ADVICE TO SINK IN SLOWLY

Advice to Sink in Slowly is a project to give illustrated posters of any kind of advice to first year students from former graduates. The lovely John Stanbury, organiser of AtSiS asked me to join in, and as someone who loved having one of these posters in my first year of uni, I was more than happy to join in.

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The advice is pretty self explanatory! As much as I loved my course, it didn't teach much about my specific interests, and alongside that, I found it easy to get stressed out by my view of what was 'expected of me' by the course. Illlustration can so easily become obsessive, so I think this advice is still useful. For me at least!

I wanted the poster to be graphic in design, so even if you didn't like the artwork you'd still be happy to have the poster on your wall. Here's close ups of the art itself:

I generally went with the "Draw What You Want" part more than anything thematically close, but I guess from the top, each picture loosely represents knowledge/potential, adventure, and hope/peace and reflection.

I was going to do alternate versions with only one illustration in, but got lazy and didn't. Originally it was going to be a different poster altogether- a digital painting with lots of dismantled tech and machinery:

If you're a student in the UK you can request a poster for free here!

Burrrrfffdayyy

I've been busy! So here are some warm up sketches and quick pieces I've done recently.

It's straight up dawg time

This was going to be in colour, but I got carried away with a black and white experiment. Fun fun fun! Also, my first page drawn at A2, which makes things a bazillion times easier.

Noir

Here are some warm up pieces from a project that may now be on the backburner:

pewpewpew

More life drawing, all 3-15 mins! With a lot of these I learnt quite a lot, and I'm really trying to learn how the body works. Muscle contraction, weight distribution and how the torso twists... I may not get there soon, but I'll get there.







^On the two above I did quick sketches after the poses to try and decipher my drawings and understand how backs work. The bottom left post-pose sketch shows I've got a way to go!

You know nothing, Jon Snow

Something I did for fun a few weeks ago. I drew it between reading Feast for Crows and a Dance with Dragons, so I hadn't actually read any Jon chapters in a long time, and I didn't really try very hard to get an accurate likeness. So the sword position is wrong, and if I'd actually followed the book he probably has long hair, but whatever! I'll do some more if I ever get around to it.



Don't know what I'm on about? Go read George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series! They made the first book, A Game of Thrones, into a HBO series. But who the hell watches that shit? Go read the books! Fall in love with a million characters only to watch them go through hell and die!

I've started life drawing once or twice a week. It's fun to balance accuracy and expression, and have dedicated time to learn how to draw as well as study anatomy. Getting down likenesses of the models was always a strong point for me, but I think now that it's been a while I'm more 50/50 with it, but genuinely seem to learn something useful with every drawing. All these are 5-15 minute poses. I'll post some more up soon!

Busybusybusy

In the midst of moving house and doing a few comic projects, but here's an Akira piece in the meantime:

Here's the bigger, not-quite-wallpaper-size

When I first read Akira I thought it was good, but pretty overrated. Otomblr's helped me understand how amazing Otomo really is, though.

Starwatcher

Apple Pie was the first Moebius art-meme, and now Brandon Graham's started it all again with Starwatcher [I totally think that me and andy suggested this pic whilst in vancouver with Brandon, but it might have been this one I was thinking of :>]. Spent way too much time on this one, and ended up making it more of a study than anything else. Also, next time I do anything like this, I'll just use a ruler. It's such a fucking hassle without one! This was also a really fun chance to ink something more finished by hand. GO!

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Sketchesssss

Me and Josh Bone met up at a tea shop the other day to work on comiccssss, and ended up doing a 2-page challenge. We each picked three random words and had under two hours to think of something. My words were circle, running and fan. It's hilariously bad, and all an excuse to mess around with semi-functional panel layouts, but I'll have to do more. I used to do this sort of thing last year with Andy Porter, so I should keep it up!

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Here's a little sketch from the V&A museum in London, and below that is a drawing from above the docks in Falmouth. They're on A6 and A4 paper respectively.

You guys know Rebecca Sugar's work, right? Just checking. She's incredible.

HAMPSHIRE FOLK TALES

Here's a couple sneak peeks at a book I've illustrated called (you guessed it) Hampshire Folk Tales, a book of folklore, myths and urban legends about the English county and it's crazy history. It was actually written by my uncle (a storyteller by trade), and is an amazing read- a lot of these books can be quite drily written, but my uncle has tried to make it as lively and organic as possible. He has a couple of amazing lines on storytelling as a whole, explaining how evolutionary stories can be, and how every different change and personal take on a narrative can create an even bigger story of it's own.

Through some misunderstanding on my part I left myself little time to do these illustrations, and while some may be a bit sparse, I had a load of fun on the book and knocked out a few good results. It's being published through History Press in November, and I'll give you details on buying it closer to the launch date!

KING OF PAINT

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Here's a sketch I made for a graff store in Bristol called King of Paint. They have an exclusive sketchbook that they get people to sketch in. I can't wait to see what's new in there next time. Here's their website, and here's their blog.

It's been a while since I've drawn anything at A3 size. It was pretty fun!

Random starred Google Reader post of the day:

http://fuckyeahladywriters.tumblr.com/post/3363943543/in-between-freezing-and-melting-in-between-love

RIP Eagles Initiative...

So. Comics.

I've mentioned this one before, and here it is in all it's uh, 6-page glory. This was pretty fun to do, and I learnt a whole load from the experience. It may be a little confusing (it's the classic, 'too much story, too little time or understanding of what the audience will understand' routine), but I hope you enjoy it. Originally made for a competition called the Eagles Initiative with the chance to get feedback from a bunch of professionals and have your work published in an anthology, unfortunately the whole competition fell through. Looks like it's just you and me, comics!

If you look at something like this, you'll see something that my comic doesn't do- Stokoe adds just a couple extra panels which if you strictly thought it through may not be necessary, but they make the whole thing much clearer.

Random starred Google Reader post:

http://beautifuldecay.com/2011/06/07/chie-aoki-human-growth/

In absence of work I'm allowed to show (although I might show a bit soon anyway), here's some life drawing and painting from the past little while. Throughout uni, my life drawing was a lot more structured than sessions I went to before, and so while I've undoubtedly learnt more, I think I've also developed a habit of overthinking obervational drawing, and forgetting to just relax and enjoy myself. Both in my observational drawing and any other work, my goal from here on out is to balance pushing technique and knowledge whilst just... enjoying what I naturally do!

Painting has never come naturally to me, so when I practice observational painting I'm usually slow. Even so, I learn something every time! Gestural sketches (like in the last photo) are really fun to learn natural posture and weight balance, as well as simplifying shape. I still hang on to these when I can, since they can give you a little perspective when you're overthinking anatomic proportions in place of gesture and action.

To me, the absolute master of life drawing is the esteemed Francis Vallejo. He consistently balances line and form, knowledge and expression in every piece. From his warmup sketches to his more polished renderings... he knows his shit. Also check out Jaime Jones (another young genius, and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet), whose life drawing reflects his more painterly nature.

Now, on with things!