"Being Human"

So Cheltenham Illustration Awards is having another competition, and its so incredibly open-ended I had to give it a go.

Unfortunately that meant accidentally creating a work based on what I'm not fond of, regarding the whole "Being Human" issue. It started off innocently enough:

Don't Know Why Sideways, Just Go With It.

 Just a casual broody woman I was planning to cover in tattoos, piercings, general body modifications to illustrate how being human isn't that simple anymore. We have identities now, and hipsters. Anyway, a bit of art-rage and logo research later I ended up with this:

An  orange, glasses- wearing, dyed, tattooed and stitched- up lady lounging on a pile of likes.

The irony is I really like her look. But anyways, this is my entry. Enjoy.

More Commission Magic

Some of my friends have seen my work throughout my degree and some have been asking for commissions for various things, birthdays and such. In this post I thought I'd show my process for the usual commission (= This particular piece was made for my flatmate Nadine to celebrate her completing her Masters Degree (=

The Original Sketch

First of all I sat down with my friend to sketch some ideas, check that she was happy with the expression and the general theme of the image. She also helped by being there so I could make sure I got the little details of her character right, like her silver necklace and leather jacket.

A Wild Photoshop Appeared!

After this I got to work editing on Photoshop making the lines darker, whiting the eyes and correcting any mistakes in the lines.

It's a bit of a jump I know..

After that it was simply a case of adding colours, little aspects of her character to make it more personal and adding the small details into the background to make it more my style. I also added highlights and shading to the hair. Finally I added shadows and a coloured gradient filter to give the image more depth.

Finished!

There's obviously more to designing the image and deciding elemts to add, colours and things, but this is the general process I go through (=

Commission Bits

After seeing my work on my Facebook page, some people asked me to draw a few things for them, mainly using the intricate details I used in my final gallery pieces (the noir comic work) so here is one of the pieces:

Black and White Koi Carp with detail

I drew the piece on paper rather than in Photoshop, and it took just over a day (=

Subscribe to ALL the links!

I only just realized I havn't provided all my other various pages with my work on.
Trying to get noticed in today's society, online is the best way to manage it, so here is a few of my various places scattered around the internet where you can see other things I've done (=

Facebook

Devianart

My First Blog

About.me

I'll add more if I begin to work on different sites but for the time being I hope these help (= I use this blog to explain more about my processes and to keep me on track with my own working speed, but these other sites provide an easier, possibly even faster way to browse through my various things.

The Snowflake Animation

The Snowflake Animation is a project that started back at the start of the year after the Christmas Holiday. It has always been on the back burner as other deadlines have been more prominent but it is finally finished and done! (=

I decided to keep it black and white, and a sketchy style, to emphasize the childishness of the video. The tutorial itself is based on me teaching people to make snowflake decorations from paper for the Christmas holiday. I think being able to see all the working lines and the lack of colour and a polished finish really keeps it more carefree and sketchy, which matches the theme of the animation.

Owl City: Also Finished!

 

Owl City- "Swimming in Miami"

I hadn't mentioned in this blog, but I have also been working on a lyric page from a song called "Swimming in Miami" by Owl City. It is partly to create a colourful piece to contrast to the noir images which will be going up into the gallery on the 16th May (2014) but also this piece allowed me to play around more, with a more cartoony character and more fun in the images.

I did deliberate adding more detail to the hair and skin, but in the end, I thought it looked better without it, more cartoony and childish which suited the theme of the piece and the little girl's character (=

Noir Comics... FINISHED!

 

 

 

The noir comics finally got finished after sketching them in A4 and then inking them in A2 before using Photoshop to condense them into A3 pieces and alter them to make the white whiter and the black darker and such.

 

I'm pretty happy with the result, and my class seemed to like the tiny details involved in some of the illustrations. There are still elements that I would have liked to change but, overall I'm happy with the work and I think the long process of enlarging and condensing the work was worth it in the end.