Tuesday 19 April 2011

Mass Production

I've been trying a little to listen to my tutors advice and spend a little bit of this last week of the Easter break relaxing and perhaps get on with a few personel projects I've been meaning to start, With the help of my family back home I've finally managed to try again with my fridge magnets. I must confess that planning things out like this or getting my work put in frames is the difficult part for me- it really stresses me out.
roughly about 23 different designs have been printed onto magnetic paper. Perhaps these would be good to submitt to one of the fundraiser shows or even sell some at my gallery show.


Still going with my one drawing a day though. I really need to go back and count how many drawings I have now.
Hoping to get some feedback tommorow so I can work out which ones seem the most popular.

Seeing all these character ideas I have is interesting though. I have so many now- finished drawings like above, rough doodles and even the small drawings I have drawn on napkins in the art house seem quite popular. Perhaps I really ought to start considering these as my final major project.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Needs a Story

All this time working in the studio these past few months made me realise I've just still been drawing more character designs of my own and character designs- I still haven't really found this 'connection to tie them altgoether' That the tutors advised me to look into.


I'm still capable of making a drawing a day like this. I now have 50 small drawings this dedicated to the project.

Its still a good mindset to have for me, to have at least one drawing made per day.

I'm still playing around with getting my drawings in colour. Even though they do seem fairly popular, I'm not quite sure if I've cracked it just yet.
I also remembered again that Salvatore didn't feel I should force this 'connection' or proposed story into my drawings- as of right now I'm still having fun just simply making a character and background and I do plan on making at least nine more images before I decide to call my FMP finished.
I wanted to make a city, no real explanation, I just felt this particular city needed some cool sci-fi style pyramids.
As I may have mentioned in some of my previous updates, I did consider illustrating an already written work. I had a lot of fun working on Roy Moss's 'Owl Tree (one of the writing students here at Solent) because I had a lot of freedom to do what I wanted. There is another friends poem I found interesting too- an orange tree that wants to grow apples:

I actually love this idea. Its very early, but I'd love to draw this when I have the time- maybe I could even use this image as part of my fmp?  credit to the poem's author: Daniel Conant
But Then again I want this project to be about me. I'd really love to just keep making drawings and just put them all in a book and say its my fmp. Not long left to go on the project now though, I'm going to have to seriously start considering what I need to do.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Only six Weeks...

Thought I would go ahead with the character/background and a brief synopis/blurb idea. I've no idea if I'll manage to finish them all but it is at least fun to do. 

I wanted to put all the images I have and add characters and scenerarios to them- Maybe even add dotted cut out lines around the characters. I've no idea if this will work or not but lately, I really seem to have my heart set on this idea.
Scenario: An officer is called out to a house, somewhere, far away in the middle of nowhere to investigate a crime

The officer


Midnight Thief, Once an ordinary boy asleep, in his dreams he became and villain who would steal the stars from the sky, The universes collection of precious gems.
The villain

Still very rough idea, but I realised that I really do have tons of drawings for this project which I really want to use- I have plenty of drawings I still haven't used from my doodles over last summer are essentially my final major project work. (as snobby as it sounds, I wanted to get a good head-start on this project.)
I still haven't forgotten about adding colour either.

Hopefully the finished image tommorow!

Monday 4 April 2011

More Characters

Working in the studio again today I did start to feel I should probably start to think of how to present my work. I used one of the leftover frames and printed out one of my images to a larger size- I think it turned out pretty well:

My work printed out in larger scale.
I also forgot to mention that we asked to put up pieces of our work on the wall as part of our identity last week, I just drew whatever came into my head first. This fish.
And heres the other work from the students, we had an entire wall like this from everyone in the group. I must confess I didn't really like this particular one day project, or at least the very competitive atmosphere in the studio that day.


I also still want to do my book though there doesn't really seem to be very much time left at all- I still just have drawings. Perhaps this is where the boring 'work' related parts of my project should begin, I just hope I can get everything organised in time. Here is what I made today:
A scan from my sketchbook. Jen Hainsworth on my course very kindly let me use her 'puffin postcard collection' postcards of decades old puffin book covers- old illustrations always seem to feel a little unique and strange to me.

The front cover of the postcard collection. Perhaps I can turn the doodles I made today into something useful sometime.


I like having some of my characters described as 'Kingly' Its a weird word which to me sounds very 'fantasy' With that in mind I'm actually enjoying drawing cheesy fantasy type stuff a lot.

I finally finished the 'door' to one of my older pictures that I mentioned in my previous update. Not sure if I'll use this concept but I would like to make some more mini-versions of my drawings (like doorways going into them) That is, if I have enough time.

I didn't think this was so interesting. Looks a bit too generic for me. One of my friends thought it looked a tiny bit like my tutor Jonny Hannah...
Background designs are sadly going rather slowly. I can churn out at least five or six characters a day but unfortunately, my background designs take a little longer- one image can take one or two days to complete. Perhaps I should simply concentrate on making as many characters and make them as the book (which was in fact, one of my main back-up ideas.)
I've got at least twenty or more backgrounds like this. I would like to finish them but six weeks doesn't feel like very long at all...In this particular image we see a little hill with a little house about to lift it up like raising your hat to wish somebody good morning.


Even more character designs. This one is some sort of bear in a dress. Made it for a friend of mine but I think I will still use it too. Mimoo Belle is the name of her little fashion website.


A very grumpy princess I felt like drawing.


A nasty old sea hag character, I've drawn a few ocean/water based backgrounds.

And Deep-Sea-Dive-Man, who has to fight the sea hag.
The cowboy returns but I wanted to try another little colour experiement. I photocopied the original image and coloured it in with my marker pens so that I would be able to use the marks on the back of the page as a background layer on photoshop. Not sure if it works or not but the textures look quite nice.




Saturday 2 April 2011

Character and Background

I've been a bit slow on updating lately, not that I've been running out of steam, I've been trying to build up a bit of a backlog of drawings to post and I also wanted to edit a few parts of my blog (to follow my tutor, Alexandras Guidelines.)

I'm still a tiny bit confused and worried about where my project is going, but maybe its better this way. I still just have a collection of drawings- Derek felt I should really be more concerned and start preparing on how I will present them. For now however, here is most of my recent work:

Most of my work seems to be accepted as 'interesting to look at' Even the rough stuff like this that I drew on napkins whenever I took a visit to the cafe. I honestly don't think theres anything particularily interesting about them but they are just fun to draw. 







Drew this one when I was in a fancy fish and chip resturant. 


I'm still going ahead with the 'Character & Background' Idea I mentioned in a previous update for now. I'll just post this finished one for now.
The Death Monster Machine, Entirely built by a mad, yet cool-headed jazz muscian who plans to reform a band entirely made of zombies.


Derek seemed to like the idea of including a small written blurb about what was going on in this scene- even if its just a brief sentence or just nonsense. I was actually hoping this background would be the home of the tin cowboy I drew and some of the other character designs I mentioned, but now I'm not so sure.

The Characters that want to live in this particular world:
From left to right, A jaded Jazz Muscian, A groupie female, A Fallen Angel and a cowboy made of tin.