AD34 - Finding my way - monster inspiration

Way back when I first decided that I wanted to study the topic of monsters for my dissertation I did not really know where exactly to start as monsters have many sub genres and there are many debates over what is and what isn't a monster. I guessed that a mood board or two would be a good place to start my research as it might help me narrow the topic down to something that could fit into around 4000 words.

The topic of monsters has always been a favorite of mine because of it vast applications. Throughout my research boards I came across many a different monster, some were cute, some were nightmare inducing and a lot were based on cult classics like Frankenstein and Dracula. Either way there was a lot of variety here and that is a quality that I wanted my own artefact to have. I'd opted to do the artefact because it just made sense for me to create something especially when I am so keen on this topic.

Making mood boards became a little addictive, I wanted to explore the monster visually and see if I can find something interesting that would spark my imagination. The board above had some interesting hand made monsters like the felt ones in the top left hand corner, and the cut outs on the bottom left.

Another question popped up whilst I was looking for monster inspiration. When I come to illustrate my artefact, what style would be best?
I have two significantly different illustration styles and they would both work for this kind of theme but again I thought it best to maybe keep searching and the style would work its way out along the way.
The board above features a lot of illustrations that are slightly geometric and naive in style which I thought worked really well for the monster concept.

Nearing the end of my extensive monster research I was getting closer to an idea for the artefact. I knew that i'd want to draw a good number of monsters maybe in some kind of sequence. Perhaps something that would showcase monsters and their different forms.

Okay so the monster mood board extravaganza has been completed, throughout this study I came across monsters that pushed categorization to the very limit, a lot of variety and a lot of dynamic interpretations. The two detailed monster portraits going through the middle of the above board was an artists representation of famous rock stars, a pretty epic concept!
I decided at this point that I wanted to illustrate the way that monsters have changed throughout time, covering most classes of monster such as deities, mythical beasts, cult classics and so on.  I did not know at this point how large I wanted the timeline to but that is something I could figure out at a later time.

AD32 - conclusion

This has probably been the best project for me so far as I have produced a range of professional outcomes, this was also the first time that my work has been shown fully in context. The menu turned out really well and it looked totally believable when I had taken pictures of it at the dinner table. This time through I took a different approach to the planning process of my digital images, to speed up the process I made digital colour swatches so that I could just jump straight into the final image.
For me the last module was about celebrating my new found style and confidence as an image maker and for this module I feel like it was about pushing myself to the absolute limit.

I am also happy with my Syfy outcomes as they allowed me to try out some new things, the weapon wall image for example allowed me to work with geometric shapes to produce a sharp and uniform illustration. The menu and the weapon wall were my strongest pieces in my opinion and I feel that they have opened up some new doors for me in the future, I'd like to make similar busy images like these in the future.

To conclude I am very happy with where my work is heading and can't wait to see where it takes me in future projects.

AD 32 - Artist research - David DeGrand

David DeGrand may be one of my new favorite illustrators, I chose him because we have a similar way of drawing people, we both like to exaggerate features and make everything look a little disgusting. We also use similar shading techniques and our line qualities share similar traits, a perfect inspiration for me really. I also chose David because his client list is pretty marvelous to look at and it also has some clients that I would like to work for Including Nickelodeon and Walt Disney Television Animation. DeGrand has also landed clients such as MTV, Spongebob Comics and YUCK! magazine.

David's style is extremely cartoon and has an alternative feel to it, his work is a little gross and disgusting yet it is delivered in a socially acceptable way. He uses outrageous colour palates that are easy on the eyes but give the image that WOW factor to great effect. There is a lot of sketchbook work and from looking at the quality of line id say that he scans in original artwork and then colours it digitally. It's heavily based on character design but the lines and colours lend his work out to be used in comic books and cartoon ads.

David makes a lot of indie comics and higher caliper comics, there are a lot of kids books and design for cartoons in his portfolio. Id say his main audience would be aimed towards a younger generation but some of his comics fit into a slightly older catagory of maybe 18 -25 year old's.
So to sum that up he is an indie cartoonist who has a broad range of work aimed at the younger generation whilst still keeping the interest of people my age with a passion for all things gross.

David worked on a series of books called The Zombie Chasers and I would have liked to have worked on the dust jacket for one of them, it looks really busy and featured a load of characters on the cover, that would have been heaven for me to work on something like that.

I found David through a promotional website called Illustrationmundo which is a site dedicated to artists and their work, it's essentially a catalogue for illustrators and designers. The site lead me to his actual website which is really nicely set out, he also has a Facebook presence and a blog. His online space is pretty well managed and he has appeared at many art shows including Naughty Nineties, the end of an era, Cartoon Funanza and Seduction of the Idiots. Pretty much every art show he had attended was local to his home state Texas but the numbers were pretty impressive as he has appeared in around 23 local shows so far.


