Devildriver and God forbid

Health

I'm feeling with the amount of cool music videos around That I'd post one that blew me away It is by the band Health the title of the song is We are Water. I features alot of my fave themes and visual styles from b-movies sit back and enjoy this great slice of horror.

Final poster art

Here is the finished poster which I have spent a little time on for all its faults I feel this is a good first poster I will get better as times go on and I can't wait to do more.

Final poster art

Here is the finished poster which I have spent a little time on for all its faults I feel this is a good first poster I will get better as times go on and I can't wait to do more.

new poster art

Here is the poster ready for the promoter to look at.

My First Design Job oh lordy lord!!!

As the title says oh lordy lord!! I will be working with a promotions company based in the Wycombe Art Centre. Its officially my first graphic design position since leaving university and I'm happy about this ill be posting the out comes here in a day or two.

Weezer: The Good life= Awesomeness

Here is a song for all the people who are bored with life and all the trappings of being considered an adult. I picked this song as I feel it says Matt "Don't settle for second best in life! Don't let anyone stop you doing what you want to do! I spent too long in a job that was sucking the life from me I was with someone who I pretty much despised. That was until one day I thought screw this crap i have had it. well enough about me and sit back and relax to this slice of greatness.

More new photos

Here are a couple of new photos from a shoot I did at the start of the year. This was my first ever Glamour shoot and was pretty nervous about it all. It was probably the reason some of the photos may not have come out as I had originally planned. What Iam showing are the photos I liked as they fell in with my vision. I feel the lighting is a little flat for my liking but as I thought while looking at them it was a great learning curve.

New photo

Hey guys here is a new photo I have fixed from my hard drive.

The Exterminator

Here is the trailer to The Executioner it was the first exploitation movie I got into. The story is centred on Vietnam vet John Eastland who after receiving news that his friend is attacked by street punks in New York. He decides to clean up the streets in the same way Charles Bronson did in death wish. Here the violence is presented a lot stronger and the cinematography a lot grimy. for all its faults it is a masterpiece of exploitation cinema.

cartoon skull

Here is a sketch of a skull Iam working on cant wait to see what I do with it next.

Musical beards 2

on the subject of musical beards you cant do a subject like beards and not mention Billy Gibbons of Z.Z Top sadly not touring any more shame as they would have awesome to see. Well enough of the guff and here is She just killing me from the dusk till dawn soundtrack

Musical Beards.1

Talking of Beards here is a classy use of a great musical beard Neil fallon of clutch one of the great American bands going today this video for the song Mob goes wild is the bomb.

God Machine

Having just thought about diversifying into band merchandise I have been looking into the various styles one designer who stands out is Godmachine his work is mindblowing in detail. Great beard too.

http://godmachinewip.blogspot.com/

Halloween 2 2009

For all the people who hate this movie by saying the "Michael character presented here is not like the originals" I say thats a good thing as who wants to see a watered down version of a character once described as "pure evil".
I feel Rob Zombie created a real monster towering over his victims and is very menacing. Exactly like in the original series but we do forget these movies were not about the Michael character they were about Laurie strode and her coming to terms with the horrific events of the original movie.
The first 15 minutes of this film in the cinema gave me a feeling of claustrophobia I had not had since watching the original Dawn of the Dead. This opening scene is a great homage to the original Halloween 2 (1981) from the moment you see Michael escape from the ambulance taking his body to the morgue. Through some miracle as with most slasher movies Michael finds out where Laurie is as approaches the hospital where Laurie is in you feel like screaming at the screen get out of there right now. Slow and very violent in it blood letting you can feel your heart rise to your throat as you see him getting closer to Laurie and she cant get away very fast due to her
The stand out scenes include the dream sequences shot in stark black and white and filmed in varying speeds to make them more dream like. They were very nightmarish and they hinted at the connection between Laurie strode and Michael Myers. There were people saying they were unneeded and did not follow the original sequel this is nonsense as the link was in the original but it seemed a bit tacked on here, I felt was more involved with the plot and the overall reason for telling the story and for driving the narrative to its conclusion.

New sketches 2

Here are some more sketches taken from stock images and photos I asked permission from to use in this manner can wait to get these sorted loads of lovely drawing work to do and add to the ole portfolio.

Quick sketches

Here are some sketches from my latest design work its for a cd cover my girlfriend going back to basics here will sort these images out in photoshop over the next couple of days and I will post some more once i really get going with this project. The song here is a worship song so of course I will see if a literal use of the songs lyrics is best or if she would like something a bit different. will post more when i get some more work done.

Hazel

As this week I have been busy sketching out some ideas for a cd cover here Is a quick peek into a set of photos from a shoot I did a few years back. The models name is Hazel and we had a good shoot got some great images and these will be used for an illustration Iam working on got loads to show in the coming weeks. Enjoy

This weekend sees the release of Black Dynamite at the cinemas everyone who has it playing at their local cinema should catch this masterfull blaxploitation spoof.
Who interrupted my kung fu!!!!!!

