Baby In Space~

3 proposed baby's in space, but I'm working on another version with more emphasis on the image rather than the cover. I'll also post a step by step on how I created the illustration.

Baby Progress

Cleaned up the sketch, decided I like the sketchy/inky feel.

Flat and base colours.

Shade. Purple swatch on a separate layer above, 60% opacity and multiply.

Slight gradient.

Texture.

And half tone brush. The outline will make more sense when the whole image is placed together.

Sex In Space

(Layout pending...)

Is a misleading tittle. The article is actually about the affects of pregnancy in space and whether or not its viable/how much damage can and will be done to a fetus and the mother. So my idea is an astronaut baby and I'm going to slightly tweak the tittle so they'll be no confusion as to why I've drawn a child.

Astronaut baby sketch. More to come.

Insulin

Five variations for one of my New Scientist articles : Diabetics: is it time to bin the insulin?

Gill Sans type. Cave painting feel to con-inside with this quote from the article: "A PIONEERING hormone treatment may be the secret to an easy life for diabetics, consigning insulin shots and regular glucose monitoring to the medical history books."

Making the bottle of and syringe stand out more and more defined characters in the background. Futura Typeface.

Cleaner and more medical feel. This one is my favourite and probably the one I'll go with.

This time, more focus on the bin character empathising the point of the article.

Tried a darker blue and pulled the repeated pattern from the 3rd cover through into this one. I think it's looks a bit cluttered though. Unintentionally facebook esque.

New Scientist Template

Made a quick template for New Scientist, my chosen journal for one of my briefs. I will be illustrating 5 - 10 articles for the covers with this as the base template. (Colours will change depending on the type of illustration exct.)

7 Articles To Illustrate So Far:

• Green Machine: solar street lamp feeds energy to the grid.
• Diabetics; Is it time to bin the insulin?
• Sex and space travel Don't mix.
• Coral 'whisperers' diagnose reef pollution woes.
• Child cremation gives glimpse of first North Americans
• Toddlers know counting rules at 18 months
• Frankenstein syndrome: Why do we fear making humans?

(Some of the articles require a log into read. I'll post short summary's with each of the covers.)

The Filth ... and then some.

... Some brilliant comic book covers, and 2 not so brilliant.

The Filth (2002) was Grant Morrison's second major creator-owned series for Vertigo after The Invisibles. Initially starting as a Nick Fury proposal for Marvel Comics, Morrison adapted it as a 13 part series for Vertigo. The title refers both to the police and to pornography. Morrison has said that the series is his favorite among his works.

The series was highly praised for its unique cover designs by Carlos Segura over at Segura INC. The covers were initially planned to be traditional 'comic book' covers with art by Chris Weston. However, many found the series sometimes confusing due to its storytelling techniques. These kinds of covers are what drew me towards Graphic Design in the first place (Not that I should have been reading this series, I was 12. BUT, the covers stuck with me and I picked it up a few years ago.)

To me, these covers are everything I believe graphic design should be. Clean, legible and with that fine twist of illustration that doesn't make it, to me, boring. (Or over bearing)

It's a discussion that keeps cropping up again and again; are comic books a form of art? Of course they're not, they're a form of entertainment much in the same way of music. Yet these kind of covers fall under the radar and more 'traditional' covers are pushed to the front and the designer in me cringes every time I see something like this:

Adventures of Superman #600 (2002)

Or this:

They're not appealing, nor are they something I feel good about buying into. The superman comic, my eyes don't know where to settle (and the illustration is unappealing at best.) The X-men cover is supposed to be reminiscent of church windows playing on the tittle of "second coming." But it feels cliched and forced. Not to mention the photoshoped bevel and embossed "gothic" type.

Animated Shorts; Superman Classic

I watch a lot of animated shorts, mostly because I can pay more attention to them rather than full feature films. Sometimes, however, I wish shorts where longer like this one:



As well as the minute long animation, there is also a small section on how Pratt went about designing the characters and story boarding.

