Jon Milet Baker

Designer and illustrator, Jon Milet Baker, inspired by mythology, history, nature and technology.

[jonmiletbaker]

The Red Cap

The full circle of the moon is clearly visible in the cloudless, blue, winter sky. The sun is low sun and casting long shadows through the tall trees. Sam and Jenny are walking off their large lunch, having both eaten two meals worth of food in one sitting.

The couple often come here on a Sunday, after a large lunch at their favourite pub. Ring woods is an ancient woods, full of old trees with memories that span a thousand years and thick undergrowth that insist visitors stick to the path.

They turn off the main fire trail, onto a well trodden path. The forestry commission has marked out routes and a sign designates this particular path with a circle. They walk for a while and reach a clearing. The path continues across the clearing back into the deep woodland on the other side. Another path leads off up a small incline where there are some pretty snowdrops coming into bloom.

"Wait here a moment," Jenny says, putting her hand on Sams arm. She turns away and heads up the path towards the flowers.

"What's up?" Sam replies after her, he follows her intently with his eyes admiring her silhouette against the winter sun. He continues to watch her as she get her camera out of her bag and remove the lens cap.

"I've just seen some snowdrops I'd like to photograph, I won't be a minute," Jenny says bending down to take a few close up pictures of a small bloom on a bank. The path bends up to the right and Jenny slinging her camera around her neck, follows the path out of sight.

Sam waits a while but Jenny does not return. The sun is particularly warm for this time of year. There is a chill to the wind but he is comfortable. Testing the ground for dryness he sits down on a small mossy bank. He leans back into a large tree letting the slight warmth of the sun fall on his face. He closes his eyes.

His peace is shattered by someone shouting in the distance. Sam wonders why someone would come to a peaceful wood like this and shout their heads off. What an asshole. Sam hears the shouting again, it is louder now. He can't quite make out what is being shouted. He hears it now.

"Asshole," shouts the man.

Sam gets up and turns around. A man is in front of him. He sees the man's fist.

Sam comes to, still in a daze. The man has gone but Sam's face is sore from the punch. What the hell just happened? He gets up and brushes him self off. His lower lip feels particularly sore, he dabs it with the back of his hand and it leaves a blotting of blood. "What an asshole," he sighs under his breath. He head up the snowdrop lined path to look for Jenny and find her crouching, still taking photos.

"I'm nearly done," she says, sensing his presence, "I've got some great macro shots of these beauties." The shutter clicks. She gets up and looks around at Sam, "What the hell happened to you," she says slightly smirking, "did you fall over or something?"

"Thanks for the sympathy! Some asshole just hit me. He came out of nowhere, it was completely unprovoked"

Jenny's smirk turns to a look of concern, "Are you okay? We should call the police, he sounds like a nut job"

"I don't think they would-"

"He might hurt someone else. What was he wearing?"

Sam tries to remember, "he was wearing jeans and a green coat."

"That narrows it down doesn't it. You're wearing jeans and a green coat," Jenny pauses and looks up at his forehead, "Where has your cap gone?"

Sam instinctively reaches up and touches his head feeling his slight baldness but no cap. He hastily pats his coat pockets, "it must have come off when I got attacked."

Sam turns and starts running back down towards the clearing. Jenny follows a few paces behind. As they reach the clearing it is apparent the cap is not there.

"I love that cap, " Sam says, his shoulders dropping.

"Why would anyone mug you for your cap?"

"I wasn't mugged."

"You know what goes around comes around, I think that guy has a bad thing coming to him," Jenny gives him a little smile, "I know what will cheer you up when we get home." Jenny rubs his arm tenderly as they head back towards the pub.

As Sam and Jenny walk, they spot a another clearing ahead and Sam stops dead in his tracks. "Look," he says with alarm.

"What are we looking at? I don't see anything," Jenny expression turns to one of slight concerned.

"Over there, look, in the clearing sitting down. It's him, it's him, he has my hat on," Sam starts running at the man.