I couldn't really see if David works on commissions as there was no evidence on any of his sites, His main portfolio site did include a load of personal work though so id imagine if he had enough time on his hands to work on personal things he might have some room for commissions.

Speaking of personal work, David has a book of his own artwork published by Milk Shadow Books and a lot of his personal characters have been made into stickers that you can buy online.

It seems like David is busy but has enough time to work on his own things which he also makes a living from, I looked at some interviews with him and there was no indication to a regular job. David has illustrated for Spongebob comics for the past two years and is also a contributor to Heeby Jeeby Comix so it seems like he sustains himself by jumping between these two jobs and selling his personal work online.

AD 32 - artist research - Glen Mullaly

After looking through my folder of illustrators that I liked I manged to find a few that have similar styles and interests to me. Glen Mullaly was the first one that I chose, I did so because he focuses mainly on character design and the application of them. Most of his stuff is digitally rendered and includes a dominant black line which is similar to my methods as an image maker.
I would say that Glen has a style heavily influenced by retro cartoons and comics, his colour palates are gentle on the eyes yet still pack enough punch to give the characters some extra life. There is quite a lot of emphasis on the lighting on and around his characters, the light is emulated with a white mark. His heavy weight black line changes in size slightly to pick up the smaller details of his piece which fits in and pays homage to the traditional comic book/cartoon style. Most of his images are rendered digitally but there were some on his website that looked more hand made, see below for examples.

Obviously some of these images are still rendered digitally but they still have hand made features and textures about them, either that or Glen is really great at emulating hand made textures. 

Most of Glen's images target a younger audience, after looking through his client list I can confirm that to be the case as he has worked on various illustrations and comics for kids including some comics based on Star Wars Published by Dark Horse Comics. His clients also include Mcdonalds and Simon and Schuster, both of which are big names to have on an illustration CV. 

After going through Glen's blog I was able to find out some more information on the image he worked on as there was little description on his professional site. He worked on a book collection titled 'My Teacher is an Alien' which was a book I was looking into during the early stages of my dissertation, it would have been pretty awesome to work on a book with such a cool concept.

Glen has quite a large online presence including a Facebook page, Blogger, Glossom and a Thats My Folio. He also makes appearances at local art fairs such as Victoria's Ultimate Hobby and Toy Fair where he sells mini prints and autographs his work. He also has an online store and his books are also on the Amazon listings making him quite easy to come across. Finally I have found some of his books in stores such as Waterstones, this is one of the best methods of marketing he could get, to land a book in a big branch store can have great results.

I couldn't find much on Glen's agent but I found out that he works in a studio that he shares with his wife and cat, id assume the cat doesn't do much art. Glen has had work in TD Art Gallery and according to his blog post he appears at recurring events there and has done for a while. 

Reading through Glen's blog was pretty interesting as it showed me how busy he can be, one post stated that he was really busy getting work finished for a load of different clients, it seems that he doesn't have a lot of time to take on commissions, there was also nothing on his blog to support him taking any on. 

Glen makes prints and paintings to sell on his online store, he also makes appearances at comic book fairs and art shows where he sells mini prints and things. He seems to update his store quite frequently so there must be a high demand for his work. He seems to balance out doing art for fun and as a career pretty well. 

After sweeping through Glen's blog and looking at his impressive client list I couldn't find anything about him having any other commitments, he seems to be able to sustain himself using his chosen tricks of the trade. every week he seems to be working on something new, may it be character designs for an advert, new pages for a children's book or even some new paintings to go in a gallery.  

Syfy design campaign - A new inspiration

After completing my menu I was feeling super inspired and wanted to create more art in that style, I enjoyed working with shapes and I liked keeping things busy.

I have been a big fan of Andrew Kolb for ages and I love how neat and precise he can be with his illustrations. The Dexter's Laboratory image in particular was screaming at me, it was telling me that I could do something like this, I felt like I was on a roll and the workload kept flowing at this point. Although I loved my scientist Syfy poster design I felt like I could make something a little more busy, maybe think a little more geometric this time as well.

I had an idea to create a Syfy themed weapon wall. (See sketch folder for sketches)

I wanted to keep it well regimented and fairly geometric to see how much I could push my style.

The main idea that I wanted to capture was the idea of the Syfy channel being very at home, the low budget films give off a home made kind of vibe so I wanted a few of the "weapons" to look like every day items that you could find in your house. Some weapons would maybe have a retro science fiction theme to them so that they all tie in together.
Below is a screen shot of the colour mock process which is similar to the way that I mocked up colours for my menu. Just the original inks with some digital colour loosely thrown over the top to give me an idea of where the colours would sit against each other.

