Manchester Print Fair 2013

For the past couple of weeks I've been preparing work to sell, along with fellow illustration/graphics students, at this event. The money raised from this will go towards the funds for our degree show outside of college.
I have contributed a few hand-made animals and hand-bound notebooks. I'm a little nervous about whether or not my things will sell amongst the very professional looking graphic prints people have been producing! But hopefully a little diversity isn't such a bad thing.
Only tomorrow can tell what will happen...

Wonderful Inspiration

Just as the thought of creating my own animation was becoming too daunting to bear, I found this wonderful animated adaptation of The Grimm Brothers' The Golden Bird by Cat Bruce:

[Click here to watch it on Vimeo!]
The scenery has been created quite crudely, but it nevertheless looks atmospheric and appropriate for the characters, mostly due to the lighting effect. She has used real bits of plantation: twigs and dead leaves; large pieces of fabric and buttons.

The sun has been represented by a circle of golden foil. The sunset is a simple sequence where fabric is pulled down behind the foreground to show the transfer from sunset to night sky.

The house in the opening scene is constructed with corrugated card, and cardboard is also used as silhoette detail in the foreground of the shot. Cardboard trees appear to be coloured with oil pastel. Although quite a simplistic representation of objects, the material is appropriate and comfortable alongside the made figure of the man.

Another aspect of this that I found particularly encouraging in relation to making my own animation is the way she has used a 2D representation of the man in a sequence where he is chasing after the golden bird. In this 'long shot' the puppet is used to achieve more realistic running motions. The background moves to the left to give the illusion of his speed.

I like the way she also uses frames focusing closer on the character intermittently during the chase, focusing on his struggle to keep up as we hear his voice. The sequence, and the way the rest of the animation's narrative appears, gives the impression of effective, 'filmic' editing.

Other impressive features include:

this fantastic fox...

the man's face!...

and this fire, complete with flickering flames and sparks (so clever I don't even want to think too hard about how it's been done)...

Further pampering and preening for Mr. Wolf...

Although my wolf character has looked to be in an acceptable state for a while (enough to build my book narrative plans around him), there always seems to be room for picky little adjustments.
Certain improvements have been entirely necessary though; in particular, the addition of his hands and feet (or paws-something of a werewolfy mix). I found I'd been putting off adding them because I wasn't quite sure how to go about making them. It was quite a fiddly process, and I was unhappy at the though of probably needing to use glue at this point, to fix wool to wire (I'm not sure why, I have a stubborn reluctance to go beyond tying and sewing to fix things together). But I'm glad to say I managed without, and it was just a case of wrapping wool around wire and tying it securely. In the end, building the shape of the hand around the 'skeleton' was easier than I thought with the wrapping method.

In-keeping with the idea of the wolf character being a dangerously charming predator, I made him a tiny fitted jacket to add to his 'suave' appearance. I have yet to add a few buttons here and there, but I'm satisfied I've got an almost complete figure to work with. Now he just needs a grandma night-gown, and to meet little Red Riding Hood!

Visiting Germany

Last week I went with my family to a peaceful little village in Germany called Dießen, just by the lake Ammersee. We were visiting my cousin's new baby for the first time! He was lovely.

Rather than otherwise seeing the trip as a holiday, I tried my best to make most of the time there useful for my work. It was a perfect location for 'sense of place' research (for the setting of Little Red Riding Hood), as my aunt's house is a short walk away from some woods. The bizarre weather we've been experiencing this month in England has been equally as strange abroad. The cold weather had lead to snowfall: and although the sunshine gradually melted what blanketed the garden when we first arrived, the woods remained a strange, unseasonal winter wonderland.

[The view from my auntie's window]

It was such a quiet day when I went wandering on my own. I didn't see any people, bar a few cars driving past as I crossed the main roads. I was even lucky enough to encounter three fawns as I made my way up towards the hill entering the woods. I only just managed to get my camera out in time to snap them as they dashed out in front of me.

[deer!]

Walking up the slope, I was stepping over sledge tracks, and I suddenly realised this was where we had been sledging as children years before, and the nostalgia spurred me on (as I struggled not to slip during the climb!) Once I got into the trees I sat down a while to enjoy the scenery (leading to grass-stained jeans), and got out the camera again. I'm the first to admit that my photography skills unfortunately don't do justice to what I could see that day, but the pictures will no doubt be helpful. I also gathered together some of the odd loose branches and twigs I could find on the ground, as I've decided I would like to use some natural found materials to help build up the scenes for some of my illustrations. In my mind it felt more special using twigs from these woods than any old trees back in Manchester (yet my bundle of German sticks remains at home in York with my parents, when I realised I couldn't manage them on top of the rest of my luggage on the train. Hopefully I will be reunited with them in time to put them to use still...)

I even spied 'grandma's cottage' across the way...

Returning home with completely numb fingers, I felt rejuvenated by this little excursion, and set back to work in the warmth of the indoors. 

On with my FMP!

Now that the Lord Whitney brief is out of the way, I can re-aquaint myself with my wolf! He has been abandoned untouched for too long, and it's time to bring him to life.

This week has been very positive; I feel freshly motivated again. On Monday I focused on the story and how the pictures in my book will look. I created a rough set of images-a very basic storyboard of how I think the narrative might progress, based on a loose idea of my version of the story.

Next, I will transfer these scribbly ideas into a 'mock-up' book, a hand-bound document very quickly put together to act as a guide for how my final product will turn out. As this will be very much a guide, I can afford to re-draw elements and cut and stick the text of the story into it temporarily, to allow editing as my ideas change; so although this may not initially be a reliable draft, it will be a very useful tool to keep me focused as I am in the process of producing the final illustrations.

