DUFFBOT

Cassowaries

2012-01-26T18:20:00.000Z

BIGfish

2012-01-19T00:30:00.003Z

Trying out some new shenanigans. I was working on a story I had half-written before, starting messing about with different fishes and marine animals, then saw that amazing Riusuke Fukahori video that everybody's seen by now.
Then painted these. Still trying to get to grips with this paint. Enjoying it a lot but still a long way to go yet.
I'll start with my favourite one first:

Pufferfish

2012-01-19T00:23:00.001Z

This is a sort of tribute/tip o' the hat to a new website called Pufferfish. It's a website that features Irish artists working in various media, for now. Apparently, there'll be lots more to it than that in the future. So, here's to pufferfish expansion.
Why is this picture of an enormous, flying pufferfish with a city on its back, you ask?

..mind your own business.

Painty bears

2012-01-16T21:21:00.003Z

You can never have too much bear

Inky bears

2012-01-15T21:29:00.002Z

Crimblecakes

2011-12-25T13:09:00.000Z

Cards for humans

Link

2011-12-23T15:18:00.000Z

For Louise
Don't usually do fanart but Louise loves Zelda and I love the cartoon Link design, not so much the all-grown-up one.

Broken pigeons in smashed helmets

2011-11-25T23:21:00.001Z

I got a lot of new visitors and followers after some of my pictures were featured on my favourite tumblr page BooksPaperScissors
This might not be the kind of thing you were all expecting to see.
I like pigeons, by the way. This isn't anti-pigeon propaganda.

A couple of modificated ones:

Here's another time-lapse video of them being painted:

Haunted

2011-11-16T00:21:00.001Z

These are kind of related in some way so they all get lumped into one post.
Let the lumping commence..

the robot in the snow

2011-11-15T23:53:00.001Z

Oil on board. Photoshop colour-changing.
Here's a video!

Giant Tortoise

2011-11-15T23:49:00.001Z

Oil on board, follied up with some Photoshoppery.

and, for those of you who're slightly interested and have fifty seconds to spare, here's a quick time-lapse video of the painting.

Robotniks

2011-10-22T16:41:00.000+01:00

and one Gorilla...and a mouse.

Watercolour, white charcoal pencil. Photoshop eyes.
So much fun, I did more:

Hallowe'en

2011-10-19T22:25:00.001+01:00

I had to do some test paintings today before starting to do some portfolio-worthy pictures. I got some new paint and every time I get some new material, I start off basically using it the way I use the stuff I'm more accustomed to. I need to snap myself out of it by doing lots of pictures. Here are some half-successful examples.

There's a reason they're Halloween based too. I've always like Halloween but now I realise just how important it is. Basically, it's always been a useful barrier for keeping that holiday whose name I don't mention until November from spreading into October. I don't hate that holiday, but it drives me mental when people start talking about it and advertisers start peddling their tacky shite when it is literally months away. I realised this year that there's a lot of advertisements for that event even before Halloween and it's really sad.

So anyway, here are some Halloween-based test paintings.
(There will be no paintings for that event)

If you'd like to help me buy more paint to keep making this kind of nonsense, these are all for sale over at

MY LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

Boatmen

2011-10-16T23:07:00.002+01:00

A spot of nonsense.

Surprised

2011-09-30T16:14:00.000+01:00

Quick paint in Artrage.Artrage is fun.

Illustrating The lion and the mouse

2011-09-30T10:39:00.001+01:00

The Lion and the Mouse is the first book I've illustrated. The other two books I've illustrated won't be available for a long time. I'm starting to realise that, relatively speaking, the four months between handing over the final artwork for Lion and the publication of the book is very very quick given the complicated nature of the printing and distribution process but obviously, seeing none of that stuff, it feels like ages to me. I had to go through my emails to remind myself of how this all came together, so here's what I think happened:
Apparently, it all started with a request for some character designs from HarperCollins. Since it was for the well-known Aesops fable "The Lion and The Mouse", they wanted to see some designs for a lion. And also a mouse.

The Lion starting off going two directions. One way was cute and chunky, the other way a bit more grizzled and gnarly.

Gnarliness won the day so some mouse designs soon followed, in a similar style but cuter for a bit of contrast with the lion.

