Friday 23 September 2011

Digital Art - "The Clown"


Here's another of my entries in the Imagine FX magazine forum weekly competition.

1st Work In Progress image
The Brief: "Depict a clown after the show is over and everyone has left the circus."

The Description: "Does everyone fear clowns? This is your chance to paint a clown as you see them, either pure evil, as they really are, or as the delightfully funny characters, that they want people to think they are…….. you decide. This can be a portrait, or a full character or anything in-between."

2nd Work In Progress image
Again, I ended up leaving this entry till the last minute, and this was completed in a little over three hours. What it represents, is up to the viewer. Personally, I think it's about the idea of alien life as part of us, or simply hidden amongst, but masked by the way society ridicules and and laughs at alien abduction stories or UFO sightings.

Final Image

All work is the © copyright of W.D.Lee and/or the respective companies, individuals or organisations to which the work is related. No infringement is intentional. No reproduction or copying is permitted without express permission.

Digital Art - "Last Days"


 Here's another of my entries in the Imagine FX magazine forum weekly competition.

This was created for the September 2011 weekly challenge entitled: "2012 - The End"

1st Work In Progress image
The Brief: "We have all seen disaster movies about the end of the world. Your job is to depict a snapshot scene of an aspect of it."

The Description: "This is quite an open challenge, this could be simply a shot of the Earth showing the reason for it's demise, an action shot of a ship being swept into a city, a lava threatened house, etc. The choice of scene is yours."

2nd Work In Progress image
I ended up leaving this entry till the last minute, and so this was completed in a little over four hours. I wanted to do something a little different that signified some cataclysmic event, but in a more subtle and subdued way, than the usual great fiery disasters. I was lucky enough that this entry actually won the weekly competition!

Final Image
All work is the © copyright of W.D.Lee and/or the respective companies, individuals or organisations to which the work is related. No infringement is intentional. No reproduction or copying is permitted without express permission.

Friday 9 September 2011

One Day (2011) – Cinema Review (4/10)

One Endless Day...

First let me say, I have not read the book. This review is based on the film, and the film alone. The premise is quite interesting. Take a couple of characters, and visit them on the same day over a number of years, to show how their lives progress at that same point annually. Unfortunately you can't help feeling that the premise is what prompted the author/script writer, David Nicholls, to create the story, while the characters and events were somewhat of an afterthought.

Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, Becoming Jane, The Princess Diaries) stars as Emma, who straight from university, befriends Dex, played by Jim Sturgess (The Other Boleyn Girl). The film then charts their respective lives and friendship over the years.

It all feels rather aimless and random. Some might say that echoes real life, but at the same time this is a film that uses any number of tired clichés for emotional impact. There are really only four characters of consequence, two male, two female. Both male characters are shown to be fairly pathetic throughout most of the film. One is a typical 'geeky nerd' character, who is clearly played as the 'sad loser', and comes out with all the worst clichés that non-genre writers think define science fiction and fantasy fans. Meanwhile the male lead, Dex, is a drug addled, reprehensible, womanising drunk. On the flip side, there is Dex's mother, shown to be strong yet tragic, the emotional role model for her son. Finally we have Emma herself, the sturdy shoulder for the weak male to lean on, the one constant in his life. Strong enough to resist him until he's sorted himself out, but always there as another emotional crutch.

It is to Anne Hathaway's credit that she made an otherwise mediocre character vaguely interesting. Her performance has been criticised somewhat, most especially for her Northern English accent. Admittedly, her accent is hit and miss. For the most part, she does a straight forward and generic 'English' accent that works well, but her regional inflections are a mixed and occasionally out-of-place bag. However, it's not terrible by any means. Her performance in most other aspects, is excellent, and honestly the best thing in the film. Hathaway is quite adept at being able to play both slightly nerdy girl-next-door, as well as glamorous and beautiful within the same character in a believable way.

It's difficult to judge Jim Sturgess as Dex. The character is mostly unsympathetic, and by the time he supposedly redeems himself, you really don't care what happens to him. As such, Sturgess has either succeeded at playing the character as written, or failed to make him sympathetic when he should be. If the latter, it would still be difficult to blame him, given the material. Unfortunately there was nothing that stood out about his performance, unless you count acting drunk and/or drugged-up occasionally.

Given the lead character's friendship was in many ways the core of the film, there was very little, if anything, to explain why Emma stayed (or even became) such close friends with Dex in the first place. He was never shown to be particularly interested in her life, or helpful, or really even have anything in common with her. The best that could be said, is that he used her friendship as an emotional crutch, while she stayed friends with him because he was the unobtainable handsome 'bad-boy' that she wanted. So perhaps it would be better to say that there was no healthy reason for their lasting friendship. Which at the very least undermines the romantic aspect of the story.

Whilst trying to avoid any spoilers, the finale of the film is based around a manipulative emotional 'shock' moment. It is not only unnecessary for the story or characters, but executed in a contrived way that feels unrealistic for the sake of making the audience jump.

I can't honestly recommend 'One Day'. It's not a bad film as such. It keeps you watching, though much of that is down to Anne Hathaway's likeable portrayal of the potentially weak character of Emma. The romantic elements of the story, such as they are, keep things vaguely interesting in the latter third or quarter of the film, but there is little else to grab your attention alongside the lacklustre ending.

Fans of the book may enjoy the film, as they might see more within the scenes than other viewers. As for the rest, as you walk out of the cinema doors or switch off your TV, I think you'll find yourself shrugging forgettably. What score I have given it, is mainly for Hathaway's performance.

4/10

All work is the © copyright of W.D.Lee and/or the respective companies, individuals or organisations to which the work is related. No infringement is intentional. No reproduction or copying is permitted without express permission.

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Digital Art - "Witch's Familiar"


Here's another of my entries in the Imagine FX magazine forum weekly competition.

This was created for the September 2011 weekly challenge entitled: "The Witch's Familiar"

Original Pencil Sketch
The 'Description': "In legend, a familiar or familiar spirit is a supernatural being that supports a witch or magician. Traditionally, a familiar is an animal but some are said to be humanoid."

Due to time, I wasn't initially going to enter this competition, however I decided to give it a go on the last night of entry. In order to complete it as quickly as possible, I decided to sketch the 'Familiar' in pencil first, scan it, and then colour it digitally.

Work in progress
Since the stereotypical witch's familiar is a cat, I decided to play on that. I thought that perhaps the cat is possessed, when it becomes a familiar, by some small demonic creature, which only reveals its true form to the witch. Hence my creature is not an animal, but still has some cat-like features.

Final Digital Painting


All work is the © copyright of W.D.Lee and/or the respective companies, individuals or organisations to which the work is related. No infringement is intentional. No reproduction or copying is permitted without express permission.