Secret 7

Like I've said earlier I plan on making all 7 of mine to be of various sea creatures, this both out of cross pollination and because it'll make me the happiest. They should work really well as a set and I'm excited to get a brief done and completed.

Mystery

This week's word was mystery and an angler in the gloom was the obvious choice for me. I did a quick little thumb first to test it then moved on to drawing it. 

I drew a faint outline of a box first as I wanted to have the angler curve from the side to the bottom. I then used the delicate little fish to balance out the space.

After colouring them both I started playing around with the different layers of gradient and transparency again to create the gloom in which the angler hides. While I might have to make the angler a little more noticeable (once again photoshop was a little misleading) I'm really happy with this and it's composition.

Also I got it in on time! maybe I can start being a bit better again.

Complicated Jelly

This was is the hardest one so far, it is also my favourite. I had to do lots of different overlays and lots of different gradients to get it to this point. It took a long time to figure out but with the pale highlighting I think I've got it to a place I'm happy with.  Saying that however I might have to play with the intensity of the pink and yellow as on the actual jelly they are really bright. 

Red Jelly

It annoys me a little bit to have the thin lines going off at all angles but it is more accurate and will make a more dynamic shape for the pattern. I may also need to play a little further with the transparency on this one as it's a lot harder to see the interior on here than it is on photoshop. 

Yeti Crab

I like how this yeti crab shows how luminously pale they are but I think before I add it to my pattern I should darken some of the lines as some of the detail is near invisible.

New Brief Idea

 I'm currently in the process of going to the doctor  about going onto anti-depressants as well as getting diagnosed for another fatigue inspiring disorder. As I had been really interested in style blogs with outfit illustrations I had thought it would be quite fun to do something to that affect but documenting my different outfits over a period of two to four weeks. These would show the up and downs of depression and how it can look like being gross and lazy but it can also look like you have the energy to look good even when your head is in a bad place. However after getting quite attached to this idea I realised that I only had two live/competition briefs. So instead I'll be doing all seven tracks for secret 7". I'm going to do this with a fish theme as I'm currently all about Fish and it'll be nice to just get something finished. 

Smart

Once again I managed to do the research, decide on an idea and sketch it out but not get it into photoshop before the end of the deadline. I think I'm still finding it quite hard to push myself but I'm going to keep trying until I get back into a rhythm.

Second Batch of Sketches

I got into the swing of it a bit more with these and they should make some really interesting illustrations and some really fun challenges.

Starfish

 

This was one of the more complicated ones to make as there is so much small line detail, I found it hard to get into all the small spaces effectively but I think the overall effect was worth the time and effort. 

It was also with this one that I first had the idea to make a series of them that are just black on white as I think this is quite striking without being too busy.

More deep sea jellies

To make this one I layered up two different gradients, this worked well to both have the yellow glow around the top while also having the bottom fade away which helps to make the tentacles look thinner and more etherial.

Deep sea fish

This one was really fun to do as it is both a simple and a complicated fish. I layered up multiple transparent colours to try and create the impression of the fish.I also drew the dots separately, mirrored and then placed it over them so that I could easily edit and colour them without affecting the rest of the drawing. In this as it is a transparent pale fish, I used white as shadow. This works well because the darker areas are less transparent than the lighter ones.

1st deep sea Jelly

I've been having fun playing with the different levels of transparency to create the right look for my jelly.  I mostly used the colours from the actual creature but I did tweak them a little to be a little more appealing in this format. The coloured lines I'm working with now have really helped to make this look more jelly like. 

I tried a quick way of not having absolute darkness as the background but I think this is too clumsy and I want to try drawing out a few for the actual pattern.

First batch of sketches

these are the first few that I drew. They were just a starting point but they were really enjoyable and I'm excited to take this further.

Reference

Follow Rosie's board Pattern reference on Pinterest. The reference I've collected so far for what I'd be interested in.

New Brief

I've noticed that since the deadline I have lost all form of drive or motivation to continue working no matter how much I know I should. To try and combat this and improve something I've just started working with, I've given up my backgrounds brief for a pattern based brief. These will all be centred around marine life as I want to go back to the root of what I enjoy. I will be making at least 3 to 5 patterns and then applying these to several products. These will mostly be in the form of mock ups but I would also like to try and make something physical like notebooks as well.