Bandjob

Recently I have been working on a CD cover my my girlfriends song I have been looking for inspiration on this site its a good source for ideas.

http://www.bandjob.com/

Arch Enemy Gig Picture

This photo is from the Doomsday Machine tour a few years back and what a gig.

Fairy tale shoot.

Having been into horror movies since I was in my teens so when I was asked to create a project based on any idea I had. My natural instinct was to do one with a horror twist having taken some ideas from old vampire movies and fairy tales here are 2 images that stood out from the pack.

City and colour

When I went to see Dallas Green aka City and Colour in the London HMV forum in June I knew little of the music he had done out side of Alexisonfire. When I got to my seat and the lights went down I was in for one of the best shows I have ever been too.
Here is a video to my favourite song from the evening.

New work

As of next week I will be putting up new designs for work I have been working on.
As Iam now looking for more work with models in my photography and design work.
here are some links to places I plan on showing my work on.

www.emptees.com

www.gigposters.com

Tom Bagshaw

Having come across this talented artists work only recently I felt compelled to put a link up to his work as i find it is very well done hope he keeps up the good work.
http://tombagshaw.blogspot.com/

Spider Kitten

From all of the work I have taken on in the past this image was from my first Band shoot of the band Spider Kitten.

Uni days ya ya yas!!

Having looked through my hard drive recently for old pieces to put into my portfolio I came across this image. Taken on a trip in uni man alive was it cold my camera battery was dying on me and I was looking for images to fill up my card before it died it worked pretty well.

Vampire project

Ahhhhh not vampires i bloody hate vampires I hear you say. This is from my 1st shoot ever for all of its technical faults I like how this photo came out. It was originally influenced by The Principals of Evil made flesh album cover by Cradle of Filth.

Sally

Having hired local model Sally to help me with an illustration project but it fell through. Having looked through the whole set of photos from the studio session I found that this image was the best of the lot. I liked working on this image alot more than most as I did not need to use photoshop for much only a few layers for levels and hue and saturation.

Thriller a cruel Picture

When I first got started watching exploitation films I looked through the inter net and picked up the usual movies you should see like The Exterminator, Death Wish and such I found my tastes getting more and more extreme. Having chatted to friends about what to watch I came across Thriller: A cruel picture with the adult model and actress Christina Lindburg.
Released in America under the title 'They call her one eye' the story is about a mute farm girl Frigga who on her way to her doctor when a suave individual named Tony pulls up and dupes her into spending an evening with him. He asks her back to his place Frigga is then kidnapped and drugged by the individual and is forced into a drug habit and to pay for her habit she is made into a prostitute and renamed Madeleine.

At first she tries to escape and as punishment she has her eye cut out. The special effect here is meant to have been done a real corpse of a suicide victim which was confirmed by the lead star later on in an interview. After this she seems to calm down to take the clients as she has them. One is a photographer who likes to take nude photos of her one a lesbian who likes to beat her up ect.

To exact her revenge revenge on the people who made her this way the heroine learns to fire guns accurately, hand to hand combat and to drive using her cut of her pay to pay for it all.

The revenge aspect of the movie is powerful if a little over done with it's constant use of slow-mo shots. The controversial use of the xxx inserts (mind the pun)I feel helps show how captors make her feel disgusting adding to the viewers feeling of wanting her to get revenge in a way like Meir Zachis I spit on your grave and Abel Ferrara's MS 45 which this movie share similarities with.

The final scene where madaline burys her captor up to his neck and is tied to a horse is disturbing as we know this will be the end for her captor and set her free.
But at what price as her life is now changed forever!!
This is a classic slice of exploitation cinema that will equally thrill audiences as well as shocking them.

Alien 3

When I was younger I was excited when I heard about Alien 3 as I loved both Alien and Aliens. I imagined this would be a continuation of the story where Ripley and the soldier hicks would come to earth to find the aliens had taken over and she fought them there. What did we get Ripley vs the Alien on a prison planet. This was a very bad idea a step back if you look at it. As I recently found out the original story as it were was a group of Monks on a wooden planet that is infiltrated by the Alien. This would have still been a step back in most peoples eyes as we were expecting more as mentioned.
What was presented is a disjointed mish mash of both Alien and Aliens with a religious sub-text slapped on which looks like it was left over from the original script.
Having read up on Alien 3 you can see there were many fights with 20th century fox and David Fincher with sets being destroyed in fires budget cuts and changes to the script behind the directors back.
I felt it was ill fitting when compared to the earlier themes presented of the male rape myth of the original and the maternal theme from Aliens. There is so much not like in this movie it would take me forever to write about it.
One thing I did like about it is the fact that it was the debut feature of David Fincher who went on to make Seven, Fight club and Zodiac. With hindsight you can bet your bottom dollar that if there was a remake by David Fincher you would see a completely different movie from what we do have here.

