I'm very excited to be working with Jonathan Sager, writer and director of Ages of Sand; a short film about a young girl learning the value of water in a polluted world. The film is a blend between live action and CG with the majority of the enivonments been matte paintings.

"Today our children encounter a kind of living penance as we alter the balance of life on earth. It is only by seeing the healing and life giving powers of water in a dream that a young girl, named Nika, is able to awaken an understanding of the delicate balance between water and life. The film explores the fantastic imagination of a child as a tool for change and transcendence." - Jonathan Sager

As and when i progress with new paintings i'm going to add them to this page. Please remember that everything is work in progress and will likely change. Because there's a large number of paintings i anticipate if i took each one to final completion per shot, i'd probably end up with the last shot looking very different to the first, so for that reason i'm going to do first version of each then move onto the next essentially blocking in the look in one pass, then when they're all done i'll revisit the first and go for a second pass making sure they all have consistancy.

The paintings will eventually be cut up and comped together with the original plates. I will also be adding various environment effects such as steam vents and a little dust to bring it to life.

For the moment i've been working on shots 16, 17 and 18. Like most of the shots in the film they consist of a rocky dry landscape. The challenge i have at the moment is striking a balance between keeping them interesting but respecting Nika, the actress and focal point of the film. As a matte painter you need to be aware of the focus and direction of each shot, is the shot focused on the actress, if so then as a painter you have to resist the temptation to steal the shot, essentially holding yourself back. However if the shot is wide and from behind the lead then the focal point will be on what the character is seeing, in this case you can afford to push a little further.