Two disciplines of illustration analysis

Comic book artist vs Children's book illustrator

Children's books

Whilst researching different ways to get into the children's book industry i managed to make out a small list of things which will increase your chances of landing the job. The childrens book industry is hard to get into bacause of the vast competition, without an agent you will need to rely on your own organizational skills to promote your own work. You will need: 

• A strong portfolio (both online and psychical)
• Innovative way of promoting own work (get people talking)
• The ability to write for a childish audience although not nesscecary will greatly increase your chances of getting selected for a job in this industry. 
• Unique style 
• Build up your contacts, the more people know about you the easier it is for you to get noticed. 

Head here for some children's book tips!

Working in the children's book industry calls for a lot of visuals to be used throughout the book to help fully deliver the experience of the story. Children's books aren't as precise as most people think, as the age barriers change so does the initial content of the book, this industry accommodates to a wide range of styles. Comic books normally have a precise style, despite the unusual and unrealistic story line the images are anatomically correct and are coloured realistically where as children's books can normally bend the characters anatomy to appropriately fit in with the story. The styles that are traditionally used for comic books and kids books are just used as guidelines and you don't necessarily have to follow it for your work to get noticed. There is a point where comic books and children's books cross over, qualities from one type of book can be seen in the other.

Children's book artist's to check out.                                       Children's book publishers    

Dr Seuss  (ages 3 - 10)                                                                     Puffin

Chris Riddell ( ages 10+                                                                   Harper Collins
                                                                                                                                                                                                              
                 

This is a book by Dr Seuss, this one in particular was written for kids around the age of 3, note how simple the artwork is, also the colour palette is very restricted meaning there isn't too much to look at. Young kids don't want to be looking at the image for long, it needs to be simple to understand. This kind of illustration is very precise in it's field and will in turn only attract a certain audience.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wRENKwEYL.jpg

This is another children's book illustrated by Chris Riddell, this book is for children who love a good story and have a good imagination to go along with it, the age range for this book would be about 8 and upwards. The illustration on this book cover is a lot more detailed than the other one and i think that is because there is a lot of descriptive text in this book so it makes sense for the images to match the detailed descriptions.  Chris Riddell is a big player in this field and he survives because his style is so unique! 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WqhSnlX7PrIO68OOvPEdX-hFrMoRr0TEXcLwTEw0ybakeKd_wghsCnHqv8ta-fYpD2aj6DJ13Wbawo-X40ItXyMfLkmJ6zbCaaTuM8-Ll31JmNUADXFSSazQbWF-dkKauNarMB9o-ZuI/s1600/EdgeChronicles-BeyondTheDeepwoods.jpg

Comic books

Art by Richard Isanove - The Wolverine graphic novel

Comic books were originally aimed at a young audience, they were that real cliche item that were normally associated with geeks from films and television shows. Just like a children's book a comic has the ability to tell a story through pictures and some narrative, comic books are normally a bit more in depth and the content is quite descriptive. Comic book scenes break down a characters movement into individual action panels which make everything highly dramatic, this works well considering most mainstream comics are about superhero's. A comic is still a book and goes through relatively the same process that a normal book would. Comics rely heavily on detailed visuals to properly narrate the story and deliver the correct message.
I researched the comic book industry and compiled a list of skills which are key to landing a job as a comic book artist.

• Good draftsmanship skills 
• Good study of anatomy (not mandatory but useful) 
• Sketchbook of real life situations and natural poses
• Good understanding of space and or the negative space 
• Strong influence from other comic book artists and films to help refine style. 
• Good practice and understanding of comic making 
• Able to build up own narrative
• Not needed but some universities offer a degree in comic book art, would help a lot if you had the time and money to get this qualification.

Comic book artists to look at                                                   Comic book publishers

Skottie Young                                                                          Marvel

Chris King                                                                               DC Comics

Jack Kirby                                                                            

Whilst researching comic book artists i found out that there are two main types of comic book companies and both of them work differently.

Mainstream comic book publishers
Marvel and DC are the most popular mainstream comic publishers and a load of work goes into making their comics extremely neat, they are the best of the best. The company hire artists to draw characters form the Marvel and or DC universe, the characters stay the same but the adventures change. The company then break down the production into a load of job roles such as penciling, digital colouring and story boarding. Artists normally start of as free lance and can then gain a full time job working for the company, they produce hundreds of comics every week so they will always need someone to fill one of the many job roles that they offer.

