Boat Still on a House

Decided to try out my new Wacom Bamboo tablet and pen with my tsunami scene drawing. Tricky on my 13" Macbook Pro but better than I thought it would turn out. Need to seriously practice with the brush types and pressure flows though.

Boat on a House

Second drawing I've created based on the images coming out of northern Japan. This time a boat resting on top of a house from today's press. Plan to finish this as a half collage to add colour and the surrounding scene.

Japanese Tsunami

Woke up to the news this morning that 20 minutes before my alarm went off in London, on the other side of the world there occurred a massive earthquake off the Japanese eastern seaboard. When I was there in Tokyo August 2008 I witnessed first hand a short lived 6.8 and that was pretty scary, but this 8.8 is apparently the 6th or 7th most powerful in recorded history.

This has subsequently resulted in a rapidly moving tsunami, and being the technological country it is, for the past 12 hours the rest of the world has been witness to scenes of chaos and destruction as the water moves its way inland and the aftershocks continue.

I can honestly say it's some of the most devastating and helpless imagery I have ever seen. With world leaders pledging support and rescue assistance, the full impact isn't yet evident but it's not going to be good and I'm sure there is more eyewitness footage to come.

Amongst the video footage reported on here in the UK, one image that had most impact on me was the swirling seas just outside what I presume to be Sendai. Like some weird sci-fi event it almost seemed too setup; with it's contained, lone, trapped fishing boat slowly circling and trying to break free. I've created this piece based on that footage of the seawater vortex. Truly astounding scenes.

Hints of Roger Dean

One for the thirty somethings here and reminiscent of the great Roger Dean; introducing sci-fi illustrator Dan McPharlin. You can see more at his Flickrfolio which features new album art for various bands, created in that very recognisible 1960 and 70s Ace/Berkeley science fiction book covers style.

Extreme Light Painting

Found this on one of my regular creative trawls; this time on Abduzeedo. Extreme Light Painting photography by Janne Parviainen. It's a technique used a lot but there seems to be some additional lighting methods being used to get the final results. Check out Janne's Flickr page for more of the same.

Hey Mickey

Steamboat Willie Poster by Tom Whalan. 18" x 24" screenprint with metallic inks and limited to 200 signed copies.

Unfortunately for me [yet again] these were all sold out on the Mondo website within minutes of going up.

Highly recommend checking out Tom's site, Strong Stuff too.