Due to the time scale I didn't really have time to alter this image or take any screen shots, I just wanted to commit to something and make it good, I planned this image out fairly well before I started it, I just wanted to let my digital skills do the talking. I am really pleased with these outcomes and it was great to work almost purely using shapes. The blue background was my original palette but I mixed it up with the brown and purple for some variations. The bright background was what kept me focused on the grey weapons, the contrast was needed. These however are not the final images as I felt that the background colour almost took something away from some of the more colourful elements like the hair dryer and the Super Soaker. Below is my finished image,

The black makes everything pop off of the background and it all looks a little more uniform this way. My lecturer mentioned that the Syfy logo maybe shouldn't have the white underline as it doesn't look deliberate but instead looks like a printing mistake. That is something that can easily be changed but for the college deadline I will keep it this way as I think it adds a little depth to the title and makes it look engraved within the metal.  I would definitely like to do more work like this in the future!

Self Initiated menu brief - Contextualization and the final concept

Here is the menu fully printed out with the two masks either side, they look good together but what could make this even better?

If the menu now came with an interior!!!

I apologize but there aren't any sketches at all for the interior as I did not have much time to throw it together but it turned out pretty good. I sampled some food options from an existing Mexican restaurant in London called Wahaca. click for website

 I re-wrote the text and picked various dishes I liked so as to make it as unique as possible. I took the check pattern from the outside of the menu and made it black and grey so it was easier to read the text and then I just drew all over it digitally, filling the gaps with similar elements from the outside cover.

This just polished off the whole piece and made it look totally believable, now the finishing touch.

 My cousins and their son were very kind to allow me 20 minutes of their time so that I could photograph them interacting with my menu as if they were out for a family meal, the first few shots are of their son as I wanted to contextualize the coloruing sheet and mask wearing.

The artist at work! 

Trying to decide what to have!

Taking the masks out for a spin. The image on the right is by far my favourite, that mask in particular was also a good choice as the expression makes him look as if he is having trouble trying to decide. 

Tried out the mask with eye holes and it does look good although I still prefer the one with cartoon eyes. The image on the left has the test flyer I made in the shot to show its use, when you are in a restaurant you normally have a little stand where the salt and pepper is stored and usually there are menus and things clipped to the top of it. You could even go as far to say that the design could go on napkins, if not that then a simpler version with maybe just the arrows or something along those lines.  

Trying to decide what to get for dessert! 

Happy days!
Menu fully opened and stomachs happily full! 

Finally I left them with some sheets to keep and colour in, I am truly thankful to my cousins for lending me their time and welcoming me into their home. They gave me the context that I needed for this brief to properly come to an end. 

Self initiated menu brief - The puzzle idea

After completing the menu and the masks I sort of wanted to make something else like an activity sheet of some kind that kids could do whilst they were waiting for their food. I remember looking at Thomas Flintham's work a while back and he has had many of his puzzle books published so I thought he would be a good place to start.

His puzzles and mazes are super effective and are really nice to look at. In my sketch folder you can see some basic concepts that I had come up with for a wrestling belt themed maze. below is my digital mock of what the maze section would look like.

The idea was to start at the entrance on the left part of the belt and work your way along to the middle and then out along the far right hand side. The centre maze would have extra paths going along to fill the circular space and I had thought about maybe adding wrestling mask in the middle, not unlike the logo for the menu. I used a program online that generated a square space, it then allowed me to carve various pathways into the shape and then all I had to do was screen shot it and use it as a guide for the digital sketch. In this case I actually found it easier to take the shape and lock off the pixels and then change the colour to whatever I please. The two side panels are constructed of four individually designed mazes and then merged to make a larger one, the middle section is a scaled up version of the smaller maze sections.

After a lot of thought I decided that I did not want to carry on with this idea as everything felt a little too artificial and although I made the mazes myself there was this feeling that made me feel like the mazes were not my own which obviously threw me off. My lecturers also mentioned that this kind of thing did not really match with the other images that I had made for this brief. So the maze idea pretty much ended there and then, it was a cool idea but not for the audience that I am aiming for, also I can do better than this.

Enter the colouring sheet idea. This was a lot simpler to do and a lot more effective, I thought it would be a good idea to name characters that are on the menu, they could have a favourite food and maybe a strength level as to tell who is the strongest, sort of like Trump cards. This one is called Fancy Pants and he was just traced from a section on the back of my menu, I have also added the challenge of finding him on the menu and a tick box to show that you have found him. The background elements were just made up to fit his body shape, they reflect the elements from the menu but I mixed them up to make him harder to find.

Sadly Fancy Pants is the only one I have had time to create for this deadline but there is nothing stopping me from making the whole team in the same style. That way if anyone wanted to take this design and make it a reality then I would already have the activity sheets finished.  Now to contextualize everything.