Moving Image Collaboration

Recently I have been working with 3rd year moving image student Kirsty Newman. I was asked to produce illustrations that would be used in an animation that runs alongside a piece of audio.


This project is for the radio station Capital FM. I was given a rough storyboard to work from but was given creative freedom to offer up suggestions. The ending result is a short piece of animation where elements of the conversation are shown in a literal image form.


I really enjoyed working  on this project and am very impressed with the finished work. It has made me more enthusiastic to collaborate in the future. I have loads of ideas for animating some of my characters to create short walk sequences or short clips where the character would interact with an object. This is something I would really like to incorporate into my final major project.


Below is the finished animation... Enjoy...

Exhibition Space

For a change this year we are submitting our work as a mini exhibition on the 5th floor instead of just laying the work out on our desks for marking like we usually do. This is also to give us a taster of what it will be like putting up our final major project. 


Although the presentation of the work isn't being marked I still wanted to try something a bit different. I thought it would look funny if the work looked as if it was being held up by flying creatures.
I am yet to put the exhibition up but I will be submitting some photos as soon as I have done.

I want the work to seem more alive and give it movement and even a story. Why are these creatures carrying the work? Make people think a bit more and hopefully make it stand out more because it's different.


I would love to do something similar for the final major project. Could have containers screwed into the wall to put business cards into. I know that I want to illustrate children's book so I would want my exhibition to be appealing to children as well as adults. I love the idea of utilising all of the space, perhaps having a tree painted or stuck onto the wall the the work is stuck in or growing from?

Illustration Digital Future

I personally feel that technological advances can only help the future of illustrators who work in similar ways to myself. Digital illustrations have the potential to be developed into animations for websites or TV.


I think that artists who use more traditional methods will find it more difficult to develop their work into animations. I don't think it's impossible, just a little more difficult and could possibly make them feel more reluctant to do so. 
I think to become a successful illustrator in the world we are currently living in you have to be ready and willing to embrace digital ways of working. Being able to do more things with your work will also make you more appealing to potential clients because you are versatile. 


I see technology such as the I-pad having great potential for illustration, in particular children's book illustration. The I-pad could allow for interactive picture books where the children can interact with animated characters in the story and make the concept of learning to read much more exciting.
A children's book illustrator called Oliver Jeffers has already embraced this way of working and has produced a brilliant interactive story called 'Heart and the Bottle' that I find greatly inspiring.

Video

I have been collaborating with a moving image student recently to produce a short animation piece but it has made me want to learn how to animate myself. My hope is to learn basic skills in animation to prepare myself for more product advances like the I-pad.
The only challenge I think illustrators would face would be having to think how their illustrations would move. Usually as an illustrator your images exist statically on the page but in order to embrace animation you would need to take into consideration how they would move when designing anything new.
Below is another example of a picture book being adapted for the I-pad.


Video


I also think that advances in technology mean that we can become more creative and experimental with websites. Illustrators websites are becoming much more interactive for example Keri Smith's website gives you the chance to submit a drawing of what you see around you and you can add it to a gallery. 
This wouldn't have been possible several years ago and makes me excited about what might be possible in the future. 

Second Portfolio Visit: Stuart Price

On Thursday I had my 2nd portfolio visit with Stuart Price from Thoughtful.


His studio was based within the college in the main building where the student shop used to be. I was welcomed into the studio and thanked for turning up, I then thanked him for the opportunity. After the presentation on portfolios I had revisited the layout of my work and decided to make the first page my Craig Oldham poster because I feel it is one of my strongest pieces.


Stuart loved the poster. He was most impressed by the text in the speech bubble which surprised me because I felt that the dinosaur character was the strongest aspect of the poster. I was really happy with this feedback because this was my first serious attempt at creating my own text from scratch. 

Next he looked at my Nana knits cats work and my 8x8 work. They are situated together on a double page spread. Stuart suggested that I keep the two projects separate so that people don't get confused and that I should include more examples of each project, minimum two A3 pages on a double spread.

Next we moved onto my daily monster pages. He was massively impressed with them and said that they looked incredibly confident on the page. He suggested that I make the images slightly smaller so that they have more space on the page. He also said this about my first attempt at a wrapping paper pattern. 

