EP: Form Investigation

Having been ill over the past few weeks I created this small narrative piece to keep me going;



Whilst I felt there was a breakthrough with the Red character's hair concerning shading etc, I felt that there was a necessity to investigate body and form more. With this in mind over the next few days I again spent some time looking at crossfit enthusiast Christmas Abbott whose body type reflects that of Red.


Following this I pushed the investigation further by looking at line weighting and how that affects the imagery I'm producing. I also approached my process somewhat differently this time, as usually to draw a body I begin by drawing the loose outlines, however I began starting with stick figures first. From this I build the shape on top before refining with more definition in a final layer. I find that this process drastically improves my character work and is something I'm going to take forward from this point on.






Additionally, I applied a few techniques used by comic book illustrator Rachael Slott, giving attention to Red's hair and taking more care with my line quality.

EP: Rachael Slott

Recently I discovered the work of Rachael Stott a comic illustrator who works for Titan, creating comics for their 'Twelfth Doctor Year Two' series.
Examples of her work can be found on this Pinterest Board.The only negative I would say about Slott's work is that she tends to over-elongate fingers, which can sometimes be distracting.Her line work is fantastic! She has a great understanding of character features and weighting of lines. Furthermore her detail to hair is amazing. Additionally, I love how her line work is so smooth. I have been working with a 'scruffy' live quality recently, but perhaps a transition to smooth line work could be of benefit. I have previously toyed around with a Kyle Webster brush pen tool in Photoshop that I believe will create the effect I desire.

EP: Fix Up, Look Sharp!

Despite having additional ideas for Tory Chums strips such as the recent Star Wars related strip, I find that PMQ's are more often than not providing me with a strip subject. For example this week, David Cameron commentated on Jeremy Corbyn's appearance during PMQ's, rather than reporting the topics discussed, the media spoke about this comment at length. With this in mind I made this response:

Whilst I feel that I'm becoming more confident with my line work and my new inking nibs, I feel that the colour in the piece doesn't work very well. This is an area I intend to investigate further. Additionally, I feel that the investigation into body and form that I have been undertaking in Studio Brief 5 has been influencing my work here in that I am becoming more relaxed with drawing people in varying poses.

EP: Deadpool - Tumblr Mania!

My Deadpool poster on Tumblr has exploded with reblogs and likes. At 173 notes it is by far my most popular post. Although I feel that Fan Art is at times somewhat self indulgent and empty of purpose real, I have to admit that it is a fantastic way to get people's attention.

EP: Deadpool

On Monday my girlfriend and I went to watch the Deadpool movie. I don't know much about the character apart from the fact that he's a comic book character somehow tediously tied to the X-Men franchise. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and it's forth-wall breaking lead character.

I immediately knew I wanted to make a poster in response to it. I didn't want to stick to the overtly digital method that I used for my X-Files piece however, so went about inking the piece using dip pens. This resulted in a slightly less refined line quality that somehow worked. During this process I took cues from Charlie Adlard's method of drawing gun fire that really stands out.

Finally, I chose to apply the method of colouring and shading I used for the Mad Max poster to this work also. I did this as I felt the method used for the X-Files poster just seemed too clean.

EP: X-Files

With the new X-Files series about to air I decided that now would be a great time to make a piece of work for it. Since I began using Tumblr to promote my work I've noticed that there seems to be a fascination on the social network with Gillian Anderson's Dana Scully character, as evidenced below.

 
 



With this in mind I decided to create my own Scully illustration that will jump on the X-Files bandwagon hype and get my work out there.

I attempted to show a difference in line weighting within the piece but feel that I didn't take it far enough. An understanding of line weighting is key to the line work of good illustration, and whilst I don't feel mine is anywhere near perfect, the realisation within this piece is the beginning of a greater understanding.

Additionally, the digital colouring within this piece is perhaps too clean. I need to look into different ways to colour, perhaps by using different digital brushes?

