APP Home (AOI): London in Illustrations

I’m still a bit unsure on how I’m going to bring together all of the London stories that I’ve read and have found interesting, but I know that one of my ideas involved laying out London as a map and pin-pointing all of the stories at key landmarks. With this in mind, I looked at infographics, maps and illustrations of London. 

Another reason why I wanted to look at existing illustrations is so that I could get a general idea of what has been done before so that I could use them as an inspiration but then create something entirely different. 

Mood Board

Image sources: Arunas Kacinskas http://www.behance.net/ArunasK; The Design Surgery (2) http://www.behance.net/thedesignsurgery; Simon http://www.simonsgallery.com/001commissions.php; Jane Gardner http://janegardnerdesign.com/; Lizzie Mary Cullen http://www.lizziemarycullen.com/;  DxC http://www.behance.net/DeeAit; Chetan Kumar http://www.behance.net/cheism; Mcdonald Gill http://www.macdonaldgill.com/; David Ryan Robinson http://davidryanrobinson.com/; Chris Martin http://mrchrismartin.co.uk/index.php; Charlotte Trounce http://www.charlottetrounce.co.uk/; Dieter Braun http://www.brauntown.com/; Migy http://www.migy.com/; Lab Partners http://lp-sf.com/; Jenny Leonard http://jenny-leonard.com/               

APP Home (AOI): London Landmarks

During my trip to London I took photos of the Big Ben and the surrounding area. On a recent Facebook status of mine where I asked people to name me three of London's most popular tourist destinations, all of them mentioned the Big Ben. I'm not too sure if I'm going to couple the Big Ben with other tourist attractions as I think I don't want it to be overloaded with that and “too London-y”. 

Therefore I am going to experiment with the idea of drawing both the Big Ben and surrounding area, and Big Ben with other tourist attractions.

Here are the photos I had taken:

As you can see from my photos, I was either too close or too far, and the sun was really low in the sky so you could only see the silhouette of the buildings. Therefore I went into Google Maps and took some screenshots of the area as well as looking at Google Images to see what I could find.

My main focus was on the Big Ben because, as mentioned above, it was the most popular location choice.

APP Home (AOI): Inspirational Film Posters, Book Covers and Storyboards

I have also looked at film posters and book illustrations to see how they portray a whole story in one image. Even though mine might be slightly different, it’s important for me to understand how they managed to pick particular parts to represent the whole story. 

After getting some feedback from the crit I also went to have a look at narrative illustration, storyboards and comics in particular, to see how illustrators produced the concept and into the final idea. I am most interested in how they lay out each ‘scene’ and the techniques they use. 

Mood Board

Image sources: Paul Shipper http://www.behance.net/paulshipper; The Brothers Hildebrandt http://www.brothershildebrandt.com/; The Dark Knight, Day Watch http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/12/50-beautiful-movie-posters/; Carlo Giovani http://carlogiovani.com/; Simon Bisley (2) http://www.simonbisleyart.com/; Dave Gibbons “Watchmen”; Demon Studios http://www.demonstudio.co.uk/; Nei Ruffino http://toolkitten.deviantart.com/      


Analysis of Inspirational Pieces

Simon Bisley – http://www.simonbisleyart.com/

What I’m most interested in in a storyboard is what each comic panel means; as shown in this example here done by Simon Bisley, each panel is a different shape. The larger panels demand more attention and the curve of the top two panels reflect the hand movement of the woman.
Even without any quotes or writing it’s clear what’s going on through the images and could feel the tension rise as the scene is zoomed in, almost suffocating the two people as the viewer can now only see their faces. The man’s shadow is drawn on the wall right beside the woman that shows just how close he is to his victim, and this adds a sense of fear as his hand is closing on her.
The way the woman is backed up against the wall only increases the tension as she claws at the wall to try and get away from the male, but upon realising defeat she turns into a terrible creature.
One of the key things I’ve noticed is that this storyboard has mainly focused on the character’s expression and reactions of each other’s presence. The woman-creature is clearly trying to get away from this mysterious hunter of some sort, yet at first she is portrayed as being an ordinary woman until the final frame where they’ve zoomed in on her face and revealed the monstrosity behind it. This then makes the viewer realise that the man is actually the good guy despite his expression, and would become more curious to see what was beneath that hood.

Conclusion:
I was really interested in this storyboard, so much so that I continued reading it right to the very end of his portfolio. I think it’s the way he has chosen different ‘camera angles’ to create drama. I too would like to create some sort of my excitement in my illustration so I shall research into comic panels a bit more and figure out their composition.

