Alovera Studio

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Alovera Studio Society6 Shop

Due to popular demand we have now selling prints, totes, phone cases and much more via Society6! Check it out straight off the press! 

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BHS 10K Run | Fundraising Event

This year Alan and I are marking a first by running our first marathons ever! To raise money for the British Heart Foundation, I have set up a page for my run in June in Canary Wharf! Please help me raise money to help a great cause, I even designed my own set of web banners to boot! Thank you!

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Christmas Card Design | 2014

This year I had designed and printed my own christmas card for my friends and family. They were printed quite late in December so I was sadly unable to send any by post, but for those I did not see in person received the e-card variation instead. I will be selling these cards too for next christmas on my etsy shop, so do look out closer to the time!

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V&Tree Magazine is Digitally Published!

Remember this piece of work? Last summer I printed for my final major project, the first and probably only V&Tree Magazine. Alan and I planned to extend the issue after graduation and then distributed it at expos, but that never happened because we got picked up for work at Devilfish. OF course then we did our final show in October 2013 and called it quits until we finished our current life’s work, the graphic novel project.

But I got an email recently, from people trying to offer collaborative work, in trade for no payment, which I find frankly unacceptable nowadays. But I did discover from this fanzine proposal, the website it was self published on called issuu. Where now thanks to that I am releasing V&Tree Magazine to read online as a digital publication for free! 

Its taken ages to come around to, which I apologise for, if only I knew of this sooner (then I might have been able to submit a decent print amarite?) but I hope you enjoy it. It has all of the energy and wonder of this blog, accompanied by new stories, recipes and wonderful graphic art and design work by us in Alovera Studio. 

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From today onwards, Orbital in London will be selling the last remaining Alovera Comics & Purple Pages in store! Since October MCM Comic Con we are now no longer selling our work at events or online, so if you still have not had the chance to get your own, please buy in store to show your support! 

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Visit Original Link

Alovera Studio Interview with Stephen Lacey's 20 Minute Longbox

During our last MCM Comic Con, we were interviewed by the charming Stephen Lacey on some in depth dirt on what we have been up to with the series. We are first up on this episode, so make sure to have a listen to get some new info, as well as hearing our voices struggle to compete with the DDR machines that were playing loudly in the background. Thank you to Stephen Lacey for your time, it was a lot of fun and even I am surprised how we could keep up, completely scriptless! 

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Bug Badges made for our last convention, featuring Alan's insects, fabric printed and hand sewn. See all the designs in his portfolio here: aloanimation.tumblr.com/

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The last of the Alovera Comics and The Purple Pages, packed ready and sexy to be sent to stores around London. With the end of our last convention, Alan and I are now working full time on the series so that we may return in 2015.

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The Purple Pages, Short Stories and Concept Art - 1/3

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The Purple Pages, Short Stories and Concept Art - 2/3

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The Purple Pages, Short Stories and Concept Art - 3/3

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In September I had gone to Sweden to have work experience at a carpet weavers called Märta Måås-Fjetterström in Båstad and in that time I had stayed with my family members, who had not known much of me before hand. My relative Bettan had been such amazing company and had been so motherly to me and even when the week was up and Alan came over to join me, she had been so kind. This card was of the family cat Svea who we all love so much. 

Leaving Bettan's home, we were to settle on our own, and so with the help of our dear friend Kristina Digman, she had managed to find someone willing to rent us their home for the week. So with the rent aside, we had our own little amazing flat with the best view for the week and it was wonderful. Then soon after we went to visit her and her family in Halmstad, where she took us to the forest, cooked and had a great time together. This card is of the kind of mushrooms she had taught us about, you make an amazing teacher. 

Finally towards the last few days in Sweden, and with a lot of expensive train journeys passed, we went to see my other relative Boel, who lives in Kungsbacka. She took us to the very hilly forest in her area, where we found lots of delicious mushrooms to take home with us. She accommodated us for the night in her amazing eco-home, where she showed us the wonders in Swedish nature and shared her amazing cooking with us too. This card is for our time in the forest, where I slipped and fell on my butt, but continued to pick the mushrooms where I sat. 

All my family and friends were so kind to us on our short trip there, and we felt so grateful to even had the chance to be together for that short time, so here we decided to make something really special to show our thanks, we love you all and thanks so much for everything! 

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Here are all of the categories winners of The Smalls Awards Film Festival 2013! We decided to go for different themes and concepts for each one, which would hint at the film without giving it away. 

The Voice Over we tried to incorporate all of the themes, but ended up boiling it down to the beginning and the end within one image, shown within the space mans helmet.

The Hungry Corpse began with a man who planted a seed within a loved ones grave, which grew into a gigantic tree before being destroyed to make place for Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar square. We felt the corpse’s old skin was that similar to a trees bark and so tried to make a image incorporating both. 

Slomo already had a classic image for the film, which had the former doctor with his leg risen behind him as he glides through the scene. So instead of copying that we decided that his clothing was the next to icon image about the film, and so focused on that, inspired from the film posters for Moonrise Kingdom. 

In A Girl and a Gun, she attempts to rob a corner store with her new found gun, but decides to back out. Her visions of power or coolness like ‘Clint Eastwood’ in the movie, was used to make this image. We also gave it a texture similar to coffee or tea stains, to suggest her homely aesthetics.

Pvt Craine was a really short film, there was hardly enough to work with to think of something more conceptual like we did with The Voice Over, so we decided to focus on a more portrait based cover, for the comedians of Jigsaw Comedy who played the parts. 