Then it was time to see them together in colour so the publisher requested a rough cover image. That was when I decided on the technique I was going to use; A rough coloured-pencil drawing with a neat black pen line on top and digital colour. A lot of the colour was scans of watercolour washes and pencil hatching but it was compiled digitally. I did it this way because, apart from just loving the look of the combination of hand-drawn and digital work, it was the most efficient way to get good-looking results. It's a bit like painting traditionally but with an undo button.

After requesting a few small changes (most notably, removing the hard edge of the lions mane) the publisher was happy enough for me to illustrate the rest of the book. They sent a pdf that explained what the composition of each spread should be, so I did a rough line layout of the book and sent it back

They wanted some changes, eg. the fourth panel above, changed to this:

And some other changes but you'll have to buy twenty copies of the book HERE and compare it to the rough layout here to see what changed.

So, after a bit of back and forth, with the layouts approved, I started colouring. This is a fairly quick and simple technique, even though it involves drawing the same pose three times for each page.

After doing A LOT of rough drawings to settle on what the final image would be, on separate pages I drew: a pencil-drawn background, pencil-drawn characters and then the character drawing again with colouring pencil and finally pen. All scanned and then overlaid digitally. Then colouring time!

This picture helps explain the process but I actually paint the background first. It's just easier to see the separate drawings without it.

I made a small video that shows how each image came together...in real-time. I work pretty fast.

and here's how the final cover looks:

and that's it!

Snow Leopard

2011-09-26T10:14:00.003+01:00

and a Pika

I want to do some more work on the leopard character..but Pikas are so easy. You can draw them by accident just by dropping a pencil on a page.

Gouache paintings -for sale here-

Monkey and Mammoth

2011-09-26T10:07:00.002+01:00

Not quite sure yet how these two met.

Ink drawings -for sale here-

Somebear

2011-09-26T10:01:00.001+01:00

Some kind of bear.
Gouache -for sale here-

Underwater

2011-09-26T10:00:00.000+01:00

Watercolour -for sale here-

Tigers

2011-09-26T09:57:00.002+01:00

Gouache paintings -for sale here-

Huge Cartel

2011-09-23T16:23:00.004+01:00

Hello.

I was thinking about how I need money for paints and you need some small original paintings and drawings.
So, I've opened up a shop at BigCartel. ~~I'm using a free account which restricts me to five items at a time...~~

UPDATE:
My favourite human Louise B bought me a better account at BigCartel so I've got individual pages for each painting now, with the exception of

The Monkey and The Mammoth

If you're interested in buying one (or more) of these, there are options from 1 to 6 in the shop and the pictures are numbered as follows:

and that's it! Hopefully there's something there that you like. I'm planning on organising a couple of them into a normal, non-begging blog post for people who just want to see the pictures on a monitor.
Thanks.

Monster

2011-09-07T12:43:00.000+01:00

Tiger

2011-09-07T12:39:00.002+01:00

Pen and Letraset markers.

Mini Cosmonaut

2011-09-07T12:35:00.002+01:00

Oil paintings + digital nonsense.

Soft castle

2011-09-07T12:33:00.001+01:00

A previous post featured the first sketch of this character

Gouache.

A fat Bee. Not a wasp.

2011-08-18T12:09:00.000+01:00

A bee wouldn't sting my dog.

Imminent publishmentness

2011-06-22T23:00:00.004+01:00

I haven't been uploading much because I've been really busy.
Apart from moving back to Ireland, I've been doing some illustration for a few different books. One of those is "The Lion and The Mouse" - an Aesop fable retold by Anthony Robinson. It's published by Harper Collins as part of their Collins Big Cat series. The text is very simple and is aimed, I think, at ages 4 and 5.
Here's the HC page on it:
The Lion and The Mouse
and here's some sneaky-peeks:

I'd like to upload rough sketches and all that but I'll wait until it's released and, if there any slightly interesting roughs, I'll upload some.

Oh, look:
An Amazon link

April

2011-04-28T23:35:00.003+01:00

Too tired to get any proper work done and pretty tired of the work that has to be done.
Here's a couple of unrelated pictures. One is a little digidoodle painting inspired by Orson Welles, the other is a little character of mine. See if you can tell which is which.

..and, of course, an immediate riposte from Matt
He'll stop at nothing.

