OCTOBER 2012: Hardback joy!

It's Arrived!!! I came home earlier to find a parcel with a copy of Kirsten Irving's new poetry book (and it's a signed copy too). That alone is usually cause for celebration except this one has my illustration on the front cover! Good times for you too because you can order yourselves a copy HERE 

SEPT 2012: More Mindshapes illys

This is how it all starts. Here's one of my very vague thumbnails for one of a few banners I had to create for Magic Town. I think I created the other thumbs digitally so only one exists but I thought I'd show how basic an idea can be to get you started. I tend not to do too many iterations (unless I'm asked by a client) especially if I've got a strong idea and ready to roll! 

May 2012: Livebooks for Magic Town

Here are the front covers for the books I created for the 'Aesops' House in Magic Town! I was asked to create the story illustrations for three titles and I'm currently working on the the forth story.
Livebooks are animated story books where kids have an option to watch, read-along and play mini-games themed to the chosen story!

MAY 2012: MAGIC TOWN IS OPEN!

After months of hard work at Mindshapes we finally launched Magic Town this morning!
It's a new virtual world based on picture book characters for young children. It's a ground-breaking way for families to share story time and it's unlike anything you've seen before.

Watch the video HERE for a sneak peak.

Magic Town presents every child with a free story every day, and each child's version of Magic Town is unique and the more kids explore, the more content they will see. 

There is so much great content to add over the next few weeks and months so the work has only just begun. Stop by and check it out :) 

FEB 2012: AFter hours part 1!

I really miss my Sketchoholic sessions but since starting full-time work and doing long commutes home I've found plenty of excuses to not do art after an honest days work. I've recently felt frustrated with my personal work/ ability and put it down to the fact that I'm not being challenged or pushing myself. I need to do more, so it starts with this speed painting (actually there's a few days of miserable attempts to get back into it but they ain't going up!).
I treated myself to Big Huge Games' 'Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning' last week. The Beautiful environments and awesome creature design soon had me inspired and firing up the Wacom! There's some creatures called Bogarts; vicious tribal dudes with wooden masks. This is my Bogart, without it's ritual mask.

FEB 2012: new post of older work

I found an old image I created for Sketchoholic back in 2010. 

JAN 2012..Over half a YEAR of blog silence PART 4! KIRIN BEER!!

AUGUST 2011 saw the SOULFUL CREATIVE create a 'pop-up' Japanese restaurant for Kirin Beer. You can read more about the gig HERE but here is a bit of what I created for the urban-style backdrop to the joint :)
It was created with SPraypaint, acrylics, molotow pens and about a gallon of wallpaper paste. Oh and the bricks in the back? yeah...painted by hand. See the SG blog (mentioned above) for more pics of us hand-painting a million and 5 bricks!

JAN 2012..Over half a YEAR of blog silence PART 3- MINDSHAPES (july 2011)

JULY 2011 saw me take on a full-time role as illustrator and animator for Mindshapes. Check out the site to see what we're all about. There's so much art I have produced that I would love to show off but sadly can't!

BUT I can show you some in-app stuff. Here are a couple of screenshots of my work (the animals I painted here were originally designed by Christian Garland) from the app 'Lingo Zoo'. Its a fun little puzzle app for young children to learn basic spanish words.

JAN 2012..Over half a YEAR of blog silence PART 2 (may/june 2011-ish)

....Around the same time as Upfest I managed to create some new paintings for the Soulful Gallery....

Click HERE to see the new ones plus some other available prints and original paintings!

Click here to see MORE of another painting's progress!

JAN 2012..Over half a YEAR of blog silence PART 1 (UPFEST june 11).

Hi Everybodies!
I've got some serious catching up to do and I'll try and get everything in the right order so here goes....

June 2011 saw myself, Dan Wilson and Koze AKA The Soulful Crew at UPFEST. We had an epic time burning up the place with our massive piece 'Trinity'. Here's some early concepts, the final digital illy and some pics from the day ( All images Copyright Dean Soden/ Soulful Gallery) :

If you are interested here's a few more concepts sketches!

MAy 2011 part b-custom brush fun

MAY 2011- Reading Art FAir-DONE!

It was a successful weekend for The Soulful Gallery at the Reading Contemporary Art Fair! Here's a pic of our stand-

 The Soulful gallery crew managed to sell 3 of my original paintings, plus a couple of prints!

I also sold a 4th painting via The Prince's Trust which was involved in the event. All the artists were given a small canvas by the charity and asked to create a painting which was auctioned off . Here's what I did-

"Poet".

I was still buzzing and feeling inspired last night after a great weekend at the Art Fair so I did this speed painting!

 I really need to do way more environment painting and any help, advice or suggestions will be much appreciated. 

Anyway preparations are now under way to design the most 'awesome-ist' mural for UpFest which we are attending in early June. We've got a 32 ft space to fill and I've got a couple of designs for my character sorted but I won't put anything up yet. Watch this space....... :)   

  

April 2011- All set for Reading Art Fair,couple o' commissions and Upfest Approaches!

I haven't posted for a while but things have been crazy-busy what with agency-related commissions, Soulful Gallery and personal stuff.
I've been working on four book covers, some on-going book projects with Richmond Publishing and Oxford Univeristy Press as well as trying to finish some more paintings for this weekends Reading (pronounced redding for anyone outside the UK!) Contemporary Art Fair. Sadly I can't yet show off the illy commissions but check out my other Blog at Soulfulgallery.com for my paintings.


In the meantime, here are some random doodles I did.......

I got all fired up and excited after hooking up with some of my old uni buddies and talking about a collaboration! One of them mentioned about each one of us illustrating a particular chosen subject and sorta having a mini-battle so here's mine for the title 'Ghost robot' (actually, I think it was Robo Ghost which sounds better but we had sunk a few jars by then so I can't remember!!).

March 2011: 'Sampled' Part 3

Last night saw the 3rd 'Sampled' event hosted by 4Motion Dance Theatre , which was a success on all fronts! There were three performances throughout the evening, whilst myself and Dj Dave Darch a.k.a. Awekid created some live music and visuals in the bar. Here is the final piece I created :

Brilliant night, brilliant people!

FEB 2011- Busy year, Buzzing brain, Happy face

Hi!! Well, January just vanished and we are almost half way through Feb and the pace doesn't look like it's going to slow down anytime soon. I've been working on 3 books, with 2 finished and awaiting sign off and I'm about to start the 3rd. I thought I'd post one of the roughs I'd submitted for the series which was dropped. I quite liked how it turned out and it was fun creating the various weather scenes. 

Other news, and Studio Siafu has started working on Forest Folk. We are pushing for a march release for the next update. There is so much to do and it is still just a labour of love. Of course we want it to take off but I think we are a long way from that.
Inspired by the natural theme I have started creating a new series of character ideas, just for shizzles and giggles.

On top of all this I have been running comic and character design classes and animation workshops with local schools. Thursday saw the final day of what proved to be an epic project based on the history of London. We created a 50 foot tapestry showing the early life of the River Thames (170 million years ago-it used to be part of the Rhine, you know!) right up until the Blitz in the 1940's. Like I said, just a bit ambitious but the kids really enjoyed drawing the Romans, Vikings, Tudors, plague victims, beheaded kings and war planes. I wonder why??

Happy New Year 2011!!!

How are you all?
It's already proving to be really busy in 2011! I'm juggling a few big illustration commissions with teaching work, so I've hit the ground running.
I forgot to post my last entry to sketchoholic before xmas. The theme was 'Zombie Elves' and I really enjoyed creating this one. I've been spending more time working with the lasso tool and trying to move away from working with outlines around the subject and I prefer the looser style.