Monday 28 February 2011

Self Promote this

I managed to make some prototype fridge magnets for our self promotion project. I wanted to decorate the envelope a little better but I managed to mail this off to Peter today.


I didn't scan any of my character drawings today but progress is still going quite well. I've also discovered that I can make several 'quick' images by only using sharpie pens and thicker 0.5 pens- It forces me to draw a little less delicately and a lot more quickly.



This drawing for example was inspired by this superb facebook photo I saw. (a special thanks to the excellent Justine Tucker.)

I can come up with random ideas like this by looking at seemingly random objects...I doodled some of these figures when I looked at one of my friends photographs (which were purposefully blurry due to being taken by a pinhole camera)

Friday 25 February 2011

Noggin Kitty

My project work has been feeling a bit slow this week. To relax a little, I just kept drawing some more viking/noggin kitties.
Just made them all on napkins while sitting in the cafe and coloured them in when I'm back in the studio. I just wondered how many I could make before I get bored.
My tutor thought this one had its rude parts hanging out. And Now I can't unsee it. More characters for my character book perhaps?

Wednesday 23 February 2011

More Storybook ideas-

I've still been thinking about making a storybook. Only problem is I don't seem to have any storyboards- just more drawings.
I love drawing buildings like this ever since my trip to Prague and my recent re-reading of the original Moomin Comicbooks.

Wonder what sort of surreal situations the character could be. A little boy trying to grab all the stars from the night sky.

Or if he perhaps meets any interesting characters along the way. (think this one looks a bit too 'cutesy')


I've decided that this is what i wanted the main character to look like. (Until I remembered the story was set at night- in all the other drawings I made of him I closed his eyes.)


I've tried to keep the main character design as simple as possible. A kid in Pjs, a sort of homage to Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay.
I started to think about a sequence of the main character, of him tossing and turning in bed, or like dancing in his bed.
And I still want to think of how I want to colour it in too. Theres so much work to do lately- but I've still successfully stuck to my drawing a day. Heres another one.

Singing Ringing

Colouring Book: 
A friend of mine generously bought me a copy of the usbourne colouring and doodling book I mentioned in one of my older updates ( greatly appreciated!). It was just fun to flick through the different pages- mostly black and white images with small parts of it coloured in.





 I did have a go at making something similiar- using just an old sharpie pen I found, I made this image:

Just used sharpie pens and thicker 0.5 pens, I made this a lot quicker than some of my other drawings- perhaps not the best thing I've ever drawn but I managed to only take about two hours to make it.

Noggin Kitty
When I'm running low on paper and I'm sitting in a cafe I normally  start doodling on a napkin-providing I'm carrying a pen with me. Normally I just threw them away or left them there until my tutors told me that stuff like this was good enough to sell!

good enough to sell? I don't see it.

Inspired by seeing one of friends obssesion with Hello Kitty, my love of Asterix the Gaul and my Mark Pawson 'Noggins' Book which I've already mentioned, I've been trying to come up with Noggin Kitty. I made these three in less than half an hour and coloured two of them in copic markers- I don't have that many colours unfortunately since they are quite expensive.


They are fun to draw. Perhaps whenever I go for one of daily tea breaks I'll take a pen with me and make some more.

Fig Taylor 



I've been meaning to mention my talk with Fig Taylor, it was really quite exciting as she seemed to geniuely love my work- she even felt I could be famous! (Although I'm not quite convinced of that just yet.) She also reccomended an interesting dvd to me- the Singing Ringing Tree.

Its a Three part german tv show from the mid 60's, Its quite slow paced so I need to be in the right mood to watch it, but its been quite fun to draw from it. Theres something that just feels a little bit weird about it all- it kinda reminds me of watching my favourite tv show when I was younger 'Knightmare'

I made these drawings from it so far-


So far, I've only been able to make this drawing from these doodles:




A friend of mine bought me a pad of 3D paper- it really works! I tried making some doodles of some my ideas and  they seem to lift off the paper, its a really strange effect. (I made a space gardener and a train man.)


Thursday 17 February 2011

Owl Tree Updates

Wanted to finish off my owl tree images... wish I didn't take so long to draw- its made me start to realise that I still have an important deadline for my Final Major Project. The Character book seems more and more likely. Still, included in this update today is my Owl Tree.
I wanted to design some soldiers for the story, The poem felt a little medievil and I wanted to make the soldiers look a little like toy soldiers or a nut crackers.

