APP Home (AOI): Sketching London Landmarks

Looking at my research that I had done previously, I picked out and printed some of the key landmarks that I wanted to include in my illustration and drew right next to them. 

I also made small annotations next to my sketches and photos that I needed to take into consideration when drawing my final image.

Conclusion:

I realised that not all of the chosen buildings would fit on the page so I decided to leave out the Sea life centre. This is so that I would have more space for the characters and I also wanted to include some form of transport into the piece. 

The most difficult building to draw (even though they would all be quite challenging) would be the big Ben and Westminster Palace, because they are incredibly detailed. I haven’t drawn buildings before so I would need to make sure I draw them as accurately as possible… Although hopefully people wouldn’t mind if I missed out a thing or two!

APP Home (AOI): Initial Sketches & Ideas

I used the information I had collected while I was researching on London stories to draw up some initial sketches. These were going to be very 'rough' sketches because I wanted to get my thoughts on paper as quick as possible so that I could focus of the general idea rather than the details. 

I start by drawing up a mind map on one of my first stories – Alba to Brutus – and tried to think of as many related words as possible to describe a giant before working on my sketch. I find it easier to describe the character through mind maps first because it allows me to broaden my mind a little bit and I could also look up at some images for inspiration that are related to these words.

Here I explored the idea of Gogmagog and Corineas being guardians of London, and wanted to link that with the Domesday book that registers every occupant in London (and in Britain). 

However I realised that the giant is the main focus on the piece and I want my viewers to concentrate on the city of London more, so I tried a different perspective.

There was a problem with my idea... There was only one giant, and London has two! I went back to have a look at the brief to see if I could do two versions but it states that I needed to portray London stories in one image, so I scrapped that idea.

FMP: Initial Stationary Sketches

Now that I have made my decision on what would be my final invitation design, I thought that it was time to look into doing some initial sketches for the Save the Date card.
I began my sketches on a little notepad on the train, so I wasn't able to go into great detail as the train kept shaking. Once I got home I was able to continue doing my initial ideas (and found it a lot easier to concentrate!)

FMP: Initial Ideas

I wanted to start afresh with this project now that I know that I'm heading for the traditional illustration route, although I looked back at my previous designs and picked a few that I thought would be good for this new direction I'm headed.

Here you can see that I have started by taking some of my old ideas and then developing them, and I got inspired to do decorative borders with roses and a fairy tale castle. 

I developed the idea of having a decorative border to having a decorative illustration, having been inspired by Illuminated Manuscripts and Jan Pienkowski's use of silhouettes and extreme detail.

FMP: Ideas 2 & 3

I moved away from the castle idea to come across a new one (well, two new ideas); these were inspired by the story of Brier Rose, otherwise known as the Sleeping Beauty, so I did some rough sketches.
I thought it was best to think of the names for the future bride and groom, and so chose Mark and Sophie as they were pretty straightforward. I'll probably do the same technique where I picked names at random for the surnames as well!

Initial Ideas So Far

By looking back at my mood boards and the mind map I had created in the last post, I went along and sketches some initial ideas that sprung into mind. Now I'm going to take a step back and have a look at them to see which ones I could possibly develop.

Here’s my first set of initial sketches, which were inspired by the phrase that the “eyes are the windows to the soul”. For the one on the top left I wanted to say that the eyes could speak a thousand words but if we covered them up, could we really guess the person’s true emotions?

The sketch next to it is of a “typical teenager” wearing a hoody. He would have scars all over his face that – to the viewer – would make him appear dangerous and violent. I’m going to include a little caption beneath to explain he had gotten those scars from a car accident to contrast strongly with the viewer’s first impressions. I’m not too sure if this message would work however, so I’m going to move on from that idea.

I imitated Joe Cardiello’s style for the line drawing as I used a technique where I didn’t take the pen off the paper. I really liked this because it could portray the message that all humans are imperfect like the lines I drew. I think I shall use this line technique in my other sketches.

The little sketches next to it are developments of my eye idea, where I’m thinking of drawing a face within the eye. I’m not really too sure about this idea though.