From the start of my final year at illustration I came in with a head full of ideas but at the same time confusion as i didn't feel like my illustrations could develop much further from the original line drawing. This meant at the start i needed to find my ground with developing my drawings, one element that i believe helped me take this step was my banner for the GROSS exhibition. This helped me work harder on the detail and texture of my characters as i knew it was going to be on a large scale. With this piece came development of colouring my pieces digitally while keeping an analogue texture to them through dry brush for tone and to add keep an analogue naive feel to the drawings.
This banner helped my confidence in my drawing grow and with this i attempted to take part in some live briefs. I found the image making for certain live briefs difficult, as within my practice the initial idea is very important to me however, i find it much more difficult to come up with an idea for a brief that's been set than a self initiated one. In terms of live briefs I didn't push myself with unfamiliar things instead i chose ones such as character design and t shirt designs both things i feel more comfortable with. This allowed me to develop a portfolio of specialised work and i'd leave the experimentation and risk for my self initiated briefs as i'd have a clearer idea of whether the experimentation is necessary.
My developed drawing style also really helped with the development of my print making , before this year i never made money from my illustrations as in the past i felt my prints where either to specific to a project or visually not strong enough. This really made me focus on looking at my work commercially and looking at jokes within my work that more people can get on board with. Since doing this with my prints i have made so much more money and felt more confident to sell my work to people.
One element of this year I feel really opened my creative mind and eyes was collaboration. I tried to collaborate as much as i could as i really wanted to see my illustrations have more context then just creating for my own amusement. Working on projects such as the Hostel world animation helped me see how an animator can bring your style to life while putting their own animation style within it. Whether it's just collaborating with ideas or on a whole project having someone to constantly be able to bounce ideas off really helps the creative process and is something that i am looking forward to doing in the real world.
One of my biggest struggles of this year was thinking of an effective self initiated project that would let me experiment and be as playful as i could possibly be. My tutor suggested football which triggered a lot of ideas. I have always been influenced by UK culture and humour in my work, Therefore this work fitted perfectly in my interests and ideas. This project really helped develop my character design again and my digital colouring also saw development through the use of paper texture to colour this helps compliment my scrappy analogue style line drawings. This project also helped me understand that i am better working on a project from scratch. Initially when i was working on it I was focusing on my home team Boro. However this end up feeling to personal and serious so i decided to start from scratch and make up everything allowing me to be as playful as possible.
Throughout this year I have been desperate to create 3D elements within my work I am disappointed i didn't explore this as further as i may of wanted however, making the football table for this project has been my funnest project on the course so far. It's sparked my interest in customising toys for art which is something i plan to develop further for the show and potentially my future practice.
Overall, I see this year as a very important step in my creativity I feel much more confident then ever on my image making and although ideas is my strongest element i must continue to see ways of developing an idea and being open to the idea of collaboration within the idea to help boost the design and project. My love of drawing may have dipped up and down throughout the year but my love for creating things and ideas will remain and hopefully help me through my creative career.
Side note:
One thing I believe has helped drive and develop my work but worried me from the start is that i am starting to realise more then ever the lack of originality in some illustrators and the heavy influences that trends can have. Since realising this I have aimed to keep most my inspiration in elements outside of illustration such as fine artists like Rod Grooms who constantly plays around with different image making elements to create 2D and 3D narratives. I also look heavily to humour for inspiration especially when it's done creatively. I could list many examples of these things but one this year that really helped me out was a Japanese film called big man Japan where the humour is at a perfect level of silliness, which is something that i am always working to balance. With this inspiration has made me want to constantly develop my practice more than ever and to remain totally open in where it may head in the future.
Monday, 6 May 2019
Sunday, 5 May 2019
Exhibition Proposal
I want to develop my project a lot more for my exhibition. This includes:
- Making a whole panini sticker album with over 100 players and 10 teams All in a customised ring binder sticker album.
