Category: Illustration

‘Tick’ named one of the Top Ten Indie comics of 2012!

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Do you know what you NEED to own? You NEED to own my graphic novel, Tick. This is not a suggestion or a request, it’s a fact.

I know this, because the internet told me so. The Internet, in all it’s all-knowing glory, has come down this Christmas time in the form of Comic Community site Broken Frontier, with the flattering news that my work has been included in their Top Ten List of the best indie comics of 2012.

How about THAT?

So why not just treat yourself this Christmas and check it out here. Consider it a treat for having survived the end of the world.

Festive love to all and all that jazz.

B

x

Bringing the Zine to the Screen: Limited Edition Prints!

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So hands up if you like bears?

Ok now, I want you o stand up, turn around and get out, and the rest of us can appreciate how disgusting they are via the means of my little zine, Bears: Don’t Like ’em! This came about last Easter, and since then has been a consistently strong seller at arts fairs and conventions, to men, women and bear haters everywhere. And actually, one or two intrigued bear lovers too.

Having witnessed it’s popularity, I thought I’d bring it to life with a little splash of colour and returned to my usual haunt, the print rooms, to create these three sets of limited edition screen prints from the zine.

I Don't Like Bears

beartea-print

 

tea-print

And a fox in a tie. That one was really just for giggles though.

foxprint

So that’s all quite nice.

Now let’s all go have a cup of tea.

B

x

Second Year Frollicks! The End of Term Catch up Part 2: Card Deck

Posted on Posted in Book Binding, Events, Fun and Textiles, Illustration, PrintmakingTagged , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Anyone ever read/ watch Cardcaptors? Not to sound like a little fangirl, but it was pretty rad. No joke.

I bring it up only because it had some attractive examples of interesting, illustrated card decks, which happens to be the brief of my most recent illustration project, which I am lovingly bringing to you today as part two of the Second Year Catch Up sesh.

We were asked to create a set of nine cards in the style of Edward Gorey’s Fantod deck of alternative Tarot. And my eyes immediately turned into little dollar bill signs, as this was in November, just prior to Comiket. And card decks are a pretty sell-able deal.

I turned to my interests in media theory for inspiration, choosing to illustrate Vladmir Propp’s theory of set character types. With creepy puppets. Because if a project of mine needs one thing, it’s definitely an air of macabre. (There was research and reasoning to back this up by the way, but, who am I kidding? You don’t care about that! You’re probably going to sneak past the text, straight to the pictures anyway, you cheeky little blog ninja.)

So here it is, The Propp-Up Theatre Deck.

the-deck

So we have The fist 7 from Propp’s character theory (I chose to omit the Father as a separate character, merging him with the Dispatcher as is often the case with folklore anyway.) Then made up the full nine with the Bottler and Punchman, the traditional workers of the Punch an Judy show.

the-collectionWe had to design the nine cards themselves, then a back for them as well as a Key Guide to reading them, tarot style. I went a step further (in the name of making moolah) and turned my key into a small booklet with information about the concept as well as the cards themselves, as well as handprinting candy bags to echo the punch and Judy, disturbing British seaside vibe.

key

key-inside

And did the punters at Comiket appreciate all the hardwork? Damn tootin they did! They were the first thing of mine to go and by the end of the day I only had about 2 sets left. Not bad for a school project/money making combo.PC168167

B

x

Second Year Frollicks! The End of Term Catch up Part 1: Chickens.

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And thus begins the mammoth job that is the catch up posts from the past term. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but life definitely got frighteningly busy over the past 3 months and, as a result, my little interweb based snippets of work became a little sparse. For those of you that noticed and, more to the point, those of you that cared, I apologise for this, get on my little, metaphorical, digital knees and beg your forgiveness.

You know, in the spirit of Christmas and all that.

Not that I have any Seasonal based works for you, because I’VE BEEN BUSY. So Uni work it is.

So let’s kick start with a bit of printmaking shall we? For no other reason than it makes me happy. And I’m in charge.

The brief was…well just that. Very simply to create a screen printed poster selling our favorite fast food restaurant.

This is all very well and good, except I happen to be a proud, longstanding member of  the societal subculture of “students who cook” and, therefore have something of an aversion to fast food. Actually, that’s putting it quite lightly. What I mean is, generally and on the whole, I really bloody hate it.

“Not to worry!” My tutor insisted, “You may employ a use of irony!”

So I did. I employed a use of irony. Actually, I employed a really bloody heavy use of irony and drew, what probably turned out to be the single, most disturbing thing that’s ever been dredged from the depths of my skull, in the name of promoting Yicken, a Chinese take out back where I grew up. You know the kind: greasy walls, tiled floors, an inescapable use of that classic yellow and red colour scheme that desperately attempts to suggest some element of culture.

Actually, if I’m entirely honest, as far as nasty Chinese’s go, Yicken isn’t the worst. It just happens to have a heinously playful name that I thought might be handy in the creation of the poster.

yickenThere it is. A vile, possibility regarding the identification of the mystery meat found in that greasy tub of yours.

