I am a week late with this post about Escape Studios, but I have had a rather busy week, so you’ll have to forgive me.

A couple of weeks back I was invited, via Twitter, to an evening at Escape Studios, the awesome CG training centre in London. A beer and CG evening! Sounds good doesn’t it? And it was. So last Friday evening I headed up to London and met some of the people who work there, as well as two other CG artists who were also invited via Twitter.

We were given a presentation about Escape Studios, and the courses they offer, and were then shown around the training rooms. Excellent facilities, and an awesome place to learn. After that the three of us invitees had the chance to sit and have a chat with three of Escapes tutors, namely Nick Savy, the creatures/characters tutor (has Batman Begins on his CV), Lee Danskin, the VFX tutor (and Maya Master), and Jeff Pratt, animation tutor (and formerly of Pixar and NASA – WOW! I know, right!). All of these guys were really great to talk to, although it was a little intimidating showing them my work given the amount of experience and knowledge between them. Once all of this formal stuff was out of the way it was down to the bar for some snacks and beers and good conversation.

All-in-all it was a great evening, I met some fantastic people, and I got to visit the awesome Escape Studios. I would certainly recommend the school to anyone wanting to get in to CG or even brush up on their skills or even learn new skills. I would love to take one of their courses myself, so I’ll have that in the plans for the future.

A big thank you to everyone at Escape for the evening, it was awesome meeting all of you!

To read Escape Studios blog post about the evening, just click on this LINK! There is a pic there as well, you can see my entire left hand in the bottom right of the pic.

The other two Twitterers that were invited: Alex Amelines (www.onehugeeye.com), and Charlotte Wills (www.charlottes-animated-web.co.uk).

Yes, my first two copies of Real Heroes have arrived, and I’m REALLY pleased with the way the book turned out. The quality of the whole package is excellent. Here’s some pics:

Of course, I’ve only photographed a few of my pages in the book, but all of them are awesome.

It’s a nice big hard cover cover book, with 192 pages, that retails for only £9.99. You can find it cheaper online, Amazon has it for £6.00, and various other places have it for a similar price. It will be available on the 26th of November, and should be available everywhere in the UK, from WHSmith to Borders to Tesco etc etc.

Go BUY it, and support a good cause.

Kev

Real Heroes

Thats the title of the big project I was working on recently. It is a 192 page hard cover book, being published by Harper Press (of Harper Collins). Part of the proceeds from the book go to Help for Heroes, the wonderful charity that raises money for wounded British soldiers. The book is sponsored by The Sun newspaper, whom I have worked for in the past, and I had a very good time working with again on this project.

Here is the description of the book by the publisher:

A unique, full-colour, action-packed collection of true stories of heroism from the British armed forces. ‘Real Heroes’ is packed full of everything you could want to know about the inspirational bravery of the men and women involved in current conflicts. Discover a wealth of fascinating information about servicemen’s kit, weapons, vehicles, survival aids, tactics, bases and frontline accounts of experiences of battle. Stunning feature-length animated strips depict the most thrilling action from the front line, from the Tora Bora cave clearance right up to the recent Operation Panther’s Claw. Other features include detailed maps, interviews with key personnel, understanding Afghanistan, military awards, breakdowns of battle units and insightful pieces from expert authors including Ben Brown, Patrick Bishop, Christina Lamb, James Holland and Ed Macy. ‘Real Heroes’ is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to support our troops — proceeds from the book will be donated to Help for Heroes, a tremendous charity set up to support the men and women of the British Armed Forces who are wounded in the line of duty. Exciting, eye-catching and informative, ‘Real Heroes’ is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about modern warfare, or simply enjoys a fast-paced account of real courage, comradeship and battle.

I completed 86 pages of comics for the book. Eight stories. All-in-all it was about 346 separate images. I modeled and textured various vehicles, characters, equipment and environments. All of the images were set up and rendered first, and then composited and painted up in Photoshop. Here is an example of the kind of work that I produced:

This image won’t be appearing in the book.

The initial deadline for this work was three weeks. Which was insane. I researched, plotted and storyboarded all of the stories, as well as modeled, textured and rendered nearly ALL of the images in those first three weeks. Luckily the deadline got pushed forward, which gave me a lot more time to spend on the images in the Photoshop stage, as can be seen in the above image. The work took about eight weeks to complete, with another two weeks taken up with editorial changes and tweaks. The editorial stage went quite smoothly, and the editor at Harper Press was great to work with.

I think the comic pages turned out very well, especially considering the time it was all completed in. I haven’t seen the rest of the book, but I’m sure it’s all going to be VERY good.

The book is due for release on the 26th of November, but is already available for pre-order in a lot of places. Here is the AmazonUK link.

I hope to have my copies soon, I am really looking forward to seeing the final printed product.

All the best,

Kev