BIBLIOGRAPHY

IMAGES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dinosaurs/Image_review/Archive_February_%26_March_2007
WEB SITES
http://www.imdb.com/Web sites

http://www.illustrationmundo.com/wp/


www.issue.com

ARTISTS
http://www.mattiasadolfsson.se/

http://www.retsu.com/

http://mwmgraphics.com/

CONCLUSION

so, here is the end of my whirlwind blogging adventure!(for the FMP anywho) And what a ride its been! although my project is near completion, there is still 2 weeks left, and a lot can happen in 2 weeks! unfortunately i didn't manage to fully complete everything before this document hand in, so i will do my best to conclude what has happened so far, and give my best predictions of what is ahead of me.

I am a sucker for not being consistent in my level of working, with previous projects i run out of steam, and my work rate dips, rapidly in some occasions. Ive managed to surprise even myself through out the duration of the FMP, by keeping a constant and steady work flow. I think i have avoided these dips by changing up my idea fast, whenever  i have doubt or get even the slightest bit bored i have switched up the idea to keep it fresh and exciting. I did this when the elements plan went a bit stale, normally i would stick with it in the hope that i will see a new light on it eventually, but its at this point i would usually crash. It was a huge help jumping into this project by learning to screen print. I had never done this before and I think learning that process really got my creative juices flowing. I found it both challenging time consuming, but the results are very much worth it. I wish i had spent more time with silk screening but i would have needed a lot more time and practice to get the outcome to a high enough standard for potentially creating a final images. 

Im fairly happy with the direction ive taken this project, From the start i was a bit vague on my intentions. I knew i wanted to create a body of work to round up my love for drawing machines, but i wasnt sure at the start how to go about it, Hence why my proposal was so short. The elements idea came about after some serious brainstorming, and i took it to a decent level, but im extreamly glad i changed up the idea. I am aloso happy the imagery that i had created up till that point was still usable, and not wasted

We have 2 weeks left! At this moment in time i have 3 finished peices and possibly 2 more to go. I am very happy with the final outcomes i have produced so far, the process has been both fun and exciting. I have used photoshop primarily thought this project, but the use of my tablet has brought something new to the table, and i have learned a variety of new skills. It would have been good to use some more traditional methods such as paint and inks, but the photoshoped look i feel suites the subject matter.

Overall i'm very happy with how things have gone, my time management has been consistent but the stress and pressure has got to me quite  a bit on a few occasions, and the quality of work has dipped in  those areas. My number one aim was to express my infatuation for drawing machines, and i think i have achieved this with the crazy complicated structures i have drawn.

If i had more time left, i would definitely put it into applying more details into my colouring process. Although i really like the 2 tone effect i have, if it wasn't so time consuming i would use a variety of colour to try and add some more depth. I would also of liked to draw a lot more smaller machines to explore the world i have created in more detail, but these are minor things.

This year has been a rollercoaster of a ride, im full of mixed emotions, as my uni experience comes towards an end. Its been a forfilling year and this project has been incredible, it was so good to get full creative freedom. im excited to set up the show, and more importantly leave to explore the big wide world of illustration! I hope you will enjoy the work ive created!

SHOW PLAN IDEAS

I have been thinking today about ways to display my work at the show. I'm using 4 images, possibly 5. The minimum size will be around A1 so i will be using a fair bit of wall space. I also want to use the stuff ive accumulated over the last 3 months to decorate the space, make it looks a bit futuristic rather than mounting them onto a plain wall. I did a rough sketch on how i think it could work, one using foam board and the other using bulldog clips and wire. I will do some experimenting when i get some work printed to see what suites it best. I deffentely want to use the lamp looking gizmos i found, possibly putting them on build in shelf's.

2 possible set ups.

here is all the things i found, cluttering up the studio!

MORE COLOUR IN VIDEO FORM!

Today i was in the mood to try something different. After spending hours in Photoshop, i wanted to do something to spice it up a little, so i decided to record myself colouring in one of my drawings, live i previously have done, and edited it into a video. I really like what ive created, and alought i did it just for fun, it got me thinking. It would be awesome if i could have some sort of display in my exhibition showing these videos, as they could look like the machines are being constructed, i could even create a little advertisement for the Eath code, to play o a screen in my show set up! IF ONLY WE HAD MORE TIME! 

Anyways, here's the video i made, crank the volume sit back and enjoy.

POSSIBLE POSTER LAYOUTS

I plan to get my printing done this week, so i really need to think about my poster layouts. I want to add some additional elements to the poster so the viewer can work out what the machines are used for. I came up with the idea of placing a sort of triptych along the bottem of the main machine. Within these 3 boxes i want to visually detail how the machine works and also show a sense of scale. I think this would work nicely in the final bringing added depth and meaning to the image.

