The book of nonsense illustration

I decided to start work on my illustration for the book of nonsense by Colin west this weekend. Originally i was going to do the poem about hats, but as we were working based on the illustrations that were already in the book i decided to change my mind as there was about 10 illustrations for one poem. As i am already working on the Nobrow brief i decided to give myself less of a challenge so it would be more manageable within the time for me. I have decided to now work on a poem about a fat cat and a skinny king.

I started off sketching kings but the sketched were coming out quite dark and creepy. I think i scared myself a little with them as i haven't really drawn anything this scary before. I decided not to take these drawings any further but here are the creepy sketches that i originally did.

I then read through the poem a few times and i realised that the poem didn't state what kind of king the poem was about. I then started to think outside of the box and thought about i would find funny to draw as i like to create humours illustrations. I decided to make a little character that is king of the hipsters (who doesn't like to draw a good hipster). Here is some of my development and the final illustration.

I used pencil to map out the drawing and gouache, crayon and coloured pencil for the colour. I am really happy with the final illustration, i think this is the first time in ages that i have created an illustration that i have been really happy with. (Yey)

Artist research: Wish Candy

i decided to do some research into artists that drew cartoon style girls as i am going to have a girl character within my story. I was looking at my friend Zade's desk and saw some drawings that i really liked so i asked who the artist was and decided to do some research into her. 

The artists name is Wish candy (Sashiko Yuen) and she creates lots of different girl character drawings. I really like all of her drawings because they are very cute but at the same time sassy. They are a perfect mixture of cute and sickly colours. All of the Girls that she creates have really funky brightly coloured hair. This  along with a few other artists has inspired me to give my girl character brightly coloured hair. Here are a few of her images that i really like

Visit from Drew Millward

On Tuesday the class had a visit from Drew Millward, an illustrator that usually creates images for band posters and album covers. It was really nice and refreshing because it was a really different style to all of the other illustrators that have came to visit us. His style is like a perfect mix of heavy metal art and sickeningly bright colours it sort of looked like someone went to Download music festival and threw up a rainbow (its great.)

After Drew had done a talk on his work and process we had a break and went for lunch (chicken chuesday.) We then all met back up in the studios and drew had a wonder round, looked at our work and chatted to a few of us. That was really good because its nice to get feed back and new ideas for your work from other people.

I really like his art work because it is so quirky and brightly coloured. i also really liked the fact that the content of his images could be quite creepy and gruesome, but because of the way they are coloured they look really happy and fun. Here are a few of his images that i particularly like.

artist research: Owen Gent

I came across this illustrator that is based in Cornwall called Owen Gent, he is a pretty new illustrator as he only graduating in 2013, He is represented by No guts no glory, and is part of the beginning middle and end illustration collective. He creates lots of really nice illustrations. I especially love the tonal qualities and brush strokes used throughout his work. The colours combined with the roughness of the brush strokes makes his images look really beautiful and they have a sort of vintage feel about them. Here are a few of my favourite images of his.

Artist research: Papernoodle

Here is another paper animation that i found by paper noodle its great at the beginning to see how the set is built. I think that this will help me a lot with creating my image scenery. 

Artist research Picnic illustration

I was searching for artists that create simple characters and i came across this french (i think i cant read french so i'm not sure if it even is french) artist called Picnic illustration. She (or he?) creates lovely simplistic art work, i just love the simple quirky look that the art work has about it. I also really like the selective block colours and line work that is used throughout the images. Looking at this artists work has really helped me out with realising that the images that i create don't have to be complicated to look good and have an impact.  Here are a few of the images that i really like.

First image progression

Artist research: Papernoodle

Whilst looking for more artists that created illustrations with photographed scened i came across an artist called papernoodle that only creates art using bits of paper rather than drawing. The artist also created an animation for a museum, so it was good to see how everything worked for that. Looking at this artist was really helpful because it made me think about maybe layering some parts of my image up to give an even more 3-D look. I really love how unique all of the artists work as it is so neat and well done. looking at this artist and how he works has helped me out a lot with the technique of how to create my image in a 3D form. 

