The Open Window

So for my Editorial Illustration I had to do three illustrations for a short story of my choosing. I chose the story "The Open Window" written by Saki. It was quite an interesting piece and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. In my comp sketches however my professor informed me that my drawings were not historically correct in sync with the story hahah Soooo he put me on to this short film that was based on the story for reference. It captured the essence of the story quite well I think, you can take a look at it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBXb-8YoR0E

I had alot of fun working on these pieces. I applied what I learnt in my electronic illustration class with the Zombie painting to this assignment. He outlined where each piece will be if it were featured in a magazine so I was dealing with:
1. Table of contents image full color small scale
2. Story image full page full color
3. Story image small scale in grayscale

This is the Table of contents image. Basically sets the mood of the story without really giving away any characters or plot.


This is the full page image to go along with the story. From here on these images will only really make sense if you've read the story or seen the short film I posted.


This is the small scale grayscale image, basically its the last moment in the story.


Just for kicks and giggles This was my reference pic for the Grayscale image lol :p

Zombies

Well, Finals are over, Fall Quarter is over. I'm back home at the moment, I went to Miami after school for a highly anticipated, relaxing, de-stressing mini vacation, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself... :B
Last post had 3 pieces in the works, finished 2 of them for finals plus 2 more not previewed, also for finals... I know right? The anticipation is blowing my mind as well (I like to pretend I have a throve of fans just thirsting for my updates)
ANYway. Yeah these are the zombies. This was my final for my electronic illustration class, and I have process work! :D For the assignment we just basically had to do a painting digitally, with our own image in it, soo it could of been a self portrait or something like this. So yeah I'm totally on a "Walking Dead" and "Left 4 Dead" hype at the moment, or at the moment this piece was done, so yeah I thought what would it be like to be in a zombie apocalypse at SCAD. haha

Oh I've also started labeling my work so the people who take my images off my blog (dare to dream) will always know where they found it :)

This would be the final.


And cue process work...

Its always good to start off thinking just in terms of value and value contrast, so I started with a grey background, added a gradient to represent my sky. In this case I knew exactly where my scene was going to be set, so I went ahead and roughed it all out. (Its the roof of my illustration building haha)


Then I just build up the background, adding shadows and little bits of detail. Nothing too embellished as I'm still setting up value, the detail is just so things make sense to me.


Then after fleshing out the background I just sort of sketch in the figures, very rough, just to plan out where I want everyone, and how it would look compositionally


Well its around this time where I actually get reference. I actually went up on the roof did the poses etc. Found out the correct size relationships of the characters the proportions all that good stuff. So I refine my sketch based on the first rough.


This is where the fun starts. Fleshing out the figures. Yours truly in the front, and the others were modeled from two of my friends except the guy on the ladder, I didnt bother with him because we don't see enough of his face for it to matter. I should of explained this earlier, I think I said it in a previous post, but I like doing backgrounds first completely before attacking figures. Pretty much for the same reason I eat my french fries first before the burger, I like to leave the best and most enjoyable part for last. Also, If I eat my burger first I might be too full to finish my fries.... hope you get the metaphor here...


Now Color. This part was pretty tricky for me, because up until this moment I had been appreciating it in grayscale. So needless to say my first dash of color was a bit strong. A bit too cheerful for a zombie apocalypse I would think...


So I muted the colors a bit, especially the background because it popped too much, and distracted from the foreground. Basically I had all my colors and Im just scuplting my focal point, at this juncture. Manipulating color value and the intensity of each to pull your eye where I want it.

Projects in Progress

Just some stuff I'm working on at the moment, pretty happy with how they're all looking so far, thought I'd share em with you.

Story Time with Sam and Uncle Gottfried

This is a caricature I did for my editorial illustration class. We were supposed to take two celebrities we would hardly see together, put them together, and have them do something ordinary or everyday. The goal would be the contrast would create humor.

This is my initial thumbnail sketch



Cleaned up lines on photoshop



This was done in a combination of traditional paint media and digital media. I used CF Payne's painting technique. There's pretty much everything in this piece, acrylic, watercolors, oils, colored pencils, and digital for touch ups.



Incase you didn't get it from the title or the illustration I chose Samuel L. Jackson and comedian, Gilbert Gottfried.

Carrie

Here's another piece I did, I had to redesign a book cover using collage techniques. I chose Stephen King's Carrie.

This was the final one I decided on.



These were the other versions I did that for different reasons didn't work. Just to show you how my ideas evolved working through the compositional elements of this piece.

Mock Up 1:

Doesn't work: Digital hand drawn text doesn't work well for the piece. A bit to linear. Composition lacking. Also Stephen King's name is too small.

Mock Up 2:

This one works better than the first. Turned the whole composition. Diagonals are more interesting to look at. Thats the good thing. Interesting elements, but they aren't working well together as yet. Text and image aren't interacting enough. Also while, it is bigger than the first, Stephen King's name could be bigger.

Mock Up 3:

This is close but no cigar yet. Stephen King's name is perfect. Changing the title's color to red, I thought would help link the blood in the image to the text, to make the text better interact with the illustration, it did to an extent, could still be better though, like I said close but no cigar. Further playing around with the composition would resolve the issue.

Final:

I decided to move the author's name to the top and the title at the bottom to see if this would make any difference, and I was quite happy with what happened. I chose this one as the final because I found the text interacted perfectly with the illustration. While I originally wanted "Carrie" to look like it was written on the notebook paper, I found in changing the text color to red, it would work equally well as if it were written in the blood on the floor. Also, moving "Stephen King" to the top produced a happy accident, in that the "G" engages the blood period (pun intended) much better than the title word "Carrie" did.

At School (The Jogger)

Phew. Well Midterms are over, and halloween is approaching, can't wait! Also new a new AMC series is coming out called The Walking Dead, as I'm currently into anything that involves shooting zombies at the moment I will be watching this show religiously.
Anyway, Yeah I've been neglecting this blog... I need to post more regularly... this is all my new work I've done at school for midterms, I'm gonna be uploading the documented process as well Piece by piece as the process takes a while. Hope you enjoy. :)

Original Pencil work



Then I scan that and idividually ink each object in a seperate layer



Then I place them where I want, and erase the excess lines, giving me my final line work



Color (I do not have a set process for my colors as yet)

Finished Work

Well yesterday was my last day of work. I completed the last story and sent in all my illustrations. I head back to school on the 8th so I'm relaxing and enjoying the rest of my summer for now. Chilling out, watching tv, annnd I may actually do some personal artwork... I'm feeling alot more inspired and energetic these days so, we'll see. Anyway, these are last of them.