APP Home (AOI): Experimentation with Different Media

Wacom Inkling

My first experimentation was to see how well the Wacom Inkling works. I am a big lover of inking and line art, and because I find it difficult to do that with a tablet I had received this Inkling as a birthday present. I haven't yet used it properly so this was the perfect opportunity to see how it works.

To use the Inkling I had to attach the little 'box' to the top of my piece of A5 paper, turn it on, and then started to draw. Every time my pen was registered it sent off a signal to this 'box', and flashed green. 

It was actually really easy to use and so I got used to it relatively quickly. Once done I just detached the 'box' and then connected it to my computer using the USB cable provided. It then brings up Sketch Manager and from there I could choose to either open it up on Photoshop or Illustrator. It converts it to a vector in Illustrator, but as I would like to mainly focus on painting digitally in Photoshop I opened it on that software.

It had placed different sections on different layers, just as I asked it too. All in all, it was pretty successful!

Conclusion:

This experimentation was very successful and I would love to try out the Inkling again, and yet I found it quite difficult when doing the shading. This shows that I wouldn't be able to go into as much detail as I want to, and unfortunately I wouldn't be able to thicken any lines as it doesn't come in different nib sizes. 

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.

APP Home (AOI): Project Organisation

After a couple of days of starting my project, I realised that I was wasn’t really following my product schedule which created some problems as a) it made me more unorganised than I wanted and b) I was looking at different pieces of research all at once that I wasn’t able to concentrate on one section and finish it before moving on.

I then decided to see what other storyboard artists did when handling a project, and I came across a particular site (http://blog.jilliantamaki.com/2008/10/idea-generation) where he has listed his project process. This really interested me because it’s nice to “see” how someone thought when tackling a project like mine, and from this I was able to conjure my own kind of to-do list:

I am hoping that with this list I will be able to handle my project successfully so that I won’t be stressing about it later on. This will also allow me to allocate which task I could do for each day so that I could balance my dissertation and other APP at the same time. I will be doing a similar list for my other APP too.

Conclusion:
By researching into an unknown topic I was able to discover new things such as the thought process of a storyboard artist, which I never thought I’d find. This has helped me to organise my project effectively and allowed me to look in areas that I’m not familiar with (as I’ve never done storyboard design before).

APP Home (AOI): Inspirational Illustrators

As this is an illustration-based project, the first thing I wanted to do was see what contemporary illustrators did. Were they working on a digital platform, or still used traditional media?

I’m a big lover of traditional art although recently I’ve wanted to try out digital. I have done digital before but I didn’t get that same satisfaction as I do with watercolour, but I’m willing to try it out!

Mood Board

I’m not too sure what kind of illustration style I’m going to aim for for this narrative poster, so I’ve started by looking for techniques adopted by other illustrators and artists.

Image sources:  Yang Fan http://jiuge.deviantart.com/; Joseph Ma http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/JosephMa/view; Chris King http://www.chriskingillustration.com/; Andy Council http://www.andycouncil.co.uk/; John Howe http://www.john-howe.com/; Joe Wilson http://www.joe-wilson.com/; Tomislav Tomic http://www.theaoi.com/portfolios/index.php/artist-details?memberid=342; Flo Minowa http://flominowa.com/; Noelle Stevenson http://noellestevenson.blogspot.co.uk/; Sam Schechter http://sam-schechter.com/; Alice Macarova http://www.behance.net/macarova; Anna Ignatieva http://magnetica.ru/gallery/; Kailey Lang http://www.kaileylang.com/; Julian De Narvaez http://www.behance.net/juliandenarvaez; Nico Delort http://www.behance.net/ndelort; Rafael Alvarez http://www.behance.net/rafaalvarez; Sebastian Skrobol http://www.behance.net/skrobol; Alphonse Mucha http://www.muchafoundation.org/; Khao Le http://www.behance.net/moonyk; Rodney Matthews http://www.rodneymatthews.com/; DZO Olivier http://www.behance.net/dzo; Arthur Rackman http://rackham.artpassions.net/   

APP Home (AOI): London Stories

I really like the idea of illustrating the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but as I have just started the project I want to look at other stories of London before I make my decision.

Mind Map

I carried out some brief research on the stories of London, looking at both historical and fictional tales. The brief is quite vague on whether or not the stories will have to surround a certain tourist attraction (e.g. the Big Ben) or if it’s just going to be set in London. This gives me a bit more freedom!

