Phillustration takes a bow

This is my last Illustration module (everyone: "awwww"). I'm switching over to focus purely on Graphics - in terms of my degree work anyway. The experience I've gained from doing Illustration modules over the last two years has been great, and I'm happy, because it gives some of my graphics work an illustrative edge.

I've blogged enough about these spreads... Here are the very final ones. I'm happier with some than others, but overall I think I've made a decent fist of it. 

And just to test your browser to the max - here's yet more images, this time of the dummy book itself. Each spread was printed as a single sheet, so the back of page 2 was glued (spray mounted) to the back of page 3... And so forth.

It took me a while, but I began to really enjoy this project - especially when I began to have final images begin to take shape. I will continue to embrace all that drawing has to offer, but I feel I can no longer command the nickname of Phillustration. Shame, eh? 

Some Snarks are Boojums...

A while back, I wouldn't have thought I would get to the stage where I'd want to post any of this work - this just goes to show what hard work and determination (or late nights and cups of coffee) can do for you.

To see the story and my explanations, check the label "narrative"... It's unlikely that I'll be doing much else under that title very soon... Having said that...

I'm actually quite pleased with how I rescued this - it's not brilliant (yet, I still have a week and a half and plenty more coffee) but I think I've managed to own it and give it an interesting continuity. Do tell me if I'm wrong, I'd love honest feedback.

There are 13 doubles in total for the book - here are my favourite 6. The others all still need a bit of work - but the hope is that even if they don't seem as slick as I hope these are, they will look more accomplished when packaged together with these.

For your perusal...:

The brief was to include two doubles which were worked up in full colour. I had too much fun ripping up paper in one of many rage fits which has accompanied this module, and so produced three. As you can see, the ripped paper is a theme - I used t to describe the scene of the island the characters are one.

Stupidly, it's taken me this long to begin really loving this project. Yes, it's been tough, and wouldn't normally be my kind of thing, but I've begun to really get my teeth into it... Good job with the deadline looming... Anyway, I guess that's a good thing?

I'll post all the spreads, the cover, photos of the dummy book etc. when it's all done!

Still Hunting

A quick catch-up...


A while ago I prepared rough sketches for the purpose of showing what would happen in my book - a children's adaptation of Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". Here are some:

A lot of my spreads looked a bit same-y, so I've experimented with angles and zooms - to make the pages more dynamic.

I'm now a the stage where I've begun mocking one or two of these up, to check my chosen colouring method works (bare in mind these are roughs):

The coloured areas are pastel scans, and the drawings are me making use of my new graphics tablet. Here's one of my characters:

I've created the top two in Photoshop, but I have experimented with drawing the figures in Illustrator... My only issue is that I can't seem to get Illustrator to recognise pen sensitivity (hence his flatness)... If anyone has any light to shed then please do!

Ticking over

With my current modules it's been quite frustrating - we're not currently at a stage where I'm producing any final pieces for publication, or anything worthwhile blogging really. So it helps to have a side project so as to gain some form of satisfaction in seeing some final pieces come together.


These are by no means masterpieces (far too much live tracing's gone on for that to be true), but they are quick, attention-grabbing promotional pieces for events our Christian Union are putting on next week. At time of writing venues and speakers haven't even been finalised... But that's an issue for a different blogpost.

(A recycled poster design - not sure if I've posted this one before or not.)

Don't ask why some are different shapes to others - they've been through the wringer in terms of file format transfer...

If I had time to talk about these, I would, but instead I'm going to try and carry on organising them!

Carrolling

A while ago I posted about how I'd be producing spreads for a children's book adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark", and that it wouldn't be long before posting some of my actual artwork for it.


Two months later...


It's been a bit stop-start this one - I think I've known how it's going to look since deciding on my story (not really advisable, but never mind), and as such have struggled to motivate myself to disappoint my imagination by actually putting it down on paper. I've finally relented, and produced these over the last few weeks/two months. I imagine this'll be something which occupies me over Christmas.

The imagery needed to be mysterious, but also fairly vibrant and quirky. Backgrounds will be in pastel, with the dreadful drawings seen here laid over the top drawn digitally.

These two show slightly better how a finished page would look - having two spreads out of thirteen dummied up is slightly behind schedule... But at least I know where it's roughly going.


I'll probably post more of this kind of thing when it actually looks good - anywhere from two months to two years then!

Snark Hunting

The illustration module I'm doing this year is a year-long brief in which we will produce (after roughs, storyboards etc.) a full-colour dummy book for children. We were to choose either an existing tale in the form of story, song poem or legend, or we were free to write our own. The narrative should be designed to run over 13 double-page spreads.

I umm-ed and ahh-ed over where to find my story from, and eventually stumbled across this brilliant source. I've always loved Lewis Carroll's playfulness with words, and the way in which his tales and poems instantly spark the imagination into working - it's impossible to read any of his work without seeing images running through your head.

