Portfolio Pieces - Day One

I would like to have a few new promotional pieces in time for my degree show - to update the site a bit and to use on press releases and pitches and presentations and the like. Every day I hope to post a new one here on the blog, with the best also going on the website.

Day One : A bee and a thistle in my distinctive style.



If you like my work and are interested in working with me on a project, please email me.

The Beginning of the End

And here we are - our exhibition is early next month, after that I will no longer be a student. Perhaps I can call myself an illustrator.

Many things have happened - there will be a huge update and revamp of the site in time for the exhibition, along with lots of promotional work to try and get myself into the industry truly.

There is lots to do in between now and the 4th of June, when the exhibition starts (like printing the exhibition pieces!), an essay, a big presentation and fund-raising. But, the thing I want to concentrate on is creating some fun little promotional pieces to print as postcards etc to hand out to publishers and editors.

So - I've decided to give myself a bit of a challenge! A picture a day which can be used for promoting myself. It has to either be a new picture, or a revamp of an Arcana frame or page fully coloured that can be used as such. Tomorrow will be the first day - today I'm going to try and update this site a bit and get things ready and settled.

New Fairy Tales

Just finished a series of illustrations for the New Fairy Tales magazine. I am really pleased with these - they were a lot of work in a short time, but I feel they are my best pieces yet. A direct link to these illustrations can be found here.

In addition, for my main project at university I will be creating a new short comic. I will post that here, too.

Finally, I am working on some Christmas card designs for the Spon End Building Preservation Trust on a medieval theme, which should be fun!

Medieval Textures and a Course Rep

Things have been very busy with me of late - having two big modules before Christmas is scary enough, plus the PDP work and my extra module on International Business Cultures - things are a little hectic. On top of that, I am now, along with my close friend Justine Rugg-Easey, one of the Course Representatives for Illustration at Coventry University. Our first meeting was this afternoon, and it was an interesting introduction into our duties. I hope I have the time to dedicate to it, really.

For one of my modules, as you may have read if you read this blog regularly, I am working on a city in Autodesk 3DS Max. We could choose whatever type of city we want - sky is the limit, but I felt that Coventry had some of the best examples of Medieval/16th Century architecture that I could use as references, or textures directly into my buildings on Autodesk. All of the photographs I have taken around the city can be found here, if you are interested. With luck I will have some interesting city ideas and sketches to post here very shortly.

For my other illustration module I have been working on character designs, although mostly on a small book full of collage work on a circus theme, to which I will add illustrations to match the collage. This book is coming along very well, and I hope to scan some pages this weekend to display here - I like the mix of textures, rough collage and photographs with my neater, inked illustrations.

Autodesk 3DS Max

One of our modules at university this year is on 3D Animation and Design, using the Autodesk 3DS Max software. At first I was terrified of it - a completely new experience with completely new software, but over the last few weeks I've found myself soaking up more and more of the lectures, tools and commands that 3Ds Max offers, and it's slowly slipping into place. I have ordered a tutorial book, and am writing up my notes as I go along to keep it fresh - I must admit, I've never found 3D as interesting as 2D design and animation, but I am definately warming to it now.

The best parts of the software for me so far gave been using the extrude tool, while grouping up the shapes and creating more complex shapes - before lighting them and setting up cameras to view it from different angles. I'm so used to almost instant results when I draw or paint, that the wait is strange, but worth it once something is finished.

I have been thinking about my USP, my "Unique Selling Point" in my PDP recently - It's hard to say, really. Learning so much at university has made me think and rethink what I do, as well as the fact that I really enjoy writing in my current job and believe I have the skills to take that further. When it comes to Illustration, though, I think my main selling points that make me unique and interesting to potential clients is definately my imagination and ability to sketch out designs and ideas fluidly and quickly, as well as expand on these in a variety of medias - not only using pens, ink, pencils, paints and washes, but also in photoshop or flash - even directly with a graphics tablet.
Character design is definately my favourite, and I love exploring other cultures, costumes and designs people wear, as well as thier unique surroundings. 3DS Max can help me with this - mainly just for the surroundings of characters and mapping out areas, homes, cities and the like, and visualising things both small scale and massive. I know I'd like to work in the gaming industry - but ideally for conceptual work, illustration, background painting, character design, weapon design, costume design etc, so bringing my ideas from pencil or pen sketch to exciting 3D models and environments.

