Searle Award Finals

Inadequate planning

Sometimes when left to my own devices I fail to plan properly, and leap into finalised or semi-finalised images, and this, of course, leads to work that is nowhere near as good as it should be. Case in point, my first draft for entering the Searle Award (an award specific to Cambridge School of Art students, started and in honour of Ronald Searle, the epic illustrator and creator of St. Trinians)

So, here it is. It doesn't get the point across, the descriptive parts of the image are too small, and just about the only half-decent bit is the composition, although my use of diagonals is a little heavy-handed. I've since scrapped this, and I'm taking elements on to my new version of this, which I'll post process work for soon. Also, thanks to advice from my tutor, it may well be a series of 5. Scary, but not due until March.

Christmas brief - what not to do at the office Christmas Party.

Can't say I enjoyed this one, as I couldn't find ways to interpret the article differently. Also, I had a hell of a time with the storeroom image, as something wasn't working but I couldn't work out anything better. I think tiredness was a factor on that one! I'm pretty glad this one is over, but I used it as an excuse to alter the techniques I was using and try out some new stuff.

Don't order Champagne when everyone else is drinking cheap wine



Dress to impress, not to shock - think twice about those gold hot-pants



Stay one drink behind your superiors at all times - it's only OK to pass out if the boss does first



You may be drunk, but don't sleep with a colleague



Under no circumstances should you be using the photocopier, especially to do this:

Stamps

We were asked to create a State and design stamps for it. Brilliant project. I got typically obsessive and has a nice mental jaunt back to being 12 for this one, when I maintained the worry belief (if only for a matter of weeks) that the presence of a massive number of toads in the garden every year must mean that some hideous Emperor Toad must be squatting out spawn in the hollow space under our garage, or in the many odd cavernous bits that appeared under the grass from time to time. The project was a two-weeker, which was nice, although I'm not exactly sure we needed two weeks. I used most of that time obsessing over backstory elements.

These designs were then put onto contact sheets, because, after all, a stamp has to work small. These ones are around 35mm x 37mm. I used the sewing machine, on a low stitch-length to perforate them and now they tear just like real stamps. I got overexcited by this, and firmly wish I had the money to get them turned into functional stamps.

The initial design elements were sketches, and crappy ones at that, then I took everything into photoshop, filled it out and played with the compositions.

Long time no post - kill all squirrels, please.

Squirrels for my paper folding brief from uni. By god I got so sick of drawing the adorable little buggers.

Pencil sketches, loose ink outlines and superfast photoshop colouring.

Digital image manipulation project pt. 1

We essentially have to create a character and a scene then collaborate with someone else to bring their character into our scene/our character into their scene

My character! Not too much imagination, as I draw him ALL THE FREAKING TIME, when I can't think what else to draw.

Colour is from photoshop, with a nearly-broken Intuos3. No specific shading or directional light as yet, as putting that in now will probably destroy the look when he goes in the scene.