Live Tablet & Interactive Smart Board Painting Demos
The Gadget Show Live - 2013
Gadget Show Live
In April 2013, I spent the week at The Gadget Show Live at the Birmingham NEC giving painting demos on a range of tablets and large screen smart boards. The opportunity came thanks to an iPad Artist friend of mine Paul Kercal, who invited me to be part of the Guildford College stand at the show.
Tablet Art
Paul and his students where showcasing how art can be created using Windows 8 Tablets provided by Microsoft and also showcased applications such as ArtRage on interactive white boards provided by Smart. There were life drawing sessions and live demos given by artists like myself across the week. Here are a few recap images.
Featured Artwork & Live Painting Demos
Macworld / iWorld 2013
Featured Artwork
I am happy to confirm that artwork of mine will once again be featured at the Macworld / iWorld expo in San Francisco this coming January. A new painting of mine will be displayed in the entrance hall of the Moscone West Center on a 6 ft square canvas.
Nomad Brush
I will also be attending the conference this year and have partnered with the Nomad Brush team to give live iPad painting demonstrations.
"Nomad Brush will host live digital art demonstrations at their booth, featuring these uniquely talented and renowned iPad artists: Kyle Lambert - A UK based artist whose artwork has been featured in recent Apple and Adobe product launches. Kyle’s artwork will again be prominently be featured by Macworld/iWorld throughout the Moscone Center."
Here is an interview with me on the Nomad Brush Blog - http://nomadbrush.com/wordpress/2013/01/25/countdown-to-macworld-interview-with-artist-kyle-lambert/
You will be able to find me at booth #455 on Saturday 2nd February, so please come along and say hi.
For more information about Macworld / iWorld visit - http://www.macworldiworld.com
Visual Development
Beware of Bots
Beware of Bots
'Beware of Bots' is a visual development project I created to develop my character and environment design process. I began my project by writing a short outline of a story about a boy named Louis who discovers an rusty old robot while lost in the woods.
Before designing each element of the story I planned a series of research trips to inspire my process. The trips included a day at a local aquarium to study fish, a walk through a woodland park to study overgrown nature and several walks during a holiday in Wales to gathered inspiration for buildings and the overall coast-line environment. I also organised photo shoots with a couple of my friends to help me enrich the personalities and aesthetics of my characters.
The full project artwork can be seen in my gallery by clicking here - Beware of Bots
Escape Painting
With the majority of the environment and character designs completed I decided to produce a final painting that represented the story in a single frame. The composition of the painting went through a number of revisions based on sketches I completed using Adobe Ideas on my iPad and Photoshop on my Mac.
I then painted a mood study directly over the sketch to establish the key colours and lighting that I would use in in finished piece. Again using Adobe Photoshop, I created silhouettes for each element in the painting and slowly built up the painting layer by layer.
Pixar's Up
Birthday Card
Case Study
During my recent trip to California and Canada I met up with a number of great friends of mine, including Kimberlee Allyn who is an awesome animator working in L.A. When I discovered it was her birthday at the end of the month I decided to make Kimberlee a card based on our favourite movie, Pixar's UP.I started out by sketching really loose composition thumbnails in Adobe Ideas on my iPad and proceeded to refine the drawings I felt worked best. The eventual layout I chose featured Doug the dog flying across the sky holding a Happy Birthday banner.
I dropped the opacity of the sketch and worked above it on a separate layer with a more detailed outline. I exported the finished sketch to Adobe Photoshop as a PDF and created a new layer to colour each element in the painting. Once I was happy with my colour choices I created a final layer to add outlines / details and to write a birthday message.
To give the card the feeling of a traditional painting I placed a paper texture over the top and used a blend mode to subtly composite it.
Art Institute of Portland
iPad Art Workshop
Interactive Demo
On 8th August 2012, I will be presenting an interactive iPad Art Workshop with the Nomad Brush team at the Institute of Portland. The workshop will explore ways of using an iPad as part of your creative workflow for sketching, painting and image manipulation using a Nomad Brush stylus. I will be giving a live demo with my iPad connected to a projector and will be encouraging attendees to follow along with their own iPads. There will also be a 15 minute Q&A at the end of the session.