This video is really helpful because i can see how all of the different parts move. It is also helps because i have a forest scene in my story so it gives me some inspiration on how my forest might look.  

Here Is an image that i like by this artist.

I also found a step by step picture too that might help me out with the technique in the future.

Artist research: Princesse Camcam

After i had decided on this new idea for my images i decided to do research into some other artists that have used this technique with their work. Ben suggested that i check out an artist called Princesse Camcam, so i did. Her work is great and exactly what i wanted to look at. Her work is great inspiration and help for me when creating my image. 

Princesse Camcam is a French illustrator that does a lot of children's books, Her illustrations are really pretty and simplistic. She also creates really beautiful paper cuts and makes images out of the different paper shapes and then photographs them. I love the images she creates because they're so nice and delicate and they just look so calming and happy. i am going to try and achieve the simplistic, calm, happy look throughout my images. Here are a few of my favourite pieces of her work.

  

Final image idea

So the class has a deadline for wednesday and were supposed to have out first image for out book done. I was sitting at my desk thinking about how i would execute my first image (digitally or traditionally) when Amy came over and suggested a great idea to me. She said that i should try making all of my characters and backgrounds then photographing them and using the photographs as the images instead of just drawing them. I loved the idea so i started thinking about how i could do it. I did a lot of stop motion last year in college so i am quite good at making backgrounds and settings. The first scene is set in the forrest so i started experimenting with how to make grass.

This was my first attempt at grass i think it worked well. I think that i will use this technique in my final image but i think i will use blue paper instead as in my original plan i was going to make the grass blue. I am going to continue to build up the rest of the image but this is all i've got so far.

artist research: Squid bits, Jess Bradley

I found a really cute blog called 'Squid bits!' the owner of it is an illustrator called Jess Bradley. She creates little cartoon comic book style characters that i really liked. i love the bold colours used and how sometimes the characters are made out of ransom bits of paper. i also like how funny and cute the little characters are here are a few of my favourites.

 

Unicorn Development

When i started to develop my unicorn i decided to draw lost of different head and face shapes until i got it right. I also experimented with a few different colours, I wanted to keep it simple so in the end i decided to stick with black outlines and yellow highlights. Here are the first few sketches that i did.

As i thought this was going to be the unicorn i was going to use i drew the unicorn with a few different expressions to see how it would work. I really like how the expressions turned out. 

I then after looking at the unicorn for a while decided that the horn needed to be changed. it needed to be angled more foreword pointing as it looked like it could have jut been a horse wearing a party hat. After doing a few horn tweaks and a bit or research into unicorns, i decided to just place the horn more central on the head use the top unicorn as my final one. I really like the body at the bottom of the page so this is the body shape that i am going to use for my unicorns and my pony. 

Character development research Oliver Jeffers

As i continued doing character development i decided to do research into different illustrators book making/character development processes. Amy showed the class a video about Oliver Jefferes and his process today and i really enjoyed it so here is that video:

I then found another video featuring Oliver Jeffers but this video os more focused on his book making process. Here is this video:

These videos have inspired me to just draw more of my characters no matter how rough they are. No one will see them in the final book so it doesn't really matter what they look like. This sounds really silly but iv'e been scared of re drawing my characters recently. Ive been scared incase i draw them wrong or incase i draw them too much and start to hate them, but i need to just get on and do it, because in the end i know that it will help me out a lot more. 

Character development Humans: Girl

I decided to develop a girl character as i needed someone to throw the ice cream into the bin in my story. I had previously doodled a girl with a funky hairstyle and i really liked it so i decided to develop and refine this character. I wanted the girl to look a bit adventurous with her style and hair because, as she is in the land of left out, i wanted her to look different to the average person you might see walking down the street. Here are a few ideas that i sketched down for the outfit ideas that i had.

Here is the first rough sketch that i did of the girl character it is a bit funny looking because i think i drew it on  a moving bus. I liked the funky hairstyle it was inspired by Hayley Williams hair as she often has funky hair colours and crazy styles.

