The year that was 2014

So! I've been jolly quiet these past few months.
A bad habit and I'm terribly sorry to those of you who've trying to keep up with me.
2014 has been a surprisingly quiet old year, with exciting bits and pieces dotted through out, like pennies dropped in a Christmas Pudding.
Here are the majority of my sculpted works and wears this year has led me to produce.

(Funny how it seems like you've hardly done anything when your year's works are laid out before you)

Oh yes and also!

Here are the FINAL two episodes of the mini-audio drama Paul Freeman (Sound Designer) and myself worked together on in the later half of the year.

Episode Three: "The cold fingers of Rothstead creep into Peter Heath's world. Cutting him off and trapping him, like a mesh of cobwebs.
Is the mist lifting? Or is it getting thicker?"
https://soundcloud.com/oneillandfreeman/the-hum-three

Episode Four: "Peter Heath is ready for answers. He finds his world is closing around him. The Wastelands are calling and the story is ending"
https://soundcloud.com/oneillandfreeman/the-hum-four

So. I do hope you have a very Happy New Year, and thank you for giving my work a glance.

I shall see you all very soon.

More to come....

Bad Dreams

Time for episode two of the audio drama mini-series that sound designer Paul Freeman and myself have put together.

Synopsis:
Peter Heath doesn't remember falling asleep. All he remembers is waking up.
It is early morning and Heath can't stop thinking.

Sound Design - Paul Freeman
Written and Read by - James O'Neill

                                     https://soundcloud.com/oneillandfreeman/the-hum-two

More to come ...

Hallowe'en

So I've been quiet recently. I apologise enormously for that.
But I've not been idle.

Over the past few months, my sound designer and I have been working away on something quite different from out previous collaborations.
We decided to try put together a purely audio-based drama serial. Something that would be full of atmosphere and suggestion.

And so here is the first of four episodes of our Mini-Series titled: "The Hum"

Synopsis: 
A hum has been heard rolling over the faceless suburbia of Rothstead.
Wailing and sweeping like whale-song. The locals are scared and the cats are screaming.

Peter Heath has been assigned to investigate.
Will he find his answer, or get lost in the mist? 

Sound Design - Paul Freeman
Written and Read by - James O'Neill

                                https://soundcloud.com/oneillandfreeman/the-hum-pilot

More to come...

Who York

In connection to the San Diego Comic Con, my little sculpted thingamajig is now going to be shown (along with all the other fan artwork submitted) at the New York leg of the Doctor Who World Tour when the attendees wait for the screening of the Series 8 opening episode "Deep Breath" to start.
So quite a captive audience it sounds.
Which is a little amazing.

Photo courtesy of whoever at BBC Enterprises who took it.

Cracking Arm

So recently I’ve been working on a little bust of Wallace and Gromit for my cousin who’s about 9 years old.

I haven’t sculpted these chaps for well over 4 years and coming back to them has felt like a wonderful catch-up with the past.

They’re possibly my oldest friends and sculpting them when I was a kid were my first tentative steps into sculpting. I owe them a lot I suppose.

Anyway, I wanted to make this for my cousin as a spontaneous gift (Because I like to spoil her) but it turned out a little too big for my liking and unfortunately Wallace’s arm cracked during the baking process, plus there were a few other minor minor issues that make me uncomfortable with gifting it to someone.
Damaged goods and all that.

Plus Wallace seems a little….distant and Gromit appears to be thinking “Please…please help me…”

Anyway, I’ve been talked into keeping these two and shall make a smaller, better version later in the year or not as far as that as a Christmas gift for her.

All rights belong to Aardman (obviously)

Thanks for reading, more to come...

Bowie and Bowman

 So I've caught the sculpting bug again and have been cracking on with trying to nudge my work into different territory.

  Its funny. Years ago (possibly 5 or 6 of 'em) I was given a souvenir postcard by an art teacher for an exhibition for the German artist Thomas Schutte as someone I should look into for artist research to go in my sketchbook for school. He intrigued me but unfortunately, being young, I didn't heed the hint and filed it away in the rather lacklustre artist research section in my sketchbook and rather forgot about it.
 
 Now several years on I find myself remembering Schutte and more to the point find his work having a felt influence on my current work.
 How long this influence will last I don't know, but its intriguing nonetheless.

(Above: [no title] 1994 by Thomas Schutte)

(Above: "This Is Not Bowie" by myself)

(Above: "Bowman" by myself)

A really fascinating and exciting experiment and something I feel I may continue.

The figures are simply sculpted heads suspended by five or six kebab skewers with material draped around the structures to give an impression of a figure which is what Schutte uses in his much larger sculptures.

(Above: Pegleg)

Thanks for reading, more to come...

An Update-ette

So I was flicking through the "Official" Doctor Who Tumblr page, on Tumblr of all places, and was suddenly surprised to see a picture featuring my sculpted submission I submitted to be displayed at the San Diego Comic Con (In San Diego of all places) a month or so ago.

(Above: The display on an enormous screen. Mine's on the right. The one with my name)

By now I had half forgotten about it and half imagined I would never actually see it being displayed, so this rather took me back. 

Thanks for reading, more to come....

Photo courtesy of whoever at BBC Enterprises who took it.

I owe you an Update.

So! I've been away for a while and neglected this blog, which isn't nice by any stretch of the imagination.
In recent news I've had a couple pictures of a sculpture I made chosen to be shown at the San Diego Comic Con, which is rather exciting.
Alas I haven't been offered free tickets to fly over and see it but thats life unfortunately.
The pictures in question were a couple of a caricaturial sculpture of Peter Capaldi as the soon-to-be 12th Doctor Who. These will be shown on a screen displaying other fan artwork at the Doctor Who booth at the convention with footfall of a couple hundred people at least.
A nice thing indeed.

I've also been getting back into sculpting in a big way, keeping my hand in as it were.

Here are a few examples of what I've done over the recent months...

         

(Above: A sculpt of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor to be included in a book which will be sent to the man himself)

(Above: Parker from Thunderbirds)

                                                        (Above: La Roux/Elly Jackson)

(Above: Peter Capaldi)

And now a couple things on the boil.

(Above: Gary Oldman as George Smiley)

(Above: David Bowie)

I was also recently in Italy for a couple weeks and spent a fair bit of that time drawing and focusing on expressions and caricature drawing.

Not entirely sure why, but it has been an area I've always been fascinated by.

Here is a spattering of some of the drawings.

Richie and Eddie (Bottom)

Simon Pegg (The World's End)

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 

Ilana Glazer (Broad City)

Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)

La Roux

Alan Partridge

Anyway thats just about it for this update, I should have more interesting stuff to talk about in the coming weeks with several projects soon to be entering early pre-production.

Thanks for watching, more to come....