EP: Progress Surgery 12/02/16

In today's small group crit with Fred, we were told bring along the work we had thus far produced for OUIL603. I'm quite happy with the quantity of work I have so far, with the pieces from Thought Bubble showing some evolution of visual quality within.

We discussed how I can take my work forward using what I'd learnt from Thought Bubble. I told the group that my goal is to push forward with my La La Land comic that I had at Thought Bubble, however Fred pointed out the danger of trying to create such a comic in such a short period of time. Even though the is three months until the hand in, a lot of the time will be taken up by other 603 briefs and PPP. With this in mind, Fred suggested I change my outcome for the La La Land project and instead base it around character design, having shown some investigation into it already.

Finally, I discussed how well my Tory Chums zine had sold recently and everyone agreed that with CoP now over, it would make sense to continue on with my Tory Chums pieces in some form in 603.

All in all, I'm feeling quite positive at the moment but feel that the idea of character design for my final brief is a bit underwhelming. Hopefully, I'll be able to spice it up some how.

EP: Red - Character Development

I feel that my character development was one of the weaker aspects of my recent CoP3 module. To prevent this from being the case again, I've spent the last few days focusing on the character of Red and repetitively drawing her different poses/facial expressions.



I've found that whilst I have a good idea of Red's basic appearance now, her hair is an aspect that is causing me trouble. It isn't visually appealing in the way I would like and a further investigation into this area is necessary.

EP: Fury Road Poster

Last Friday I watch Mad Max: Fury Road and thoroughly enjoyed it! I fully understand why it has garnered such critical and commercial acclaim! The film was none stop action and story from start to finish and felt an overwhelming urge to create a poster in response to it.

After a short time searching the internet I found suitable images of Max, Furiosa and the convoy of vehicles prevalent in the film. I played around with the size of the images until I felt that worked well.  After this I proceeded to outline the image choosing to use a scruffy style of drawing to reflect the voice of the film. I removed the convoy of vehicles from the image as it made the piece overcrowded, with them being too obscured anyway.

I've been quite inspired by the work of Dilraj Mann and Laura Halliwell from Nobrow 8 so adopted the idea of using a limited colour palette for the poster. I settled on two colours, black and a deep yellow, as I felt this piece would work great as a screen print and should I choose to do so, a two colour screen print would be much easier for my inexperienced hands to create.

After colouring the piece however, I felt that something was still missing. However I thought back to the work of comic book illustrators Jock and Sean Gordon Murphy and their use of half tone. The halftone really adds an additional visual quality to his work and I felt the same could be said for my Mad Max piece. Finally Adam pointed out to me that there was an excessive amount of empty space at the top so I chose to include the title of the film as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/07/kapow-creators-shaking-up-comics-saga-bitch-planet-wicked-and-the-divine

EP: Sean Gordon Murphy

Recently I've been reading American Vampire a comic series written by Scott Snyder, with several issues illustrated by Sean Gordon Murphy. I'm a fan of Murphy's work regardless, but in these issues I noticed that he used halftone as a way to represent tweet like fabrics which I think gives a really cool and innovative visual quality. Evidence can be seen below;

EP: Fiona Staples

A few months ago Joe Shiels introduced me to Saga, a comic series illustrated by Fiona Staples. I immediately fell in love with her work and recently bought the latest volume.

Here are examples of Staples work;



Her character design and line work is beautiful, but what really stands out to me is her colouring and her backgrounds. Together these aspects of her work, digitally painted, make her work so unique and charismatic! I find her work truly inspiring.

EP: Nobrow 8 Dilraj Mann and Laura Halliwell

Whilst in the library today I was looking through Nobrow 8, a collected book of artwork by different illustrators. The work by Dilraj Mann and Laura Halliwell specifically stood out to me. The line work and colour create a fantastic visual quality in my opinion. I like the idea of using a limited colour palette in my work, having done so in my StarLord poster for Studio Brief 1 and may use it in a future piece, should the brief warrant it.