Finding someone to publish your comic.  This kind of publishing involves a lot more work from the artist, you and your team of writers produce the entire comic, you then try and find a publisher to invest in your comic and get it printed. This kind of job is a gamble as you would have to find funds to get your comic printed, penciling, inking and all of the other small jobs required to get the cimic looking crisp will have to all be done by the artist. This is essentially free lance work though this can be a stepping stone into big companies such as Marvel or DC.

Earlier in the post i mentioned that there is a point where comic books and children's books meet, comic books are normally incredibly detailed and usually kids books contain simple illustrations so they are easier to understand. Chris Riddell has an incredibly detailed style, he breaks away from the simple illustrations normally found in children's books. I also found an artist who works for Marvel but has also illustrated children's books so it is good to see how his style blends across the two genres. 

Skottie has this wacky style which i haven't seen really anywhere else, he has worked on various comics for Marvel but his style is very playful and child like. 

                                             

Skottie illustrated a series of children's books based on the original Wizard of Oz film, they are beautiful and his style really brings out the childish features of what appears to be Dorothy. Skottie Young is a good example of how to stretch your work across genres. Children's books and comic books are quite flexible, it's all about finding a publisher who likes your style!  

  

Top Trumps - artists

Chris Riddell

Chris Riddell is a British illustrator, he is a big player in the editorial illustration field as is also known for his highly successful line of children's books. Riddell initially started off as a traditional cartoonist, working with dip pens and ink to create a stylistic caricature. No matter what Riddell works on his style remains the same, he does not really break away from his paper medium though his profession means he does not need to. Riddell has won multiple awards for his illustrations, he is the only illustrator the win 3 greenaway medals. His books include:

• The Edge Chronicles 
• Ottoline and the yellow cat
• Fergus Crane
• Hugo Pepper

 

Riddell has a very unique style and although there are realistic elements his images,  every image pushes the boundaries of what is to be normal.  Riddell takes a reference and distorts it, characters from his world normally feature impossible poses and items of clothing which would never work in the real world. 

The map from the edge chronicles.

Style
Riddell has illustrated plenty of books and he also works with the guardian and does a weekly cartoon. his style sort of limits him to paper based mediums as that is where they look the best. Riddell also draws a lot of political cartoons which are aimed to mock the person being drawn, it takes a lot to send out your opinion through your art and it's never going to go down well with everyone, the images have to be legible but not necessarily accurate which works perfectly for Riddle's style. I personally find his work very funny, the overall look of the characters is enough to get anyone laughing but there is also a hidden hint of irony in most of his political drawings.

We chose to give Chris a 9 out of 10 for style because of how recognizable his images are. they way that he draws characters is very unique and i havent seen anyone else draw in this way to such good effect, he has a really refined way of working and his linework is incredible.

We awarded Chris with an 8 for humour because of his work with the guardian and how he mocks David Cameron and other political figures. The glum expressions on his characters make the look vulnerable and feeble, it's humoros to see powerful figures reduced to such a delicate mess.
An 8 was also given for influence as his style has changed how i work as an image maker, he has been in the field for a long time and for me he really brought the dip pen style back to life in children's books, i think his style of image making has influenced a lot of styles today.
Riddell scored a 2 for breadth because his style is repetitive in everything that he does, he doesn't expand his style much and he always seems to work with the same media. He works for the guardian and illustrates children's books but he doesn't do a lot else really  and that is why he got a low score.

Marco Mazzoni


Marco Mazzoni is an artist from Milan, most of his images are made by layering up colouring pencil to get a beautiful gradient of colour. A lot of his images feature wildlife and objects of nature mixed in with female characters, this combination of imagery supports Mazzoni's influence of Italian folk art. Mazzoni avoids drawing in the eyes of the characters as he believes that it would take the viewers attention away from his beautiful imagery, he also believes that adding in eyes make the image look too much like a portrait. 

Some of his images are also done using a ball point pen, he builds up layers using the pen as if it were a pencil which takes a good amount of skill to do properly. The amount of detail that he gets is incredible and some of his images even look like a digital painting. An online interview says that Marco is inspired by Francisco Goya and Jusepe de Ribera which totally makes sense, both of those artists are Spanish painters who make a lot of realistic imagery and you can see the influence in Marco's work.

                                                                                   


We scored Mazzoni an 8 out of 10 for style because of his ability to render a near on camera quality image with just colouring pencils. I personally like his style and i have never seen such realistic fantasy imagery before. His representation of Italian folk lore is really unique and there isn't a lot of it out there from what i know, that is why he scored high.

