Thoughts on Final Illustration Portfolio Fall 2009

The most important thing that I think I learned from Illustration this semester was PROCESS. Idea - thumbnails - pencil comp - marker comp - illustration - computer. And the more work that you put into it in the earlier stages, the easier it will be later on so that you can focus more on technique and presentation.
I will admit that at the beginning of this class I was definitely the kind of person who tried to get to the actual illustration step as quickly as possible. I thought all my problems would be better solved at this point. But once I slowed myself down a bit, I realized how much time and effort I was saving myself by paying more attention to the little details in the first couple of stages of a project.
Here are eight of my projects from this semester that I feel show the widest range of skills and techniques that I have learned this year.

The first one is a 6x4.5 water color from the very beginning of the semester, but this is one of the later ones that I did with a landscape and an architectural structure. I actually did all the line work first, then went back and added the color. I like this a lot better than painting on a plain piece of paper or with just a pencil drawing. This is my best little water color because I feel like it was the first time that I let the paint do it's job. Before this point, I was fiddling with the paint and overworking it. I also really like the colors in this piece.

The second piece is a product illustration of a soda can done in gouache. The goal was to make it look "sexy". The best way to do this would be to make it look as realistic as possible like you could go up and grab it off the shelf. I feel like I was successful in making it look real and added an extra punch of sexiness by adding the reflection. I think this project showed my confidence with the material because it took a lot of patience and precision to 'pick-out' the lettering. I painted the whole can red first then went in and picked out all the red paint in the lettering and then went back over the lettering with three coats of white because the red paint stained the board pink. I really enjoyed this project.

The third piece is actually a marker comp for the Three Image Montage project. I included this to show my marker skills as well as how I apply color at this stage and transfer it to the next stage. This project is what made me realize how helpful a well done marker comp can be when you go to paint the actual project.

The fourth piece is the Three Image Montage done in gouache. Since we did this project twice, this is my second attempt. The only part that I really feel is a lot stronger in this one than in the first one is the key. It was much darker in the first one and the highlights were very weak. It also didn't have enough contrast from the kiwi skin behind it. I feel like this project shows how I am able to put together a composition even when each element is very unrelated. I used realistic colors for the most part except I made the giraffe slightly more orange and I decided to make the key have a deep blue tint to it even though the original key was dark brown.

The fifth piece is the Missouri postcard which illustrates what Missouri means to me. I chose to duplicate a picture that I took of myself riding my bike on the Katy Trail. I love riding my bike and in my hometown, Jefferson City, you can ride right along the Missouri river which is very cool. I chose to switch up the colors though because while the photo had a nice view point, the colors weren't anything exciting to talk about. So I decided to make the ground and my shadow a cool blue and my body and the bike warm colors, red, orange and yellow. I used water color for this project because I had been using a LOT of gouache lately.

The sixth piece was my Cheesy airbrush. Overall, I enjoyed airbrush a lot more than I thought I would, but MAN! it really sucks when you are trying to work with an airbrush that is not wanting to cooperate...anyways this was a fun project. I airbrushed a turtle giving the thumbs up and looks like he's from the sixties. It's a Lisa Frank design and I grew up with so much Lisa Frank stuff it's ridiculous. And nothing is quite as cheesy as this. As far as technique, I strangely feel a lot more comfortable doing things free hand than with the frisket and I like the outcome better too. I was only able to use freehand for the purple part of the shell and the green part of his head and hand. These are the areas that I feel look the best. Some of the other areas got a little messy from taking off and replacing the frisket after each color.

The seventh piece was the sound illustration. I chose to illustrate the sound of a growling stomach because my stomach is always talking...sometimes it's embarrassing, especially when it roars! Anyways, I think this project is my best example of a good, developed concept because it doesn't take the sound literally. Obviously there aren't really lions in our stomachs, but sometimes it feels that way. There was a bit of a debate over whether the lion was growling or roaring and it was suggested that I use a lion who was simply snarling. I tried this but didn't like it because I feel like the whole concept was lost. The lion just ended up looking angry. The like the lion that I chose because the focus is on the mouth and even if it does seem like it's roaring i think it works because the sound is just exaggerated that much more.