Earlier in the day Ian had suggested I design a poster including all of my monsters (over 200) and then draw onto it, circling my favourites and crossing out the ones I don't like. Stuart also agreed this would make for an interesting idea.

Finally he looked at my work for the Uganda children's book project. I was very pleased when he described it as 'magical'. He suggested again that I make the images slightly smaller to allow them more space which Ian had also pointed out earlier in the day.

Ian had also pointed out that I should line the images with the text descriptions to make the pages look neater and more thought out.

Overall Stuart felt that my work was very confident and was at a professional stage which gave me a huge confidence boost. He also said that he would be more than happy for me to come for a follow up visit to see how my work was progressing. I still feel like I have much to learn before I consider myself to be a professional but it's nice to know that people appreciate my work despite it's student status. 

Portfolio Presentation: Thoughtful

Last week I got the chance to see a presentation by a graphic designer called Stuart Price who is a part of Thoughtful based in the main building of the college.

The presentation was greatly helpful. He discussed the more preferred ways to make initial contact with industry. He also gave us great examples of Dos and Don'ts when making first contact and during portfolio visits.

He showed us ways to express your personality in your portfolio without being too over the top. There were also short video clips of designers who were asked what advise they would give to new graduates trying to make their way into the design world. 

I think the most interesting part of the presentation was where he talked about the importance of the way you present yourself in a portfolio visit. The way you hold yourself, the way you dress and even the way you transport your portfolio can influence someone's opinion on your work as a whole. 

I think the transporting of your portfolio is important because you need to come across as if you care about your work. I have been carrying mine around in a large canvas bag so far. An idea occurred to me that I could print my own design onto a new canvas bag and this would be an added way to present my work and show that it can be used in many different ways.

After the presentation myself and a couple of my other classmates approached Stuart and asked if we could arrange a portfolio visit with him to get some feedback. He was more than happy to help us out and a visit was arranged for the following week.

Graphics Gurus: Rose Loyd

A while ago we had a mini event in college during which we were introduced to our Graphics Guru. I was put into a group with a past student called Rose Lloyd who produces digital illustrations using textures similar to myself. She also uses lots of strong shapes in her work which I really like. 
Below are a few examples of her work.

After the meet up we were encouraged to keep in contact with our Gurus and send them examples of our work. Below are some of the emails exchanged between myself and Rose.

Hi Rosie

It was nice to meet you this afternoon. This is the email account I use for illustration.

I don't know how this is going to work out but I hope I will be of help to you somewhere down the line.

I googled your name and found your blog, do you have a website?

I liked your characters and your penguins reminded me of Oliver Jeffers.

If you like his work and need to contact illustrators he is extremely nice. I met him at a book signing.

Thanks

Rose

Hi Rose,

Was lovely meeting you too :)

I've seen some of Oliver Jeffer's work around the studio but never knew who he was! Thank you very much! I really love his work :)

I'm looking forward to getting your opinion on my recent work because it's always interesting getting feedback from people other than the tutors.

I don't have a website (yet) but I do have a Facebook page for my illustration work which I update regularly.

 Link

Let me know if you can't get onto the Facebook page and I can send you some images via email instead if that ok?

Many Thanks,

Rosie

Hi Rosie

Sorry for the delay in replying.

Thanks for your link to your Facebook page. I can see that you obviously want to go into children's books and at the moment I think there is still quite a bit of work there.

I think your work is very good, I  love the characters and your bold colours. Do you think the people in 17 perhaps could be in various poses rather than all looking the same (it's only an idea so feel free to ignore it) 

You may know this but here is Oliver Jeffers email address oliver@oliverjeffers.com

Rose

When she mentions the "people in 17" she means the human characters featured in my work for the Uganda children's book. 

Hi Rose,

Thank you very much for the feedback. I agree with you 100%, and hated that many of the characters and background elements are repeated throughout the book. Unfortunately this was because of the limited time for the project. Gary said that if I was working on a real children's book it would be heavily art directed, but I'm not fully sure what he means by that.

Recently I've been finding it hard to focus on working (especially now during the holidays). I was just wondering how you stop yourself getting distracted? Does having the studio space help? And do you do work in small bursts or put aside whole days to work?

Many thanks,

Rosie

Hi Rosie

I have looked at your recent work on your Facebook link and it seems to me you are motivated and focused.

