Here a few drawings from my character development for ' Francis Begbie '
When creating my initial character Mark Renton, I came up with a style and template for my characters that can be tweaked and adapted to suit the individuals.. but makes it much easier to come up with ideas and also guarantees the style of the characters flows well.
Now I have the initial base for my character 'Begbie' I can start to work into his features and characteristics.. also experimenting with colour and media types.
I have had an idea for the cover of the book pretty much since we started this unit.
I want to show a semi-accurate display of the vascular system in the forearm, expressing the damage done to the veins from heroin abuse.
I made a point of my piece NOT looking like an anatomical drawing as this would not fit with the style I will show throughout the rest of my work.
I also don't want the piece to have any kind of "shock horror erughh look at those scabs" quality.
I want my viewers to notice the wounded veins but not be distressed by them, representative of the outlook of the characters taking heroin...They are aware of the damage they are doing to their bodies, but are having too much of a 'good time' to really care.
So Ill try to keep a composition thats fun, and nice to look at.. whilst also going into slightly crude detail on the more sensitive parts of the piece (the veins).
Below are the processes and steps I have taken so far in tackling this obstacle...
Alex Pardee struggled to get any work as an artist by sending portfolios and attending interviews, so he went down a different route to get work. He posted his artwork on every blog and social networking site there is until someone noticed his work and things started to pick up for him.
I was shown this artist by a friend and instantly loved his work.
His use of vibrant shocking colours and messy line work blended with powerful sometimes sickly and crude images make for a great collection of work.
Alex uses loud colours and mixed texture lines and achieves a great feeling about his pieces. An attitude I want my work for the Narrative Illustration unit to express.
Marcos Chin has recently done a lot of illustration for independent publishing collective Black Hill Press. It was a collaboration between Chin and Kevin Staniec from BHP on a series of book covers for one of there series of books.
I was once again impressed by Marcos's use of line, colour and texture within his pieces. His coloured line looks great along side a mixture of varied textures and colours.
I have and will continue to take inspiration from him when doing my narrative illustration brief.
This is my second digital drawing of my main character Mark Renton.
With this piece I experimented with with different types of line, using different brush strokes on photoshop. I experimented with line colour, background colour and tone with ( I think ) a very relaxed attitude towards the outcome of my actions.
I took inspiration from Marcos Chin for this piece, I have researched him before for the digital manipulation unit and have further researched him since.
I think I will use a similar image for my wrap around.
I thought I'd try out drawing my first character digitally to see how it looked compared to my hand drawn images.
I Think the benefits of doing it this way out-weigh the hand drawn versions.
I like the line quality I can achieve with the different brush strokes on photoshop, the colours are much more definite and smooth and I can more easily achieve the look im going for this way.
Here are a few character development sheets for the film 'Frozen' by Disney.
I thought some of the other people on the course might find it useful to see how professional artists use initial sketches and how they work to the artists advantage.
I myself have found it very useful and have used similar techniques during my own character development for 'Trainspotting'.
Jamie Hewlett is an English comic book designer, illustrator and designer. He is best known for being the co-creator of popular comic tank girl and also as the co-creator of the amazing anti-band Gorillaz.
He is one of my long time favourite artists!
I love the attitude he manages to get in his pieces, the somewhat non-existent culture that exists only within his art work is in my opinion, extremely cool.
I discovered Jamie Hewlett when I was about 10 years old when I first listened to the Gorillaz first album ( Gorillaz). The video's for the songs filled a visual void for me at the time, It felt right watching them, he got it right.
His work is reminiscent of Japanese manga style work, mixed with very western cartoon influences and also comic book style art work.
I love how his characters have such strong personalities that are shown with very simple features.
The world his Gorillaz characters live in and the things that happen around them is quite magical.
I thought of Jamie Hewlett when starting work on 'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh.
His characters style is normally quite scruffy, cool and bohemian with a care free attitude.. much like the characters in 'Trainspotting'.
I will take inspiration from Jamie hewlett during my character development.