The eighth and final piece is my book illustration for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. My original plan was much different than this and I ended up doing another set of thumbnails which was very helpful. I feel like my original ideas were either not original enough or simply too cliche. This composition works well because of the unique perspective. I chose to use watercolor because I think it has a softer look than gouache does and I wanted to reflect the softer side of this book rather than the darker side that includes all the judgment and prejudice that goes on in the book.

Final Portfolio

Book Illustration

Here is the finished book illustration for the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I used watercolor and black pen. I am really happy with the way this turned out especially with the perspective. The picket fence looks a lot better than it did in my marker comp and the cracks in the sidewalk add interest. See it with type in my final portfolio!

This is my final growling stomach illustration. I'm really happy with the way this turned out, especially the lion. And I'm surprised how little trouble I had with it. But I think the reason is because I just PAINTED! Forget the pick out method...I think that's what was giving me such a hard time before. I didn't put any gesso/matte medium down so that I would prevent myself from picking out the color because otherwise I would ruin the board...seemed to work pretty well.

Book Cover Marker Comp

This is my marker comp for the To Kill A Mockingbird book cover. As far as the colors go I was trying to keep them rather muted.
I got a lot of positive feed back. The only bad comment was that the trees need work, and I agree. I also nee to work on the fence. I scared of the tiny panels of the picket fence so I made it more of a wooden panel fence but really it looks like a concrete wall...so that will need to be fixed. I'm going to add some cracks in the concrete sidewalk as well.

More Book Thumbnails

Ok, I had a new idea... I still want to use the idea of the ball of string unraveling into the shape of the mockingbird. But there was a tree on the original cover so I want to change the background to a sidewalk leading up to a house. I think it will be more interesting with a more unique point of view.

Book Cover Thumbnails

These are my quick ideas for the book cover project. I chose to do To Kill a Mockingbird. Several of my ideas have to do with the contrasting views and the prejudices that come up in the book, primarily those issues between the black and white communities. That's why I chose to do the ying-yang ideas with the man's silhouette and the bird shadow because several of the characters throughout the book are supposed to represent innocent mockingbirds.
Two of the other sketches illustrate the gifts that Boo Radely leaves behind in the knot hole in the tree for the kids. And the last one is sort of silly...a mockingbird being squashed by a judge's gavel. This is supposed to be symbolic, not literal of course. In the book when the court rules Tom Robinson guilty, it was like the judge taking his gavel and killing the mockingbird...does that make sense...?
Anyways I think I'm going to work on the one with the tree and the knot hole with the ball of twine draping down into the shape of a bird. I need to wiggle the compostion around a little to create a better focal point and really think about where the title will go. I might add a few more the the little "gifts' that Boo leaves behind to the knot hole. I also want the bird shape to look looser, maybe by adding small nails to the tree and make it look like the strig is draped over the nails in the shape of the bird.
After I figure all that out, I'll move onto color. Right now I'm picturing sort of a whimsical color scheme I guess you would say. I think I want the background to be pretty dark like a dark navy and then the tree to be brown obviously, and then have the twine be a purpleish white and I also want there to be some gree so I migh add some leaves some how...

SOUND ILLUSTRATION

Here is my pencil comp and two marker comps of the sound illustration. I chose to illustrate the sound of stomach growling because my stomach is constantly making noises. And sometimes, it even "roars" at me. I was really happy with the pencil comp and immediatley went onto the markercomp stage. Then, after getting feedback from peers in class, we had to do a second marker comp and change something that someone suggested. I got a lot of positive feedback but there was one person who said that the illustration read as stomach "roaring" instead of stomach "growling". They suggested having the lion look more like he was snarling instead of roaring. But the reason I chose that lion was because the focus was on the mouth, not the eyes or any other part of the lion. Also to exaggerate what was happening, exaggerate the sound. I was pretty sure if I had a lion snarling, it would just look like an angry lion on someone's stomach and that's what I think my second marker comp looks like. The focus is on the eyes and not the mouth. Another issue that I had to deal with was making sure the lion didn't look like a tatoo. But I feel like I was successful in making it look like a lion head as part of the girl's body by extending the mane past the edge of the body as well as blending in parts of the mane with the texture of the skin.