"Asshole," shouts Sam.

Jenny leans forward, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, her expression is quizzical. She strains to look closer at the man sat in the clearing. Wait, that is Sam. She looks back at the man running towards him, but that is Sam too.

"Asshole," Shouts Sam.

Jenny sees him punch the man and as he falls to the floor, take his cap.

[jonmiletbaker]

Jorinde and Joringel

This is the last (for now) of the illustrations I have created for my self initiated project that was inspired by fairy tales. I set out to create ten images (In the end I did eleven) as a way to improve my illustration skill. This image was done several months after the last image hence the difference in style. I’m currently enjoying a bolder, simpler style; this is the only image out of the 11 that was done in Illustrator (with the texturing in Photoshop). All the others were created entirely in Photoshop.

This particular illustration is for the Brothers Grimm tale of Jorinde and Joringel. It is the tale of a witch who lives in a secluded castle, and a couple of lovers. The lovers, despite warnings, stray too close to the witches castle. Joringel is frozen in place like a tree, unable to move or talk while the witch turns Jorinde into a Nightingale. Joringel become free once the witch is gone and flees to a nearby village. Pining for Jorinde, Joringel takes a job as a shepherd and one night has a vivid dream about a magical flower that can break the witches spells.

Read more on my blog

[jonmiletbaker]

The Old Women in the Woods

My tenth image in my self initiated fairy tale inspired series of illustrations. The Old Woman in the Woods by the Brothers Grimm.

The old woman in the woods is the tale of a beautiful but poor servant girl. After a brutal attack on the family she works for, she is left the sole surviver, alone in the woods. Lost, the girl is unable to find her way home. A dove comes to the rescue and brings her a series of golden keys to open trees that provides her with shelter and food each night.

Read more on my blog

[jonmiletbaker]

The Juniper Tree

My ninth fairy tale illustration. The story of The Juniper Tree, once again by the prolific duo that were the Brothers Grimm.

Read more on my blog

[jonmiletbaker]

Hansel and Gretel

Eight illustration in my fairy tale series. This time the popular and well known tale of Hansel and Gretel that get left in the woods, find a candy house and get caught by a witch. Gretel saves the day and the witch gets roasted.

More on my blog

[jonmiletbaker]

The House in the Woods

My seventh fairy tale illustration, this one for the tale of the interchangeably titled The House in the Woods or the Hut in the Forest, once again by the Grimm Brothers.

This is the tale of a woodcutter and his three daughters. The oldest is sent into the forest to forage dinner but doesn't return. You can find out if her younger sisters kindness saves the day by reading more on my blog.

[jonmiletbaker]

A little treat for all you Hayao Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli fans

[jakewyattonline]

Just curious on how you approach composition and perspective. I feel as if sometimes I think too hard, not really about what to draw but how to draw it and make it look interesting. The comic panels you have been doing are amazing. Any tips/references on improving my knowledge of composition and perspective? What do you think about as you lay your pencil on the drawing paper? what goes through your mind?

*STANDARD DISCLAIMER* I’m not handing down life lessons or trying to assert that there’s a ‘correct way’ to draw. I’m just trying to make perspective more approachable for thems that want to tackle it.

Okay. Let’s do this.

1. Understand what perspective is and what it’s for. Stay away from rulers while you get comfortable.

Everyone struggles with perspective because 1. it’s not well or widely taught and 2. artists tend to see linear perspective as a set of rules rather than a set of tools.

Linear perspective is a TOOL we use to create and depict SPACE. That’s it. That’s all it is. Your goal is not to draw in ‘accurate linear perspective.’ Stay away from the ruler and precision for as long as you can. Your goal is to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Perspective is just a tool to help you construct and correct that space.

2. Know in your bones that you can ONLY learn to draw in perspective through physical practice. There is no other way.

Grab some paper and draw with me. If you match me drawing for drawing you will be more fluent in linear perspective and spatial drawing by the end of this post. Unfortunately if you don’t, you won’t be.