An Ebook for You

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So, following on from the last post, I’ve been drawing inspirational ladies for an inspirational lady.

If you’d like to learn more about the achievements of some truly incredible people, or simply need an antidote to the head-in-palms inducing presentation of us double X chromosome owners available in magazine racks, check out this charming little ebook.

The pictures ain’t half bad either.

B

x

A Project for a Lady

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Men are pretty cool. They do things and make stuff and sometimes say things that make you think.

Some men are really awesome and make you appreciate things just by telling you what they think, and you stare and wish you had their knowledge in your head so you could think like that.

And, by the same token, some men are pretty lame. They destroy things or lie or do both and then pretend they haven’t. They get power hungry and selfish and manipulate a whole lot of people who don’t understand how small they are in comparison.

And there’s a whole load of women who are just as lame and just as corrupt and make choices that nobody else really likes, if they knew they had been made.

And then, by the same token, there are some really rad women. Women who also think differently and make you say things like “wow!”.

Women from the past like this lady:Mary Wollstonecraft

Women from, the slightly more recent past like these ladies:

WAAFS

Women from all over time, like these ladies:

sarojini-naidu

Tiny-DavisMae-Jemison

And Women who make totally rad things that look totally bad ass and help progress understandings, like this thing.Donna-Shirley's-Mars-Rover

And some women do drawings of things for other women who really like cool women that have done stuff.

True Say.

B

Don’t be so Graphic…

Posted on Posted in Illustration, Musings, TypographyTagged , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Did you know I was actually studying a Graphics course?

I ask, only because you would, under no uncertain terms, be forgiven for thinking I was an illustration student. I think it’s something to do with the total lack of organisation, adoration for comics and drawing…”things” and my total inability to draw straight lines.

And The fact that I’m not sure I’ve mentioned the word “grid” once since setting this site up over a year ago.

Well I am. It’s a mixed course admittedly, and there is certainly a heavy emphasis on image making and illustration too, but I wanted to, very quickly, dispel any myths that I am no good for anything but the world of the wibbly.

The current project is all about layout. And I’m finding it a challenge and a half. Here is the, incredibly ugly, induction timetable for first years to my University.

Yes we are actually an arts and design school. The irony is not lost on me.

See, this what happens when you leave all the admin to the Humanities Campus.

But I digress, we’re currently taking part in a series of short exercises in redesigning the above ugly thing, into something considerably less ugly using a set of strict restrictions and rules (One typeface only, one colour only 3 type size only etc). Just to clarify, this is by no means a practice of making something “beautiful” in the traditional sense. This is about creating order, making structure and making use of positive and negative space, type weight, type size and a hell of a lot of Swiss inspired graphical magic.

So, so far these are  how I’ve gone about getting my Bauhaus on. Don’t worry about the text. This is about the overall effect of the page, the information itself is borderline irrelevant.

      Mmmmm…delicious, gridded neatness.

I have a whole bunch of these, with tweaks here and changes there. Things most people wouldn’t notice in the slightest. It’s got to the stage of adjusting it pixel by pixel in a worrying display of Design Induced OCD.

I wanted to chat about these, I suppose just to remind everyone that us people-creatures don’t have to be pigeon holed as much as we often are. Yes I know it’s all in the same sort of area of design and creativity, but I am just one little person who happens to define herself as an illustrator of sorts. That it what I love, how I make a little moolah, and what I devote a lot of time to. But there is always room in my little noggin for different things. Things that require me to think differently and consider how I see things differently, and I think it’s pretty cool that we have the capacity to do these different things at the same time. I think that I, like so many others, can lose sight of that when life gets busy and sink back into the comfort of what I know I can do.

But I’m really starting to get into these little layout majigs. They’re challenging for a messy art bug like me, and I’ve definitely not cracked it yet, but with every new design I make, I see new promise and get joy from the structure of it all. The Organisation is SO pleasing.

I’ve literally gone from a fanatic of this:

Dave Mckean; Wolves in the Walls. A STUNNING book.

To This:

Joseph Muller Brockmann: Swiss magic

Seriously!

THIS:

Shaun Tan. Cool guy and badass illustrator.

TO THIS!!:

Jan Tschichold

Learning is fun 🙂

B

x

A Comic about Things and the Number One Reason Why I Need a Slap

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Anterograde amnesia is a form of amnestic disorder.

According to the mental health professional’s handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , fourth edition, text revision (2000), also known as DSM-IV-TR, it is characterised by the sufferer’s inability to retain new memories or learn new information based on experience. This would make it very difficult to use any information gained through personal experience to alter the sufferer’s actions in their future endeavours. They are, essentially, unable to learn from their past mistakes.