Robb Pratt started at Feature Animation in 1994 as a traditional animator. After animating on Disney classics such as “Pocahontas”, “Fantasia 2000”, “Hercules” and “Tarzan”, Robb eventually joined Disney TV Animation as a storyboard artist where he has boarded such shows as “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” and “Kim Possible”. After directing the Disney Channel hit series “The Replacements”, Robb has joined DisneyToon Studios as a storyboard artist and is currently working on the upcoming feature “PLANES”.

The New Scientist~

I've been looking into New Scientist covers the last few days as to familiarise myself with them for one of my briefs. I'll be illustrating 5-10 articles found on the New Scientist website and putting them into a front cover context.

What I like about the New Scientist is it's interesting and thought provoking articles as well as their ever changing illustrators/image makers for their front covers.

The Boy : Concept

Some quick rough ideas of what the Boy will look like and what shape he will take.

I kept the flick in his hair, and tried drawing him both younger and slightly older. Started to play around with the idea of incorporating wolf features with need to be worked on a little more. I'm quite content with this being the style of the story book and incorporating it through to the other characters.

First body sketch was a little bit too tall but I liked the elongated shape. I think started to play with poses and gestures (as well as clothing but that's subject to change. I'm going to work on a few more body shapes for him, as well as working with these wolf like qualities without making him anthropomorphic.

Emma Vieceli

Billy Kaplan from Marvel’s Young Avengers.

Emma Vieceli is a professional illustrator, writer and comic artist based in Cambridge in the UK. Past clients include: SelfMadeHero, Marvel, Image, Random House, Toykopop and FuturePublishing.

"Part of what makes me love my job so much is how varied it can be, and I tend to switch between working as an artist-for-hire and writing my own stories depending on the job at hand."

'the Littlest Princess' published in a French magazine, Princess Miya

A selection of background character designs from the upcoming Thrill Electric, produced by Hatrick and channel4, written by Leah Moore and John Reppion.

Bloody Mary, written by Fabrice Sapolsky, published in French magazine, Bella Nolita.

A preview from Vieceli's upcoming Oni Book Avalon Chronicles #1, written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir. I was so excited to find out she was working with one of my favourite writing teams who also created one my favourite X-men; Anole.

Robbie Bautista

"I'm Robbie, a 23-year old freelance illustrator and graphic designer armed with self-deprecating humor and optimism against the shiz of living in the third world."

I've been following Robbie's work for a couple of years now, starting out on DevinatArt before following him over at his blog Creative Dork.

"The goal I have set for this blog is to spread awareness about Filipino creativity, not only in the visual and performing arts, but every means of self-expression and supporting the creative industry. Wherein being creative does not only mean having a knack for painting, photography, or film-making but merely the fact of being able to create something significant and new."

What I most enjoy about Robbie's work is the story book and childish feel without it feeling cliche. His use of limited lines in his work but a feel for colour has influenced my own work and my own experimentation.

Style Choice

I decided to go with a mix of these 3 styles. The first and last ones are actually quite similar, despite the difference in the eyes. The 2nd one is purely on aesthetics because I like the feel of the piece looking like bits of paper.

I'm going to experiment a bit more with them until I've finally decided on a way in which I can illustrate all of the characters in that manner.

The Boy

Style 1:

Better than the original doodle but looking very Klarion like. I like the idea of having his hair morph over the story to become more wolf like. I'm thinking of incorporating this into the design and having more wolf like aspects (Without becoming anthropomorphic).

Style 2:

I don't like this one as much as I did when I first sketched it up this afternoon. I think it's perhaps because of the hair style I changed. Oh well.

Style 3:

A style I've dubbed "potato" people. This is one of the easier styles, I don't have to think about lines or composition. But that's also one of it's downfalls.

Style 4

I quite like how this one has turned out, the hair has improved and the expression is priceless. Not sure if this would be taken seriously though.

Style 5

Even more of a Klarion vibe from this one but vastly improved from the sketch. I just need to make a few decisions on which style I want to take this, maybe incorporate a few into one design and go from it from there.