Thursday 31 October 2013

It's alive!

All right on time for Halloween my spooky lady drawings have been birthed into the world of illustration, not quite kicking and screaming, but definitely with the odd hiccup along the way!

The final outcome is pictured below along with my initial rough sketches for the full 'here's one I did earlier' effect.

It's been a challenge getting the right balance of creepy vs pretty and also trying out loads of things I haven't drawn much of before such as glass, light reflections and water (I owe thanks to the saviours of Youtube for the extensive amount of  'how to' videos I got through for that last one..)

Hopefully I've managed to pull it off though, Happy Halloween!








Sunday 20 October 2013

Season of the Witch


With the spirit of Halloween firmly lodged in the brain, I’ve been designing a couple of illustrations to help celebrate the ‘feastivities’! In the meantime, here are some smaller cropped previews to eyeball over before the final images are fully revealed.    








The ‘Elixir of Immortal Life’ provides eternal beauty. Sadly enough for this pretty lady, upsetting the delicate balance of nature meant that she was forever cursed to have sinister forces prey on her unnatural youth, in an attempt to steal it from her and take it for their own.

 
Sirens may look all kittens and rainbows from first glance but their unearthly song is used to lure sailors and their ships to a gruesome demise. This particular set of ladies like to claim a souvenir from each of their unfortunate victims..

Finalised versions of these to come soon! 



Saturday 19 October 2013

London Part II

Following on from my previous post we also wandered on up to Hackney’s “Little Shop of Horrors” to view their array of intriguing curiosities! On arrival, we were met by an assembly of two headed teddy bears who graciously accepted our two pound admittance fee and ushered us inside.


What followed seemed to represent a jungle of oddities, large taxidermy bears awaited a tea party closely observed by two headed sheep. Whilst companionless dolls such as the unfortunately named; “Fat Homeless Helen”* looked on in hope of rescue. There was something for everyone, presuming that golden pig snouts and mummified dancing rats are on your Christmas list this year! Either way, I left feeling much more inspired for the ghoulish festivities of Halloween.

To follow was Somerset House which is currently housing the AOI Illustration Awards from the 2nd through to the 27th of October. Winning pieces included children’s books to the self initiated and more or less everything in-between.
 
A few of my favourites are pictured below alongside the accompanying wall mural that I particularly enjoyed! Despite my best efforts to remain unbiased and after an appreciative viewing of everything that was on offer, I inevitably gravitated towards the more fantasy based pieces, aswell as soaking up any portraiture based work on my way. This included a sneaky eyeful of sketchbook work and a sprinkling of animation before a quick play in the fountains sent us and our soggy shoes on our way.





*(For those interested, Helen remains homeless but hopeful to this day and arguably just as fat, depending on your perspective.)



Wednesday 16 October 2013

London Part I

A trip to London at the weekend saw us skilfully dodge the bad weather whilst allowing us to explore the unchartered and often mystifying land that is otherwise known as a child’s imagination, courtesy of the V&A Museum of Childhood.


Equipped with a healthy helping of pain au chocolat we got a glimpse of exactly what children believe the future could hold for them. This was in the form of captions which were then illustrated by assigned ‘grown-up’ artists; the results were amusing, heart warming and occasionally terrifying!

A few snippets included “Yellow and red animals will be living on a world of rice”, “The sharks look silly. No tooth fairy for the sharks because they always brush their teeth” and the absolute and straight to the point gem, “Kangaroo is eating the future (banana shaped)”.

These are only a few of the many varied predictions, but I like to think that statistically speaking surely one of them must come true, right?

There’s more information on other events run by the Museum of Childhood here, http://www.museumofchildhood.org.uk/