Predators

Just came back from seeing Predators and my first reaction is Wow! Having seen so many new movies recently I felt things were merging into one another and could not see the difference with with them.

Till this afternoon having read positive reviews about this and was in good spirits about taking my seat in the cinema what I had not expected was how good an action movie it really was.

Adrien Brody had a tough act to follow after the 2 earlier Predator movies with Arnie and Danny Glover, I dont count the AVP movies as proper Predator movies due to the fact that they strayed too for from both the Alien and Predator movie worlds. His performance here seemed believable and a character you could root for unlike some of the other characters who felt like fodder for the predators. His inclusion here brought weight in my to the movie. In the past he has worked with directors of the high calibre of Terrence Milack, Roman Polanski and Wes Anderson in the fantastic Mr Fox and The Darjeeling Limited.

Story wise the movie is about a group of dangerous individuals including a sniper, a criminal on death row, a yakuza et all that the Predators have chosen to become their prey in a deadly hunt. There is not much in the way of exposition the movie as throws you in to the action from the off it disorientates the viewer for a while as you wish you could have seen what happened before that point. As the movie progresses we find out the background of each individual for a few odd moments.

The move then steps up a pace when you see the first action set piece with the Predator dogs at first it reminded me of the Hulk dogs from Ang Lee's 'The Hulk' this kinda sucked and I wished it had not happened as it seemed like the writers had thought what would be cool and the answer was this.

When the characters find out what they are up against it's here the movie takes flight and starts to get a whole lot better as plot is thrown out of the window and the action starts. The pacing here is spot on and as the movie races to its conclusion you find yourself caring what happens to the characters . Its one of the many strengths of the movie along with the action set pieces and the over all tone of the movie.

As for the down side to the movie Laurence Fishburnes character was pretty much non essential as well as topher grace's character he seemed to be there just to get killed off or act as bait for Adrian Brodies Royce character.

The Predators looked too stylised for their own good and I would have rather'd them to look gritty and battle worn. The CGI loooked bit iffy in places but you cant have everything all the time so its only a minor flaw.

Over all Predators acts as a great reboot of the Predator series with great action set pieces believeable characters and a great story with a lot of scope for further Predator movies.

8/10.

The Weekend is here!!!!

As its the end of the week I have one thing to say. Whatchoo Talkin about Willis????

Inspiration

What a week! A job interview set for Monday morning, maybe a move to High Wycombe near London and a sense that I really should do more photography work as I have been bit lazy since I did my last shoot 3 months ago. So today is the day I start looking for inspiration and man do I have my work cut out for me as there is so much great work in all areas. While looking for inspiration for a new project and I thought I'd Google the artist Vania whose work I really admire from his Christ paintings through to his more erotic work there is a tonne of symbolism and the relationship between innocence and affliction and this is something I want to bring forward in my own work now its on to save for the shoots cant wait to do them as i hope they will become my calling card.

The Cinema Snob

Having spent along time procrastinating this evening I came across this site having followed this guys videos on youtube I noticed he was deleted over comments made against the Wood chipper Massacre. An here here he is the Cinema Snob the funniest movie critic on the net. He comments on the movie sewers and covers the whole spectrum of exploitation cinema from kung-fu to horror movies check out his blog to see what marvels of the silver screen he take his eye over.

http://www.thecinemasnob.com/

James Jean and Audrey Kawasaki Wow !!!!!

Having taken a break from building my portfolio of work I started to check out other artists that have influenced my graphic design work as of late and James Jean and Audrey Kawasaki have got to be at the top. From the moment I see their work and see the detail and their imaginative pieces I start to get ideas for photoshoot's and and portraits. For this I will link to their sites so people can gain a better understanding of where I am coming from at this point.

http://www.audrey-kawasaki.com/

http://www.jamesjean.com/

Apnea's Blog - Official weblog for alt / goth / fetish supermodel, Apnea

Check out this models blog as there are some great examples of her modeling and the fan art thats posted from time to time is pretty rad.Apnea's Blog - Official weblog for alt / goth / fetish supermodel, Apnea

Kat

Ah gosh!!! I was looking through my old photos when I came across this image of a model I shot back last year she was really good to work with and was willing to try out ideas I had for the shoot. As it was around autumn time it was pretty cold so we both wanted to finish the shoot as soon as possible. Having gone through about a gig of space on my CF card and the light was getting pretty bad as it looked like it was going to rain. Off we went to get cover under a tree when i hit up on the idea for this shot it looked so good with the way the light was falling on her and I decided to take a few shots

Lyndsey

hey there people this is a quick update from a shoot i did 2 weeks ago with a local model by the name of Malibu Sparkles. She was great to work with and helped me create the poses I was looking to achieve from the shoot. This is of the images from the shoot which I recently started to edit its a little bit unfinished but I felt the need to show people this image as i had not posted something for a long time.