- developing the football table with stickers and going any bits that need touching up
- making more toys for the football merchandise
-make a football kit based off one of the teams i have created
- making a large image of a football team (like the orgy banner but of a football team photo)
- looking if i can create a small inflatable for the show
I want my space to feel fun with both illustrative elements and 3D. I want the colours to be bold and bright with humour elements throughout.
I want the stickers to have a portfolio feel but at the same time look like a panini sticker album.
I need to make sure the table football is fully playable for the exhibition
I think if i put in the hard work all of this is achievable and i am excited to see how it goes as i have been really excited about this project especially to show it off.
some toy concept images:
- Making a whole panini sticker album with over 100 players and 10 teams All in a customised ring binder sticker album.
- developing the football table with stickers and going any bits that need touching up
- making more toys for the football merchandise
-make a football kit based off one of the teams i have created
- making a large image of a football team (like the orgy banner but of a football team photo)
- looking if i can create a small inflatable for the show
I want my space to feel fun with both illustrative elements and 3D. I want the colours to be bold and bright with humour elements throughout.
I want the stickers to have a portfolio feel but at the same time look like a panini sticker album.
I need to make sure the table football is fully playable for the exhibition
I think if i put in the hard work all of this is achievable and i am excited to see how it goes as i have been really excited about this project especially to show it off.
some toy concept images:
Saturday, 4 May 2019
Reflection 4
Self initiated breif:
Initial ideas
Initial ideas
For one of my final projects i wanted to have a theme that would let me explore as many possibilities as possible. It took me a while to find something that would allow me to bring together my favourite elements of image making this year such as fun character design, playful narratives and a 3D element. I got recommended by my tutor that football would be a good option and i agreed as some of my biggest influences in my work is the UK and British humour. This gave me the opportunity to play with a theme that i find interesting but in need of some creative fun. At the beginning i was originally focusing on my hometown middlesborough. This has influenced me many times so i thought it would be a good start however I felt like i was thinking to deep into my hometown and making it too serious by doing so.
Therefore, i realised to make this the most fun for me I had to start from scratch and make up my own team completely. This way i had no restrictions and i could make it as silly as possible. Working this out really helped me get started as i was straight into the character designs for the players and concepts for emblems and mascots.
design process
When it came to my designs i tried to think outside of the box on the norm of football in order to make this appear as a joke. This involved in making emblems involving naive sounding teams such as " the nice boys club" and "good boys FC" and images of friendly dogs to contemplate it.
To help bring this project together i needed to think of an effective way to display all my exploration and fun character designs. Through the theme of football i came to the conclusion that a joke style panini sticker album would be an effective way to show this off.
My characters where all quick line drawings and from i learnt previously i can use collaged coloured paper digitally to give it a more analogue look to my drawings. I created my first team of stickers and printed them out to see how effective they would look in a sticker album.
development
The drawings and characters worked well however, the graphic design and layout kind of spoiled the aesthetic. I decided from previously working with a graphic designer that it would be beneficial on this project to get them to help me out with the layout. I worked with my friend Patrick Mcgeady who does graphic design at Beckett. I told him my ideas for the stickers and how i wanted them to be influenced to the old vintage style stickers such as the ones from the 70s and 80s. After showing him that idea he created a pitch style layout that would help box the name of the player clearly and leave lots of room to show of the player. This help lift the design of the stickers to make it look incredibly professional while still keeping it's naive element.
Further development and future plans
For the show i would hope to finish a full album with over 100 players to support the rest of the project.
I wanted this football project to cover many aspects of football and one element i really wanted to cover was a table football.
I bought myself a cheap kids one from a charity shop and took it apart in order for me to completely re paint it. I coloured it in a bright orange to give it a fun feel, then i painted adverts and a crowd within the inside. This gives it a naive aesthetic which makes it look very crafty. I decided that instead of making my own players, because i had based a team of bootleg characters in my stickers i would head to a car boot sale and find as many interesting toys as possible. Once i found toys meaningful to me and my interests i screwed them all in to make a fully functioning custom football table.
So far this project has been so much fun and i plan on carrying it on to make a fun space within the final exhibition this will include a finished football kit, a team drawing and fully completed football sticker album.