The workshop will benefit Schoolhouse Supplies, a nonprofit organization which serves classrooms in need by operating a volunteer-run Free Store for teachers. Participants are encouraged to donate an art supply item for Portland Public School students - such as crayons, colored pencils, paper or glue - to be entered to win free Nomad Compose Brushes at the event.
"Kyle Lambert is a Digital Artist from the United Kingdom who is known for his incredible iPad Artwork. He will be giving an exclusive presentation and demo of the techniques he uses in his work. Kyle will also be joined by the Nomad Brush team who will be showing a range of unique brush stylus options for touch screen tablets.
Join them 11:45 - 12:45 August 8th"
For more information about the event, Click Here
Illustrated Poster
Eyes Wide Shut
Stanley Kubrick
After completing my research for the Toy Shining storyboard project (which can be seen here) I decided to start exploring the rest of Stanley Kubrick's films. This lead to me watching Kubrick's last film, which was released in 1999 - Eyes Wide Shut. As with many of the Kubrick films I found myself needing to re-watch it a couple of times to take everything in. Although probably not his best work, Eyes Wide Shut left a lasting impression on me and heightened my fascinated with Kubrick's work.
Caricatures
Around the same time I started watching Eyes Wide Shut, I was working on a couple of projects that involved me designing stylized caricatured character designs. The idea naturally popped into my head to attempt an illustrated caricature of the lead characters from Eyes Wide Shut.
iPad ideas
I sat down one evening in front of the TV with my iPad and watched Eyes Wide Shut. Using Adobe Ideas on my iPad I doodled a couple of compositions for an illustration that could hopefully tell the story of the movie in a single image. Initially I was only intending to do a quick illustration on my iPad, but it became apparent to me that the composition I had come up with would make a good poster design instead.
Still using my iPad I drew several caricatures of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise in the pose that I had decided on. I also designed the decorative mask and cloak silhouette that made up the background of the poster. These sketches can be seen here. I then exported these sketches to Adobe Photoshop on my Mac using Adobe's Creative Cloud to begin working on the color.
Poster
With Photoshop I used the sketches to create simple colored character silhouettes and positioned these within the poster. Using a separate layer I then added subtle shading and fine details to the characters. Once I was happy with the design I then added the poster typography for the film and matched the colors to the design.
Case Study
Photo Restoration
Re-touching
In 1977 John & Rose got married in Reno, Nevada. They had a set of photos taken in a photo booth. All but one of the photos had an ink spot on them. The only good photo was then lost when Rose had her purse stolen. This video shows how I restored the remaining photo for John & Rose.
To do this I used Adobe Photoshop. I used the clone and spot healing brushes to remove the scratches. I reversed the left hand side of John's face and painted in the missing areas using the paint brush tool.
Review
Hand Glider & Kowala
iPad Art Accessories
For a long time I found myself more than happy creating artwork on my iPad with just my finger. It was the simplicity of a handheld device with a touch screen input that appealed to me as a mobile art studio solution. But as the iPad has become more widely adopted in the art community, accessory makers have begun invented ways to improve the experience of working creatively on the iPad. The first notable improvement in my workflow was the discovery of the Nomad Brush. The Nomad Brush is a capacitive brush stylus designed to help create more natural sketches free from the friction of your finger on glass. More recently I have been introduced to two other useful iPad art accessories - The Hand Glider and the Kowala which I tested when working on a series of iPad illustrations.
Hand Glider
http://www.thehandglider.com/ - @Hand_GliderOften the best inventions solve a problem in peoples lives. Any artist who has sketched on an iPad will tell you that not being able to rest your hand on the screen as you draw is a big irritation. With a simple and comfortable design, the hand glider is a custom designed glove that finally solves this problem. When wearing the hand glider I find myself interacting with my iPad in a much more natural way with more control over the stylus I am drawing with. There is a single and two finger version of the glove available now at http://www.thehandglider.com/
Kowala
http://www.documont.com/ - @DocumontedAnother challenge when working on the iPad is the size of the canvas that you are working around. The Kowala turns your iPad into a portable and tactile artists easel with an expanded surrounding work surface. I find that the additional support provided by the Kowala and the optional stand makes working with my iPad much more comfortable. The Kowala will be launching later in June. For more information visit - http://www.documont.com/
