of the character, whereas a more detailed pictorial representation of a character is less likely to have the huge universal appeal of something like mickey mouse. The most outspoken of the courses tutors Chris Murphy holds this book in pretty high regard as it would seem. Not sure I would share his enthusiasm but am


  definatly looking forward to hearing the authors views in his talk in belfast in the coming weeks will post more about that soon.