I had plans to make an inflatable but unfortunately the cost of this was too much but i had lots of fun playing on a software called sculptris trying to come up with designs for it.
Overall, from reflecting of this project so far i am happy with how playful i have approached this and brining in collaborative help is something i learnt in the year and has really helped boost my original designs.
Reflection 3
In my final year I have learnt so much about my practice and how I enjoy image making. One element that coming into my final year i wanted to improve on was giving my image making and work much more context. To achieve this effectively i decided to do a few collaborative projects this year see how my illustrations would sit if involved them with animators, graphic designers and other illustrators. This is such an important skill in the real creative world and i wanted good experience of it so i feel more set up for life as a creative when i leave.
Collaborating on an animation:
this was a live brief for Hostelworld i did with Christopher Hore on animation. I have known Christopher for a while and knew that his animation style was fun, lively and he too was also interested in involving humour within his work. Therefore, i knew he would bring my drawings to life effectively.
In order for Christopher to animate my work easily and well i knew that my quick line drawings would be the most flexible to work with. I filled 2 sketchbooks full of characters and narrative concepts as a base for him to go off in terms of the characters. When it came to working out the idea it was much easier to do this collaboratively as ideas flow much better when you discuss them.
While he was busy animating my chosen characters, I got to drawing the backgrounds. The backgrounds i drew and then coloured them in digitally as this was easier for the fun aesthetic of the animation and better to work with for the animator.
This was one of my first big collaborations and i am very happy with how it went both my illustration style and Christopher's loose and lively animation style came together fittingly in an animation. To make a final outcome that is a fun fluid and amusing advert for Hostelworld.
Collaborating on a magazine:
This project excited me as it was a perfect opportunity to work with graphic designers who are strangers from a different country. This experience was something that really made me realise how a team of creatives can really come together on a project. Working with graphic designers was great as they did all the elements i usually didn't like such as the arrangement and text.
This collaboration really helped see my work work within a publication to which was rewarding to see. I was worried that my messy child like drawings wouldn't fit with the clean graphic design but thanks to the graphic designers they arranged my drawings throughout tastefully and even let me do my own comic on a narrative of someone falling in the puddle outside the broadcasting tower.
Collaborating with an illustrator:
This project started very casually with my friend and housemate Jack Grieve posted illustrations on A4 paper under my door daily for me to finish off. Even though this collaboration at the start didn't feel like a project after we did about 20 we realised how charming, amusing and original these drawings look. The 2 different illustration styles meeting on a page to create a narrative makes it look ridiculous and fun. we've now done nearly 50 and plan to colour them and craft them into a collaborative publication.
This project is one that i enjoyed the most as it really let me be playful with the narrative of the drawing which is something i like to think strongly about in my image making.
From doing A few collaborative projects i see the benefits in other creatives using their skills to help give my work more context and life within the future of my practice.
Collaborating on an animation:
this was a live brief for Hostelworld i did with Christopher Hore on animation. I have known Christopher for a while and knew that his animation style was fun, lively and he too was also interested in involving humour within his work. Therefore, i knew he would bring my drawings to life effectively.
In order for Christopher to animate my work easily and well i knew that my quick line drawings would be the most flexible to work with. I filled 2 sketchbooks full of characters and narrative concepts as a base for him to go off in terms of the characters. When it came to working out the idea it was much easier to do this collaboratively as ideas flow much better when you discuss them.
While he was busy animating my chosen characters, I got to drawing the backgrounds. The backgrounds i drew and then coloured them in digitally as this was easier for the fun aesthetic of the animation and better to work with for the animator.
This was one of my first big collaborations and i am very happy with how it went both my illustration style and Christopher's loose and lively animation style came together fittingly in an animation. To make a final outcome that is a fun fluid and amusing advert for Hostelworld.
Collaborating on a magazine:
This project excited me as it was a perfect opportunity to work with graphic designers who are strangers from a different country. This experience was something that really made me realise how a team of creatives can really come together on a project. Working with graphic designers was great as they did all the elements i usually didn't like such as the arrangement and text.
