via the-dumb-waiter.deviantart.com
Havent done anything in a while so I thought I’d get back on the case. Thought I’d start with this weeks Illustration Friday [link] word “winter”
Thought I’d play around with the grid tool in Illustrator for the most part
Just Illustrator (no editting in Photoshop as I normally do)
via the-dumb-waiter.deviantart.com
As a rule I’m not a particularly festive person at the best of times and I’m even less so this time of year, but I thought I’d make some sort of effort this year. Intended for family so no punning…which is my excuse for being lazy really (I culdnt think of anything other than Sherry Mincemas (or Christmince)
I think it was all the cloves I put in my coffee…
Illustrator and photoshop
I recently took part in an exhibition at the Courtyard Theatre in Hereford. The theme was pretty broad, but the main point was that the image must be no larger than a £20 note. There was also a prize of a framed £20 note!
I decided to draw some robots on an old Isaac Asimov book and titled it “Didn’t Asimov predict something like this?” It was a little tongue in cheek poke at sci-fi and visions of bleak and distopian future. Tthe robot is friendly, waving and saying “Hi” but everyone knows that eventually all (sentient) robots eventually turn on their masters with the ultimate goal of enslaving the human race.
Was quite a fun little project and, even though nothing really came of it, it was nice to see my work displayed in a setting other than the internet.
Materials: Asimov paperback (very yellow), alcohol marker and fineliner.
“LEGO® Architecture inspires future architects, engineers and designers as well as architecture fans around the world using the LEGO brick as a medium for reproducing esteemed structures”
Is it sad that I really want this? Classic urban architecture rebuilt in LEGO! Who could resist. Though at $39.99 (http://shop.lego.com/product/?p=21007&LangId=2057&ShipTo=US) for something that is only 138mm I’m not sure…I am tempted though. Very, very tempted.
Im sure if I got bored with I could get one of these…
I must admit I was a little stuck with this cover. It seemed to be going very well at first, but I think I got caught in some sort of loop recreating the same ideas. The initial image was definitely missing something. There was no sense of drama or foreboding as there was with the cover for Lamb to the Slaughter:
See and download the full gallery on posterous
There was just continuity and, while they worked together as a pair of images, The Landlady cover suffered. This stumped me. Do I leave them as is with one strong image and one image that was rather lifeless for the sake of continuity or redo the one and lose the continuity. I needed a fresh pair of eyes. Queue illustrator Toby Morison (http://www.coningsbygallery.com/images.asp?id=220 for some of his scenes of India.)
Last Thursday (25/11/2010) we were given a lecture from illustrator Toby Morison, which was most interesting. He explained his working processes, the pros of working for an agency, what he did after graduating and what he does when he’s not doing commercial work i.e. personal work. All accompanied with a presentation of his work. He also talked of his childrens book and the problems he faced with editors/publishers, namely not being allowed to have one of the characters as an “old soak.” (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Louis-Takes-Toby-Morison/dp/1416904352)
I made copious notes:
After the lecture we were given individual tutorials with him to run through this Illustrations Applications project. This gave me a chance to explain my problems with the cover design. He said pretty much what I was thinking : that it was flat and didnt convey the foreboding it should. He suggested something very simple. Just take out the landlady and have her props specifically the cup of tea. Also play around with more obvious symbolism for poisoning as not many people would get the Emerald Green reference to arsenic poisoning, but everyone knows the skull and crossbones as the symbol for poison (or at least they should!). This also achieved the other goal of continuity and much more successfully than the previous design, as both images would have an inanimate object (the gravy boat for Lamb to the Slaughter and the teacup for The Landlady) as the main focus. Here are the new sketches with some of the existing sketches annotated during the tutorial:
