A Fistful of Burgers: A Conclusion

This afternoon I ordered my book from blurb.com, it's 52 pages and cost £22 inclusing postage. Ouch. But it should be worth it. Getting my book ordered means I can concentrate on other things:

Gallery Space
Vending Machine
Jewellery
Tote Bags
Mini Comics

I think it's safe to say this project turned out nothing like what my proposal had proposed. I was in a very different place at the start of the FMP, a bad place, I can't really explain why, or how, I was just in a slump. I wanted to go "wah wah wah, this is me, I'm sad, read comics about it" which would have kinda majorly sucked as a project and probably not really helped at all.

Luckily, after going home to get my head together, I don't feel like that anymore. And I didn't wanna be down, I wanted to make art and make people smile. In all honesty, I can't explain how I got to my final project. I don't really like registering my thought processes as I work, I basically draw faster than I can think (which made blogging a difficuly ordeal.)

I guess it could be said that my FMP was a continuation of my Options project. Making comics using some characters from the previous project as well as some new editions. I wanted to extend the project beyond pictures on a page (or in a frame) to me, art is more than that.

Art can be found on a shirt, a bag, a skateboard, around your neck or on your fingers. Art is vinyl toys, or plush toys, it's jewellery, shoes, or even ceramics and furniture. An artist can apply themselves to anything, they're not limited to paper, and so they shouldn't. This is something I wanted to explore within my project. Though I've put it on the backburner, as stuff I'll make for the Gallery shop, I find the non book stuff of my project very important. In fact, if I could go back in time, I'd tell past self to not worry about the book. I'd make an entire project not on paper, on anything but. Gosh darn it, I wish I had a time machine

Paper Fortress: 2009 - 2011 Reflection from Paper Fortress on Vimeo.

This is the Photoshop blasphemy that awaited me when I returned from a toilet break today.

This is a little doodle I did after Alex joked that, because I always draw him with a hunch, soon he'll just become a face in a hunch. My witty rebuttal was he'll become his hat.

I did 4 pages of comic today, including the first sushi banter page. It happened spontaneously, I didn't really plan it at all, but I thought of a joke, and I couldn't resist.

Here's a couple of the pages I did today, including the sushi banter. The second page was one of my busiest, I wanted to get in a lot of wordless action on one page, I feel it works, ut isn't quite what I originally imagined.

ghost comic

For the project I feel I needed a bigger story to run through the book. I felt it was perhaps a bit too late to try and come up with a new idea, and so thought I could re-do some of the comics from my last book.

Ghost is the longest comic from my last project. It's about a ghost at a party that wants some punch but can't get any, cause he's a ghost.

Above is a screen shot from my progress so far. Visually it's very different from the previous comic, but I really like how it's coming along. I've been making the image 100% in Photoshop using my Wacom to draw. It's been years since I've really drawn with my tablet, and it feels good.

Donkey Progress

Here's the Donkey so far, I emailed it to Pete and he said "MOR GUTTS OMG" because Pete is very immature and not a very good speller, but he had a point. I need to add MOR GUTTS, or more stomachs, in crazy places like the ears and down the tail!!

More like Easter Funday!!

I found myself watching some of Mary Poppins on Easter. Unlike many people this film wasn't a big part of my childhood, I've still never seen it all the way through from start to finish. It was interesting to watch though, and I started doing some little doodles on the table (we have paper on there so we can draw)

I was thinking it would be fun to do 'reviews' of movies by sitting down with a sketchbook and drawing stuff that appealed to me. Perhaps I'd have rules like I could only pause it so many times so I don't spent too long on an image. It could be fun, I'd like to do it with older films.

As a closing note, Mary Poppins is totally a babe.

The beautification of the studio and identity

This is the last year illustration will spend in the jm building studio. Next year the studio will be in a brand new building at the bottom end of town. Because of this, we've been told we can pretty much do what we want; draw on the walls, the tables. And so we have.




True love among the madness.




El Peter




Beautiful ghost princess




To honour the studio we decided to incorporate it as our theme for the degree show this year. I suggested a wall where third years could draw to create a mishmash of images that would become our visual identity. Unfortunately my idea didn't translate too well from what I had in mind to what other people thought.




Despite being an illustration course, drawing is not a forte for most people, it's not something that grips them, that controls them as it were. When I was younger I went on holiday abroad with my family; I made the mistake of not bringing any pens or paper. I remember feeling myself going mad, wanting so badly to draw and going insane at not being able to. I imagine it's how addicts feel when away from their vice of choice, be it drugs, alcohol or what have you. I knew from that moment, that I was addicted to drawing. That would forever be my drug. Luckily I got hold of a pen, and then would draw on any napkins and bits of paper I could find.

It seems most people, not even those on an illustration course, feel like that. Many don't even like drawing, which I find difficult to understand. And so the wall became something quite different. It was a pasted wall of already made things. It's nice, but not as... Organic as I had envisioned it in my mind

Burger tales

Hello blog. Today is my birthday!!







I wanted to share some recent images, of stuff I was just randomly drawing (yes dear reader, this may shock you, but I do draw for fun)

A lot of the time when I draw a story comes up in my head, and I have to start drawing bits and pieces of them.

This was the story of a burger that doesn't want to be eaten. He believes he has a greater destiny than that. He escapes a fast food restaurant in order to find The king burger, the legendary ruler of the burgers that will help little burger find his destiny. Along the way he comes along many obstacles, most of which want to eat him, animals, rabid vegetarians, crack dealers, they all wanna eat him.

A Long overdue update of the last few weeks

I guess I could argue I've been too busy working to update, and it's pretty much true, so let's go with that.

When I started this project I was in a bad place, and therefore everything I was creating reflected this. Going home for a few days really helped me get over whatever was eating me up inside, and so my work isn't being quite so"emo"tional anymore, thank god.

Below are some of the pages I made in a small book. They were spontaneous and without pre thought, it was essentially my feelings being released on paper via pen.

At first I had hoped to make a series of books (and perhaps an all encompassing final book) that would include small autobiographical comics like these, and other things such as illustrating funny/ridiculous/attention seeking facebook statuses and observational and honest (read: harsh) comics. At first I was also obsessed with the idea that somewhere along the line I would want to draw monsters, as I usually do, and utterly feared that I'd go crazy if I were denied that for 3 months.

And so, for your reading pleasure and amusement, here is my original FMP proposal:

My goal for this project is to make a book that deals with the mundane. Sounds boring right? Well, by the mundane, I pretty much just mean life, and the stuff that goes on in it. Let's face it, unless you're an astronaut or the guy who owns Jurassic Park, pretty much everything that goes on in your life is kinda mundane. But because it's your life, the mundane becomes the norm, it becomes interesting, dramatic and something maybe even fun. And who's to say not even the super cool people don't go through the mundane. I bet after cool space missions the astronaut has to think about what he wants for dinner that night. Or sometimes the world's highest paid actor shrinks their favourite million billion $ sweater in the wash. And I bet even monsters have some mundane moments; they get a bit lonely or bored. When you think about it, the mundane, every day, day to day things, are actually pretty exciting if you look at them the right way. I guess that's why shows like Eastenders are so popular.
Perhaps mundane isn't the right word to use. Let's face it, whenever you read mundane it sounds pretty boring, and that's pretty much what the word means. For some reason it just feels right in this context. I guess the word I'm looking for is something like everyday.
Hollywood has long since been drawing out the story where regular Jo Bloggs goes on a crazy, fantastical adventure; battles bad girls, saves the princess and all that jazz. But unless your name is Skywalker it's unlikely you'll be blowing up a Deathstar anythime soon. And sooner or later, Jo Bloggs is gonna have to wash his socks that he was wearing the whole entire jouney, as people don't tend to change costume much in films, or probably end up having an argument with the princess, who might turn out to be a total bitch anyway.
This train of thought began in my options project, in which I had ghosts, imps and other creatures face rather mundane, but hopefully humourous problems, such as being thirsty. It doesn't sound exciting, does it; a comic about being thirsty. But it happened to a ghost, and ghosts are cool so that's okay. Even if the story hadn't happened to a ghost, it probably would have been okay too, except I would have had to change it, because the humour stems from the fact he is a ghost. The point I'm trying to make, is I could have made a story about a ghost haunting people and poltergeisting things up, but instead he was just thirsty. We can relate to the character, not necessarily the actual being a ghost ghost aspect, though we know what it's like to feel ignored sometimes, but because despite the simplicity of the challenge faced, it becomes a very big deal. I guess you could say I've always been a big fan of the everyday. I'm an avid fan of blogs and autobiographical comics, you don't need to go to a fantasy land full of crazy fauna and flora to tell a good story, you just need interesting characters.
However, despite what I've just written. I do love monsters. And I really enjoyed contrasting fantastical beasts in rather everyday situations in my Options project, and so it is something I hope to carry on.
I've roughly thought out some ideas I'd like to try for this project. One is to continue the cutesy monster comics, but to try and make longer, more thought out ones, perhaps ones that aren't so cutesy too. As a contrast I'd like to do one-off illustrations that tell a story within itself. Something I'd particularly like to do for the one off illustrations is to take facebook statuses I find particularly funny/pathetic/attention seeking (which are usually all of the above) statuses and illustrate them to make them even more funny/pathetic/attention seeking. I would like to create some autobiographical comics, possibly to deal with emotions/situations I have been feeling/experiencing recently. Below I have listed a small number of influences, many of which are autobiographical or observational comics.
For years I have been a fan of Terry Pratchett, who has turned the stereotypical fantasy world on it's head; he manages to take the most typical characters and stories of fantasy, and breath totally new life into them. Even Death is capable of facing the most mortal of problems within a Pratchett book, which is what I believe makes them such a fantastic read. This is something I wish to explore with my monster comics, to go beyond the conceptions of what we know about mythical creatures and try to understand them for their perspective a little better.
Illustrational influences include:
Tom Gauld
Ray Fenwick, (rayfenwick.ca)
Yuko Ota (johnnywander.com)
Kate Beaton (harkavagrant.com)
Jess Fink (jessfink.com)
Matt Boyd and Ian McConville (threepanelsoul.com)
natazilla.tumblr.com
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
Nedroid.com
Nemi
Margaux Motin (margauxmotin.typepad.fr)
Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes
Kent Osbourne (http://kentosborne.tumblr.com)
Jeff Smith: Bone.
I plan to produce this project in an ongoing webcomic form, posting comics and illustrations online as I create them. I will probably use Tumblr for this as I like the simplicity of it's layouts and browsing. I also believe this means it will be easier for me to set myself goals, as I'll have to uphold to updating the blog. I aim to make a minimum of 4 illustrations/comics a week.. This should yield a minimum of around 48 images (but most likely more as many comics will span several pages and some weeks I'll make more than the minimum amount needed), which should be more than enough for the final book, which will be edited to included the best pieces. I also plan to create merchandise for the book/blog, which will possibly include; badges, postcards, laser-cut brooches, posters

I have a backlog of posts I've been storing in Word cause I wanted my first post to be my proposal. Now that's posted I can post the backlog, then finally get up to date.

28th Jan 2011.

Quite possibly my best day at university so far.
In the morning we had a lecture from a rather wonderful lady Fig Taylor. Fig is the portfolio consultant at AOI (Association of Illustrators) and it's damn easy to see why she's been doing this job 25 years. Incredibly informative, and witty to boot, Fig gave a lecture that has put my post-university future in more perspective (though I won't deny, as an artist with more than one distinct style, it has also made me slightly worried)

Overall, Fig's talk was fantastic, and it's highly tempting to buy her book (as well as some others I spied on Amazon)

Fig's book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Create-Portfolio-Get-Hired/dp/1856696723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297273149&sr=8-1 If Fig's book is anything like her talk I know it will be a useful asset to have.

Illustration 101: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Illustration-101-Streetwise-Surviving-Illustrator/dp/product-description/0953730719/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=266239&s=books

I liked the look of Illustration 101 cause it seemed to give true insider tips, like tactics on how to call art directors (or get their names so you could call later and know who to get to)

In the afternoon a small group of us were lucky enough to have a raptor (bird of prey) drawing masterclass with John Norris Wood. John is a ridiculously talented natural history illustrator who taught at the Royal College of art. The day was everything you could have hoped for and more, and we were allowed to get very close to the birds.