Yury

2011-04-12T12:47:00.004+01:00

More posting :)
These aren't very new. I'm too busy to do anything today but I couldn't let a date like this just go by. I'm slightly obsessed with Yury Gagarin and there's a little idea that I started years ago and still occasionally work on. These are a couple of development pictures therefrom.

Cowboys, Ted.

2011-04-11T17:03:00.000+01:00

I'm not really the 'cowboys' type but I was doodling while killing time and talking about True Grit, so these came out. I wouldn't normally post this but I'm so excited about posting twice in a couple of days.

More sun bears and excuses

2011-04-07T19:29:00.001+01:00

I'm really not posting a lot lately and here's why:
I can't tell you...or, at least, not in detail. Basically, I suddenly got busy. Around the start of January, I signed up with the Bright agency and that's led to a bunch of illustrating work on top of moving to Denmark for a while and trying to get a space to work in. At the minute, I've got about four different things to do and I'm just getting used to setting my own schedule and using my time wisely. I need to get my brain to look a bit less like this and more like this.

One of things I've been doing is designing some characters for a thing. I've decided to go for a Sun Bear but I needed some practice, which means that the drawings I did don't really say anything about the project and are kind of irrelevant now anyway, so I can post them here! I'm so happy just to be posting something.
Here's some pictures.

now what?

2011-02-08T03:34:00.002Z

Dnmrk

2011-02-03T00:52:00.001Z

Usually, an absence of posts means I'm working on something that I can either post eventually or not at all because it's for someone else, but this time I have nothing.... because I haven't been working on ANYTHING. I'm moving to Denmark for a few months soon and I've just been getting ready for that while moving out of my house at the same time.
I miss drawing.
I might get something in the few days before I leave (ideally I'll have everything ready). If not, I've a lovely three hours of doodling on a 'plane to look forward to.

I apologise if you've come to post expecting some images. I did at least make a little circular Danish flag for you.

Nineteen heads

2010-12-30T01:12:00.000Z

more digipish

Bear Suit

2010-12-27T03:50:00.002Z

heads

2010-12-27T03:49:00.002Z

digisplurge.

red Mifune

2010-12-26T01:20:00.002Z

digisquiggle.

Rat

2010-12-25T21:33:00.001Z

more digifluff.

Winter

2010-12-24T15:10:00.000Z

Quick digipainty sketch idea for part of the Autumn story.

Another robot

2010-12-23T23:19:00.001Z

Digital shenanigans. I don't know what the limit for the term 'speedpaint' is but I've seen people tag 2-3 hour paintings as speedpaints. This took much less.
It's fun, though. You should try it.

Jelly

2010-12-18T23:36:00.002Z

Daisy

2010-12-18T22:54:00.002Z

Morning Bear

2010-12-18T22:10:00.002Z

Animal digidoodle

2010-12-18T20:44:00.000Z

Beard

2010-12-14T22:41:00.000Z

Over two weeks since a blogpost!
Disgraceful.
..but I have genuinely (GENUINELY) been too busy. Which is good for me but bad for you, you who refreshes my blog every three minutes. Anyway, here's a thing I did today at an unusually relaxed lunch break.

Short and Fat

2010-11-23T00:03:00.000Z

..must get down to some more productive stuff now.

Culann and Max

2010-11-21T19:00:00.002Z

Birthday paintings for baby Culann and Max Power the beagle.

King

2010-11-21T12:47:00.001Z

A design for a king character, possibly for some more Squiddlepus-style cut-out.

Red lolly

2010-11-19T15:49:00.002Z

Work

2010-11-18T17:34:00.000Z

Bobby

2010-11-07T23:23:00.000Z

An ArtRage painting I did a few days ago.

Flat animals

2010-10-31T16:02:00.000Z

No wacom here so these are just Photoshops lasso tool.
Nice enough, though. One could illustrate a story pretty nicely like this, I think.

Nacho!

2010-10-21T23:11:00.001+01:00

Nacho Libre birthday card for Finbar
gouache on paper.

Squiddlepus

2010-10-13T01:20:00.001+01:00

More of these on my website

These are from a story I wrote about a couple of fishermen. The last two captains left on tiny island besieged by a Leviathan. They take the only boat left and set out to destroy the beast.

Here's an alternative version of the first shot.