This mindmap has shown me how little I actually know about the stories of London, so I'll be doing some more research on the internet and see if I could get my hands on some books as well.


Chosen Collection of London Stories

After much thought, I am now undecided on whether to base my illustration on the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. When I looked back at the stories I realised that many of his cases were carried out in his room on 221B Baker Street, or in unnamed places and the countryside.
This led me to the decision of looking at books on London Lore and historical stories, which I found through books such as “London Folk Tales” by Helen East and “London's Strangest Tales” by Tom Quinn.

Whilst reading these two books I wrote down notes on the stories that I deemed most interesting and useful for my illustration, so I have taken these little notes and constructed them into bullet points below.

“London Folk Tales” by Helen East

Alba to Brutus
Covers the very beginnings of London – Britain was ruled by the giant Gogmagog, son of Alba
Brutus – grandson of Aeneas, soldier of Troy. Brought a talisman with him to this strange country (a stone of Troy's wall) – this stone was then placed in centre of London and all roads lead to it
Corineas – travelling companion of Brutus. Won the battle against the giant Gogmagog by throwing him over a cliff's edge, and Cornwall was named after him
After the battle – Brutus settled by a large river – later became London – formed two guardians at each end of London – Corineas and Gogmagog

Blind Beggar's Daughter
Extremely beautiful – always helped father to beg on the streets. Dad then purchased a dog to help him out so that daughter could travel to find work in a Tavern
Men begged to have her hand in marriage but all turned away when she said they had to get permission from her beggar father – only the knight stayed and said he wanted to marry her for her, not for her money
Knight's family not happy – went to see the beggar – beggar said he will give the knight a dowry from his beggar “winnings” - all the friends of the knight then threw a shower of coins that the beggar could then pick up – he gave this to the knight.
Blind Beggar's Pub on Whitechapel road

APP Home (AOI): Association of Illustrators and Transport for London

Although my illustration would be aimed at tourists and lovers of London, the hosts will also be included in that target audience so it's important that I aim to appeal to them as well. In order to figure out what they're looking for I've decided to take a look at each company and analyse them.

Association of Illustrators - http://www.theaoi.com/index.php

The Association of Illustrators was established in 1973 to help promote illustration as a profession, offering memberships to students, colleges, freelance illustrators and agents so that they could help support them through every step of their career. This membership includes giving advice on pricing, developing portfolios, as well as providing a range of online tutorials and resources.

Even those without a membership could have some sort of access to this information by purchasing their publications such as “The Publication Directory” and “The Illustrators Guide to Law and Business” which gives advice on licensing, figuring out costs and copyright.

They are also perhaps the only company that launches international competitions – including their Illustration Awards – that celebrates the work of new graduates and professional illustrators. It was this competition that really caught my eye as I visited one of their exhibitions and was really inspired by the work displayed there: especially because one of the winners happened to be fresh-out-of-university!

Here are some of the illustrators that I found inspiring while I was flicking through AOI's portfolio:

Image sources: Anne-Marie Perks http://www.theaoi.com/portfolios/index.php/artist-details?memberid=989; Alice Wood www.alicewood.co.uk; Chris King http://www.chriskingillustration.com/; Andy Council http://www.andycouncil.co.uk/; Joe Wilson http://www.joe-wilson.com/; Tomislav Tomic http://www.theaoi.com/portfolios/index.php/artist-details?memberid=342 

Conclusion:

After having a look at the portfolios advertised on their website, it seems that AOI embraces all mediums and helps promote illustrators that use different mediums. For example, there are some digital illustrations and traditional illustrations, as well as editorial and children book illustrations...

Due to the varied portfolios displayed I feel a lot more comfortable working within my own media (watercolour and ink) although I am intrigued to try out doing things digitally.

Transport for London - http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

Transport for London covers all aspects of travel; providing maps for the tube, DLR, bus, cycling, tram, overground and national rail, the river as well as providing a visitor's guide for tourists. Their site covers a wide range of information so that you could find anything you want to in terms of travelling around London.

It is safe to say that the Transport of London includes everything and anything you need to know about London. Even though they don't have an About page as such it's quite obvious what their aim is; to make your life easier when travelling. They are linked in to live travel news in case there are any disruptions on the services.