We gave him a 1 for humor because we didn't think that his work was made to make people laugh, his images are beautiful and feature things such as trees, leaves and wildlife, all of which aren't really funny.

I believe we scored Marco a 3 for influence because his style is quite unique and precise so it was hard to imagine how he would influence anyone else, his technique could help to build up techniques but his actual images have a style of their own.

And for breadth we scored him a low 2 because he works only on paper and he always using the same media to create his work, his imagery could work with things such as oil pastels and water colours but Marco has honorably stuck to his routes which is why he scored so low.

Work based learning - Life snake.

My life snake, i felt so big headed doing this but it was fun. 

Work based learning - Self statement

Self statement, featuring my not so animated version of myself which will be featured in my animation in a few weeks!

Mini presentation - work based learning. Adam and jack!

Our topic is storyboards
Why are they used? Storyboards are used to map out scenes which act as a guideline to creators so that they can visualize their ideas in a sequence. Storyboards are usually small in size and there are normally a large number of them, they mark key points in a scene and although they are still images the scenes can show movement. Storyboards can be used for comics, animation and films.

Style: These images are rough and are normally in black and white, they are used just as an example so only the main content is detailed whereas the rest looks unfinished as it is unimportant to the scene. In the bottom image the artist uses what seems to be action arrows to show a characters movement between scenes, some of the images in the scenes burst out of their boxes to give a real sense of depth, making it look like they are bursting out of the book and or film.






We found a really bad storyboard on google search, the image quality is good but the scenes aren't clearly marked so it is hard to determine the order in which the scenes happen, also the scenes are quite vague and they don't quite match up, or make sense for that matter.

Pixar is a collection of some of the best animators in the world, responsible for films such as Monsters Inc, Toy story, Cars and Wall-E. Storyboards are crucial to each of these films success, they insure that the animators know where a scene is going and what is going to happen next, they also help the creators draught out characters and make sure they work in an environment. They have a large studio based in California which is efficient for them because a lot of films are produced and drafted out in America, meaning they are close to the industry  Storyboarding for Pixar would give you a 'in house' job where you would work as part of a large team generating ideas until a final conclusion has been met.




DreamWorks is another very successful animating company who are also based in California, story boarding is also crucial to their design process. 







Summary- most of the successful animators are based in America because film producers and marketers  are right around the corner, being a storyboard artist normally means you will be part of a large team such as Pixar or DreamWorks where you all work together to reach the same goal. To be a storyboard artist you have to have a wide range of drawing skills as you will be working to whatever the company brief you on. Your images need to be loose but need to capture key features of the character being portrayed.

Animation teaser

Cheeky little teaser for my short animation that will be coming out in a couple of weeks!
The first episode will be for my comp studies project but i may make some every couple of weeks from then on.
Stay tuned! 

Art and Language conclusion

This project has been a massive journey, i have learned a load of new techniques and have advanced myself further as an image maker. This time i thought that i would try a bunch of new techniques which i have never done before so i can see how the final outcome varies from my normal work. I have worked using a scalpel to cut away from paper to form three dimensional images which worked to great effect though they were time consuming. Most of my second stage was spent trying to figure out ways to fake the cut out effect, i wanted to make silhouettes but without the hassle of having to cut out every detail. To solve this i drew out my images by hand and then went over the outline, i then scanned the outline into Adobe illustrator and image traced my work so that the image was then a vector shape. I then imported the image into photoshop and flood filled it black. In the long run this took about as much effort as it would have cutting them out by hand.

 After slowly giving up on my original book cover idea i started to get away from the silhouettes and work more simply. Thomas Flintham was my salvation at this point, though i did start to look at his work a little late in the project. Flintham works in a really simple way but he fills his image with beautiful lines and detail, quite a bit like Tom Gauld. I started working with him as an inspiration for a while and before i knew it i had my final idea at the ready. For future projects i really need to blog things as i go along just to save time and to make things more efficient. I also wanted to start getting into the habit of posting my thoughts at the time i think it so then i can see a clearer journey to my end product.

Finally i need to plan my work out more and take it step by step, at the moment i am jumping too far ahead and although it is easy for me to understand where i am going it is not so clear to everyone else as to where my idea is going.

To sum up the project it was incredibly fun and i learned a lot more about how to structure images as well as which elements to use when making them. I never thought that text was that important to an image but after finishing this project i can now say that text is just as important as the image if not more important. Learning how to wrap text around my image so that it complements the piece was key step in learning how to composite a piece of work which successfully conveys information but is also easy on the eyes and legible.