As for the way I work... once I get a brief in then I seem to go into another gear and just work until I am happy with the illustration.

I sometimes get so focused that I work till quite late and I have been known to get up in the middle of the night and come down to the computer if I can not sleep and ideas are flowing.

What I also notice is that I think an illustration is looking okay but after a good nights sleep I look at it and see something needs altering so if I have the time left on a job I sleep on it before sending it to the art director.

As for being directed by the art director I find with my most recent illustrations it is the editor that has asked for things to be slightly tweaked.

I do not know a lot about books but my friend who has done a book was given quite a lot of information on the layout of the book and quite a few people had to pass comment on each page so it became quite a lengthy process.

I loved your polar bears and they looked as though they had different personalities which is good.

This is only my personal opinion but the patten around your type takes your eye from the illustration and I prefer the typography to look as though its part of the illustration.

Again I must stress that you can just ignore my advise as everybody seems to have different ways of working.

Regards

Rose

Since then I haven't thought of any more questions to ask Rose. However I am very excited to start the FMP and get some feedback from her on my future ideas and character designs! 

BLAB MINI 3

Last week I got the opportunity to attend an event called BLAB MINI 3 with a few of my class mates. It's a monthly event where guest speakers talk for 20mins on their own interpretation of the same topic.

There was also a competition for the best Christmas jumper and a raffle in which I won a £50 Magma voucher!

The topic was "things I've seen" and the guest speakers were Kate Towey, Simon Griffin, Jeffery Bowman, Katie Moffat and Jake Smith.

The first speaker was Katie Moffat who chose to talk about the 9/11 memorial. She explained how the names had been put together based on who they knew or worked with rather than in alphabetical order. She showed us how a computer was used to organise all the names but also said that it would have been impossible for the computer to have that sympathetic human input that was needed for such a project. I found this aspect interesting because I like the idea of traditional human techniques being used alongside technology. 

Sadly I can't remember much about Simon Griffin's talk other than an amusing video with dubbed voices.

The third speaker was Kate Towey who expressed a strong hatred for brown bananas but went on to talk about how she had turned this into her own little project. I found the idea of taking something so random and making it into a personal project very interesting.

The fourth speaker was Jeffery Bowman who talked about his love for rural landscapes and how despite living in the city he is still able to find things that remind him of the things he loves best. He showed examples of this with photographs he had taken around town.

The final speaker was Jake Smith who talked about his love of music and film making. He showed a selection of short films and music videos the best of which was the music video that featured the work of an illustrator called Matthieu Bessudo. I really loved the quirky look to the characters, they reminded me of the little sack character in the game Little Big Planet.

Music Video

Website Research

I have been looking through lots of illustrators websites recently and I think that I am now at a stage where I can discuss which features I would and wouldn't like if I were to design my own website...


DO NOT WANT!
I wouldn't like people to be able to copy any of my images. I've seen lots of examples where the ability to "save as" has been disabled. I have no idea how this is achieved but I would love for my website to have this feature. I know that it's still possible for people to print screen the page but I think that the initial inability to save the image will discourage the majority of people.


I also don't want my website to be too confusing. Below is a link to the AOI website which I personally find very confusing.


http://www.theaoi.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=41

There is too much text and too many different pages. For this website in particular it's probably very important, but for my own I wouldn't want that much information. I want people to be able to find what they want quickly and easily. I don't want people becoming confused or bored by mountains of text. I also only want to include the work I am truly proud of just like in my portfolio.

DO WANT!
Here are some examples of website designs I love!
http://www.lemoneyed.com/contents.htm
http://www.kerismith.com/
http://blakesuarez.com/work/

Really simple and clean looking websites. Limited text and lots of room for images. I find it very easy to navigate around all three of these websites!
I really love the interactive aspect of Keri Smith's website. I hadn't looked at her website for a long time but the interactive feature stuck in my mind when thinking for this blog post. It might be too complicated for me to achieve at this stage but I would love for my own website to have some kind of interactive feature to keep it memorable in peoples minds. Perhaps a character that makes a sound when you click on it?


On other websites I have looked at I've noticed that when you click to see a larger version of an image it opens with a black background, making it look more like a page in a portfolio and removing the distracting elements of the website behind the image. I really like this feature!


I would also like to have a section of the website that links to my Twitter, blog and Facebook page so that people can follow my work easier.