The poem I have chosen to adapt is "The Hunting of the Snark" which you can find in full here. It's quite lengthy, but well worth a read if you appreciate nonsense and a playfulness with rhythm and prose. The below illustrations by Tove Jansson are a lovely introduction to some of the characters.

We were asked to write a synopsis of the story we would be re-creating so I wrote this: 

"The original is split into eight “fits” or chapters. Each four-line verse within the fits has a rhyming pattern where the third line rhymes with the first, and the fourth with the second. It is written in a playful way, but there is a darkness lurking in the form of the Snark throughout.

We are introduced to a ship's crew of ten, who arrive in a place which is “just the place for a Snark”. We are informed that their aim is to capture the creature, as “you may serve it with greens,/And it's handy for striking a a light.” On arriving, the Bellman (the character clearly in charge) tells the rest of the crew the different signs to look for in a Snark. The Baker also shares a tale told by his uncle – a tale about the danger of “Boojum Snarks”, for when one of these is encountered you will “softly and suddenly vanish away”.

The crew set out to hunt – two characters (the Beaver and the Butcher, who before this event do not get on) explore a valley and come across a Jubjub bird. The Beaver manages to save them, with a strange combination of mathematics and a knowledge of natural history. During the hunting, the Barrister falls asleep and dreams of a strange scenario involving the Snark, a pig, and a court hearing. Finally, the Banker is attacked by a Bandersnatch and loses his sanity – despite trying to pay the creature off. The Baker then disappears off ahead, and the others follow after. They hear him yell “It's a Snark! It's a Boo-” and then silence falls. The suggestion that the Snark he encountered was in fact a Boojum is confirmed by Carroll at the end of the poem.

This story will be edited down so as to form a children's story – elements such as the Barrister's dream, and several of the ten characters will be cut out. The story will still be coherent, carrying the essential elements of the hunting, the encounters with the Jubjub and the Bandersnatch, and the disappearance of the Baker."

That's where I'm at so far - the brief will take all year to come to fruition, so expect to hear more. Next step: character creation.

The invasion of the paper people

My flatmates think I've gone mad, and, with a title like that, you probably do too.

As an art and design student it's quite usual for rather uncommon things to become commonplace in my room.... In the past, the odd things hanging around my room have included empty bottles of wine, numerous copies of the Radio Times, and shelf brackets. Recently, the oddity has been chains of paper people.

We were asked to design an illustration for a piece of writing which can be found here. It's well worth a read - the writer is talking about something he calls "Politeness Enforcement Tactics", referencing the way people act towards each other in society. He mentions people placing bags on seats they aren't using, people speeding up to zebra crossings, and people cutting into queues - and then goes on to describe ways in which we can fight against this (the "tactics" I just mentioned).

The dominant story is one of a queue for a bus stop, and the way in which the people in the queue work together to exclude a queue-jumper. I won't explain it all (it's worth reading!), but my ideas were to show a unity between the queue members, and to show an exclusion of the jumper. Hence why I have paper people stuck on my mirror, perched on my windowsill, and sitting on my bookcase.

I guess in part my flatmates were right - using the actual paper people was mad, as it didn't quite work visually in my initial ideas here as I'd hoped it might. So, I literally went back to the drawing board, sketched out some linked people, and created a cityscape collage.

It's a little different to your usual editorial illustration, but I like the hands-on feel of the collage. It has a diagrammatic look to it, created by using grid paper, which links in to the clinical nature of the people-chain. Probably the greatest difficulty was in transferring the visual from paper onto screen, although it did give me chance to tweak a few things that weren't quite right.

I'm not going to lie, I hated this project. I struggled to get a grip with what the article needed in terms of an illustration - and this came out in my early sketches. However, I am pleased that I was able to work through it and produce a piece which is by no means fantastic, but just about fits the bill.

I'm keeping the paper people up in my room (in case you were wondering). It'd be wrong to throw them away after I went to all the trouble of naming them...

"She kicked and screamed while I held her throat" (part 2)

Basically I've been sat on this final piece for a while now, finishing other work whilst this only needed one or two tweaks. I've finished it now though - if you've no idea what I'm on about then you'll have to look here.

I think both sides of the CD cover have a sort of vintage photo feel - they look old and faded, and yet still have the sinister feel I was after (created by a complex system of spotlights before the shot was taken). One regret I have is not to have had more variance between the front and back covers, but to do so I would have had to set the shot up again, and learn a lot more about photography!

On a positive though, the hand-drawn text fits fairly well with the theme - on the front it sits uncomfortably next to a happy image - this is similar to the reason I used the lighting the way I did, in that it suggests that not all is well in a subtle way. Overall, I feel the cover fits the music itself quite well. If you disagree let me know, and if you haven't heard the songs then I recommend them to you.