Character Displays

I finally made some larger prints of my characters! Since my space in the bargate gallery is a window display, I think these will look pretty good.

I printed a large print of one of my small drawings and it seemed to turn out quite nicely. I'd really like to make some more more but I found the cutting process extremelly difficult- Jonny Hannah really had to go out of his way to help me on this one. Would be great if I get another soldier done, but perhaps I should spend a bit of time this weekend practicing with the crafter knife?

I've made a bit of progress on 'who will slay the beast.' Jonny felt I didn't really need to do anything else for the projet but I really wanted to go a step further with this book- I've started drawing a monster design I that will run along the back pages of the book and I made a start on a new title and back page for the book. Right now I'm fairly confident I can get it finished sometime next week- especially after seeing some of my work in frames and finally having at least one large cut-out character done- it made me feel a little happier about getting my stuff printed, I'll get some more prints made hopefully on Monday.

Concertina Results

I have finally printed my five concertina books, getting them cut out wasn’t quite as scary as I had thought!

Its great to finally see my work in book format, they seem to work quite well but the two books that seem the most popular of the five are ‘I can’t Sleep’ and ‘Who Will Slay the beast’

Who Will Slay The Beast is a collection of seven warriors with a double page spread of a beast. This book seems to work well because it is essentially telling a very basic storyline. This is the one book I want to take further- if I have enough time before the hand in date of the project, I want to add a much larger monster that scrolls along the back of the book and include front and back pages.

The Second most popular book, ‘I Can’t Sleep’ Is the various poses of the boy character with a front and back cover. This also seems to be telling a short story. I would like to take this idea further too but it seems unlikely given the amount of time I have left- I’ll just have to check how much progress I can make this weekend and in the studio next week.

For the rest of the day, I was waiting for my books to be printed, I decided to make a few more drawings:

I did start to wonder if perhaps I could make a concertina book from my image ‘Cowboys Vs Dinosaurs’  So I started to practice drawing some.

Derek suggested that I attempt to make more female characters so I began a rough sketch…

I would still like to include a few more warriors in my ‘Who will slay the beast concertina’

 

Wallpaper

I managed to get some of my work printed out on larger scale today including the  page of my five concertina Books.

The Books haven't been cut or folded yet but they have turned out quite went- although I do want to change them slightly. For now though, I'm hoping Jonny Hannah can help with the cutting tommorow. Its Interesting to see all my tiny drawings printed onto one big piece of Paper- its like a sheet of wallpaper.

For the rest of the day I continued to make more drawings. Still want to really churn out as many drawings as I can for the FMP. There must surely be a way I could use them all.

A Wandering Samurai, I've wanted to draw one for quite a while. Heres my own version.

And a cow I made partly inspired by someones interest in Cows! It looks a little bit odd this one though.

An Evolution of an idea

I'm still going with my idea of making concertina books- laying out the template has been quite satisfying actually and I'm really looking forward to seeing how they turn out when I get them printed tommorow. Each book uses most of my favourite character designs and one of my background ideas- its kinda interesting to see how my first initial idea evolved into something else.

The only small disappointment for me right now is I have more ideas for small books and very little time to make more. I think I'll check how my prints turn out first, hopefully with some results in my next update!

Feels like my drawings have slown down a little bit, but I did manage to make this today.

Saturday Progress

I've been trying to arrange the templates for some of my concertina books- its not quite finished yet. 







 I wanted some title images for the books. This is actually suprinsingly fun- perhaps printing these books could be my final major project? It would be nice to make some more but for now, I'm hoping to get these printed on Monday once I have them properly arranged.



Wanted to make really simplistic font/titles for the books like this. In the past, I've had a tendency to overdetail any font I've tried makking and it ends up looking a bit messy.

I also have some prints of several figures I want to make into large scale cardboard cut-outs which hopefully Jonny will help me with on Monday.

A Tiring Week

With the blog being assesed sometime next week I did want to try and include as many updates a I can, I've made a list of all the things I need to do, both project-wise and for gallery show. It might be best I wrote my conclusion for my blog this weekend and fill in all the requirements my tutor alexandria asked for- I would still like to keep working on my blog however, its been quite fun.

Despite being a tiring week I've only made what seems like a small bit of progress. Though not completely finished, my website is finall up and running and I'm rather liking it:

http://www.ryanmedlock.co.uk/

I've made some progress on my book idea- Jonny Hannah gave me a template which I will use to produce as many concertina books as I can- I want to organise them so that I may get a few printed off on Monday and tuesday. I would still like to pursue my idea of making a complete book of characters, looking for a story to live in (disappointly, Jonny didn't seem quite as enthuastic for this idea as Derek did.) Heres more character drawings I've made:

I spent most of this week working on some colour images. I made this vegetable style bunny monster.

I love drawing kings and knights- so I tried to make one in colour.

and one of my older drawings was finally finished this week.

With hardly any time left I also rather liked the idea of making my own comic strip out of a couple of my drawings I made- but I think it may be best to halt progress on this current idea of now. I really need to get my books printed and my gallery show organised. (and besides- the tutors felt I had so much work I didn't even need to start another big project.)

My very rough concept of a comicstrip- I wanted to make something that felt quite ornate like the original Nemo comicstrips. It doesn't quite show in this doodle though.

Book of Characters

I felt I should probably try and update my blog once a day this week since the blog itself will be due in quite soon.
I had a chat with Jonny Hannah today and I was quite pleased he seemed supportive of my book of characters plan. He also again reminded me that I still needed a overall theme- I was rather hoping I could go with the theme of 'lost characters seeking a story to live in.'

I really want to get started on printing my books, my tutors have thankfully agreed to help me and with any luck, I'll have some prints this week. For now though, I spent the day drawing (again.)

I have sketchbooks full of character designs this size. I want to try and put together a book of drawings this size. (jonny assured me this take no longer than a day.)

Though I do have plenty ofdrawings this size. I've done so many drawings for the final major project- there must surely be a way to include my favourites.

Still playing around with incoporating colour. I don't think I've quite mastered it yet but I've decided I will force myself to fill up my next pad full of colour drawings.

A merman, its still fun drawing fantasy stuff like this.

Another interesting suggestion was making a concertina book of characters. Since I've made a couple of poses for this particular character, I thought it might work quite well.

The book of 'Screaming for a Narrative.'

I decided that this week I would like to make a little book, a collection of my character designs, I've got so many now that I do really feel this could be my final major project, or part of it if I have enough time to come up with something else. In any case, I wanted this little book to be about characters looking for a narrative and a storyworld to live in.

I've been picking up quite a few of these pads lately and trying to make as many small drawings as I can. This pad here is now finished- I have roughly 50 characters inside this book!

And I've already started on the next small book. Since the end of may isn't terribly far away I wanted to spend this extra long bank holiday weekend by making as many more character drawings as I can.





Still haven't given up on this particular design either, I've made a couple of new poses for him. Although now, the lastest poses just seem to look a bit better drawn than my older ones.

More Kings. Knights and kings are just fun to draw for me.

Not sure what this is. A lamp maybe? I came up with this one when I was sitting in Costas.

And this one feels strangely familiar to Sonic the hedgehog.