Here's the sea, which you never really see. If I don't post it here then it was a waste of time doing it because it was always out of focus.

some sketches

sketch - DOF plan - Final

Swim

2010-10-13T00:56:00.001+01:00

More of these on my website.

These are from a story that I'm not going to explain. I started off doing pen and ink drawings. Then I coloured them in with Letraset markers and then painted over them with gouache paint.

and here's some sketchy doodles.

Ursa Major

2010-10-12T23:43:00.001+01:00

1000

2010-10-12T23:27:00.000+01:00

I've recently aquired my 1000th American Flag (see flag widget in sidebar) and almost 1 in 10 were in California so I thought a firey robot with a placard would be an ideal way to celebrate.
This is painted with ArtRage and it's brilliant (the software's brilliant, not this doodle). This doesn't show off what's so good about it, that's the blending.
Try it!

I finally have a flippin' website

2010-10-04T21:46:00.003+01:00

and the address is:

Burn it into your brain, please. Next to your birthday.
So now my blog links to my site which links to my blog...apologies to anybody who gets stuck in a loop.

Blue Whales

2010-10-04T13:25:00.000+01:00

for David Ng's Phylo Project

Kitten + other stuff

2010-09-23T11:40:00.002+01:00

I'm making some stickers. This is one of them.

and here's some more:

Cowboy

2010-09-10T17:32:00.000+01:00

markers

Batm'n

2010-09-09T02:33:00.003+01:00

rats on hats

2010-09-09T02:32:00.001+01:00

Idea for a new 52 part tv series.
Don't know yet what happens but there are rats and hats.

T

2010-09-07T23:56:00.000+01:00

When my donkey dies, I'm gonna get me one of these fancy automobiles.

London

2010-09-05T14:33:00.002+01:00

We had a surprise 'So you're feckin' off to London' party for Eamonn O last night, so I done this for him.

bee.

2010-09-01T20:37:00.000+01:00

Just a sketch of an existentialist bee suffering ennui de vivre.

Paws

2010-08-29T21:49:00.000+01:00

Louise's dog stayed with us this weekend. Now I miss him.

Crush

2010-08-20T12:24:00.002+01:00

Irish spectacles

2010-08-17T15:21:00.003+01:00

Samuel Beckett and James Joyce.
(please ignore the bad clone brushwork, I wanted a neat presentation and I've got other things to get done so I didn't take the time to do it perfectly...I will take better photos soon)

P,O

2010-08-13T22:36:00.002+01:00

Must visit. No time to explain.

Pictures you can buy

2010-06-26T16:26:00.002+01:00

I just opened a shop on DaWanda where you can buy drawings and paintings of monkeys, birds and other magnificent thingamajigs.

DUFF SHOP

Finnegan's Wake

2010-06-11T11:18:00.000+01:00

Just a couple of paintings based on the song.
Acrylic and digital

Crouching Monkey

2010-05-27T22:34:00.002+01:00

Simians

2010-05-26T21:16:00.000+01:00

Ink

RATS!

2010-05-25T22:34:00.000+01:00

watercolour, gouache, pens etc etc.

rats :)

Dinosaur Spaceman

2010-05-24T10:19:00.000+01:00

Acrylique on paper

Long Knight

2010-05-19T17:36:00.002+01:00

Acrylic on paper.

Norway?

2010-05-10T11:08:00.000+01:00

I can't help but notice from my little geo-widgets that Sweden is very well represented (probably thanks to my Swedish Ambassador), Iceland too, some Denmark, some Finland.
....no Norway.
What've I done wrong. Was it something I said?

Nosferatu

2010-05-07T20:32:00.007+01:00

After watching FW Murnau's Nosferatu again, I just had to draw Count Orlok. ...then I painted over a couple of earlier attempts I had made at this pose.
1 ink drawing, 2 goauche paintings.

This one looks a bit like that bald fella in LOST.

Space Machine

2010-05-01T12:19:00.002+01:00

Canadian lady

2010-04-29T20:05:00.004+01:00

(updated with additional Canadian lady)
The first one is ink colourised digitally. The second is the same but also uses a bit of digital collage.

INK

2010-04-28T18:26:00.002+01:00

Some ink drawings using photos in the delicious Charlotte Uhlenbroek's book "Animal Life" as reference

Ookoolaylay

2010-04-09T23:07:00.002+01:00

Scott Morse did it first and did it better.
That'll be a refrain in my life so I'm getting used to saying it now.

