Catching up on Andona

I was meant to post this a couple of weeks ago!  Yikes.  Time is just slipping away...

So, I had to present all the final major project work I had so far to my class and lecturer, in an effort to pitch my planned exhibition pieces.  It has been well received, and I got some good grades which is big a bonus!

After trying to imagine every aspect of the world I'd created, and writing the whole story, it all boils down to four images.  The four pieces I'm creating will (hopefully) look as if they're stills taken from an animated feature film.  I'll try to present each image on multiple layers of acetate to give the illusion of being from a cel animation, or a single print out on photo quality paper, A2 size.  It's a lot harder than I imagined it would be!

Finalising Andi

Piper Design

Visualising the Princess of Andona

Andonian Housing

Concepts for my final exhibition pieces

Developing the throne room scene

Designs for the palace guards and handmaids

Piper capturing the rodents on Andona

Andi dragging an unconscious Piper post-explosion

Drafting the scene on the Odd-Job Space Station.
The crew have just got the Andonian children on board

No doubt I'll put up images when they're done.
I'm excited to see mine and my class' work framed and displayed!
The exhibition will run from June 1st to 8th.

J. x

Influences...

One of the many, many, many...many...blogs I follow is Eric Kozlowsky's.  In his latest post he shows his influences in a pictorial format which has been created by Fox Orian.

It looked like fun and a good way to think about what has moulded me and my work over the years.  Some influences have been with me throughout my life and others as I've grown up and I've found a place for them...:

If you want to give it a go yourself the original PSD file is available to download.  Click here!

I'd love to see what people come up with, so let me know if you do it!

J. x

Pop Ya Colour*

I recently saw a great piece of work by Potato Farm Girl of Josie and the Pussycats.  The colours really popped, so I went off to play with my pencils and markers to see what happened.

I came out with this:

Character Design for Animation: 'Andi' (Prismacolour pencils, Promarker pens)

I often use orange and blue coloured pencil to draft out for cartoon images, but using green contrasted against the warm browns and yellows making my images glow.  What do you think?

Not only is it refreshing to do something different but it mentally refreshes - it's like seeing your work through new eyes.

J. x


*Yeeeah, that's a shameless Usher song title pun...

At the Flickrs

I love getting feedback on my drawn images but I also like having a place for my little photography hobby.  I haven't uploaded on Flickr for a couple of months, so I went through all my latest photos I took to make them Flickr ready.  This time round I was looking at creating a cinematic feel through composition and colour tone...

I'm very lucky to have a massive park to walk through to get to uni.  A thick mist descended upon the city creating an amazing atmosphere over the river and through the trees in the morning, and a horror feel during the walk back at night.
As always, I had my trusty ol' camera in my bag!  I was aching to have had a top of the range camera.  And if I had a hoard of models at my beck and call...  What a photo shoot there could have been!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicaonpaper/

I do love photography, and I suppose it's not so surprising when films play such a big part of inspiring my drawing.  It's also a really valuable tool for me to learn how lighting affects environments.

J. x

[CENSORED]

I've felt for a while that modern media aimed at children is overly censored.  Where are the curse words?  The sexual innuendos?  The violence?  The villains that make you never want to watch again and by next week ask your parents to put it on?  It's why I love Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park!  The childhood memories of entertaining fear and adventure while in the comfort of the sofa.

This is what I considered before I started to create my 'Pied Piper' adaptation and why I decided to take little Andi's hand away.

Kids aren't stupid, they know what goes on in life no matter how much you try to protect them, and they can handle a lot more than we'd like to think.

I want parents to stop being afraid of their children being afraid.

Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom

When you queue up for a roller coaster you dread it, but you stay in the queue, don't you? After all the screaming you get off laughing and often want to go again.  And not because you're not scared any more, you are, but you know that afterwards you'll be alright.

J. x

Bollywood, The Works!

In Britain we have an amazing little high street chain called The Works which has some great discounted books and art equipment.  I went in on Tuesday to meet a friend, and spotted this for £2.99:

I saw it and got very excited!

I love the sumptuous colours and designs of Indian film and culture.

I had the excuse of needing change for the shopping trolley and cheekily bought it.

It's filled to the brim with colour page spreads and a concise history of Bollywood, broken down into film genres...

Posters for the film Jodhaa Akbar - one of my favourite films!

About 216 pages 'with 225 colour illustrations', it's well worth trying to find!

Next year I might incorporate elements of Eastern/Indian culture into my graduate project.

Post-Holiday Blues Meets Pre-Holiday Bliss

Happy new year, I hope you had a good holiday season.

I've not posted for a while due to the aforementioned 'holiday' where I didn't do much that can be considered post-worthy.
Plus, I was ill - again!  From Boxing Day for a week.  With flu!!
I hope this isn't a new fortnightly sickly habit I'm developing...
I have to admit, being so ill really shook my confidence.  It's taken me a while to feel capable of doing anything and my work has piled up.
I've been in the all too familiar place of feeling not worthy to even consider myself amongst 'the art crowd', but it's a matter of telling myself I will continue to improve and learn for the rest of my life.
It also helps when one of your heroes gives you a few words of advice....

On the 6th of January, Iain McCaig - the genius that is - had a web chat on his blog around 6pm Pacific time. It was midnight for me and I held on until 4am.  It was totally worth it!
People that were online asked him questions which McCaig answered with the wisdom of experience and such humility I was taken by surprise and love him all the more for it.
Someone asked for his opinion on how we are able to draw exactly what we picture in our mind's eye, and why we are so UN-able to do it.  This was his response:

"You're probably finding it hard because you also want it to be good"

A light bulb went off in my mind.  I felt pressure lifting from my shoulders.
Stop trying so hard, Jess...

But this was by far the best thing he wrote to we budding unemployed trying to make it:

"We are the industry.  The industry is formed by what we do, our visions.
It is the job of an artist to express to the world who they are and how they see and feel about things - in other words, their TRUTH.  My truth is no more valid than yours.  So you and I are equals.
There will never ever be a better you.  So if you learn to show that to the world, your art will be every inch as good as mine, just different."

Wow.  I was speechless.
Not that I was asking him anything anyway, I had only been staring at the screen in awe.
After four hours of his time, Iain signed off with:

"May the Muse be with you.  Always."

So yeah, I guess I was finally inspired to get down to my work for the semester.  I have a lot of it!
Currently I'm modelling a humanoid witch doctor/Zulu type character in 3Ds Max, which is fun but completely new for me.  If it looks any good I'll post a couple of renders.
Outside of class I'm honoured to be illustrating a comic script written by a fellow student to be printed in 'Bagatelle', a small comic and literary anthology.
I'll tell you more about it when it's completed and on sale!

My Pied Piper project lasts until April/May, but I have to give a presentation on what my final piece will be for the end of year exhibition.  Eep!
  
I'm very grateful that I have a lecturer who understood how much being sick took out of me, and I've been fortunately granted a couple of extensions.

Worried about being behind, I decided to forego the class trip to Paris in March.
I refused to continue feeling sorry for myself....
So, in July, I'll be going to MOROCCO!
I couldn't be more excited!  I expect to have so many photos I break my computer.
It will be my personal pay off for finishing this year, hopefully with work to be proud of.

Sorry if the length of this post put you off so you jumped straight to this last bit!
My next one will have pictures - even if they're not mine - promise.
Thanks for reading guys.
J. x