Theres no monster in the poem but I liked the words 'a siliouette of doom'

Roy, who gave me the commision on his poem liked one of my older images I made, so I wanted to make another image which felt just as intense. This was the image Roy saw:
This an image I made during the end of the first year, An Intense image like this can take up to at least a week to make. I wanted to make at least two images like this for the owl tree.


I liked making anagrams of some of the words from Roys Poem, a Cello of the earth, Winter being on its way, Angels marching, and the soldiers and the owl somewhere on the horrizon. Hope you like it Roy!

The Deadline has been brought forward a little but I do have a few more images that are still unfinished. 


Was thinking of making another image of a strawberry field farmer, not sure if I have enough time right now.


Two Pens gave their lives for these drawings.~
0.1 and 0.3 bought from Whsmith. They will be missed.~

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Could Conquer the Universe

Still drawings images for my own storybook idea, 'The boy and the stars'. Perhaps its not the best approach to take- I know lots of artists go through dozens of redesigns for their characters but normally, I seem to have a clear indication of what I want from the start.
If I do make this storybook, then I'm going to be redrawing the same character over and over again- I wanted something as simple as possible. (though I really like this guys hair)

Same character again, but different outfit.
Since the boy is meant to transform into a thief and villain character, I was trying to figure out what he should look like.

A classic cops and robbers style badguy with a valuable painting hes just stolen.

More doodles. I like the idea of a sequence of the character tossing and turning in bed, trying to sleep. Or reaching out his window at night. Not quite sure what the other doodle is- but perhaps it will turn into something more. Normally its the most fun to draw when your not quite sure what it could be!  In the very least, I do have more character designs for my character book.

Kazuyuki Kurashima

Kazuyuki Kurashima

I thought I should include more artists that have inspired me, but I found it difficult to think back on what art has really inspired me, most of my inspirations came from growing up on videogames- I must confess that when I was much younger I was determined to make my own videogames- working in the industry for a few years did crush that dream a little however.

One of my favourite illustrators in the game industry is probably Kazuyuki Kurashima. A japanese character and monster illustrator for various videogames, some of which were games I grew up playing. Though I don't think hes quite as well known as many other illustrators I simply started buying some of the videogames hes worked on just because I love the stuff he comes up with.

He made some pretty oddball character designs for one of the Super Mario games:

Two offical character renders for the nintendo game 'Super Mario RPG'



For some reason, whenever i see his drawings I'm reminded of the orginal drawings from the french storybook 'Little Prince'


One of the original illustrations by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. No Idea if this inspires Kazuyuki but it certainly inspires me, I was also told that some of his drawings remind peoeple of my own works.
 There isn't that much availible information availible on Kazuyuki but I from what I can understand, he works as a freelance illustrator in Japan and made a few designs for various small time bands.
He also designed all of the character designs in a videogame 'MOON RPG' for the Playstation console, which wasn't released outside of Japan, the game has sorta became a bit of a fascination for me, since I can't understand any of the story or text but love the illustrations and art style for the game.

Screenshot from Moon RPG. I'm still an avid fan of videogames, or at least the stranger and more surreal titles.

I tried to get in contact with Kazuyuki on his facebook account and I drew this for him:

Sunday 13 February 2011

Happy Novelty Heart shaped Day~

Another drawing a day. I always felt that there was something that felt a little 'romantic' about Arabian Nights or similiar stories.

Saturday 12 February 2011

A drawing a day

I'm still trying to make at least one drawing a day, I'm actually losing count as to how many I seem to have. Heres the drawings I made today:


I felt this should really offically be a part of my Final Major project, I want to make as many designs as I possibly can before the end of May, my tutors even suggested making bigger prints of them. And flicking through some of my older sketchpads, I already have dozens I haven't even used yet.

This feels like a 'fail-safe' option for my project. Carry on making some bigger images while at the same time making small based drawings like these. Perhaps They can all be part of a small book, a collection of different people/creatures.


Errol Le Cain
I've also been reccomended a particular artist a couple of times, Erol le Cain:

Erol Le Cain was quite a well known english illustrator, yet I've never heard of him until I started attending university, despite having quite a lot of success during the eighites, he seems to have become a bit more obscure. Its becoming quite difficult to find some of the books he worked on but I've managed to pick up at least three so far (I recieved my hardback copy of The Twelve Dancing Princess's in the post today.)

Some of my friends feel theres quite a few similarities between his work and mine (though I certainly don't feel my stuff is quite up to scratch as his.) please check out this erol le cain website (where I took the two images above from.)