I’m informing you of this, very interesting and clever sounding information (that I have, just now, stolen from the internet), because I think I must have this condition. Why else would I be so, totally one hundred percent incapable? Other than the fact I am just, literally a twat.

Unlike most people of sound minds, I seem to be completely and utterly incapable of learning from my mistakes, specifically with regards to the time management of personal projects, (illustrated best by this time, this time or, indeed, this time) and taking the necessary steps in ensuring that I DON’T DO THAT AGAIN.

Case and point: I have just this week recovered after five consecutive days of sleep deprivation and manic photoshopping induced finger strain, in an attempt to knock together the four page comic I have been thinking about making for about two months. The operative word here being thinking. I have known about a competition for a four page comic for the full length of this time and for the entirety of it, have had the well-meaning intention to enter. I started of pretty well, I wrote it. Then I did the first storyboard for the first page…about a month later. Then I put it off like an absolute champ until the week before deadline.

Oh yeah, and it was postal entry so completion time was pretty crucial in order to get it there in time. Brilliant.

And thus began the next installment in the, worryingly frequent, let’s-not-sleep-for-a-few-bajillion-hours-so-we-can-finish-this-work-that-really-should-have-been-done-at-least-three-days-ago saga.

And this is what I bring you today. The fruits of my most recent labour, made much harder by my own idiocies and disregard for my poor, suffering body’s basic need for sleep.

I don’t know if it’s a form of unassuming arrogance or simply a branch of unquestionable stupidity, but it’s getting seriously ridiculous the extent of which I will leave the things I want to do in favour of  doing, just about, anything else.

I managed it yes. I finished four pages of narrative and I submitted it, within the time restraints of the competition. And it’s not the worst comic ever made. But it could, and more to the point SHOULD have been better. Much better. I should have had the time to redo the first storyboard as a storyboard and not had to rework it on the final page. I should have had the time to find a font that suited the tale better than the, pretty sorry, collection I work from currently, downloaded it and implemented it. I should have had the time to rework the text so that the first page wasn’t so unbalanced in terms of the relationship between text and image (you know, kinda the most important aspect of a graphic novel.) Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda. Because I DID actually have that time. And I frittered it away baking cakes and complaining about my summer project.

And now it is done. And that means it cannot be undone, at least until Marty Mcfly realises that he definitely is wasting his time with Jennifer and is willing to spring forward to 2012 and marry me, whisking me away in our badass time machine (this will happen after he realises he’s fed up of being a fictional character and ready to take the steps into the realms of reality), at which point I can find past me and give me a good slap, shouting “DO SOME WORK NOW” in my own face.

Until that moment, I’m going to have to settle with LEARNING from what has gone before and NOT leaving everything that is not of immediate importance until it is, at which point it’s too late for it to reach it’s full potential.

Well I can dream. There’s a definite possibility here, that I am actually just doomed.

B

x

Back into the Swing of Things

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Well, I did it.

It was terrible but I did it. The Intended-for-Summer-but-Actually-only-Done-in-the-Early-Autumn-the-Night-Before-Hand-in-Project is officially handed in. It is done. Complete. Finito.

So now let’s all move on to happier times and embrace the start of a new year, banishing thoughts of irritatingly time consuming prior projects, and subsequently the guilt of not having done them, to the wind and beginning afresh.

I have a shiny, new project with lots of lovely potential and handfuls of doodles I intend to screen print, now that I, once again, have access to all the glorious facilities of institutionalised education. And boy, am I intending to make use of those. Not so much for school work obviously, that’s just not how I roll.

My desk is currently decorated with new time tables and other scraps of paper with various, scribbled information for the new year, as well as the usual half a rainforest that seems to materialise every September/October in the form of sheets and sheets of administrative information I either already know, or will never look at.

Yes, it is officially back to school time.

Let’s all celebrate with a completely unrelated drawing of a fox.

Image

Bring on the new year! And with it, nice early bedtimes.

Goodnight.

x

It’s Technically not the Summer Anymore…

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And thus begins my second year as a  West Country bumpkin.

So far it’s been going well, with a small but successful day selling zines at the Bristol Zine Fair, as organised by the folks from The Bearpit Zines collective, and I’ve had a good few weeks of very successfully avoiding doing my summer project by getting unhealthily obsessed with cooking.

So here’s some recent doodles to direct my mind away from the ludicrous thought of beginning said “summer” project…in October…the night before I hand it in…

…okay I will get on it soon. Under the watchful eyes of the judgemental ostrich.I suspect this guy may have been behind the mysterious disappearance of the cheesecake brownies I made this week…

And finally, I was also asked recently to design a simple, cartoon plane design to go on Tshirts for the organisation “The Epiphany Project”. This simple line drawing is what I came up with.

See? It might not be for uni, but I have been doing some kind of work esque things! It’s not all been fun, games and ostriches!

Alrighty, enough internet based procrastination. I am now, really and truly, going to go and do my *ahem* early autumn project. As it shall now be known.

Bath Spa are so lucky to have me.