Nest week I must remember to create some textures and flat images for use in my current ideas (either from my own photos or sketches), to import them into 3DS and see how they can be used successfully.

University Second Year

I began my second year at university on Monday - this year we begin with the use of Autodesk 3DS Max to design and build a scene from our imaginations, using inspiration from either historical, mythological or modern cities. We can build the cities with traditional shapes, or using more imaginative blocks, such as sweets or household items. I'm a little daunted at learning a brand new software - as I enjoy using 2D work using traditional media, or with Photoshop, but I can use this previous experience to create interesting textures and scenes in the city. Other lectures this term include further illustration practice and an extra module on International Business Cultures and how to best communicate ideas when dealing with other cultures and peoples (although I did get an automated email this morning telling me the course was full - a full month after enrolling online and being told I was registered to the course). In addition to this we have PDP - and so I'm back again blogging about the details of my course and my progress.

This year has gone off to a shaky start, last year my Personal Development Planning was not marked as the sheets with the links to my site and work were lost, and marked as absent. Luckily I had my slips signed by staff to say I had handed it in on time, and it was marked late in the summer, which allowed me to continue into this year. As a result of this, I also lost my scholarship, something I was relying upon to ensure I would not have to work too many hours to pay the bills and could therefore spend much more time on my studies. Fingers crossed I can have this decision overturned, but as you can imagine, what with the first I heard of my failure being on results day and being told I couldn't go back to university without resitting, when I knew I had done all the work (why - it's all here!) was distressing, and has impacted my view of the university somewhat.

In between working as a writer for a fantastic web-content company in the summer, I have also drawn a little for pleasure. I will upload some of my summer works to the site as soon as I can, and the conceptual drawings and ideas for my 3D City for this Animation and Time based Illustration module.

Proverb Illustration

Uploaded my final piece for one of my modules at university, an illustrated proverb, "There are 40 types of lunacy but only one type of common sense".
I was really pleased how it came out - I used a mixture of styles and techniques - each one representing a feel of lunacy, or of common sense.
For the figure I used several clothing references from a popular sensible clothes catalogue, then created the sweet cartoon character with the blonde curly hair out of my imagination. I used bright and "wooly" looking colours, to convey a feeling of wrapping up warm and sensibly. I also used a classical umbrella, shielding her from the background and the lunacy. As you can see around the umbrella is the lunacy themed area, and inside it is calmer and blue.
For the lunacy area, I used reds and blacks, and drew out the big red moon in Photoshop. I also took photographs of myself making a sinister hand, covered in red paint, and scanned in papers I had created with splats and smears of red "blood". This added the rough, horror-filled feeling to the background.
The text was created using a normal font on a seperate layer, and then creating another layer over the top and drawing over it, using the font as a guide to keeping the letters even and straight, but freehanding a completely different feel to the letters, with the dripping, smeary effect. Then I deleted the reference font, leaving my own hand-written font.

The only critique for this piece, which I noticed much too late, was her hat being in front of the umbrella, instead of inside, and perhaps I could've drawn some "lunacy" images to hover menacingly around the figure in the lunacy area.

More Illustrations

Added three new illustrations to the site, these are mostly my personal works in my free time. I like to spend my spare time practising exploring my figures and creating characters and ideas. I hope I will keep progressing and learning new styles that I can exhibit in my portfolio and be seen as an illustrator, designer and artist that has a broad and exciting range with bags of imagination!

Every Thursday I attend a life-drawing class, and I will post some of my favourite figures on the site in the life drawing section, and use the rest as references to create more fuller works. I hope that by attending these classes, and expanding on the drawings I can greatly improve my knowledge of different anatomys, lighting and drawing at various speeds.