Travelling Man - Sketching Doing

I knew from the get go, I wanted to do a Yu-Gi-Oh piece because what other chance will I get to do Yu-Gi-Oh fan art for a brief? But then I kept thinking about The Crow and Sandman, two other comics I’m very much into. I decided it wouldn’t be too much of a struggle to make three images as a set, even though I could only submit one to the exhibition.

We basically only had two weeks to create images, have them printed and down at Travelling Man, so the heat was on. This was not the time for experimenting, this was a time for making, and that’s what I did. I really quickly sketched out some designs that had a format that was compositionally acceptable and would work as a set with all three characters.

When I made my Yu-Gi-Oh piece I accidentally made the canvas 420 cm x 594 cm instead of mm then wondered why it was going so slow. It’s because the canvas was nearly 6 metres tall. I did this entire piece in Photoshop including the linework, which may have been a mistake, I struggled with line quality and a lot of them are wobbly and took a lot of touching up to look good. The other two images I lined in Illustrator, which definitely helps with making smooth linework, I do worry that alone the lines look less organic as they’ve been ‘fixed’ by the program.

Even though I chose the colour scheme and liked it I will not lie working with those colours was a challenge, particularly the green and the lack of yellow. Though it allowed me to do a lot of playing around with different opacities and effects to make the images look the way I wanted. Having both the dark blue and the dark purple may have been a mistake that Jack and me should have probably chosen the colours more carefully but hey! I found myself wanting to use all the colours in each piece, as I made the Yu-Gi-Oh one first using all the colours, so I felt that the other two had to use all the colours to fit in well.

Using digital media meant I could mess around with colours and settings on layers to make things really weird. I actually liked the dark green background Yu-Gi-Oh but it was not meant to be. I was also able to add textures and stuff which is what I really like doing in my work lately!

The image I had most colour trouble with was The Crow cause it was all really dark, his hair's black, his coat's black, the bird is black, so I had to find ways to use the other colours so they didn't all blur together. I'd initially made the bird blue and black but as the hair was also that colour I started adding bits of red to bring it out from the dark mass.

The Sandman piece I had most trouble with colour ratio's - I forgot to take screenshots, oops. Making his cloak all floaty looking by adding patches of different colours everywhere eventually worked but it took ages to get the right amount of green to frame the character and not overpower the whole piece.

Stardust - Final Images

I made my final image in a square format, mainly because the lino I had used was square. I was unsure about the dimensions of the work as the brief just said "no larger than A4 Landscape orientation" so I didn't know if that meant, make it A4 Landscape, or just any format that would fit within that frame. 

I tried cropping it to an A4 landscape format but I definitely still prefer the original square format as that fits all the information on the page, and doesn't have to cut off the circle. (I submitted both just in case).

I'm pretty happy with what I've made here, I feel like I'm really learning more about how to make work I want to make, and choosing projects that I'm engaged with! I really enjoyed this brief, I had a lot of fun and I feel like I have progressed a bit more with working with lino! I still have more work to do before I'll be really happy with my skills but practice makes perfect eh?

I think that my image is a pretty good representation of Stardust. It also leaves a lot of mystery to people who may be new to it, as big events and other characters remain unknown. There's just the suggestion that this female character has something to do with a jewel. 

I feel that the idea is simple and straight-forward but the imagery, colours etc is bold and I, personally just like looking at this. 

Stardust - Printing & Fiddling

I was just itching to do some lino printing so I decided to go for it here. I always intended to edit the print digitally so was going to print it in black but I decided life is more fun when you do lino prints in colour, so I tested out doing gradients! It was a lot of fun I really enjoyed the process, and the outcome - I definitely want to do more colourful prints in the future.

I think the prints look better in real life as you can see the colours better, but I love the combination of the luminous yellow and the blue/purple because it's like the night sky and the brightness of the star.

The image definitely needed some cleaning up so I had a play in photoshop, mainly experimenting with different settings and opacities, adding the ink textures and such. I started to dislike a lot of what I was doing here and preferred just the straight up prints. I think I found that I was overdoing the editing process, adding colours and textures and extra bits that didn't need to be there. Taking a step back and simplifying the modifications back down was what worked for this image.

