Jormungander

Before working on workshop 6 I changed my story from the Origin of Ganesh to the story of Jormungander, the great sea serpent from Norse Mythology who is so large he can reach around the entire globe.

I wanted to create a series of images that worked on there own and also together as a narrative.

I looked at a huge array of images of Jormungander and snakes, below are just a few.

My first drawing for the project was influenced by Richey Becketts work, using very small fineliners.

Below is the drawing a rough coloured version.

AS well as being poorly drawn in some areas, I was unhappy with the style as well.

Whilst working on other things, 2 artists I had been looking at recently came together and shaped my project from then on.

Mike Giant's work is bold and brilliant. Giant uses a large amount of black, and in the book Muerte he uses only black and electric blue.

The other major influence was Alphonse Mucha, not for the way he drew but how the models of the pictures were framed in simple, elegant shapes.

I chose to house bold, black drawings in a simple shape. I chose a triangle as I felt that rotating the shape would drastically change each image and give it a different feel.

I mocked up each panel using sharpies and pro markers, fully intending to later redraw the image and colour it digitally.

 I used a flat colour like Giant for each piece, and used nearly the same colours when I digitally coloured them. Below are the final 8 images I used.

 I decided to fully embrace the use of black and filled in the background as well.

After this I decided to go full on with the black theme. I decided to bind the images into a book. I created a front and back cover that was the inverse of the inside images, and designed it so it could be printed onto black paper.

I tried creating a hand written font that could be used to help tell the story, but it looked too cartoony and not serious enough for the images, so I used the font Trajan Pro.

As well as intended to print this A4 size and bind with the japanese stab bind, I also created a template to make an easy fold zine as i did last year. Again i printed the cover onto black paper to create the envelope.

Whilst happy with the final image on the screen, when printed with a laser printer at full size it showed the lack of quality in a lot of places. I wish I had more time to experiment with A5 size and different methods of printing, but I feel the book gives a good indication of how the book could be produced.

I experimented with converting the colour to halftone as i had done in other projects, but felt the flat colour would work best. However after printing i feel the halftone would have added another depth. Nonetheless, I felt the paper stock i chose for the book worked well and showcased the images to a high standard. 

Screen printing these images would have also been a viable option, but I didn;t feel the facilities were easily available where I could successfully print 2 colours perfectly.

There is something lacking with the printed images, a warmth and depth that the hand rendered images had, but that i could not reproduce with digital methods. In future i shall try and bridge the gap between hand rendered and digital work.

Pendle Witches

By far my least accomplished workshop.

I looked again at the work of Bob Rafei for this project and the woman characters in the jak and daxter series.

I very quickly skecthed the design and loosely coloured it in Photoshop.

I really don't have much to say about this, I think it's awful but I didn't want to leave the workshop completely.

Smoking

On the day of the workshop I struggled hugely with this workshop. In my sketchbook were a handful of ideas that I felt were contrived and predictable.
When travelling in London I came across the work that McBess had produced for Travel For London, seen below.

Seeing an illustrator with such a personal style be able to produce public safety posters put a new spin on the subject for me. Although I wanted to focus on the mythological side of the quote, i also felt that with a contemporary twist, the illustration could also be adapted to be used to raise awareness.

The idea of the image came to me almost fully formed. I looked at the work of my favourite artist Stephan Doitschinoff and other pieces of street art for inspiration.

After a small number of sketches i began working A3 size. I scanned in the black line work and worked into it with colour, highlighting the drawing by adding a white border around the image. Below are several different colour variations.

I chose a limited palette, using black, grey and pink. Although happy with these colours, i felt they looked a little flat. After working on the Shelter piece, I considered using benday dots and colour halftone. I converted the colour to colour halftone and felt that this gave the piece a little extra depth and so i felt it was finished. On the screen the dots can be quite disorientating, but when printed A3 the image worked well.
I was very happy with this piece, I felt it clearly showcases my style, whilst using other textures and devices i hadn't experimented much before with.