Acrylic on a ukulele. Some kind of Sunbird and a Gourdian Finch on the front with a Lionfish on the back.

Red Bird Blue Box

2010-03-22T17:32:00.001Z

Same as previous painting.

Blue Bird Red Box

2010-03-22T11:51:00.001Z

My room is very white and empty. I needed something big and colourful.

Burrs!

2010-02-16T21:46:00.003Z

It's strange how something as nebulous and abstract as an accent can be so easily corralled. It was late-twentieth century British Foreign Policy and tightly enforced border checkpoints that meant ,had I been born a mere 15km further north, I could have had an accent that would make me pronounce the word bear like "burrr" .....which I lament.
It's not all bad, though. I do at least know how to say book and scone properly.
So, here's some wee burrrs I drew over the past days and weeks, and a couple of quick sketches of tigers coloured in Photoshop. Tigers are freakin' hard.

Watercolour Pigeons

2010-01-12T21:03:00.001Z

More Watercolourism

2010-01-07T17:37:00.002Z

Yojimbo

2009-12-31T13:49:00.003Z

Some ink drawings I made while watching Akira Kurosawas 'Yojimbo'

December Watercolours

2009-12-26T16:22:00.004Z

Buy a book!

2009-12-06T18:17:00.002Z

Hello :)
I made the previously posted Ink Animals into a book using Blurb.com and you lucky peasants can buy one!
It has 37 illustrations, it's 18cm square and it's purchaseable here:

Ink Animals

By Ciaran Duffy

Book Preview

Help Elephants!

2009-11-28T19:36:00.006Z

Elephant Managers are having an AUCTION.

I've submitted two paintings (below) but there's also an original and a print by Andrew Shek and a couple of paintings done by real live Elephants ..and some other stuff.

Mysticetian nomenclature

2009-11-01T23:45:00.004Z

Here's a quick 3d model I did after doing a couple of quick digidoodles of a Humpback.
Humpback is possibly the second-least imaginative name in a strong field of whale nameage.
Those huge pectoral fins and general body shape give it one of the most recognisable silhouettes in all whaledom but it got named 'Humpback' because it bends it's spine when it dives.
But the winner is definitely the Blue whale. The least imaginative and useful name in the whole animal kingdom. I think if I discovered it and had to give such a whale a name, it's blueness wouldn't be the most striking attribute.
Silly scienticians.

Oh, before I go. A quick 'did you know?'
Those lumps you see on a real Humpback aren't barnacles or infections of some kind. They're called tubercles and some clever boffins have observed that they improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the fins. They've even put some on a wind turbine and found that "Turbines fitted with tubercles to the leading edges of each blade are able to produce more power at low fluid speeds, are quieter, and perform much better in turbulent fluid streams."
READ ALL ABOUT IT
So there you go.
Now go.

This post is dedicated to my good pal Scruff 'cause, to me, nothing screams Autumn like a humpback whale.

K'nuckles!

2009-10-21T23:36:00.003+01:00

A birthday painting for Finbar.
Captain K'nuckles from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

Flock of paintings

2009-10-18T23:01:00.003+01:00

I was in Sweden for a week recently and spent some of the evenings doing these little paintings in my hostel room to pass the time. Each bird is a separate little painting that I left behind me on buses, trains, in hostel rooms etc.
Sparrows, Blue Tits and a Duck. Watercolour on watercolour paper.
You can make your own joke about Swedish birds and tits, I'm too tired and can't be bothered.

Oil Painting

2009-10-18T22:59:00.001+01:00

Ink Animals

2009-09-06T18:51:00.001+01:00

Calligraphy pen and black ink.

August painting

2009-09-06T18:43:00.002+01:00

Paintings for Swed'n. Not the monkey though, he stays with me.

Digidoodles 1

2009-06-15T20:17:00.008+01:00

I'm not getting any work done on my own stuff recently for a variety of reasons. Some good, some bad. Here are some quick digidoodles I've done when I've had a few minutes.
I don't like the much-too-prevalent assumption that anything drawn or painted is good and warm and friendly and "charming" and that anything digital is cold and soulless and other stupid phrases. So I'm calling these digidoodles to make them seem more fluffy and cuddly to luddites.