Been busy - new job new things

Been a slightly busy little bee...first thing's first, I've just started a new job officially...I was temping with them at first and then had a trial week and the week that just past, I officially became a member of their staff. I'm the graphic artist/VM co-ordinator, and it's been one hell of a hectic week already!

On another note, I've also been teaching my sister's friend how to take photos with her DSLR, so it's forced me to look into my old uni photography text book, and re-discover things. It was actually a lot of fun. First week, we went down to Walsh Bay and out to one of the harbourside warehouses that jut out. We ended up taking a stack of photos of the brilliant view of the Harbour Bridge, as well as the incoming storm. My sister also got suckered into being a model for us. The lighting was absolutely beautiful as well...it was a soft sort of light and the portraits I took of her turned really beautifully.

Last night was another night of teaching photography. This time it was in a lower light situation - again it was raining (why did we pick the weeks that it was raining!), but we were having some fun with low light, flash and light trail effects. Again, my sister was the model...and we tested out depth of field as well. Was great to actually figure it all out! And the light wasn't as good as the first lesson, but was still alright, so it gave them an idea of the difference. The experiments at night were interesting too...had some fun with the in built flash as well as leaving the shutter open and capturing light trails from cars and what not.

Anyway, I'll post some photos up when I get the chance to and when I've got them off my camera's memory card :)

p.s sorry about the lack of posts...been quite a busy girl...and in two weeks I'm seeing lostprophets again woohooo!!! Next weekend's the semi-permanent design conference...can't wait - Jasper Goodall's talking - he's the guy that did a fair few of the single artwork for Muse on the Black holes and revelations album...one of my fave illustrators (along with Joe Whyte, Jason Oda and James Jean).

100th Big Day Out + Muse envy

On Saturday, I went to the 100th Big Day Out in Sydney. And it was BOILING. And I mean boiling...something ridiculous like 40+ degrees!!!

Anyway, I spent the entire time I was there on the barrier waiting for Muse's set at 9pm...was absolutely worth every minute and all the pain. The set was amazing and they are an amazing band live (as proven by their numerous awards for best live band).

Muse during Supermassive Black Hole

The stage set up was a toned down version of their arena shows which believe me are amazing (see next photo), and rumour is that they will be coming back to play the arena shows in november/december.

Muse's stage set up at the O2 Arena, London

The day was capped off with an amazing present from one of my friends, who also nabbed herself Dominic Howard's drumstick. This:

Chris Wolstenholme's (Muse's bassist) set list.

Was one of the best days ever! And I can't wait to see them at the end of the year again!

muse designers

I'm a huge fan of amazing album artwork and Muse's album artwork is no exception (although I still don't get the cover design for Black holes and Revelations...but that's another story).

The cover for The Resistance, their latest album is by a design crew from London called La Boca. Who have just won the best Art Vinyl award at artvinyl.com. For those who want to see it in the flesh its on display at Selfridges from the 5th of January at the Art Vinyl gallery. Here's the BBC website article.




The other artist that I love the work of that has also done Muse covers is Jasper Goodall. He did the single covers for Black holes and Revelations. My favourite out of the five singles that were released off Black Holes and Revelations is the cover for the single Knights of Cydonia. And the great thing is that he is talking at the Semi-Permanent design conference, which I will hopefully get to go to.







Another guy that I'm a huge fan of is an illustrator named Joe Whyte. Though not strictly muse related, he does some amazing designs, mostly vector based and mostly for a lot of hardcore bands I love. This is one of my faves, and I'm itching to buy the poster for my wall.

The 10th Doctor's end...

(Image courtsey of the BBC Doctor Who site)

Just watched the End of Time, David Tennant's last episode of Doctor Who and I balled my eyes out. Everyone's in for a treat when they see it in Australia soon (rumours are january 25th-ish)...

Wasn't too sure about Matt Smith being the new doctor, but after seeing the end and even if it was a quick 30 second bit, it will  be an interesting year for the new doctor.

Finished cover design

In my previous post, I talked about my competition entry for the cover of Drum Media. Well, I've finished the design now, and here's the finished product:

Voting is up on summerfestivalguide.com.au in the BDO cover art voting section.

Go on, vote for me :)

Home again...and been keeping busy

Well my little foray living overseas has ended...and I travelled home via Japan. I love Japan...especially with their craftiness and a whole stack of other things that are too numerous to list. I will post some photos of that trip later (as I've been saying for the past year).

At the moment, been keeping busy with some illustrator drawings for a competition. These have taken a bit of getting used to, mainly as I dont have a wacom/bamboo tablet, and have been using my mouse...I really need to get a wacom/bamboo tablet..think it will be worth my while (as well as my sanity!). Anyway, the illustrator drawings are for a competition for Drum Media (a free local street press newspaper) for their Big Day Out cover. They have this competition every year, and I've been meaning to enter it but never been bothered. That is until this time round. One of the catalysts is that one of my favourite bands is headlining - Muse.

And so, I've been creating illustrator drawings of the band members. So far, I've finished Matt's portrait completely and I've done the head of Dominic.

Matt's portrait took a total of around 5 hours from start to finish...you can't really see the detail in his face from this image, but I did a lot of zooming in...his eyes were especially hard. I'm still not happy with the labaret area though.

Dominic's portrait is still not finished as its a work in progress screen grab...so he looks like a disembodied head at the moment. This one so far has been a lot quicker than Matt, around the one and half hour mark. I started his originally and then deleted all the layers because it wasn't looking right, and started all over again. I also had a different version of this photo where he had these ridiculous sunglasses on, and found this version where there was a clean shot of his face.

Now I just have to finish off Dominic and start on Chris...although I may have to find a different image of Chris as it looks completely different from the portraits of Matt and Dom, even though it's from the same photoshoot.

Ah well, no rest for the wicked :)

Planet Loud Galleries

I've been meaning to make a post specifically for my planet-loud photos but I really haven't got around to it (mainly cos I'm a slacker and I've been busy packing my life up into boxes). Anyway, here you go. All the links to the galleries for my Planet Loud photos. I'm still waiting for the Billy Talent and Architects/Never say die tour photos to go up, but those links will be posted soon.

Also, last week saw Muse for the first time in 2 years. Had seating tickets the first night and then GA/standing tickets the next night...and boy was it worth the effort to get to the shows...the stage set up is amazing with these LED towers and the imagery on the LED towers is amazing...which I've come to expect from Muse...I'll try and post photos when I get the chance.

Planet Loud links:
36 Crazyfists
A Textbook Tragedy
Architects
As I Lay Dying
Atreyu
Funeral for a Friend
Gwen Stacy
Horse the Band
Misery Signals
MUCC
Poison the Well
Save your Breath
Story of the Year
Telegraphs

enjoy...next time you hear from me will probably be in either Japan or back home in sunny Sydney!