This collaboration really helped see my work work within a publication to which was rewarding to see. I was worried that my messy child like drawings wouldn't fit with the clean graphic design but thanks to the graphic designers they arranged my drawings throughout tastefully and even let me do my own comic on a narrative of someone falling in the puddle outside the broadcasting tower.
Collaborating with an illustrator:
This project started very casually with my friend and housemate Jack Grieve posted illustrations on A4 paper under my door daily for me to finish off. Even though this collaboration at the start didn't feel like a project after we did about 20 we realised how charming, amusing and original these drawings look. The 2 different illustration styles meeting on a page to create a narrative makes it look ridiculous and fun. we've now done nearly 50 and plan to colour them and craft them into a collaborative publication.
This project is one that i enjoyed the most as it really let me be playful with the narrative of the drawing which is something i like to think strongly about in my image making.
From doing A few collaborative projects i see the benefits in other creatives using their skills to help give my work more context and life within the future of my practice.
7x7 No.1
Reflective 2
Following on from the gross studios banner my love of drawing has increased. With a new approach of a more developed version of my line drawings I had confidence in trying to put this into practice with some live briefs. When choosing live briefs I always look for ones that i will find most fun. If no fun ideas come to me when i brainstorm then i scrap the brief. Usually the breifs i like to chose may involve character design and naivety so anything for children always caught my eye more then an editorial or book cover for example.
Some of the live briefs i did:
- Children's Tennis clothing company (lion mascot)
this brief i knew would be easy for me to come up with an outcome as i draw lions on the regular and the mane gives me a lot to play with in terms of texture. I sketched out so many lions until i got one that felt like it had a sporty aesthetic and from what i learnt earlier in the year with the orgy that a analogue drawing coloured in digitally can make it look more professional and finished. For a logo especially a sports one it's important to have strong bold sporty colours.
I was happy with the final outcome as it was a sporty naive looking lion with bold colours and nice playful textures. However, I'm not sure if it works well as a mascot as the texture may be hard to transfer onto a lot of different products. This is something that in the future i would like to team up with a graphic designer to help me out with making a mascot more versitile for products.
- t shirt LAU T SHIRT
this was a brief for the new student union t shirt at LAU. For this brief i wanted to design something with limited colour and a simple design. Doing something very immediate seemed like the best option. I did this very lazily but ended up enjoying the image. It was a product of me just testing out brushes on photoshop but it ended up creating a character with some charm. This design came as a happy accident and although contained little thought sometimes a quick idea can be the most effective choice. Especially when i feel like i am spending too much time thinking about the process of making the image i have in my head. It's fun to go in with no intentions and let the work create itself sometimes.
- Lau tote bag
For this one i just wanted to do a very simple design of loads of small things involved within the courses at LAU and put happy faces on them all. small faces is the easiest way to make your work look fun. This design does the job but it doesn't excite me as i don't feel like it's anything original however, it works well commercially.
- Nest submission
For nest i had an idea of a genderless person looking scared and knew that paint would of been perfect for this as recently I had been getting into paint more. Painting is a fun way to show immediacy as the brush strokes offer lots of texture in the colour. I was happy with the submission and glad that it made it within the magazine however, when i look back at my submission it works really well in the context of the magazine but if i had to critic it myself i personally think i can do better humour wise. The joke feels to "Shrigley" to me and this is something i want to avoid at all costs even if i do consider David Shrigley as an influencer I think it's important as a Humorous illustrator to keep my jokes and drawings as original as possible and this piece feels too similar to me even if i never intended it to be originally.
from doing live briefs this year it made me realise a very important thing and that is that i much prefer my own set briefs. A brief that is already set gives me to much limitations even if the brief isn't limited. Perhaps it's more that i feel less confident to approach a serious live brief in a completely silly and stupid way therefore i keep it commercial with less effort and fun as i would if set it myself.
