Thursday, 19 March 2015

Golden Age of Illustration 1890-1910

Golden Age of Illustration 1890-1910

What was called the “Golden Age Illustration” was a period of when the technologies in the 18th century were starting to develop and advance in its time and public demand for graphic arts. Artists would then use the skills and ideas to draw concepts for buildings, architecture and interiors for more unique buildings. This would’ve been a big step for illustrators to begin illustrating with their imaginations and also for novels such as children books, mainly on fairy tales and folklores.

European illustrators were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and unique design-oriented movements, it would give them more ideas of making unique designs for houses then being all similar to each other and later in the 20th century many houses and architecture designs would evolve over the decades and stand out more.

There have been recent numbers of talented artists who have taken their skills further to making children books, like Beatrix Potter’s books about Peter Rabbit

jack and the Bean Stalk, a fairy tale book published by the folklorist writer Joseph Jacobs 

Among the Gnomes and Trolls by John Bauer 


Brothers Grimm that have made big impact and influence among other artists in the later period of time and made their own unique styles of illustrations, mostly 2-D and brighter colours for younger readers.

When Japan ended it’s isolation from the world, artists were greatly inspired by their artwork of illustrating stories, myths and history. Fashion illustration was also an influence on the western cultures such as Christopher Dresser after his trip to Japan and admired the coursel-granulated character of the fabric used to make the outfits.Their influence in Europe can be found in France with many portraits with Japanosim, including France for their portraits.


Sources:


Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Master of Trade: Jessica Peffer

For research on the Master of Trade I decided to write about Jessica "NeonDragon" Peffer because I know a lot about her and bought her How To Draw books, also a fan of dragons which is one of the main reasons. So here is my blog presentation.




Background
Freelance Illustrator, comic book and fantasy artist

  • She was born in Feb 1983 OhioShe's a freelance illustrator who publishes comics and illustrate fantasy creatures, mainly dragons from looking at her Dragonart books.
  • Jessica's hobbies are playing games like World of WarcraftShe's a freelance artist but has made indie comics and books to sell. 
  • She has made three How to Draw books. Even has an online store to sell prints and products featuring her artwork.
  • Had her work printed since 2002 

Career
  • She's a freelance artist but has made indie comics and books to sell. She has made three How to Draw books. Even has an online store to sell prints and products featuring her artwork.



Why is she a master of trade?
  • Because she focus the target audience that want to learn how to draw fantasy creatures and big fans of dragons. So she publishes books, comics and online tutorials for artists to learn
  • She uses a variety of media and does a lot of research on animals to build a mythical creature in her style of illustration.
  • Jessica had made her latest new website for a new project called Flight Rising
  • Obviously gets in touch with people she knows or fans when doing a streamline to show her working on her illustrations.
  • Her work is favored largely towards fans of fantasy and illustration. 
  • On her website she has a discussion forum to chat with people of certain things than just her art. Other social websites she can be contacted are Facebook, Twitter and Livejournal 
What I can tell is she knows her market and takes time to chat with her fans and followers of what they like to see of new projects and has a lot of contacts to help her projects being made .
                    



Looking at her work I have been a fan of her artwork, made an influence of wanting to get into illustration of fantasy and sci fi. She works well with the media and equipment, giving tips to the fans of learning new ways of drawing. Knows what her target likes and wants to attract their attention.

Thursday, 5 March 2015

Marvel and DC

Marvel

One of the most popular comic books ever published, well known for numerous characters with super-powers in a fictional reality (or multiple universes) called the Marvel universe, take place in Earth in almost exactly like ours but with more advance technology, fictional countries and races such as Mutants, Atlanteans and Inhumans living on Earth. Magic and supernatural exist alongside with science fiction and varied of genres in the series.

There are known superhero teams and organisations in the comic multiverse: Avengers, X-Men, X-Factor, S.H.I.E.L.D., Fantastic Four, Ultimates, Brotherhood of Mutants, Friends of Humanity, AIM, etc. 

