The Fantasy and Reality of Rock Stardom

Ron's latest series of oil paintings entitled, Rock & Roll, explores rock stardom in our contemporary society. The paintings, Red, White, Gold and Black evoke a range of emotional phases as our star rises to the expectations of her unbridled id which pushes her further and further into excess. more About Ron's series

The Tale of Despereaux, Matte Painting and Animation

Ron worked on a team of Matte Painters at Framestore CFC, who digitally painted the backgrounds for the animated feature film, The Tale of Despereaux. The movie's visuals, based on the great Flemish artists, were critically acclaimed for their exquisite painterly style.

Behind the scenes interviews from the Framestore CFC team shed some light on some of the challenges they overcame in order to make such a remarkable film.

Red

Red was finally finished last month. The bulk of the work was in the face and hands constantly improving while the other composition was added such as the guitar detail. Like Gold the painting is 5 feet by 5 feet oil on canvas.

Gold

Gold is finally finished. Gold is one in the four part series, Rock n' Roll. All oil paintings are 5ft by 5ft in dimension; each work attempts to represent the various emotional phases of a rock star. The idea behind Gold is after the show, spent, gave it all, nothing left to give. Red is next in line to be finished, and then Ron will hopefully start working on White and Black.

Red

Well it's been quite a year, and already into 2009! Ron managed to get some oil on the canvas while working on The Tale of Despereaux. The series is based on the Rock n' Roll lifestyle. Red is the energy on stage - it's the kind of commitment where you can't exactly stop when your tired.

I've moved to London!

Well, as some of you may know, I got a job as a matte painter at Framestore CFC in London. I've been here about a month and a half now and I can finally say I'm reasonably settled in, so I thought I'd take a moment to finally update my blog after half a year of neglect. I've had to immediately focus on work and setting up my infrastructure, so I haven't had time to do any art on the side yet, but expect some soon. I'm going to Salzburg and Amsterdam for the Christmas break and I hope to do some sketching while I'm there. Cheers!

New Character and Vehicle Designs

Here's a couple of new character and vehicle designs I've been working on. The top one is a heroine and her sidekick based on the main personalities of the Chinese creation myth. The god Pangu created the world, then Nuwa created people. At some point after creation the world fell into chaos and Nuwa struggled to restore order to the world. Sounds like an excellent inspiration for a super heroine to me. I think I might develop their backstory further in the future. I had a bit of a struggle with getting all the reflections to work well in her suit. I think it was an excellent learning experience. I think I've got the mojo of the physics of it all down pretty well now.

I was inspired to do the second piece when I saw a kick-ass fully restored, cherry 1968 Camaro at a shop where Hally's car was being fixed. It was up on the hydraulic lift and I was able to really thoroughly examine it. It looked so aggresive and I imagined that it could make a pretty intimidating Mad-Max-style war machine in a post-apocalyptic world. voila.