Although there is a lot of work to do on the characters' environment (I will need to construct backgrounds as shown in my storyboard images: Little Red Riding Hood's house, the woods, grandma's cottage etc) my wolf is almost ready to go...

I miss drawing people!

Lately I haven't been spending much time drawing people and figures, which is one of my favourite things to do! During our talk from Lorraine she emphasized the importance of showing the figure, and characters in our portfolios. At the moment I feel that when people look at my work they are immediately drawn to the animal figures I've made. I would like to be more recognised for my drawings as well.

This has reminded me how happy I was with my work for the Little White Lies brief, when I spent hours drawing pictures of Natalie Portman in Black Swan. When I got complimented on the likeness of my drawings to her it really gave me a greater sense of achievement than I feel when people respond well to my made creatures.

Bearing this in mind, I would like to start focusing more on what may be the drawn elements of my major project. Background details and little red riding hood herself will be good starting points. It is the integration of the made and drawn elements that will be tricky. Although I have merged a 3D way of working with 2D cut-outs for projects before (e.g. Life Stories), it will be more of a challenge making the image look cohesive with a completely 3D made figure (my wolf). Because of the inevitable difficulties I will face when it comes to arranging all the elements together in an image, I am remaining open minded at this early stage about having to experiment with the representation of the characters and scenery.

With a greater amount of time to spare for evaluation and experimentation, I'm not so daunted by this task.

Final Major Project

After discussing this with my tutor, I made the decision to base the main efforts of this project producing a book: my own take on the classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood. In addition, I would like to take advantage of our current tutorials learning some animation techniques and create some animations to go with the book. I plan to make them using the same scenery and characters I will be using for the illustrations.

At the moment I am about to begin focusing on the scenery. 

But I began by creating my wolf. 

This is the first time I have constructed a 3D figure that allows some movement. Although it is quite limited, I think it would be suitable for the wolf if he were to carry himself like a human (a characteristic I have considered in order to allude to him representing a sexual predator towards Little Red Riding Hood). As I constructed the body, head, tail and limbs separately from each other, they can all move appropriately. Thanks to the wire which forms a 'skeleton' inside the body parts, I can bend and manipulate him to a certain degree. The challenge will be creating a human character to go with him, and scenery that he feels at home in!

[pictures to come soon]

Portrait for a friend

Here's what I was up to yesterday...
After seeing some drawings I had edited with a blue filter, my tutor suggested that I tried drawing in blue, so here's my first drawing with my fancy dark blue pencil and detail in black fine liner.

Lorraine Owen

This week we had a talk from The Organisation's managing director, Lorraine.
She offered us great, straight-forward advice about what she feels are the benefits of having an illustration agent like her.
She made clear points about what her job entailed:

• Providing a 'portal' for her illustrators, marketing their work to a huge range of clients.
• Making sure that illustrators' work is recognised for its value, so they get paid good prices by clients.
• Helping to develop illustrators' portfolios commercially.

She also mentioned that having an agent behind us might gain more clients simply because it reassures them of our credibility; an illustrator with an agent representing them is more likely to be reliable and professional.

Her other advice to us for getting work after we graduate was to always be proactive. Self marketing is important too! A positive and open mind-set towards work and potential clients will open us up to global opportunities for work; we mustn't forget that having a laptop gives us the potential to get work all over the world.
In regards to our portfolios, she had very specific recommendations for what a lot of clients at the moment are looking to see. This included:

• The more subject matter that can be seen, the better. What the client sees is what they commission.
• Drawings of people/the figure are vital.
• Popular content in editorials is related to finance, travel and maps, so try to express these visually.
• Character expressions.
• Around 20% of the work should be black and white, so that clients can see your use for newspapers and packaging.
• Make work look like it has already been applied to a commercial brief.

After our group talk Lorraine came to talk to us all individually about our portfolios. Although she admitted she wasn't used to work like mine, she was very enthusiastic about it and suggested there might be a commercial niche for my made animals in unusual places; I'm going to try and contact pet and animal magazines to ask if I could put in an advert about a service to make people's pets! We also talked about the importance of giving the figures a good setting, and some of my images need improving in that way.

I'm not sure joining an illustration agency would be particularly beneficial in gaining me work, but I've taken away other useful ideas from Lorraine's visit (especially the proactivity and self-marketing points) that might help to get the ball rolling for a career after graduating!

'Nonsense'

Today was the deadline for a brief set to us by Lord Whitney.
We were asked to explore the limericks of Edward Lear, and create an image in response to the rhyme we chose.

Try to work as quickly on this brief and not get too hung up on the researching and the illustrations already produced. In the world outside university briefs often have to be completed in a very short space of time.

We hope this brief will give you a chance to try something different, it's all about ideas and being as playful as you like. There is no set size or media as we want each outcome to be as creative and free as possible. 

I chose the following rhyme:
There was an Old Man who supposed,

That the street door was partially closed;

But some very large rats,

Ate his coats and his hats,

While that futile old gentleman dozed.

We were encouraged to work as quickly as possible, and when I spoke to Rebekah and Amy they advised me to keep the image simple and representative, which meant that my initial ideas changed (e.g. instead of drawing a full old man dozing in the corner, I might include just his legs and feet in view, a 'Tom & Jerry viewpoint').

Due to various inconvenient time restraints I've only managed to pull my image together at the last minute-so my picture now only includes the rat and pieces of fabric I've used to represent the old man's clothes and carpet. I would love to have more time to make the background more elaborate-I think being able to see some sort of Victorian decoration would have enhanced the setting a lot more. Luckily, I will have the chance to work for longer on this before it is used for another purpose.

Although the final image was a bit of a disappointment for me, I am very pleased with how my rat turned out. Every time I make a new animal I seem to be able to produce it faster, but getting it just how I like it does take considerable time and concentration.