Some famous story arcs in the series were the Days of the Future Past, Civil War, Zombies and the House of M


DC comics

DC is more of the opposite of Marvel as they also have superheroes, villains, advance technology, numerous aliens, monsters and magic that exist in the DC universe. The common appearance for heroes and villains are their costumes, wearing capes and most characters have their titles end with their gender more than Marvel would for character naming.

Superheroes like Superman, the Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Supergirl, Beast Boy and Kid Flash. What makes them different from the characters in Marvel is how they are easily by people because of their heroic deeds. Forming teams such as the Justice League that monitors metahuman, alien and supernatural related crimes and natural disasters.

The producers decide to make a reboot after the multiverse crisis, introducing the New 52 for a complete remake of the DC characters.


Differences between Marvel and DC

Most obviously differences are some characters are more god-like powerful such as the character Superman with almost no weakness apart from Kryptonite, Darkseid being a god-like being who wants to turn the universe in his image and common origins of gaining powers were chemicals and magical items that give them powers.

Some of these aren’t entirely explained how they received these from most recurring characters. These characters were born with powers and considered demi-gods with limited knowledge, being considered role models and almost perfect back in the early years of DC. Usually these characters are either born with powers or given through technology, genetic engineering or magic.

  • Marvel being the opposite have their characters start out as regular people but some do have their powers through mutations as them being named Mutants and are treated by racial hatred as such is common in real life where people treat each other racial origins as Mutants are seen as freaks and usually fight for a place they could have a better life.
  •  Many of the Mutants and characters related to them are usually victims of hatred by people, normally by the organization called Friends of Humanity who plot to wipe out all of mutants.
  •   So far Marvel is grounded more close to our level of reality while DC is considered more of a science fiction and fantasy, more parallel to Marvel. Most of DC’s characters are more based on mythology and legends while Marvel’s are more based on historic figures to make some connections between fiction and real life.
  • But the two have in common are powerful god-like characters in bother verses with Marvel having the Celestials, Thanos, Galactus, Apocalypse, the Asgard and the Elders of the Universe. DC's powerful characters are the New Gods, Guardians of the Universe, Superman, Brainiac, Mister Mxyzptlk. Pretty much many gods and mythical characters from various cultures were introduced in DC comics like the Amazons and Greek gods.

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Book of Sea Monsters

This book contains stories and knowledge about sea monsters from across the world; Lock ness. ancient prehistoric leviathans, giant squids and the Hippocampus. I borrowed this from the library to find out more about sea monsters for my project and loved the illustrations in the book and the cover. The book was illustrated by Bob Eggleton, an artist who did a lot of horror, fantasy and sci fi illustrations. 



Hippocampus

A lot of sea serpants such as the large sea horse of Greek Mythology, Hippocampus (above).


Writes lots of stories about these creatures and how some were originally fossils and corpses found by sailors like the remains of the large shark  in the image above.



Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Creating my own fantasy myths part 1

With the new project I took some thought of what to make for a new project so what I decided on my negotiation module is to make a few stories of my own fantasy. It wouldn't be as difficult with some research and building ideas for characters and stories but wanting to have some connections to existing cultures but wanting to make a made up for my own but some familiar legends might make an appearance. It would perhaps be like having short stories for each of them and make certain they have a connection with each other.

Unlike certain fantasy themes, these characters I imagined would either be non-human or creatures rather then normal looking people with special powers like in some common folklore and myths. They have to stand out, like the Tolkien mythology and other creative legends.

I would have to make up some stuff of cities like El Dorado, Atlantis, Akakor as they are all mythical cities that have never been found for centuries.

So what I intend to do is to do some research on myths and legends, write notes of about them to build character ideas along the way. Will be writing stories about each of the characters
isn't so difficult when you have the idea into it, make them sound exciting, something to attract the readers' attention of what they are about.