Here is a rough sketch i did showing what kind of layout i want, with the 3 images below.

Some schematic drawings to visually show how the machine works, i want to stay away from using text, as it may over complicate things.

I could use a human figure like in this diagram i found to show how big this machine is.

Another schematic image detailing how sections work

MORE COLOUR

Been slowly finishing off photoshoping the machines i plan to use as my final images this week, here is another completed one. Ive attached the logo as well just to see what it looks like, this wont be the final poster layout but im fairly happy with its position. I also added 3 squares of colour under the logo as a little experiment, and i really like it! i think it compliments the image well, so i will probably do this when i put the logo on other posters with the 3 colours matching the images.

before

after

STUDIO GRAFFITI

Just a quick post. Ive been spending alot of time in the studio recently, and i noticed a lot of white boring walls, and i hate white boring walls, so i decided to make them beautiful! One image in particular is one based on one of the skip gizmos i found, and i really like the image.

Here is a fake advertisement for a micrometer theodolight. I did this over Easter holidays using spraypaint and a big juicy black paint pen.  i really like this image, and it actually gave me a bit of a push in the direction im heading now with my project, using sort of an advertisement to display my images.

Monkey! this has no purpose other than to look and colourful!

eds space bitch!

this was how i was feeling about the FMP at the time, i added some encouraging words to make everyone feel better :)

this one is quite large!

IDENITY SUSSED

Ive managed to finish up creating a logo i am fairly happy with, the name i have come up with is "EARTH CODE", cheesey as it sounds i think i works well. The idea behind it is the word code, (when looked at in context with my work) will be read in the computer programming sense, so you get the idea of "the reprogramming of earth". I wanted the logo to be very simple and after playing around and looking at other logos i found that i was over complicating things. (look at my logo ideas page on previous posts) I wanted something bold and graphic, that wouldn't take the viewers eye away from the main piece too much.

I started looking at the big brand name logos, i like the text based logos slightly more that image based ones. Probably as the text itself is as rich as a picture in some cases. 

I then found some artists that really caught my eye, they use geometric shapes and simplistic colours to create bold artworks. I then though about how i could translate this into my own text based logo. The style also grabbed me as it looks some what futuristic, something could potentially compliment my imagery quite nicely.

DEVOTCHKA gouache and acrylic on paper, Morgan Blair.

THE PEAKS COME OUT AT NIGHT gouache, acrylic, ink on paper, Morgan Blair.

The images above are by Morgan Blair, as you can see he works with geometric polygon like shapes.  what i really like about his work is the way he uses shapes that pop out and fit nicely against other colours, i think this an important asset to have in a logo.

living world by Lorin Brown.

Here is another example of an artist (Lorin Brown) using geometric and isometric shapes, in this case to produce some nice text. I think it was this image in particular that pushed me towards using this kind of text as a logo, as its bold and fits amazingly within an image, although I don't plan to use my logo as involved in the actual image as in this.

So after looking at these influences i played around on photoshop and came up with my own, very simple and isometric logo design. its simple, but i added some little character touches such as having the 2 dots after the text green and blue, to represent the Earth. Overall i'm pleased with what ive come up with, and i can always tweak it if it happens to not fit in with my final imagery.

My own logo, Earth code with colour change example below.

Here i have VERY quickly slapped it on one of the devices i found and plan to use dotted around my exhibition, just to get an idea of what it looks like.

Heres a time lapse of my coloring process.

TABLET TIME

The last few days ive been manically photoshoping my final images with my new best friend  Mr Bamboo graphics tablet. With the sheer amount of detail in each image its become a huge and sometimes overwhelming task to add some colour. Im tried added selective colour, only adding flashes to certain areas, but it really didn't look right and it unbalanced the image. Instead ive opted for using a 2 tone effect, i did this by selecting 2 colours and mapping them to the pressure of my pen, this creates a simple but effective colour range to my images.
Im currently filling in the earth cross section which is my biggest task yet, as this image will eventually be blown up to a massive size, so colouring needs to be slightly more detailed than normal.

Screen shot from my mac. Here im playing around with the colour balance adjustments after completely filling in the image, to fine tune the colour output till im happy.

Heres some work in progress, i really  like the white parts of the background showing thought, makes the colour pop!

heres a section being coloured in.

image so far, very very very uncompleted, i plan to take it though a number of different editing processes before its done, even after its fully coloured

me mac and tablet

TEST PRINT.

I got round to getting my freshly scanned planet image printed today, just so i could get an idea of just how big i could blow it up, and to see what the print looks like on art paper. I got it printed up A0 and i was very happy with the results, the printers here really are amazing and the art paper makes the work look crisp and vibrant, i will definitely be printing all my finals on this paper. 

