More inspiration

Some more examples of things that I love for various reasons...

Really want to make 3D versions of my monsters!

Stunning textures

"Swarms"

Inverted lines and paint washes :)

What I have learned

At the end of this project we were asked to think about what we have learned and what motivates us...


I think my motivation is the fear of failing and also pressure. I tend to leave all the final work til the very last minute. So far this has worked out well for me but I don't enjoy the stress.
I need to plan my time better and think about what exactly needs to be done. Also need to try to not get so stressed all the time and panic about all the "what ifs".

Here are my 4 final double page spreads. I haven't used the versions with the text because I felt that the images look better without.

This is my least favourite of the 4 pages. It was also the first one I finished. I think the lac of background texture is what spoils it. I could have spent more time making different textures and trying them out.

I really love this one mainly because of the bubbles at the top of the page. This was by accident but I think it's worked out really well. This page could have been better with more elements such as different types of sock fish, sea weed or a sandy floor?

I really like this one because I think the colours fit in with the season being summer. I also like the way the texture blends out at the top and bottom. I think it could have been improved by having more clothing on the line maybe? Also maybe some indication of the ground?

This is my favourite of all the 4 pages. I think the texture works really well and all the colours blend in well despite being different. I've used the same idea from the underwater bubbly texture in this image. I think this one could be improved by the children on the left side having more movement like they do on the right? Give them more life and character maybe...

In my feedback from the class it said that the planning in the rough book was good and also the combination of hand drawn and digital. My "kick up the arse" was to experiment with more textures and also to experiment more with handmade typography. I wanted to have more textures anyway, but was lazy. Hadn't even considered handmade typography. Deffinatly something to consider in future projects.

More Knitted Cats

Scanned in lots of different woollen textures this week. Been playing around with different ones on different textures. I think the lighter textures work better than the darker ones...

Knitted Cats

Began work on the cats for my children's book recently. My initial idea was for the illustrations to have strong, clean lines done on illustrator and then be filled with scanned textures.

The first lot of finished cats looked like this. Clean lines and softer texture. After speaking with Ian we decided that these cats didn't have the same "life" to them. The first doodles and sketches had much more life to them so I tried to find a way to combine both clean lines and sketchy lines.

After playing around with layers and the different lines the cats started to look more like this. I'm really happy with this style and there are lots more things I want to try.

Watercolour textures

Been making some new watercolour textures to use in future work.

Here is an example of one of the textures in use :)

My Nana Knits Cats: Sketches

Started sketching out some ideas last week of what I would like my characters to look like. I wanted the cats to be simple because I would be drawing a lot of them, but also cute and have cat-like poses. I watched a few episodes of Simon's Cat on youtube and that gave me a good idea of how a cartoon cat would move.
Here are a few sketches of how the cat design developed...

Below is the first storyboard for the story...

And this is a sketch of how I imagin the human characters to look...

Really happy with how the characters are looking so far. Next stage is to gather the textures I will need when it comes to colouring the characters. Also need help with illustrator!

Simon's Cat

A series of very simple animations about a man called Simon and his pet cat. I really the way the cats design is so simple and yet it is still able to have all the classic characteristics of a real cat. Really love them!
To reduce production time for my Macmillen story book I would want my cat designs to be similar to this.