Maurice

Not sure on the artist...

could you get away with a collection of weird drawings

The answer is yes! If they are drawn exquisitely as are above by http://noelia.nituniyo.net/

or are as sincerely obsessive as: http://www.adolfwoelfli.ch/index.php?c=e&level=3&sublevel=2

Designs so far.

Highly doubt ill finish the rest by thursday but here's the style of my book, iv got my story, just need to finish the rest and choose a typeface. Stuck on what to have as the front cover, please help, need to do 4 more designs and might just have my email adress on the back of my book, zine. I wan't my zine to be roughly 100mm width and 140mm lengh when folded, so i need an a3 size paper. Chicken go cluck, cluck, cow go moo.

underbelly progress

A little more progression into my zine. I am happy and am confident with where i'm going with it. A working title for the book is along the lines of 'A Pigeon Forensics Scrapbook/Sketchbook'. I looked at drawing on top of photos a little more but wasn't ahppy with where it was going.

I would really like to print the final product straight onto A4 and fold to an 8 page booklet. It would cost less, easily pocketable and i could add a poster/design on the back.

But...

I think the best format to produce the zine in would be japanese book binding as i think it looks like it's been bound by a slightly mad man. (now you can think 'Se7en'). I can't really explain how i feel 'why' i think this would work better but at the moment but i'll do two versions, bound and folded and run with the best.

I real quick idea. I like it. Simple and straight to the poop...POINT i mean.

FUCK SAKE! sorry for the lack of zooming on pics. I'm on a mac again...

Lisa - post 3

I'm developing the "burlesque" theme a little more but feel stuck between a few themes. I liked the idea of the girl getting dressed (instead of getting undressed which is what they usually do). Burlesque shows also have so many themes, I thought I might draw the clothes in a steampunk style in honor of Birmingham's fame as industrial city. And the other idea was to be really cheeky and dedicate each of the 6 images to one of the different major religions in Birmingham (as each has so many icons, it's just fun to throw them in). But I could probably be crucified for that idea haha. So at the moment I'm feeling a little stuck. I know I want to frame each illustration/page, a bit like Alphonse Mucha's. As for the zine, I definitely know it's going to be a single sheet 8 page zine. I've already picked out the font as well :)

 

'Things that keep me awake and I therefore do not like'

I'm basically listing a few of the things that wake me up during the night in the busy city. Each item listed will be accompanied by the time it wakes me up and a drawing to sum up the deterioration on my state of mind. It's going to be a 4 paged booklet using the technique in the video posted below with a fold out mini poster on the opposite side to the pages and covers. It will contain text and image.

I've been playing around with many drawing styles to work out how I want my zine to look and I think I have it now.

Harry Potter: "COOL! A Nimbus 2000!"

This was the first drawing I started working on for this project. I drew it in pencil and coloured markers and enlarged it and photocopied it in black and white. The coloured markers gave nice mid-tones (didn't have grey-scale markers) and this proved a good method of bringing more to what would be a very basic line drawing. I liked this drawing but it has no relevance to Birmingham and had no idea where to go from here so left this as just a test for a method I may use.

Warping face

It was while drawing this that I came up for the idea for my zine. I was up very late and was just drawing how I felt. It's meant to be the very confused face of a person that doesn't know which way is up or down (if you look at it upside-down, it kind of makes another half-face). So I decided to look towards a build up to this face; going from a seemingly normal looking face and making it slowly morph into something like the sketch above.

Started trying a minimalistic approach, adding minimal amounts of colour and lines and get the message across.

I started looking at other facial expressions to show aggravation, shock, impatience, anger and other things I feel when I'm woken up in the early hours of the fucking morning.

I'm currently still playing with ideas and styles but I think I have my finger on it now.

Any advice, critiques or other ideas will be appreciated.

Thanks, Brad

ADVICE on Progress

Can you make sure that you consider the use of type/letter/fonts carefully, as well as composition, mood, reproduction and all other design aspects which will make your zine/artist book successful

Here's how it works - make one finished one, and a price on it, bring it in on Thursday, and if it sells to anyone then eureka!

DIY - How to Make a Zine; Paper, Scissors, Pen - Rockin!

Research (very valuable)

Over the past week I've been doing a little more research on relevant artists and art styles to further develop my own little book.

I felt particularly inspired by Olivier Kugler and how he gives his characters stories and narrative annotations - I would also like to incorporate this into my work.

Also, another inspiration was the Hans Christian Andersen tale of The Little Match Girl. It's a very bittersweet little story (for those of you who don't know the plot, I've embedded a YouTube video of the animated Disney short - keep the Kleenex nearby) but I felt it related a lot to the themes I'm dealing with.

And, finally, I'm starting on the drawings for my book. I shall scan them in and do a little Photoshopping work before printing them out.

I'd love some feedback! Thanks :)

Ideation and Communication

 

After some IDEATION (f*ck yeah), I had 3 A7 dummy books, firstly a mock up of my current theme ([Thanks Chiu]: The effects Birmingham may have on Superheroes). Then, from this, I explored the idea of a superhero's role in society; saving innocent people, and came up with the idea of the "Who will save me" placard. This then spawned ANOTHER idea, of how normal people probably have, or had, wishes and aspirations to have superpowers. From all of this I sketched a few thumbnails out, top right being close to what was in my dummy book. This, on reflection, turned into the top left image, which I think is successful in terms of composition, and it has potential to be my cover because of it. 

 

The above image is possibly the best composed and most powerful of the selection of sketches I created based off my idea of 'Superzeroes'. Looking at Todd McFarlane, and other similar artists and their inking styles, I decided to hatch the image to add some contrast and let it pop. However, after looking at my quick sketches above, it is really lacking the punch a book page really needs.

 

These are simply quick digital dummies, as I don't want to commit my ideas to the original, in case something changes. I looked initially at a similar approach to my placard sketches, just colouring the background. This I then altered with overlay layers and got an interesting sepia/tea stained parchment look. Finally, I added hessian layers to really darken the image, to rid the page of the white. 

My current plan is to render the final pages traditionally, with inks, pens and watercolours, I know the effect isn't perfectly simulated on PC, but I'd like feedback on which effect people feel is most effective, and more so why, if it works, I'll apply it to the rest of my pages, so it's fairly crucial haha...

Cheers!

Underbelly of Birmingham

When starting this project, Chiu advised us to draw what we normally draw and fit the project around our own interests. I usually find myself drawing sad children and pretty girls (though usually clothed!), and seem to always come back to the themes of childhood and loss of innocence. One of the news articles in the brief lit a spark and I decided to look at the idea of underage prostitution, rentboys, human trafficking etc. A very seedy underbelly of Birmingham.

These are just some initial drawings though, I have been thinking about where to take this project in a way I could make it less obviously graphic/sexual or just look at in a different way.