I plan to have is image as big as i can get, and i believe the printer can go 90inches wide, and pretty much inferentially long. I may even print it in 2 half's, that way i can got even bigger! I wanted to go this big as i plan to use this as a sort of set piece for the other images to go around. also so it shows off all the details in the planet, a smaller one just wouldn't have the same impact.

Here is the print out, from this i could work out how many times bigger i could blow it up without it being to pixelated. Ive tried turning this into a vector image using live trace on Illustrator, but it looses alot of details, and the hand drawn look and for those reasons i decided against it.

Work in Progress meeting

Sooo today we had our work in progress with Derrick, Chris stuck around aswell, but i was gutted he couldn't stay around long enough to see my work, i really value his opinion and hes full of great ideas.  The progress meeting was a nice opportunity to see everyone's work, as there were some classmates i haven't had a chance to speak to, and therefor it was interesting to see what subjects people had chosen. The feedback was really a chance for us to discuss the ways we plan to display our final imagery at the show, and also printing methods and last minute changes. I showed the group the drawings i had done so far and talked them though the colouring process on photoshop. Everyone seemed to like my illustrations and Derrick gave me some ideas as to what i could do to with the machines if i wanted to show them in an everyday environment. He suggested i put the skyscraper looking one amongst a cityscape, and the fling one in a night sky, i did some rough sketches to see how this would look which are below. Derrick did point out that my machines do lack some form of charater, and that i the images would gain a lot if i added some to human surroundings. If i chose to create the pamphlet idea i would definitely include this type of imagery, but im scarred it may look a little out of place in conjunction with the posters i plan to make. i will do some experimentation but i just hope it isn't to time consuming, we haven't got much time left!

TIME PLAN

ohhhh god! its crunch time! we got our degree show time table today. This is it i have to get my head around what i need to do. LIST TIME!
-Finish Photoshoping final images
-create logo
-think about display set ups
-test printing sizes

CH..CH... CH ...CHHANNNGEEES!

last week i decided to change up my idea. After many chats with various tutors and a work in progress meeting i realised the limitations with the elements plan. To be fair the idea went a bit stale, and i was producing images that didn't really suite the theme without even realising it. In the long run i could really only produce 3-4 final images as there are only that number of elements to deal with. 

 I decided to change up my idea, to keep it fresh, but also not to waste any of the work i have produced so far. My new idea is to create a made up corporation, a company that is reconstructing the dieing world in the future. My drawings will be used as plans for a world kept alive by the machines that this corporation builds, my elemental machines will fit in nicely as a way to replace the earths vital necessities. This also opens up new and exiting ways i can think about displaying my work at the final show. I was thinking creating of a show room for my made up company, with pamphlets containing information about this new world and the machines being built. And also a series of posters showing the various different machines and how they work. My tutor Peat also suggested i could have tone of the main window in the bar-gate center, so i was thinking of blowing up one of my images to epic proportions on window vinyl, and have the posters set up inside. I could also utilise the gizmos ive collected, by scattering them around my area to make things look more authentic.

My task this week is to create a corporate identity for this made up company, with a solid logo and colour scheme, then i can apply this to my existing imagery, exciting times! Ideas for names are "R.P.E -Reconstruction Planet Earth"or "Core"?

I put my A1 earth image in the printers today for it to be scanned, it cost 20 quid but it will be worth it, and I'm exited to play around with it digitally! It could also be a strong contender for the image i choose to blow up massive for the window. 

Logo idea brainstorming

Mattias Adolfsson

I was getting some ideas for my website today, so i thought id jump onto Illustration Mundo to check out what other illustrators have come up with. i flipped thought a number a websites, clicked "line" in the style search box and then stumbled upon Swedish illustrator Mattias Adolfsson. All i can say is WOW! (well... his website is a bit, average) This guys work is incredible, and is really similar to what I've been creating during my FMP.  Hes probably really famous, just wish someone had showed me him sooner!  He to seems to have a fascination with detailed machines, and also uses fine line ink with insane skill. What struck me the most about his work is his imagination, and the quirky, surreal and intense images he creates. His drawings have so much weight, they look nice a chunky, something i think my images lack somewhat. I may take a few pointers from Adolfsson's work, such as his use of washes to create dynamic shading, and his looser line work.   

AHHH look that detail! i could look at this for hours! i love the perspective, and also the amount of character it has (cheeky toaster and cup of tea in the back there) Im actually more than a bit jealous of this image...Mattias you bastard.

yet more amazing line, details and perspective.

i love how chunky this looks, going to try and capture this in my images.

...just amazing