The Kraken - Finished

60 pages and 3 months later - complete! :D

Now, to start all the other books I thought up while making this one...

I've only placed one page...

...and the rage is already building. I really need to master InDesign, I really do...

It's strange to have been toting around this A3 book full of images, hastily trying to finish everything in time for the deadline, and now I have to rip out almost every page to scan them in. I never take pages out, this is like ripping out little chunks of my heart. Especially in this circumstance, seeing as I have spent every waking moment for a couple of months now, making, thinking and breathing this project. Is this what it feels like to be an illustrator? A book-maker? My stress migraines are telling me not to make this a career... I hope the resolution is okay, I hope all the images are big enough for what I want, I hope I hope I hope... I really hope I don't have to redo any of the pages. I really really hope this project finishes without a fatal hiccup.

This book is my BABY. I don't want ANYTHING to go wrong. Especially seeing as I'm almost done with it. I'd be the worst mum haha.

Back on track with The Kraken

Just revised the script so I could finish it in time - provided I keep up with the much more manageable regime of daily deadlines. I could probably lop off a few more pages, technically I have 40 to spare, but I do like this story and I'd like to see it through to the end. It'll be good practise for me. For my future desired practice. Never taking illustration deadlines for granted ever again...

The Kraken - Maybe a bad idea...

Considering the deadline I have and the work output I've managed to make in the time I've actually had time to put my head around this project, I don't think I'll be able to finish this book for this unit. I'll have to change to a photography style if I want to keep the deadline and my hair, because this project is not giving me any room to move and do my other 3 units-worth of homework. I hope I'll be able to change, seeing as I don't have much time to finish this, but I really, really need to change this. I'm just falling behind because I'm concentrating on one thing and spending the rest of the time stressing and procrastinating because of the work load. But here's the work I've done, which isn't much.

I just felt I needed to change once I realised I had spent 4 hours on a Big Ben drawing for a book set in 1840...

I hate InDesign

Enough said.

Finalised cover art - The Kraken & The Angel

Now imagine a massive brown stripe down the middle, and all the pencil in sepia tones.

I don't even know if this is good or not, I don't want to be judged by the printing company or my tutor ;_; The clouds look more pencil than clouds, but I have no idea how to draw them properly still. I'll probably end up redoing this in a week or two.

Learning a LOT today

Never knew I could draw mountains, never knew I could draw water. Now I'm going to see if I can learn to draw clouds and a nicely gradient-ed sky. Really impressed with myself so far!

I hope this actually looks good to other people... I kind of just clumped together a bunch of different ideas from reference photos, I hope I got the 'reflectiony ripples' pattern right. I know the perspective is WAY off, but hopefully it's just the idea that matters. I REALLY hope the scanner picks up all the detail in this or I am pretty much just wasting my time with the project so far. I should look up how Shaun Tan managed to do The Arrival...

So apparently Tobuscus is making a book...

And is searching for the illustrators of the cover via twitter's #TobuscusBook hashtag. This is me joining in - thought I'd upload the pics here as well. Toby's face sketches were done at the start of this year, and the tentacles with the mountains are for the cover of the book I'm making for Publication design. I don't know if this sort of sketchy drawing is what Toby fancies, but I hope he at least gets to look at them... //fingers crossed for my first illustration commission

CinnamonToastKen Lino cut!

Finally, pictures! I'll definitely make this a series, I like this Youtuber portraiture idea. I put it on my twitter account, linked it to Ken, hopefully he enjoys it.

Now, back to actual art and things I'll get marked on...

Another tatted cactus!

So this is a completed doily on another tiny cactus. I do not know what I am doing with my life, or what made me think this would be a great idea, but it wasn't hard (or painful, as you might think) to put this un-set doily on the cactus.

More Youtuber Linocuts

Turns out this is really good practise for stylising lino... I'm going to keep this up, and try to not let it eat into the curriculum I'm actually paying for. Photos in next post!

Working on lino cuts of various youtubers. Beginning with Markiplier! I am very proud to say I was in his first 300 subscribers, even though I feel bad for not really watching much (mainly because he was doing full letsplays of games I wanted to play by myself) but I'm proud of how he has tweaked his channel into becoming this charity-driven, funny little haven for the viewers who want to see some good things in the world every so often. Seriously, his comment section is one of the best ones around. So I made him a thing from the profile picture of his old channel profile picture:

Next up: Cinnamontoastken!

Tatting cacti bases!

So hip. For my Art Project class. Tatting around the bases of cacti - I wonder how big I can make it? This is just needle tatting so it's pretty limited, but I'm hyped for learning shuttle tatting so I can make it wayyy bigger.

Wish me luck!

New Blog

Somewhere to post all of my art endeavours without being distracted by my other interests...