Some of the live briefs i did:
- Children's Tennis clothing company (lion mascot)
this brief i knew would be easy for me to come up with an outcome as i draw lions on the regular and the mane gives me a lot to play with in terms of texture. I sketched out so many lions until i got one that felt like it had a sporty aesthetic and from what i learnt earlier in the year with the orgy that a analogue drawing coloured in digitally can make it look more professional and finished. For a logo especially a sports one it's important to have strong bold sporty colours.
I was happy with the final outcome as it was a sporty naive looking lion with bold colours and nice playful textures. However, I'm not sure if it works well as a mascot as the texture may be hard to transfer onto a lot of different products. This is something that in the future i would like to team up with a graphic designer to help me out with making a mascot more versitile for products.
- t shirt LAU T SHIRT
this was a brief for the new student union t shirt at LAU. For this brief i wanted to design something with limited colour and a simple design. Doing something very immediate seemed like the best option. I did this very lazily but ended up enjoying the image. It was a product of me just testing out brushes on photoshop but it ended up creating a character with some charm. This design came as a happy accident and although contained little thought sometimes a quick idea can be the most effective choice. Especially when i feel like i am spending too much time thinking about the process of making the image i have in my head. It's fun to go in with no intentions and let the work create itself sometimes.
- Lau tote bag
For this one i just wanted to do a very simple design of loads of small things involved within the courses at LAU and put happy faces on them all. small faces is the easiest way to make your work look fun. This design does the job but it doesn't excite me as i don't feel like it's anything original however, it works well commercially.
- Nest submission
For nest i had an idea of a genderless person looking scared and knew that paint would of been perfect for this as recently I had been getting into paint more. Painting is a fun way to show immediacy as the brush strokes offer lots of texture in the colour. I was happy with the submission and glad that it made it within the magazine however, when i look back at my submission it works really well in the context of the magazine but if i had to critic it myself i personally think i can do better humour wise. The joke feels to "Shrigley" to me and this is something i want to avoid at all costs even if i do consider David Shrigley as an influencer I think it's important as a Humorous illustrator to keep my jokes and drawings as original as possible and this piece feels too similar to me even if i never intended it to be originally.
from doing live briefs this year it made me realise a very important thing and that is that i much prefer my own set briefs. A brief that is already set gives me to much limitations even if the brief isn't limited. Perhaps it's more that i feel less confident to approach a serious live brief in a completely silly and stupid way therefore i keep it commercial with less effort and fun as i would if set it myself.
Friday, 3 May 2019
Reflection 1
From starting the year again I have been looking for new ways to develop my image making. I have been experimenting through cop with cakes and this has really left me wanting to explore on making fun and naive work in different ways. The development of this is early as I feel like i need necessary briefs and ideas in order to achieve this.
One thing i wanted to develop from the start was how i developed my illustrations, i felt confident in my quick line drawings as they weren't seen as final images to me more like early ideas. However, the process from the original drawing to the finished product can always be challenging as i can't decide on the best process on taking the drawing further. A brief came a long that gave me the opportunity on to expand my practice. It was from a student initiated group called GROSS studios in which a couple of students in our class help organise an exhibition at Hyde Park book club. The theme was 'gross' so, obviously I had a lot of fun thinking of ideas for this project and naturally i settled on the idea of making a large orgy involving pretty much everything in order for it to be more humorous then erotic.
I wanted this large orgy to be more then just a line drawing I thought for a playful charm it would work well if it was all brightly coloured (again trying to further it from being serious and erotic). Therefore, i wanted to experiment different ways on colouring it.
I tried screen printing it first but realised that this didn't create the boldness i needed maybe it was within my registration or the colours chose but i decided that hand printing it didn't bring any charm to it if anything it just made the image more distorted. One thing that got really lost within hand printing it, was the textures on the characters. This is something i recently developed to helpt make the image look stronger then just from a line drawing.
