The great illustration world - Industry research

Ever since I started this course we have been asked to think about our futures and the jobs that we can gain within our practice. That was quite a scary thought seeing as the illustration world is infinitely large, there are so many different paths we could take, and just as many decisions we will have to make. When I first started I was sure that I wanted to go into children's illustration and in the second year I continued on with that by taking on the Macmillan children's book competition as part of one of my modules. To quickly evaluate my second year I learned that I wasn't great at sequential imagery but what I was good at was characters design. I was also pretty good at applying my art to different contexts such as note books, prints and even 3D resin toys, if anything I'd broadened my target audience and learned a bunch of great skills along the way. 

Whilst I was away on my internship at Hallmark I got a better grasp on the illustration industry, I got an inside look on how the metaphorical industry machine works. There were so many different job titles within one field of design; it was incredible, there were art directors, illustrators, graphic designers, editors and so many more. Although I enjoyed making cards designed for kids I wouldn’t want to do that for a living, it felt too precise for my liking and I would like to work on a broader scale whilst still considering my main target audience.

 During the internship I also came across illustrator Aaron Blecha, I mentioned him in another post but he is just incredible, he really inspired me over the summer and I think it shows in some of the poster pieces that I created. During this module I took another look at him but this time I looked at the many different ways he has applied his style. It seems really retro and heavily influenced by cartoons, that’s probably why I liked him so much as I take similar inspirations with my own work.

He has illustrated children’s books, graphic novels and has even designed a label for glow in the dark cola which is pretty neat. The strengths of his portfolio lie within character design, every character is very well thought out and his great understanding of poses and cartoon anatomy strengthens his work further.

After having a few moments of realisation mixed with a few tutorials with my lecturers I can see clearly that my strengths also lay within character design. With that being said I can see myself going for commissions similar to those that Aaron Blecha would take on.

During my second year I also came across Steve Simpson, he greatly influenced my work for the make and sell module in second year. Again I referred back to him during this module for influence but also to investigate his practise. Simpson has landed some huge commissions in his career lining up clients such as Guinness, Heineken, Rowntrees and 7up. He also has his work on chili bottles, coffee cups and even apps for phones and tablets. Simpson has also got a large market within children’s publishing having illustrated books, puzzles, clothing and even animated commercials. This guy really is the real deal and I aspire to reach such heights myself.
Steve’s career started out with animation, he chose to leave that field and focus on illustration purely because he felt that he was stretching himself too thin across the board which is fair enough. Having skills in the animation world had its perks though as he had recently worked on a commercial for kids which allowed him to use his old knowledge to animate in his new style which was very effective.

Aaron Blecha also worked for clients such as Disney Tv and Cartoon Network So I can see some links between the two. Throughout this module I have looked at dozens of cartoons for my references and after looking through my final outcomes I can see where my style is taking me, or more importantly where I want it to take me. I can see myself making characters for Cartoon Network, Disney or even Nickelodeon, may it be concept art or advertising or even the title cards that open the cartoon. There are tons of indie based cartoon channels and sites that would allow me to submit my work to gain some ground, sites such as Indieanimator.com would be a pretty good one to look at.  I already have a basic understanding of rotoscoping and have made some little shorts for the complementary studies module; I also worked on the concept art for an Animated Exeter Ident which actually won the pitch. That being said I wouldn’t really want to animate my work as I’d rather work on the generation and concept behind my characters. I can see myself working as part of a team with animators and story boarder’s at my side as I think that best suits both my style and my personality as a person.

After looking into cartooning jobs I found that common roles include: Story artist – Background/layout artist – Studio Background artist – Technical Director – Director of Photography – Photoscience Engineer – Editorial Cartoonist – Production Background – Pencil Model Sheet Artist – Morph.

The Editorial Cartoonist and Pencil Model Sheet Artist look quite appealing to me as they seem to have very little tie –ins with the actual animating process and seem to focus more on the development and creation of characters.  

To extend my interest in cartooning id want to look into potential internships that would allow me to get my foot in the door, id also want to look into submitting my work to bigger animated companies as well as keep an eye out for competitions and or recruitments.

Finally to wrap things up, I wanted to mention a potential opportunity I could have gained over the last couple of days. 

I regularly update my Instagram weekly, this allows me to get my work out there and the use of tags allows a wider audience to see my work which is always great. I uploaded an image from the Spectres and Spooks workshop the other day and an animator liked my image. I went onto his profile and he had worked on cartoon feature films like Space Jam!

He also got to work on one of cartoons greatest, Buggs Bunny which is incredible. After being a fan boy for a little while I went on to look through the rest of his work and I found that he works on little indie animations that seem to air on American programs. I want to message this guy and maybe ask him about his career and see if I can get any information that would help me in the cartoon field. It might also be good to maybe inquire about his current cartoons and ask if he needs any additional characters for them.

(Quick note - Blogger went down for me yesterday and because of such I had to write this on word and paste it in this morning, some images are missing because of that so apologies for the block of text, just wanted to confirm that I did in fact do my research)