Here is a more refined drawing of the girl character, I drew it in fine liner to give it a neater look. I decided to give all of the humans in the story pink hair, all of the unicorns have yellow horns and accents so i thought it would be good to do something similar with the humans. 

I then decided to change a few things as the character looked a bit evil so i decided to make her chin smaller and her eyebrows less arched. I also decided to give her a watermelon print dress to make her outfit look a bit more unique. i  like the final look that she has and i think it will work well within my story. 

character development research Neesha Hudson

I decided to do some research into artists that have done character development. I have wrote about this artist before but i was looking through some of her work recently and saw that she has done a lot of really nice character development. I love how she draws different variations of the character until the best one is achieved. This is what i intend to do with my characters. I also love how much you can tell from the character with how it is drawn. I hope to achieve this with my characters. I love the smooth pencily line quality to her drawings. Below are a few of my favourite  character development sheets of hers.

I love the drawings in the sketch book above they all have so much character and you can tell what the cat is like from the drawings. i hope to do this with my characters. 

I love all of the different options that there is for the same character i am going to apply this idea to my work and draw a lot of different ideas for my characters.

when i have decided on what my characters will look like i will create a sheet like the one above showing the characters from all different angles and showing different expressions.

Oana Befort

i was looking at a few different blogs and i found an artist called Oana Befort and i thought her work was so pretty that i just had to write about it on here. She creates a lot of flowers, scenery, animals and other pretty whimsical things. I thought that looking at some of her animals would help me draw the unicorn and her forest illustrations would help me with creating my backgrounds. Here are some of her images that i really like.

I love the shape of the deer in the image above i think it looks so pretty and elegant. Im not sure that i want my unicorns to look this agile though. Id like them to be a bit more bold.

I really like the simple body and leg shapes used in the above piece. This is what i would like my unicorn bodies to look like, simple yet accurate. i also really like the yellow in contrast to the browns used within the image.

Nobrow magazine research

I went to a comic book shop in newcastle to have a look at the Nobrow things that they had on sale. I decided to get a double issue magazine that was half full of comic strips and half full of illustrations. I decided to get the magazine because i love Nobrows simple yet effective and dramatic style plus i thought it would be good for research and inspiration for my current narrative brief.  I took a few photos from the magazine that inspire me and give me ideas for my brief.

This is the front cover i really like all of the black used it really makes the image and title stand out

The colour pallete in the comic strip above is extremely limited using only two colours along with the black and white. I think its amazing how using this little colours can work so well. This seems like a hard thing to do but i an going to attempt to use only 3 colours in my narrative. Hopefully this will help me to understand more how to do it. 

I like the comic strip art above because it shows that no brow also publish things with a bit of a different look compared to their usual style of using black outlines. I also really like the muted yellows and oranges used in the images.

I think the colour scheme used in the above comic strip is one of my favourites as the yellow makes the images pop and look really striking. I also think yellow black and white go really nicely together.

I chose to include the above comic strip because i like the unique style. It really stood out amongst most of the other comic strips. The characters are drawn with real character and its really nice to look at.

The above comic strip looks really dramatic and its because of all the black blocking used. This has given me a good idea of what to do if i have a dramatic scene in my story.

again i love the colours that are used in the image above i think they really complement each other well. I also like this comic strip because it is a bit different using 4/5 different shades of the same colour i think this gives a really nice effect.

The next few images are from the illustration section of the magazine. I love the image above because it is so unique and i didn't expect to se something like this in the magazine and it was a lovely surprise. it suggests the shape of the female form but at the same time is very abstract. i also like the lack of colour. I don't think i will do anything like this in my final images but i still like it.

The images above are quite typical of Nobrow with the strong block colours. the reason that i really like this image is because of its simplicity. Although it is simple it describes the characters really nicely. i am going to use the idea of simplicity in my final images.

The final image i think is very different for this magazine and thats why i chose to include it. I love the mood that the dark colours and dark grey clouds sets. i also really like the blue background it really stands out against the rest of the image. 

I learnt a lot from this magazine and i think it will help me throughout the whole project.