Instead of adding anything, I just layered the two colours I had printed together and positioned them so the purple made up the lines and the yellow filled in the gaps, which definitely was less overpowering than everything else I was messing around with. I also made some touch ups on the shape of the face and smoothing out some mis-cut lines. More subtle changes than full on editing it.

At some point I thought the jewel in her hand was getting lost amongst the lines so I brought it out with a pop of a weird, turquoise. I tried to make it look glowing and magical to relate to the magic side of the story.

Travelling Man Brief!

After a few days of nagging everyone I know about whether this brief would be happening again this year, it was finally revealed. The brief is fairly straightforward, create a (family friendly) A2 poster to be displayed in Travelling Man, Leeds for Thought Bubble. There has to be 16 A2 prints altogether to fit in the 8 double-sided frames.

As I really wanted to do this brief, being a nerd, Jack and I took the reigns as leaders of the group.  We decided on a theme which was ‘Fan Art’, we wanted to keep this as open as possible so people could basically do what they wanted, and be self indulgent. We also chose a colour scheme by spinning round a colour wheel I have and seeing what colours it ended up on. They ended up being an odd mix of colours but I personally liked them and thought it would be interesting to see what could be done with a limited palette.

Since I had to vaguely organise things I made a lot of posts to gang and talked a lot with Jack about details via instagram. 

First thing we did was get everyone together so we could see who was interested. Initially 14 people came to the meeting but more were interested bringing our total up to 19. Jack and me decided that all 19 could submit work but we would then curate the show. 

The audience of this project would be the people who visit Travelling Man, and as the exhibition is in conjunction with Thought Bubble Festival the audience is likely to consist of people mainly interested in comics, and other such geeky stuff. 

Monster Girls Week 1!

First week on my one-a-week monster girls brief and I already know I'm enjoying this so much more than trying to force myself into doing illustration Friday or Inktober that I'm not really invested in.

This week I drew a faun, and god was it something. 

As part of my brief I decided at least part of the image had to be papercut - so I can expand my skills in this. So I decided to do the legs out of brown paper, and oh boy that was an experience. The paper was barely the right texture to be cut and just ripped a lot, so that was frustrating. Also I found when I sketched the legs they looked fine but when I cut them out they were just all wrong, so I ended up having to chop bits up and stick them down in different parts to make them look acceptable. 

Papercut is kind of weird because you basically have to guess what size everything has to be to fit and look right, I found myself cutting out the same pieces a few times before I got it right. 

Draw Neil Gaiman's Stardust

I'm quite a fan of Neil Gaiman's Stardust among other things so when I found out there was a competition to create an image for the radio dramatisation of it, I was on it like a shot. I re-read the book to start with, to refresh myself of key events (I have an illustrated copy of Stardust and I don't like a majority of the illustrations, so I'm considering taking to Folio Society brief and changing it to Stardust). The wording on the brief was a little bit vague, there weren't any real dimensions only "no larger than A4, Landscape orientation" and it didn't say if "Stardust by Neil Gaiman" had to be anywhere on the image - I assumed not as it would just be used as the image for the radio show (iplayer thing).

I enjoyed experimenting with ink, mixing quink and water gives really nice effects which remind me of space so I thought it would be appropriate.
For me Yvaine is the main point of stardust, her being the star and all so I wanted to just have her be the focus of the imagery. Before I re-looked over the brief I played with the title 'stardust' over a circle, and really enjoyed the circular framing. I think it sort of links back to the story as there is a hole in the wall that connects 'Wall' and 'Faerie'. And also looks like a glowing aura around the star.
I wanted to include more bits of the story, the jewel of Stormhold that knocks Yvaine out of the sky is a big plot point that links a lot of event so I thought including this would be appropriate.

These are all really rough works but I think I've got the basis of something to go off to make a final image.

My Rationale

[What are you doing?

Why are you doing it?

What do you aim to get out of it?]

I want to make good art, art that I am happy with. To do this I need to practice the print processes I want to improve in - for me this is lino and monoprint (though I am also interested in screenprint). I also want to continue doing papercut and mixed media pieces and exploring new ways to communicate the tone of voice I am developing.

