It's killing me. This book project is killing me.

I'm bashing my head against a wall right now. This is the closest I have to a vaguely acceptable composition for the ending pages of the book, and there's a whole 'nother character to go in. I may extend the jaw further, and the colours are to change around at some point for legibility. I should have picked a simpler story.

More hybrids

Chek in Action

My housemate, and photographer, Loren McCarthy (http://lorenmccarthy.blogspot.com/) is photographing the graffiti artist Chek for a project, so I sketched while they worked.

Sci-Fi poster

Heffer's bookshop want sci-fi and fantasy themed posters for a reading night, so I'm drafting like a beast.

Searle Award Finals

Searle Award finals - pre print

I'm considering a coloured paper background, but that depends on if I screen print these. They'd look nice, but sod it if I actually have time. Oh, nautical metaphor, how I love thee.

Searle Award drafts 1 & 2, semi-drafted 3

Image 2 needs re-scanning, and image 3 is as yet incomplete, but the compositions for the first two images seem to be working.

Sort of final draft for image 1 for the Searle Award.

Almost finished with this stage! I really need to get into the swing of these images over the weekend, then full scans, coloured and done! I'm an optimist, what can I say?

Searle Award 'Crisis' First Image preliminaries and gubbins

Working in my typically piecemeal 'my head works in Photoshop layers' way, these are some early stuff for my potential Searle Award entry on the theme 'Crisis'. I'd post some thumbnails, but it's rare anyone can understand them apart from me, like a hideously drawn secret code. None of the stuff I'm posting here is even a complete draft, as I'm working on a final component for the draft of image one. The crisis theme I chose is the recent (and potentially ongoing) financial crisis and recession. Without the central component, this is not in any way obvious, so these are most definitely just process. Basically, it's all very rough, so no judging please!

The first and second are identical apart from the left foreground figure, and I'm still adding/removing him and tweaking things

Then there's the background of the second (or third) piece of the five

They're all pen and ink, comped in Photoshop, and the waves are a simple block colour with two versions of the inked parts recoloured and offset.

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.

Aileen Wuornos

I was watching Eileen: Life and Death of  Serial Killer and was sketching. Yes it's morbid, but sometimes a crazy murderer just has the best facial expressions. She changed so much, back and forth in the space of the documentary that it was almost terrifying.

Cloud Power

The project was about illustrating for New Scientist, for one of two articles. This one is about harvesting power from clouds by forcing condensation with lasers. I'm not sure how much it is in the New Scientist style, but I like the image. I'm enjoying working with colour now, although I don't find it any easier.

Below is a working page from the sketchbook, seeing as I rarely show process with finished work. After speaking with the tutors, I realised that filling the image with too many elements would lead to confusion. I was advised to go with very simple flats, but it felt alien and unenjoyable to me, so I went somewhere in between my original idea and the advice. Flats like this:

As per usual, the bulk of my physical materials were inks, and in this case I took it into Photoshop to comp and colour.

Hybrids

More ideas through design things. Possibly the GREATEST PROJECT EVER. Hybridising animals and modes of transport is more fun than anyone has the right to have in an educational environment. Go on. Try it. I dare you.

Porto sketches

From the Cambridge School of Art second year trip to Porto in Portugal. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Unfortunately most of the sketchbook work is much larger than my scanner, so I'll have to sit down and use one of the hefty scanners at Uni at some point. In order - a net-gathering fisherman from the docks, the tanned-legged green-socked fishmonger lady who dragged everyone she could find over to look at my drawings, and a couple of uber-fast sketches from lunchtime at a cafe.

More life drawing

Life drawing

Open access life drawing is my new gross and naked best friend.