Miss Pearl Grey

Meet Miss Pearl Grey, an artist in the UK working in 3D! 

"Hello! My name is Kellie, but you can call me Miss Pearl Grey, if you like."

How or why did you start working dimensionally?
I was always drawing and became very interested in making minatures as a child. My Grandfather built me a beautiful Doll's House that I was able to furnish with little objects I had made myself and people I crafted from pipe cleaners, cotton wool, tights and material. I eventually ran out of rooms for them all to live in, so it became more like a Hostel for tiny people!
I have a rather short attention span sometimes, so consequently I tend to ricochet back and forth between 2 and 3 dimensional illustrating when I temporarily tire of one or the other (it is usually on the break between each that my interest is reignited!).

What or who has influenced the way you work? 
I am constantly in awe of the sheer talent out there! I have a wide range of inspirations which include (but are not limited to) Aardman, FaultyOptic, Red Nose Studio and Liz Lomax. I also consider myself very lucky to have a supportive cast of family and friends, who are invariably willing to endure my antisocial tendencies when working on new pieces.

Please describe your working process.
I always start with sketches. Each character is visualised on paper from a variety of angles in order to provide accurate viewpoints later on. Once I have started sculpting I find it very helpful to have my own drawings on the desk so that I can see exactly how much curve the chin needs, or where a particular wart should be. This said, however, my models are rarely the same as the initial sketch by the end! 
I usually start with a wire or tin foil armature and build onto this with Super Sculpey. I fire the initial sculpt in the oven and then each subsequent layer is fixed with a very hot hairdryer (my models are usually small enough that this is sufficient). Occasionally I pad out some of the bulkier characters with upholstery wadding to save using so much Sculpey, these are just fixed with the hairdryer. I use children's plasticine modelling tools, scalpels and cocktail sticks to sculpt faces and details. Some of the features are just about being resourceful with materials. I am a bit of a hoarder so I tend to hang onto scraps of old material and things most people would throw away- I know they will come in handy sooner or later. I usually paint with acrylics but learned the hard way that you should always seal the paint with varnish (I use the Matte variety). Once the characters are ready I arrange the props and backgrounds accordingly and photograph, editing afterwards in Photoshop where necessary.

What do you the enjoy most / least about working dimensionally?
I would have to say that the most frustrating thing for me is overheating my models, burning them to a crisp when I wander off to make a cup of tea. When I overheat them they shatter a lot more easily and this can be very time consuming to fix! Materials can be very costly, too. But the overall satisfaction I get from seeing the final images and from other people's reactions makes it very rewarding. I am also a tremendous perfectionist, but I don't think that ever really leaves you.

Kellie Black
Pearl Grey Illustration
www.misspearlgrey.com
www.misspearlgrey.blogspot.com
All images and content © Miss Pearl Grey

studio visit with Chris Walsh

I have just returned from a month in the UK visiting family and friends. One of the highlights of my trip was meeting fellow sculptor Chris Walsh in his hometown of Liverpool! He shared his work and process info with us back in October so if you missed it, please click here. He was kind enough to share his time and work with me in person, so I wanted to pass it on to you.

Chris is insanely talented and extremely modest.... and his Amy Winehouse sculpture kicks ass!

It was a treat to see Chris's sculptures close up. They are so much bigger than I'd expected.

There's something amazing everywhere you turn. Hiding up on one of the shelves I saw Bill Shankly, a legend in Liverpool but if you don't follow football (as in soccer) then you may not be familiar with him.

Chris was commissioned to make Shankly for a client and then created a mould so he could cast several of them.

Chris taught himself how to do this by watching a mould making & casting workshop dvd. This process has always intrigued and terrified me at the same time. I don't know that I'm brave enough to try it but Chris made it look and sound so easy.

His cake toppers blew me away! He's working on one right now of a rock climbing couple.

Chris pulled out some sculptures that have been hiding away for too long, like this lovely lady who's a bit dusty but totally incredible...

...and this fascinating fella lurking in the corner.

The visit with Chris was so inspiring and fun. Thanks Chris for letting us into your world!

Laura Meredith (aka Toasty Illustration)

Meet Laura Meredith of Toasty Illustration. She's a 3D illustrator based in the UK and she told me... 

"school and college art courses left me quite disillusioned with the concept of an art career so i had a break from doing any artwork for 4 years before enrolling on an art foundation diploma course on impulse when accompanying my friend to an open day in 2003. I intended to train as a tattooist and only applied to university as a back up idea. I accepted a place on the Illustration BA course at the university of Portsmouth where we were encouraged to find a way of working away from the traditional mediums of drawing and painting. I didn't branch out to 3d illustration until the middle of my second year and from then on i didn't look back. I graduated in 2008 and since then i have been published in several books and magazines and have participated in several group exhibitions in london, cardiff, winchester and portsmouth."

How did you start working dimensionally?

I think that i had always subconsciously yearned to create something sculptural and tactile, however i thought my career would be in drawing or painting until i discovered the potential of 3d illustration. 

What or who has influenced the way you work?

when i first started Chris Sickles was definately a huge influence. since i started to research the medium my tastes have branched out to include sculptors and animators such as Ron Mueck, Suzie Templeton, Paul Berry, The Brothers Quay and Tim Burton. Individual pieces are mainly influenced by found materials or objects which can kickstart the direction of an illustration.

Please describe your working process.

I use super sculpey, wire, fabric, acrylic paints, glue and acrylic doll hair. I have recently experimented with enclosing my work in resin or jars and i love the idea of my models becoming jarred specimens.

What do you enjoy the most about working dimensionally?

