BBC Docudrama The Herald of Free Enterprise

Working as a freelancer at the BBC’s Factual and Documentaries Department in White City, I produced this storyboard for a documentary dramatising the catastrophic events of the Zeebrugge Ferry disaster in 1987.

This was an ambitious project for a documentary which combined interviews with the survivors, CGI effects shots and filmed dramatic re-creations of the moment of the disaster.

The excerpt below is from my favourite scene which captures the moment the Herald of Free Enterprise began to capsize.  I found it a challenge to portray the energy and horror of the scene, using the likenesses of the interviewed survivors who were recalling their experiences.

It was also a challenge mentally to orientate the environments 45 degrees so that a glass wall would become the floor.

With so much going on in the shot, it was difficult to keep focused on the main point of action (the main characters) without getting lost within the chaos of the whole scene.

I also needed to recreate the darkness within the vessel as the lighting went off, leaving only dark voids with slithers of light to define the character’s features.  This led to a very atmospheric storyboard. 

Curved Space

A sneak peek at a new webcomic designed purely to be published on Instagram.

This will be the first time I have used an all digital process for a webcomic after introducing digital drawing gradually into the Stanley Vasco Case Files on Comic Fury and Smack Jeeves.

The process was primarily achieved using Clip Studio Paint with some assistance from Photoshop. I love using halftones, but I'm not sure how effective they will look online making this something of an experiment; with the artwork potentially being viewed in different sizes on a variety of devices.

Creature Concepts

Here are some examples of concept work, created for a feature film project.  This was a typical creature feature with a team of heavily armed soldiers sent to discover the goings on at a top research facility.

The script described a human/alien hybrid able to find its way around in the dark with a ferocious bite and the strength to lift a grown person off of their feet.

It was also suggested that the creatures had the ability to somehow impale their victims, so I started to imagine an animal that could project a bony like barb from their forearms.  I also played with the idea of an animal that had nocturnal features like a bat or other night creatures as well as a human/grey hybrid animal.