Association of Illustrators - Serco Prize for Illustration 2014

The Brief

For one of my other APP projects – as I want to prepare three just in case I go with Option B for my dissertation – I wanted to enter the AOI competition that involves illustrating a London story. Here’s the brief listed on their website (http://www.theaoi.com/events/index.php):

“London Transport Museum, in partnership with the Association of Illustrators (AOI), is delighted to announce that submissions are now welcome for the Serco Prize for Illustration 2014. This year the theme is London Stories.

Across the ages, London has produced and inspired countless stories. Fictitious or real characters and events in this amazing city have always held fascination, from the anecdotal urban myth to grand tales of historic legend. The aim of the competition is to attract artwork for display that is colourful, inspiring and celebrates a vibrant, multi-layered London.

Visually capture a well-known or lesser known narrative in a single image; all stories, current or historical, real or fictional, which feature this amazing city are welcome - your imagination is the limit. Stories could be those seen in a film or play, heard in poetry or music, read in literature or an urban myth. Impress the jury with your illustrated interpretation of a London story and be in with a chance 
of having your work displayed at the famous London Transport Museum and winning the top prize.

Prizes will be awarded in three levels:
First prize: £2000 and display of image on a LTM poster 
Second prize: £1000
Third prize: £750

There is also the possibility that your shortlisted image will be featured on merchandise sold in the museum shop.

The competition is open to illustrators and students of illustration throughout the world. The top 50 entries selected by a panel of judges will be displayed in an exhibition at London Transport Museum that will open Friday 14 February and run until Sunday 6 April. The winners will be announced at a private award ceremony on the evening of Thursday 13 February.
The deadline for entries is Sunday 3 November 2013.”

Analysis

Background Information
The two hosts of this competition are the London Transport Museum ad AOI (Association of Illustrators). Even though this illustration will be able a London story, it would probably be a good idea if I manage to incorporate the hosts’ work in it. For example, I could include a model of a train to represent the London Transport Museum in a very subtle way.

After taking a look at the submission requirements I noticed that the London stories they would want included would have to have an influence in modern day life – current events, history or fiction. My original idea of doing something with Sherlock Holmes might be fitting for this competition but I’d like to look into other stories as well.  Looking at these requirements also confirmed my idea of incorporating some form of transport into it.

Breaking The Brief Down
This brief can cover a variety of London stories but the first one that popped into mind is the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. However I would like to read some of the other stories of London, as I want to experiment with different styles.

To break it down into smaller points:

• The “hosts” – Association of Illustrators and London Transport Museum

Some of the modes of transport that I could include in this illustration are the Red Bus, London Underground, DLR (Serco), London Overground, Taxi (black), Tramlink, and Barclays Cycle Hire. I could also include walking or going by river.

• Collection of London stories – well-known or lesser-known, could be unusual 
• Narrative in a single image

I’ve noticed that in their terms and conditions they wrote that I could do a collection of stories rather than a story, which would give me more of a leeway on portraying the whole of London. I could also have a look at communities within London as well as historical aspects, cultures and characters there. So I could quite possibly slip in Sherlock Holmes there!

• Dimensions - Portrait - Double Royal – 635 x 1016mm (25 x 40 inches) or Double Crown – 505 x 760mm (20 x 30 inches).

I underestimated the size of this poster, and it isn’t I went to see how big that was in A size did I realise that it’s huge. This might be a problem for me when it comes to designing, as I tend to work on A4 traditional media… I suppose I could dabble in digital, or see if I could work on a maximum of A3 and scan it at a high dpi.
To solve this problem I’d need to see how other illustrators who perhaps work in traditional media manage to get a really high resolution so that they could work on posters.

However for my portfolio and university submission I shall create a poster at A3 size, and produce a mock up of the larger sizes so that people could see what it would look like when hung.

• People – must show a multicultural society

If I were to portray any people within this illustration that I need to make sure that I’m showing London as a place of diversity, and that people of all cultures live or visit there.

• Needs to be colourful, inspirational, and shows a vibrant multi-layered London
• Deadline – Sunday 3rd November 2013 


Conclusion:
As this competition brief mainly focuses on illustration I need to make sure I do as many experiments with media as possible, in order to broaden my knowledge of painting and I should also try out digital painting and trying out vectors (which I know that I do need to practice with more). I have recently obtained a Wacom Inkling that I could experiment with.

Even though this brief doesn’t ‘belong’ to the university I would still need to follow the learning outcomes for the APP, as I am going to do that for one of my themes. I would need to make sure that I do thorough research of the London stories and make sure that they’re from reliable resources.