Now, I've got to paint this. And I'm hoping I didn't bite off more than I can chew...just because I can draw it well doesn't mean I will be able to paint it well. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to use gouache but I'm going to try and just paint - no pick-out method, in other worlds. We shall see...

Final Guinness World Record Poster

Oh finally. This is my final Guinness Book Of World Records Poster with text included. I am happy with the final version of the painting, especially considering what it looked like at first. Everything sort of just blended together. I added more contrast and so line work to give the piece more structure. The silly shirt was redone six times and the fifth time might have been succesful but I ran out of green gouache. I also had a lot of trouble with this painting because I think I have associated the pick-out method as the only technique you can use with gouache. But that's obviously not true. So once I had color "blocked in" I to force myself to just simply add paint to what was already there and avoid thinking about picking any of it or subtracting any of the exisiting paint. Once I did that things started to look better.

Final MO Postcard

This is my final Missouri postcard. I chose to use watercolor for this project because I missed using watercolor...and I was tired of gouache...I think it looks almost identical to my marker comp. After doing it, I'm not sure that watercolor was the best medium because I feel like there was a lot of little detail and I felt like I had to be fairly controlling with the paint. I'm not sure that any of the watercolor techniques from the beginning of the semester were reflected in this project but I'm not sure how I would do it differently I guess.

Final Cheesy Airbrush

Here's my cheesy cheesy turtle done in airbrush! Cutting out all the shapes from the frisket was relatively easy (especially with a sharp blade). First, I did the purple part of the shell. I used a piece of paper as a mask to make the hard edge near the top - so far so good, I was feelin confident. Then I started on the flowers, not too bad. There was a lot of taking the frisket off and then putting it back on to do each color. Then the lab was really close to closing so I had to stop and clean up. I was hoping to get the whole thing done in one go (about six hours) but that didn't happen. So I came back the next day to finish it and the lab was crowded like I knew it would be and my new airbrush and I were not getting along. But the green part turned out pretty nicely. I especially like the highlight on the nose where you can still see some of the paper through the paint. I did all the green freehand. Then for the circles, I used the plastic stencils that were in the drawer because I didn't cut out the circles from the frisket very well...they weren't very circular. This time around I had a lot more trouble with the paint being too wet. I know I was also rushing a bit too. That's all I have to say about that. It's CHEESY :)

Cheesy Airbrush marker comp

This is the marker comp for the cheesy airbrush project! Isn't he cute!? Thumbs up! This should be fun.

Missouri Postcard Marker Comp

This is my marker comp for the Missouri Postcard. This is from a picture of me riding my bicycle last summer on the Katy Trail (that's how it relates to Missouri) I just thought it was a really cool picture and Rusty picked the thumbnail of this immediately so... But obviously I didn't use the photographic colors. I messed around with several different color combinations, all I knew is that I wanted it to be bright. So I decided to have my body and the bike be all warm colors and the ground and shadow to be cool colors, primarily blue because I didn't want to have the entire rainbow on the postcard.

Second Fruit Airbrush

Much better. And it took me about half as much time as the cherry did! I free-handed all the highlights which I think looks much better. But I wish I would have let a little more of the paper show through in some areas. I also tried added some colored pencil on this one to add some detail work like the lines in the leaves and texture on the twig but I didn't like the way it was looking so I erased it the best I could... and there are NO WHITE LINES from lining up the frisket incorretly :)

Airbrushed Fruit

My first attempt at airbrush, well besides the practice exercises with the spheres, cubes, cones etc... Not too bad, but could use some improvement of course. I had a very difficult time cutting out the friskit (now, after doing the second fruit, I know it's because my blade wasn't sharp enough!) I cut through the friskit too far in some areas so you can see where I cut through to the board itself. I'm also not crazy about the graphic style of the highlight - I'll probably try to free hand the highlights next time. Otherwise, I think the actuall application of the color went fairly well. I don't feel like I let it get too wet or anything and I didn't have any problems with the paint bleeding under the frisket like I did with the cubes.