One artist's journey into the world of Illustration
Tagged with: cat
Here’s the breakdown for a piece I created along with a little story prompt.
Simon runs to his family's store after school. There, he solves cases with his trusty assistant, Mittens, who paws and scratches at everything to unearth clues. Office space for gumshoes isn't easy to come by these days!
Some colour studies.
Trying out values.
Thanks for looking!
I’m finally able to share some artwork I was commissioned to create for an investment firm last year. The exhibit was to feature their employees’ kids’ artwork alongside a professional artist’s interpretation. I was told the event was inspired by the Monster Project, a project I participated in back in 2019. I really enjoyed working on these and I hope these kids keep creating as they have such a great imagination!
The exhibit was delayed until recently which is why I’m just sharing it now. Unfortunately, some of the work I do never sees the light of day (NDAs, projects getting cancelled, postponement, etc.) so it’s great when I do get to share.
What I recently learned from a workshop seems to have crept into my workflow: like those fun textures on the colourful dandelions!
I was excited to be asked to create a one-page cover for Oliver Ho's upcoming comic anthology entitled, Seven Strange Stories, even though I had already illustrated a couple of the stories within. As we went back and forth with the designs, it evolved into a wraparound cover to allow for more elements from each story to be weaved in without feeling too congested. With most of the stories containing some supernatural theme my goal was to create an image that looked like a dark fairy tale but without being too extreme—just enough to suggest it. Because I am a huge fan of James Jean and his work often contains disparate components, I looked to his art for inspiration.
Despite looking at various Fables covers, I still didn't have a clear idea in mind. So, I jotted down some elements from each story that I wanted to draw and then started to sketch them out roughly onto a huge pad of newsprint. I tried not to worry about creating anything concrete but focus on loosening up and get a feel for what might be included on the cover. Sometimes just doodling whatever comes to mind or doing practice drawings will do the trick to keep from overthinking things. Oftentimes, I go into a bit of a trance and drawings begin to overlap because I don't want to turn the page. I'll often look back at my scribbles and an idea will come to me—not always for what I'm currently working on, mind you—but I can always use them for other projects. I liken it to staring at clouds or patterns where images would begin to form.
I sketched out some thumbnails from the ideas and sent the ones I liked best to Oliver. When he approved one I took it into Photoshop to further develop; I created a clean image using a pencil brush on a greyish-toned background that I would later paint over.
Ah, colour selection. This one's always tough for me because, well, the paradox of choice, of course. :)
I decided that I want a limited palette because it's more efficient and creates a better balance. I went to paletton.com and selected a tetrad colour scheme of blues, greens and their complimentary oranges. I chose this combination to emphasize a slightly sinister theme with warmer tones to balance things out and suggest that things are not all doom and gloom. I also use white but not pure black and combine colours from my palette to create variations. When I was almost finished painting I tweaked some of the colours using a Levels Adjustment Layer.
I had never created a wraparound cover before and there were a couple of things to consider including:
I also had to consider the placement of the title, trade dress and promotional text while keeping an overall strong composition. I planned out roughly where all these items would go and made sure that they wouldn't obscure anything important in the art.
The book is still in production but it shouldn't be too much longer. When I have more information on its release, I will share details.
The book is now available and can be purchased directly from Oliver Ho at www.sevenstrangestories.com. You can also find the book at the Page & Panel: The TCAF Shop, Silver Snail, and Another Story Book Shop.
As promised, below are a couple of teaser pages and a panel from a later page of Oliver Ho's comic, My Beloved Monster, minus the text. Oliver tells me that this story will be included in his anthology of monster stories he plans to publish soon.
This was a fun story to work on. It's about a man who can't seem to catch a break in his love life and a cat that reluctantly decides to play Cupid. I really enjoyed bringing out the characters' personalities on the page.
I'm pleased to be working with Oliver Ho again on another comic project. This time it involves a cat as one of the main characters in his story entitled, My Beloved Monster. It's a romance with a twist. Below is some concept art of the main characters: Darnell, Ella, the Cat; and some of the supporting cast, Susan, Hazel, Joan and David.
I'll admit that drawing comics generally doesn't come easy to me. It's a whole different set of skills to master: Panels, story flow, leading the eye from panel to panel, following the script, text bubbles, camera angles, inking, action, conveying emotion, and all those tiny little panels sometimes feels a little restrictive to me. I do think the Schoolism classes I've taken so far have made a huge difference because to me my drawings feel more confident and expressive which makes the layout step a much more enjoyable experience. I can't share anything else with you just yet but perhaps a page or two once it's complete. :)
I've been behind in posting for various reasons, one of which is because I have been working on some art projects. Having said that, I've delayed long enough and should finish up my assignment and move onto Week 5 for the next topic.
Week 4 was about space, or creating spacial depth in our gesture drawings. We were given 1-minute timed poses to draw but this time we were told to strengthen the feeling of space within the drawing. This could be as simple as moving a foot or leg back, an arm forward, etc. Midway through the exercise we were told to switch to our non-dominant hand and follow the same rules. I went a little over the 1-minute mark for almost all the poses but even more so with my right-handed drawings. To be honest, I was lucky if I had enough control to draw a head in that time let alone change up the pose!
We were also asked to do about 2 hours worth of cafe sketching using both the dominant and non-dominant hand. However, lucky me, I managed to catch the flu this time and I still needed more practice drawing cats, so I chose to draw...my cat. I did manage to sneak in a drawing of my hubby but my right-handed drawing looks nothing like him; I unintentionally made him look like a 12-year old. Teehee! :)
This week we covered shapes where the goal was distillation or breaking things down to their essential forms. One of the assignments was to first sketch/paint out the basic shape for each pose from the provided video with each pose timed for 30 seconds. I used to think that 1‑minute poses were short but when each pose is such a short duration you find you have no choice but to get down to the bare essentials and quickly. We were to through the video again, quickly sketching out each pose but this time using the shapes we drew as a guide. Exaggeration or pushing the pose was encouraged; it's something I need to improve upon. This was a challenging exercise and really made me see things in a different way.
In the next exercise we had to find basic shapes using either 10 paintings or photos. I decided to use the same paintings and movies I posted from the previous week and, in some cases, I reconsidered some of my main lines of action.
For the last exercise, we were asked to do 2 hours of café sketching. Because I've been asked to work on a comic involving a cat as the main character, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and instead do cat sketching. I have to say that 30 seconds now seems like a luxury when trying to draw a very active pet.
My next post will be a little late because I'm taking some time off for the Toronto International Film Festival. 😁
Well, this one took a little longer than expected, circumstances not withstanding but she's finally finished. The client is happy and I'm looking forward to my next project.