Last but not least Without You [Lapalux] was given to us really close to the deadline, so we had made several variations of the original concept where the girl shows her gimp boyfriend to her oldfashioned parents, but it didn’t work out, as the scene limited our creative freedom. So I made this one, where although I am not as happy with the gimps face, not that he has much of one, I am very pleased with her, who is peachy and lovely as she is in the shower scene of the music video. The steam clouds in the back inspired from a more japanese style of artwork, the scene showing a glimpse of innocence perhaps like the kiss they never had. 

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Alovera Studio was featured on The Smalls Website! Our designs are up from our job for The Smalls Film Festival 2013, also photos of us watching the movies we critiqued in an earlier post. On the website this is what followed:

"We celebrated the winners in style with a night of good film, comedy and music at The Music Room in Mayfair. Fairylights and Smalls-themed bunting abounded as guests who missed the screening were able to watch our shorlisted films in our iPod showcase. It was great night and our chance to thank everyone who helped make this year's festival our best yet! For keeping everyone thirst-free and in the festive spirit we'd like to thank Strangehill for their dangerously delicious cocktails and Red & White, Jameson, Peroni, Relentless and The Cracker Drinks Co. You all well and truely did your job.

We'd like to thank Victoria and Alan from Alovera Studio for their beautiful illustrations of the winning films. You can see their work here: alowithvera.tumblr.com

Congratulations again to all the winners and a big thank you to all filmmakers who entered this year’s festival!"

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The Smalls Awards Party 2013 - prt2

Everyone soon gathered together and we all settled down in our seats. A comedian group from youtube did an improv comedy on the stage at the beginning, which was painful. The whole thing was terrible and only the moronic laughed along at best. After that mess was over Kate, the organiser, gave a speech where we were mentioned as the artists, but under nervousness botched both our studio and our names horribly, because somehow you can mispronounce the Alovera Studio (as aloe vera the plant), Laguna (the lake, car, beach etc.) and Coppen (no double ‘o’ noted…). Sigh… anyway so they announced the winners of each category after showing snippets of each film, where 3 were there to accept the award and everyone else was absent. 

To be honest this whole event was a bit of a let down, but we were happy to have given it our all, despite all of the mess that happened in the making and during the event. The main show was over, music was on and everyone was quite happy mingling, so Alan and I decided to go home, where on our way out we had a chat with a colleague we worked with for the Black Sheep brief. He told us he has super high hopes for the Alovera Series and when asking for a brief summery, we couldn’t really answer. Partly because its not finished but also because we find it hard to summarise. Working at Devilfish has given us plenty of opportunities to think about our project and to dwell on what makes a story truly fantastic, we need a lot more time to think about things, but once again be sure that when we finish, the world will know. 

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The Smalls Awards Party 2013

So with all of the frames put together, signed and ready, we headed off to the event held in The Music Room by Oxford Street Station. Originally the organiser intended for us to walk from work, but Alan and I did not do kindly to be treated as runners, so we requested a cab take us there instead, since the event was held for these prizes (held in 6 heavy glass frames too!). 

The venue was bigger than we imagined, there were free drinks served under movie titles (I really liked the Breakfast Club with Earl Grey Tea), little nibbles (nothing too exciting), the main room had the bar, VIP tables with cupcakes stamped with ‘The Smalls Awards’ on them, seats for the main audience with complimentary tote bags for the guests and then a separate room where you could watch all the films on ipods. 

Alan and I had delivered the frames safely and settled down with a drink to watch a few other films in the ipod room. Some were very good, but we generally agreed with the decisions, we watched all the animations, most so well animated that it could hardly be put in that category. Then a few documentaries, one of which was very interesting called Notes on Blindness: Rainfall, which was about a man who went blind, then found the sensation of rain very beautiful and fantastic, like having a ‘Toph’ (Avatar: The Last Airbender) experience. We also watched a comedy called The Adventures of Rodger and Bob, which we felt was much funnier than Pvt. Craine, just because it was just a bit more…’Edgar Wright’.

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The Making of The Smalls Awards 2013

A few weeks ago, Alan and I were approached by one of our colleagues at Devilfish Creative, to work on the graphic art for the Smalls Awards Film Festival prizes. The event is a short film festival held in London, where studios, film makers and animators submit their work in hopes of being the winner of one of six categories.  

Alan and I were given week by week the winners of each categories, where we were to illustrate something from it to give as a prize at the end, as compared to a trophies or certificate, which makes The Smalls Awards truly stand out from the rest. We had originally followed as the previous artist did, taking scenes from the movie, but the result felt cheap and unusable as a prize. So we did some research, put together a sketchbook and went for the concept of making them similar to film posters, that would hint the movie rather than spell it out. These were the results of our hard work, where we had even been given the last category so late to the even, we pulled an all nighter, which brings back old but recent times. 

These are the winners of each film category:

The Voice Over - Foreign Film (Super fantastic, by both concept and direction)

The Hungry Corpse - Animation (Beautifully animated, Bill Nighy does the voice of the main character!) 

A Girl and A Gun - Drama (We didn’t like this movie, it just felt so… lack luster, but perhaps that was the point.) 

Slomo - Documentary (Really feel good movie, about a doctor who decided to reinvent himself into a happy skater after partially losing his sight)

Pvt.Craine - Comedy (Another we didn’t like, there was a nominee we felt was funnier, but this perhaps was better known for the comedians who played the roles)

Without You [Lapalux] - Music Video (Bizarre as shit video, but on the bright side Tonks plays the main actress!) 

Each result of our work we felt really chuffed with, and when it came to assembling the work, Alan and I had gone out of our way to find the right print company for the job, despite our bosses wishes, and created the mounts for the frames, using our own time and money. Each award was put together by hand by Alan and I, the artwork signed and dated with our card on the back, we gave this project our upmost all, which really paid off as the results looked amazing, outdoing every award given in the past in the history of The Smalls Awards.