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