I need to find out more about packaging and branding as I am somewhat interested in creating illustration for packaging - particularly for indie brands, and I have an interest in makeup. So maybe makeup packaging. I want to try it, and maybe re-do my brief from last year the 'break new ground in beauty branding' one.

I don't want to overcomplicate any of my briefs, or do something I'm not particularly interested in to jump through hoops, as I will make something I am unhappy with and I want to make good art. This was my downfall last year. Simple ideas can be good. I don't want to feel as if I'm giving up on something if I truly feel like it's not something I want to do.

I want to make posters for events such as live music / gigs / films / shows etc. I need to look at what is out there already to see what's being done already and what I could offer. I also need to learn more about design, with layout, type and information, etc.

I need to learn how to set myself good self directed briefs so I can make a good, and varied body of work and build a portfolio I can show to prospective employers.

NEEDS VS WANTS

WOW OK I WROTE ALL THIS OUT BUT IT ACCIDENTALLY DELETED. 

Out of all the lists of needs and wants these are the ones I found most essential 

I want

• to go to laydeez do comics & artist talks
• find out different ways to make patterns
• not overcomplicate things
• 'make good art' - Neil Gaiman
• look at / learn about webcomics

I need

• Not think too long about whats the right decision & mess up my entire project. Just make a decision. You'll find out soon enough if it's right or not.
• Improve my skills in traditional print - particularly lino and monoprint
• find out about branding and packaging design
• learn how to set good self directed briefs
• not overcomplicate things

I put not overcomplicate things in both my needs and wants because I see it is both. I want to not overcomplicate things and get confused about stuff, to do this I need to start with more simple ideas and not turn them into some kind of convoluted scheme!

GET ON WITH IT

I've been kind of bumbling about this last week and it's time to get on with something I really want to do. 

I was going to do illustration Friday as a three panel comic each week to practice my narrative skills but I've done a grand total of one, and am just feeling totally uninspired by it. I feel like I'm giving up on things too easily but also I want to make work that I enjoy making and if I'm feeling uninspired by it then it's gonna be crap! I need to do what's right for me, and I just don't think that this is. 

I want to make patterns, and I want to draw spooky / cute monster ladies. 

So I am going to aim to make a pattern and a cute monster lady each week. 

Maybe I will still use the illustration friday theme as a starting point just to give me some inspiration, but I think this will help me further my practice more than forcing myself into doing something I already know I'm not enjoying. 

Capture the Spirit of Halloween Brief.

I found this brief approximately a whole 3 days before the deadline so I had to work quick to submit something.

The brief was to capture the spirit of Halloween / Day of the Dead. I did want to look at the pagan connection to Halloween / Samhain - the Celtic new year & dead boy celebration. I found some instructions to make a blessed jack-o-lantern to guide spirits and thought it may be fun to make an instructional poster on this. I sketched out a couple of ideas but couldn't really get my head around the composition especially as I only had a couple of days to get it done. In the end I decided to include some sage in my image to still link it to Samhain.

I enjoyed making this, it was a good short brief to get the ball rolling on making art at the start of the year. It allowed me to experiment with a mix of traditional and digital media - adding textures, fiddling with stuff etc. I didn't want to end up just doing papercut over and over, this year I want to experiment with my process and tone of voice and such. Working with a range of media is something I find fun. This was a brief I was interested in too so it was easy to stay engaged with it. I enjoyed making all the pieces and compiling them - working in different media on brown paper made some really interesting textures and imagery.

I'm happy with how this turned out given that I finished it 6 hours before the deadline.

Comic Society Posters

(made by Abi, finalised by me)

Me and Abi Watson are presidents of the comic arts society. since we would be making posters anyway (such as the one above) we thought it may be a good idea to make it a collaborative project. Obviously for it to be a project for Extended Practice we'd have to make a different standard of poster to this one - we can still make it funny, but more thought out.

We run Comic Society every two weeks so we would need to create bi-weekly posters as well as a poster with a mass overview of planned events. I will convene with Abi about this soon.