I chose do this Digitally instead as I had more control with the textures and more freedom with the colours. I decided at this point that the piece would be more presentable large at the exhibition therefore, i needed to figure out a way to print it large scale. I came to the conclusion that fabric would work better than paper as I have always wanted to test printing on fabric plus it would give it a more tapestry feel which i think fits the aesthetic and theme of the image. from earlier experience with colouring i decided that printing it digitally on fabric would be a wiser move as my registration was bad with paper therefore, i had little confidence with screen printing large on fabric, a process i haven't yet tried.
Printing it digitally again gave me a more safer bet that the final outcome would be safe and with the deadline of the exhibition around the corner i needed this design secured.
I was really happy with the final outcome of the banner I think it represents a nice development within my illustration practice and shows the more complex details i'm putting into my immediate drawings. Giving the characters a wobbly and naive look making the sexual theme of the banner feel obviously like a joke. I think the colouring of this helped I used the colour schemes of doctor Seuss to help me decide this as i wanted it to have a similar FUN, bold and erratic style.
The banner got some good feedback from the exhibition and it was lots of fun showing it off.
I think the struggles involved within this project has helped me learn that the right process can achieve the right out come.
One thing i wanted to develop from the start was how i developed my illustrations, i felt confident in my quick line drawings as they weren't seen as final images to me more like early ideas. However, the process from the original drawing to the finished product can always be challenging as i can't decide on the best process on taking the drawing further. A brief came a long that gave me the opportunity on to expand my practice. It was from a student initiated group called GROSS studios in which a couple of students in our class help organise an exhibition at Hyde Park book club. The theme was 'gross' so, obviously I had a lot of fun thinking of ideas for this project and naturally i settled on the idea of making a large orgy involving pretty much everything in order for it to be more humorous then erotic.
I wanted this large orgy to be more then just a line drawing I thought for a playful charm it would work well if it was all brightly coloured (again trying to further it from being serious and erotic). Therefore, i wanted to experiment different ways on colouring it.
I tried screen printing it first but realised that this didn't create the boldness i needed maybe it was within my registration or the colours chose but i decided that hand printing it didn't bring any charm to it if anything it just made the image more distorted. One thing that got really lost within hand printing it, was the textures on the characters. This is something i recently developed to helpt make the image look stronger then just from a line drawing.
I chose do this Digitally instead as I had more control with the textures and more freedom with the colours. I decided at this point that the piece would be more presentable large at the exhibition therefore, i needed to figure out a way to print it large scale. I came to the conclusion that fabric would work better than paper as I have always wanted to test printing on fabric plus it would give it a more tapestry feel which i think fits the aesthetic and theme of the image. from earlier experience with colouring i decided that printing it digitally on fabric would be a wiser move as my registration was bad with paper therefore, i had little confidence with screen printing large on fabric, a process i haven't yet tried.
Printing it digitally again gave me a more safer bet that the final outcome would be safe and with the deadline of the exhibition around the corner i needed this design secured.
I was really happy with the final outcome of the banner I think it represents a nice development within my illustration practice and shows the more complex details i'm putting into my immediate drawings. Giving the characters a wobbly and naive look making the sexual theme of the banner feel obviously like a joke. I think the colouring of this helped I used the colour schemes of doctor Seuss to help me decide this as i wanted it to have a similar FUN, bold and erratic style.
The banner got some good feedback from the exhibition and it was lots of fun showing it off.
I think the struggles involved within this project has helped me learn that the right process can achieve the right out come.
Thursday, 2 May 2019
WHO AM I ?
for my presentation i wanted to highlight my humour within my practice and how i would like to develop my illustrations and image making to make fun creative work that everyone can laugh at and understand.
I talked about how my main focus is making people smile with my work and how i want to try new and creative ways to make people smile through image making.
For example i show my cake at the end which is a start in 3d image making which i hope to develop more.
I talk about how i am influenced on most things outside of illustration. Humour is obviously a big inspiration to my practice so i look for anything that makes me laugh to help me create work.
I have recently been getting into filling as many sketchbooks as possible in order to store ideas for later, i have alos been trying to develop these drawings digitally however I am still deciding on effectively doing this.
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