Colours may vary - Out Of Order show

As a course we were ask to produce a print that could be displayed and sold at Colors May Vary in town. The title of the show was Out Of Order which at first sounded like a great title and subject to work to bu in fact it was quite difficult to come up with something for it. I settled for a transgressive theme as this would help to start tying a overall theme to my work. As devils and pentagrams are seen as a bit of a taboo still by a few this seemed like it may work for putting up in a shop/show and been classed as Out OF Order. 

I originally submitted the hand drawn design to the show but after speaking to a few other of my peers it was decided i should just print it off digitally and then i would have some prints to sell too.

So here you can see above my original submissions and abit of development,  thats been done using watercolours and inks and was just going to be a one off, but like i have already said  it would be good to have some prints for sale at the show too so i just hung a digital version of the illustration.
Below are the prints that will be for sale at the show itself all packed up and ready to be sold, they also  included a hand drawn business card that I added to each print with my details on so if the customer wants they can find my on the world wide internet.

So the show has been and gone and once again I have picked up all the prints that where taken to be sold at the show. I was not surprised that I was reunited with all of them again. This is the second time i have got all my prints back from a show we have held at the shop Colours May Vary and Im starting to think that if i ever get the chance to sell at the shop again then im going to have to seriously consider the material in my work. When im submitting work with the transgressive theme oozing all over it I am aware that this is a niche subject and it might not be appreciated by the masses but im sure with some more time i will discover where my work will best sell.  But for he time being if i have the oppertunity to take part in another show where my work is hung I need to seriously think what im going to hang and try find out what kind of audience the shop pulls to bet my chances of making any money. 

Band Merch, Posters

I have been trying to focus on developing my text and lettering that I will need to add to posters, merch, brand products and more. So do band art work will force me to have to do this area im still unsure about doing. I spent a few hours mocking up 8 ideas for poster for songs past and present mainly focusing on the alternative metal genres.
I divided my A3 page up in to 4 section one quarter for each rough. And quickly mocked up the ideas using pencil and sketchbook.

GOing to try and work on developing most of these designs. Need to make sure i think about the lettering at the beginning of each design. so im not trying to squash it in at the end.

We Are Boutique Mural

I decided at last minute to give the We Are Boutique Mural a go as i need to work on briefs that are out of my comfort zones to progress I feel. After seeing the brief i decided i could do it as i feel i know Leeds and whats could be used to illustrate its being.
I started out with some roughs and a little list of the most recognisable bits of Leeds that could be used on the design.

Theme

They would like the theme of the mural to be related to the location.

Consider:

"The Old Saw Mill” – location of the office

“The Fell” – the name of the room

 Leeds (location, history, etc.)

The Commission

A commissioning fee of £500 will be awarded to the winning designer.

The fee covers the design and the painting of the wall, which is to be carried out by the successful artist.

Deadline: 10th February 2017

With the name of the room been called THE FELL I thought it would be a good idea to continue with my understanding of using type in my work. So this has to be a big element in the end design.

Quick list of Leeds bits
Town Hall
Corn Exchange
Tetleys - Shire horse, Barrels Beer, Logo
Elland Road
Royal Armies - Logo, Old weapons
Leeds coat of arms -Owls, top hat, Lamb
Yorkshire Rose
Bridgewater place

Leeds Coat Of Arms

Getting started on the design with some right quick roughs, Owl Bridgewater PLace, corn exchange, Royal armouries log

Thinking about the text and the objects that could be included. The top hat from the Leeds coat of arms was put on top of the corn exchange, A shire horse that used to be of the tetley's history and a wooden cask barrel,

 ON the one above the top drawing is the yorkshire rose with its edges done like saw teeth seen as the building is know as The Old Saw Mill, I like the idea of this but on this design it has been done  way too big and it feels over powering and plane. Around the edge of this are different bits of Leeds from the buildings in and around the city the city owl and the top hat from the coat of arms on top of the corn exchange again. The man from the old Tetleys logo, On the far right side i tryed adding the lamb from the center of the coat of arms but i just looks like a withered old prawn wearing a lamb mask. Then I added the text for the name at the end and this resulted in very limited space and that what needs to be central and the main focus.

