Heineken - The chase

Last summer I visualised and drew up an interesting little set for Production Designer Robin Brown.  Robin has designed some fantastic commercials and this one was Heinekens epic James Bond themed effort produced to air during the rugby world cup.

The full comercial can be seen on youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuMvhJaWIUg

Early sketch

final visual (there were quite a few)

Plans and elevations

Final dressed set as it appears in the commercial

Knifeman

Last summer I was lucky enough to work on a very conceptual production called ‘Knifeman’.  The show was based in a stylised 18^th century London full of gore and vice.  We had a lovely team and the very talented Grenville Horner was our production designer.  Knifeman provided the opportunity to develop an entire world from concept through to construction.  Unfortunately ‘AMC’ chose not to take the show to series but it was great fun while it lasted.

Testament of Youth

Early last year I had the pleasure of Art Directing a feature version of 'Testament of Youth'.  This was a very exciting opportunity to work on a first world war project...a period I really love.  I mainly looked after locations and construction consisted of a lot of cover ups and fiddly little builds.

Mount Pleasant 2013 - Set Design

In my second series of MP we were required to build a pub set rather than film out on location.  After a briefing from the Production Designer I set about building models and producing technical drawings of the new set.  The set was built by WRC Ltd and the build took around five weeks.

Early 1:50 model

Early 1:50 model

A shot from inside the model

1:50 scale drawings

1:10 scale drawings of details

1:20 scale drawings of details

The set under construction

The finished dressed set

The finished dressed set

The finished dressed set

Let them eat cake

Here is a little bit of cake design.  A simple brief - design a cake that looks like a 'Gibson Les Paul'.  The cake was make by te very talented people at The Ash Tea Rooms.

My visual of the cake

The finished cake

Game show pitch

In 2011 I was asked to prepare this visual as part of a pitch for a new game show.  Unfortunately we didn't win the pitch but I still quite like the concept.  Patrick Doherty was the Production Designer and supplied a photo of a 1:50 card concept model.  I based this visual on that model.

This is my final visual.

This is the naked 3D model.

This is the model photo supplied by the Production Designer.  The model was build by Paul Houston.

Ryder cup 2014 (updated)

Earlier in the year Chris Walker and I designed some more hospitality suites for Byrom plc.  The World Cup visuals posted earlier in this blog were also for Byrom.  This new project was a pitch for the Ryder Cup in 2014 being played up in Scotland.

I produced a series of visuals for this pitch.  All were modeled out in Sketchup and then painted over in Photoshop.

Tight deadlines make this type of work quite challenging.  I have found out through numerous sleepless nights that high quality photo realism is not possible within my normal sub 24 hour deadlines.  Designing at pace is an organic process and long render times make changes impossible.

Stylizing my renders helps me get the images out of Sketchup and into Photoshop quickly.  Once in Photoshop I work in a painterly fashion that lets me make changes on the fly and delivers a more balanced and interesting final illustration.

My final render of the Hospitality suite exterior.

A close up of the balcony area.

The basic Sketchup setup including a tent model kindly supplied by the chaps at C6(n)

National Geographic - Gospel of Judas

In 2005 I was lucky enough to Art Direct a National Geographic documentary out in Tunisia.  It was all good fun although it would have been easier if it wasn't being filmed during Ramadan.  The Tunisian crew battled through but working in extreme heat with an empty belly did take its toll on the chaps.

My technical drawing of the main element of our build.  While I generally use 3D and CAD now so its nice to pick up a pencil when drawing beautiful period architecture.

This is the build before the painters have started working up the finishes.

Here is the finished build.

Home office - Set design

Earlier this year I once again teamed up with Christopher Walker on a new pilot for the BBC.  The 'home office' is a sit com being filmed at the new BBC studios over in Salford.  Below is some of the art work and technical drawings I produced during the design of our studio build.

These early visuals helped communicate the layout of the set...the dressing completely changed.

A second view of the set.

My technical drawings that went of to Bob and John at WRFCS Ltd.

The studio/dressing plan.  This was a real pain as BBC Salford kept supplying the wrong studio plans (anyone else building in there beware).

Ready, Steady, Go!  Cameras descend on the completed set.

Another angle of the set.

The front door had the match an exterior location in Wilmslow.

The dinning room table proved to be at the heart of the action.

Another shot

The living area - notice the jazz theme.

Architectural Visualization

A couple of years ago I helped out a friend with his planning application by producing a visual of his proposed building project.  They supplied me with a shot of the existing barn with a set of plans and I spent a day producing a 3D model of the build.  I then dropped the model into the visual below.  Despite it being a delicate build on a protected property they got the planning permission. 

The final visual

My 3D model (with one very detailed bump map)

The supplied photo of the existing barn and build site.