Another thing I want to include is a logo. I'd like the logo to be featured on every page of the website and for it to link back to the homepage when clicked on.

FMP Thoughts And Ideas

Realised I was supposed to include this in my Hopes, Fears and Opportunities blog post...


Note to self: READ THE BRIEF 


As usual I have already decided what I want to do and feel reluctant to think of any other possibilities. I know that I would love to write and illustrate my own children's picture book. I have not however, decided on which story I want to move forward with...


I want this book to take the successful aspects of the Uganda Children's book project and move those onward but also to think about the unsuccessful aspects and make sure they don't happen again.
This book will be aimed at younger children aged around 3-5years. The story will need to be simplistic, have a happy ending and also convey and important message. 


I have considered going back to the My Nana Knits Cats story and re-writing it so that it ticks all the above requirements. I spent too much time explaining how the cats were created but have since realised that children just accept these factors when looking through a picture book. You don't need to explain why the animals can talk or how they understand each other.... They just do!

Another thought was to go even further back to a story I wrote in my foundation year about a lost chameleon called Moe. The story is strong enough to not need a re-write so would give me more time to focus on the illustrations. 


A final possibility was to write a new story idea from scratch. I've been thinking a lot about colour theory and the brilliant effects that can be achieved when used.
I came up with the idea of an Ugly Duckling inspired story about a pig that is born bright blue onto a farm where everything is a various dull shades of brown. The pig would be treated much the same way the ugly duckling is treated until she realises (thanks to her mothers unconditional love) that it doesn't matter what you look like. Soon after this the pig realises it's magic and that it can make objects and the other animals all the colours of the rainbow just by pressing her snout against them. Then all the animal realise that being different is ok, blah, blah and so on...
This story would require time to write before starting the illustrations so I would need to consider how much time I have to complete this project...

Creative Reviews

Realised that I never wrote about the last creative review so this will be a case of 2 birds 1 stone!

BOOKS

For the most recent creative review my book choice was Words About Pictures, The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books By Perry Nodelman. 

I've bled this book dry for my critical journal! It goes into great detail about various aspects of children's book illustration that you might not have considered before. Such as how the paper you print your images onto can create very different responses to the book overall.

It also compares the work of many different children's book illustrators from the old and traditional to the new and dynamic. 

I highly recommend giving this book a read if you are interested in children's book illustration!

Last time I talked about a book called Illustrating Children’s Books, Creating Pictures For Publication By Martin Salisbury. Another book that I have referred to for my critical journal. This book is more about giving you helpful hints rather than explaining the methods other illustrators have used. I still think it's greatly useful if you are interested in this subject. I've definitely picked up a trick to two from it.

FILMS

For the second creative review I chose to talk about a film called The Fox and The Child. The story itself is quite predictable but still a heart-warming tale. I actually recommended it because of the scenery throughout the film. The whole film is beautiful to look at and has the same effect on me that a documentary narrated by David Attenborough would. 

Really recommend giving this one a watch if you are inspired by nature like I am!

In the first creative review I talked about Studio Ghibli films. I tend to prefer the ones directed by  Hayao Miyazaki. I think that the best examples of his work are Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. They are both animated films but in my opinion are more suited for adults than children. I really love the all the attention to detail in these films, they are stunning to watch and really nice stories too! 

EXHIBITIONS

For the first creative review I was unable to talk about an exhibition because I hadn't been to any, Whoops... However this time I chose to talk about the Illustration and Writing symposium that I attended at Manchester Metropolitan University. It was a two day event with a wide selection of guest speakers. 

The most interesting speakers for me personally were Martin Salisbury and Katherina Manolessou who discussed the importance of a sense of place in a picture book. Although not all the guest speakers discussed topics that were directly of interest to me, I found the two days overall to be very interesting. I would recommend going to future events similar to this one.

ARTICLE 

Sadly for this most recent creative review I was unable to find an article that was relevant to me in time. However for the first review I discussed an article I found in Juxtapoz magazine on an illustrator called Jeremy Fish.

It was an interview where he was asked about his working method. He talks about finding the balance between needed to shut yourself away from the world to produce work and needed the influence of social interactions to produce work. I found this interesting because I myself struggle to produce work when there are social distractions around me, however I do find that my best work is born from my own life experiences.