I plan to start with ten and see how it would go with some time I have for the module, so what I will be doing is do some sketching of the characters, when I get some ideas I will be doing them in digital enhancements, perhaps some of them maybe just to give some idea.

The illustrations below are the first five illustrations I will be doing as I'm targeting up to 10 for the project. Thinking it would be a good idea to finish off these first then move on to the rest, rather then trying to get them all ready for digital and painting.



Seriphar


An example of one of my designs is the spirit of fire in a form of a bird, based upon the Pheonix and the slavic folklore about the Fire Bird giving it the form of a majestic bird with a human torso. Wanting to make a spirit in a form of a bird in flames like the legends.

Giving it a pure fire, both designs look good but wanting to go for the more winged-humanoid, this will have a water colour style which I think will work out well for this one, but making sure to have some experiments before I do anything to it first.





Geno Thane:

Geno Thane is a being who is known for his creation of animals and creatures, refers to himself as an artist. There have been a few myths about gods creating the world in different cultures. So I come up with the idea of making this guy who takes the role of creating creatures, it would make people wonder if he did something to make himself more alien then the rest of the characters. Thought maybe add some spiked growths on some parts of his body and insect-like appendages coming from his back. I thought of the character to be someone who takes delight in creating something new for the world. If people want something of themselves to be improved or a creature to have, they must offer something in return for payment... otherwise, they end up becoming something non-human. To make him more bizarre, I thought he would consider himself an artist and takes delight in creating new creatures, no matter how they are made from.



Skalisk



An ancient serpant named Skalisk roamed the ancient world and sometimes causes mayhem. I was trying to come up with a multi-head snake, but had to take some thought for the support of the amount of heads the body can handle. I was originally going for three, but some of my friends and tutor suggested I could add more to make it more like a hydra-like creature. I didn't want to make it too many, so had some talk with others on how to add smaller heads, so I thought maybe make the heads take form like they were coming together in fragments of energy or something to form new heads like trees growing new roots and sprout branches.

I wanted to give it sails and decorative crests with hair as though they were like dragons but more serpent-like

This was the idea what of my hydra would be, originaly going for four but took one of them off and went for three instead.  Took some research on serpant creatures that are usually affiliate with evil or the Oroboros that represents the infinity.








Skreovores:


I wanted the Skreovores to be demons that were once angels but turned bad, and ended up become some sort of beat-like creatures for their betrayal against the heavens. Wanting them to have a insect-like appearance but changed it a little, making them vaguely humanoid and gave the wings more claw like after they were torn, becoming a second pair of claws. Given the Skreovores an alien face.


The horns I tried out and thought of making many designs of how they appear, originally going for antenna or beetle horns but thought maybe a little mix.


Atta

The ancient titan of Earth, big as mountains and made out of sand and rock to form a body. He is one of the primordial beings that shaped the Earth in its creation. Debris falling from his body from his movement. I was really interested to figure out how the ancient creatures would look when creating the world, so I went for an elemental-type of being and thought making this guy huge and having most of his body being rock and the rest either stone or sand depends on the land he's on. Wanting to give him an ancient appearance but thought his face would look awesome with rocks forming a face. Left out the legs cause originally wanted him to look like he was floating but thought it would not work as if he is to be an earth element, then should at least be part of the element like he was coming up from the ground. 


So far that's that for now, more will be on the way and hope you like the ideas. The last part is done if you wish to clck on this link: Part 2

Hartlepool CCAD art festival

Heard there's going to be a art festival sometime in the early summer, it would be interesting to go there and see what's on display and show some of my work to other artists. I will find out on the exact date it starts as it might be interesting to go there.

Monday, 16 February 2015

New Genesis comic up for sale!

Today I went to Newcastle to show my comic book to the Travelling Man staff, apologies for only one due to the struggle of how to use Indesign. But least for me, I'm slowly getting the hang of it and WAY different then quark express is when I was in CCAD. Getting the resolution right and the pages in the exact order was a pain.