I'm very impatient clumsy, and i have been known to ruin a piece in my eagerness to make the finishing touches! I also find that i have to use so many different tools and materials that anywhere i'm working immediately turns into a building site so i'm contantly having to tidy up after myself to avoid stepping in/on paint, needles or wire. What i enjoy most is the sense of accomplishment in creating miniature sets and characters, and the satisfaction when you can finally sit back and see that its coming together and that its the best thing you've made so far- Its great to know that there is always room to improve.

Laura Meredith (aka Toasty Illustration)

www.toastyillustration.com

lmeredith83@hotmail.co.uk

images and content © Laura Meredith (aka Toasty Illustration)

Andy Hixon

Check out Andy Hixon from Manchester, UK! He weaves his images together beautifully using a combination of sculpture, mixed media and digital manipulation.

How did you start working dimensionally?
To start out with when I was studying Illustration several years ago the course I was on was heavily graphic design based, I initially wanted to work in paint and Photography just to be doing something a little different. I had all these great ideas in my head of what I wanted to achieve with my work and what I wanted the final piece of work to look like and what actually came out at the end resembled nothing of what I had originally intended. I felt like I wanted more control over the work I was producing at the time. From this I started experimenting in the Darkroom I really had no idea what I was doing, overexposing 3d objects on photo paper etc just experimenting really and steadily learning more about photography/lighting etc. Then the sculpture aspect came into play, along with that and the photography just clicked for me I guess.

What or who has influenced the way you work?
Initially I was a huge fan of the work of Henry Moore I used to go to the Yorkshire Sculpture Garden quite a bit that contains a lot of his work , I thought ’I want to do that ’ ( but smaller, less highbrow and not in a muddy field). Looking at his work along with Illustrators such as Dave Mckean and Jordin Isip helped shape the way I work today.

Please describe your working process.
Sketch, ball of clay or Polymer or Placticine for animation, model, dry, photograph, Photoshop- in that order. Although I have just began working using 3D Software such as Zbrush & Mudbox which I have found to be really interesting and gives some fantastic results. The sculptures I produce in clay are modelled in detail only on the side that is being photographed they are never a ‘complete sculpture’ and often get thrown away when I am finished.

What do you enjoy the most / least about working dimensionally?
The photography aspect in many ways I feel is just as important as the sculpture aspect especially if the work is in an Illustrative context .I feel that sometimes a camera really distorts the 3d objects hence having to take hundreds of photos with different lighting settings till I get the right one. Other than that it is a very enjoyable way to work in a style that really not too many illustrators are doing right now.

Check out Andy's stop-motion music video for the band Woven!

Andy Hixon
www.andyhixon.com
www.andyhixon.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/andyhixonart
images and content © Andy Hixon

Chris Walsh

Meet Chris Walsh, a sculptor and 3D illustrator based in the UK.

How did you start working dimensionally?
Before deciding that I wanted to be an Illustrator I studied on various art and design courses during college and tried so many different ways of making images, but I didn't really like any of them. I became fascinated with stop motion animation around the same time, I loved the figures and props and wanted to try making them myself, which I did for a short time and it felt like a very natural way for me to work.
Despite my love of 2 dimensional illustration I've never been very good at it, so when I got to doing my diploma in Graphic Design and Illustration I struggled to compete with the other students. I was looking through a book full of stills from various stop motion movies and shorts one day and realized that they looked great as stand alone images, and I had the crazy idea that rather than draw- I could sculpt and make everything in the scene and photograph it. I did, and everyone seemed to like it, even me.

What or who has influenced the way you work?
Again I think that my under-developed drawing skills come into play here. I've always found it tough to visualize a 3d object in 2d, and I found it especially difficult to convincingly light a scene in 2d. When I first started doing this I was a huge Tim Burton fan (I still am) and I loved the way he used lighting to make a scene so atmospheric. I started to experiment with lighting a lot in my earlier work and it became the thing I enjoyed most about working this way. 'Vincent' and 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' were certainly my biggest influences when I started off. Many years later I discovered David O'Keefe and Liz Lomax and they became a massive influence on me, and trying to keep my style unique and different from theirs certainly has an effect on how I work.

Please describe your working process.
I'll usually have a pretty strong idea in my head of what I want to begin with, I'll do some rough pen sketches on layout paper to figure out the composition I like best, and make some individual sketches of anything that might be a problem to build in 3d, then I'll try to figure out a way of doing it. I like to rough everything in first, so I'll rough out any characters in clay, and put together a very crude version of the set using cardboard, sometimes I'll use existing models as placemakers and photograph this rough version. I'll put it into photoshop and sketch over things, colour parts in etc and just see how it works as an image. I may have to move bits around or totally re-think parts of it. Once I'm happy that the image will work I begin to replace all of the crude cardboard parts with better parts one at a time, until the set is finished and painted. I light it and sometimes take hundreds of photos with different lighting variations and slightly different camera angles, by which time it's usually 4am and I fall asleep. The next day I spend picking the best ones before I crop them and make some slight enhancements in photoshop.

What do you enjoy the most / least about working dimensionally?
Well the things I like the least are the time it takes to produce a piece, the amount of space each piece takes up, and the mess it makes, oh and the cost of all the materials. But what I enjoy the most is having quite a unique style that I love working in, and seeing that other people are enjoying my work.




















* Chris is currently accepting commissions for custom made cake toppers and figurines for weddings and other special occasions, pieces can vary in size from 51/2" toppers to 10" centre piece figures and anything in between. They are hand crafted using polymer clay on top of a small wire armature, and then airbrushed using acrylic paint. Feel free to email Chris (chris@chriswalshart.com) for further ordering information, and check out the new website coming later in the year at www.chriswalshart.com

images and content © Chris Walsh