So on the bottom panel i drew something different starting with the text first  and seen as the meaning for fell is linked to chopping trees down that's what the idea around this design is. Using the owls in the poses they are in on the coat of arms with saws chopping down the fell tree. I liked this idea alot more then the other. Added some Yorkshire rose bits again i liked this idea but they lack character. Though about adding the a random cityscape of  leeds buildings but decided against this.

So this is the design I submitted I tryed to keep it as sketchy looking as possible and simple line work. The yorkshire roses have taken a direction i'm happy with and will probably work on it some more. the tree came out good too but i now feel i could of added more branches and flower leafs to help fill in the blank spaces between the different elements. The saw changed to one of them big two person or owl operated ones which works alot better then one each. The owl's well they could do with some more practise but im happy with them for now. ITs low in the number of things from the vast elements that could of been included to represent Leeds but on the roughs i did they looked very cluttered and it would of taken me longer to work out how best position them.

Response from client:

Hi Sam,

I hope you’re well.

Firstly, thank you very much for taking the time to submit a design for our office wall mural. We thought your design was interesting and got a few people talking about it in the office.

Unfortunately we decided to go with a different design, but thank you so much for submitting a design and good luck with the rest of your course!

Thanks again,

Sarah

I feel i could of submitted a stronger finished design. The elements like the owls are look very unfinished and the roses could of been developed further to make the blend in with the image not just stuck on the sides. 
The tree could of been used to fill the surrounding space as eel the design has too much unused space which makes it feel un resolved. 




After all this i wanted to see how the image would Work with abit of colour added.

Presentation Boards

Digital practise pt2

After speaking to some of the other illustrators at Thought Bubble festival (at notes for names and add) about they practise and how they construct the work they had on sale. Most of them where very helpful and I have taken on board what they said and started to apply it to how I work. The most common bit of advice was to scan in a image each time i added more line work, build up the line work so i could see my progress and if i go too far on the stages i can always just use the image im happy with from my layers of scans.
I have also started to use a small micro brush and drawing ink to apply my line work. I love crisp clean lines and line work with some character and by using a brush and ink i can achieve both.

Travelling Man Breif - MArs Attacks

So I have never really done any fan art  but got very excited at the chance to do some for this brief. 

Two films both came to mind and that was Paul And Mars Attacks both are comedy alien films which was good, but I decided on Mars Attacks as it's one of my favorite film. So I sat down and put on the film and did a few quick drawings of the aliens and tryed to find a side of them i was happy to draw. 

I then scanned in these images i played around editing and seeing if i could still use photoshop as it's been a while. 

Just adding colour and moving the levels and contrast to strengthen the outline. 

Using the color pallet that has been selected has given me a problem or two as iv not really had to use one before as it's the first time iv taken on a breif with the colour set. 

I like the faces angle of the rough that i have not added colour to in the first set of images. So taking a bit more care and time i drew a new alien head and rough body to see iv i was able to draw it bigger for the final poster. I was very happy with how this came out i decided id use it to mock up a poster design. 

Using pencil first to rough out the outline, then going over the pencil with pen also using the pen to build up areas of shade to give the image contrast. Then just scanned it in at 300dpi and opened it in photoshop. 

I need to add some of the other elements to the poster like the title and a few more details to build up the image. So I drew out the MARS ATTACKS in the same way as the aliens head then using photo shop i added the colour and different borders and outlines to make it appear the same as the original text from the film. 

Some UFOs 

Only used one in my first mock up and tryed to get it to interact with the text on the poster. 

Here is my first mock up for the poter to see how the different parts come together, they is still plenty more to do on this but i first want to print this out at the size required to see how it looks.  

More colour, UFOs, detail in the text and some stars to try finish the image off. 

Reflection 

I was happy with how my final image came out, but like always i could of definitely improved on the final image. One idea i had played around with at the end of making the poster was adding i image of the earth behind the alien in the distance, but at the last moment decided to leave it out as i felt i was rushing it and could of ruined the poster. Also the space suit could of done with some more shading and detail as it seems very plain and unfinished attached to the head with has plenty of detail and depth. 

I have since been down to Traveling Man to see if they had finished using them and was told i had sold one and that they liked the posters been up in the shop so are willing to keep them up and continue to sell them for us. 

Presentaion board s