My current plans for these patterns will be deep sea, surface sea/coral reef, whales, sharks, "ugly" and floor creatures like sea pigs.

Orbit

After Punch I took a break from Illustration Friday as it was unfeasible to try and maintain the week by week over christmas and in the final run up to the cop3 deadline. I tried to get back into it with Orbit but unfortunately I didn't manage to finish the drawing off before the deadline, I hope to finish this before the end of the year but this was mainly about deadline's for me so this week was a failure. 

Tove Outfit and Colouring Investigation

I realised after doing the exploration on The Bays, that I hadn't fully finalised her clothes. This was hard as there seems to be very little reference for what either Tove or other Fins wore at the time. On my pin board I collected the fashion in children and adults for the twenty years either side of her birth. I also used the clothiers her characters wear as inspiration. the outfit is a cross between some of the pinafore's the girls wear in some images I've found and the almost artist smock clothes that Tove wore and drew her characters in. While doing this I also tried to explore how I should fill the white space and if I should use line or maybe grey tones. I've not quite decided get and my next plan is to try and use pencil. 

The Bays - Investigation

I've chosen The bays as my  first story to play around with as it reminds me of my own childhood and because I didn't know it by heart yet. I picked some key moments and did some quick thumbs of them in relation to the text. I think I should do this with all of my thumbs for this project as there is so much text that my illustration has to work alongside. 

I then chose some of the bits I thought were working and started developing them. I also started try to experiment with how I would fill the space without colour. 

This page is mainly an exploration of how to draw her jumping from rock to rock. I spent a while just looking up pictures of children jumping but there wasn't a perfect reference. I might have to ask boy to do it so I can get some first hand research. 

Young Tove Design

This is some of the character investigation I have been doing to try and create a young Tove based character as the book is a kind of memoir of her childhood. I've been putting a lot of my work into her eyes, nose and hair as they are quite distinctive. She has cat like eyes but they still need to be quite large to be childish, I've been having a little trouble keeping them even as this isn't my usual way of drawing eyes. I want her nose to somewhat be a nod to her characters as they have a particular look to them but I also want it to look like her actual nose too. The hair has been the most enjoyable to play around with as I've able to create a shape that is a more exaggerated version of the hair she had as a child while also trying to reference her hair when she's older as well.

Reference board

Follow Rosie's board Sculptors daughter on Pinterest. A collection of useful reference for my Sculptors Daughter illustrations.

New Brief Sculptors Daughter

I decided to change my Sculptors Daughter brief again as the background and character brief fell through. My new plan is to create three interior, black and white illustrations for three of the different stories within the book. one of each three will be a chapter heading. I will also make a full colour cover.  This is not much different from my old brief but with more structure and separate from my other briefs (except perhaps my big kahuna). This will be incredibly useful for my as it will teach me not to always lean on colour and it is something I would like to pursue in my practice after college.

Punch

As I'd been working with pattern so much at Hallmark it made the most sense to me to make a pattern for Punch. I did punch like a fruit punch as I thought it would be most fun. I looked at punches on Pinterest and chose some fruit that would work well with the bright pink I had in mind. I also drew a ladle and a cup to show that the background colour is the punch. Unfortunately I forgot to continue the punch line in the ladle but I was able to fix it in photoshop.

With the final I decided to simplify the pattern and just use 3-4 colours so it wouldn't be too busy with the bright colours. I think that I managed to get it to fit together really well and the colours work well together, especially as the green provides a bit of contrast. The ladle and cup were particularly fun to colour as I got to play with the different levels of transparency until I got it to a point I was happy with.

This also shows some of the growth in coloured line and pattern making, both of these seem to work well for me even though they take longer than my usual drawing.

City

As the week's word was city and it was when I was travelling from city to city each day I chose to draw my commute. I drew this on the train home and unfortunately I think you can tell. I still like the idea of the composition but I should have spent longer on it to have drawn it effectively. 

I also think that I did my colouring too quickly, I liked the idea of it having a limited colour palette that represents the different cities but I assumed that coloured lines would take this further than it did and I didn't have enough time left to make this what it cold have been if I wanted to submit it in time. I was still fresh to the idea of coloured lines, especially as it was recently after when Fred had encouraged me down that path. This was really baby steps to the right direction.