3. Sketch around in rough perspective. NO RULERS.

So let’s make some simple space. let’s start with a two dimensional surface…

K. We have a flat, 2D surface. Let’s create some depth by putting a vanishing point in the middle, and having parallel lines converge towards it. Make a gridded plane inside that space.

Good. Let’s make that space meaningful by adding a dude and a road or something. (Again, parallel ‘depth lines’ will converge into the vanishing point along the horizon)

And now we have the rough illusion of some space. I didn’t use any rulers, and it’s not perfectly accurate, but we got our depth from that vanishing point right in the middle of the page. And since we have a little dude in there, we’ve got human scale, which allows us to gauge the size of the space we’ve created. Gives it meaning.

You need people or cars or some recognizable, human-scale THING in there as a frame of reference or your space won’t mean much to your viewer. Watch. We can make that same basic space a whole lot bigger like this:

Same vanishing point in the same place, completely different scale, and a totally different feeling of space. Cool, right?

3. Sketch around in rough perspective MORE. STAY LOOSE.

See what sort of spaces and feelings you can create with vanishing points and gridded planes on a post-it or something. Super small, super rough. Feel it out. Pick a vanishing point or lay out a grid in perspective, and MAKE SOME SPACE. Do it. Draw, I don’t know, a lady and her dog in a desert. I’ll do it, too.

Good job. LOOK AT YOU creating the illusion of space! This is how you’ll thumbnail and plan anything you want to draw in space. All of my drawings start this way. I think about how I want the viewer to feel and then play around with space and composition until I find something that works.

Once you have a sketch you like, and space that you feel, THEN you can take out the ruler and make it more accurate and convincing.

4. Draw environments from life.

I cannot stress this enough. Draw the world around you, try to draw the shapes and angles as you see them, and you will ‘get’ how and why perspective is used. Use something permanent so that you’ll move fast and commit. I usually use black prismacolor pencil.

You’ll learn or reinforce something with every drawing. I learned a lot about multiple vanishing points from this drawing:

Learned from the receding, winding space I tired to draw here:

Layered, interior spaces:

You get the idea.

Life drawing will also help you develop your own shorthand and language for depicting textures, materials, details, natural and architectural features, etc. Do it. Do it all the time. Go to pretty or interesting places just to draw them.

Take a second and just draw a quick sketch of whatever room you’re in.

5. Perspective in formal Illustration: apply what you’ve learned.

1. I always start with research. For this particular location I looked at Angkor Wat.

2. Once I had enough reference, I did a bunch of little thumbnail sketches with a very loose sense of space and picked the one I liked best.

3. Scanned the thumbnail and drew a little more clearly over it. Worked out the rough space before using formal perspective.

4. Reinforced the space with formal perspective. I dropped in pre-made vanishing points over my drawing. If I were drawing in real media here’s where I’d get out the ruler to sketch in some accurate space.

5. Drew the damn thing. Because I do my research, draw from life, and am comfortable drawing in perspective, I can wing it. I just sort of ‘build’ the ruins freehand in the space I’ve established, keeping it more or less accurate, experimenting and playing with details along the way. I erase a lot, too, both in PS and when drawing in pencil. Keeps it fun for me.

And that’s what I know about composition and perspective. If you want more formal instruction on perspective and it’s uses, you can use John Buscema’s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Or If you want to get really intense about it, Andrew Loomis can help you

[jonmiletbaker]

Excellent advice on drawing perspective from Jake Wyatt

[jonmiletbaker]

The Wedding of Mr Fox

My sixth fairy tale inspired Image. This one is of the Grimm Brothers’ less known tale, The Wedding of Mr Fox. A story of a fox with nine tails who decides to test the fidelity of his wife. He fakes his death and hides, waiting to see what happens. Many suiters come and try their luck but she rejects all until another nine tailed fox comes to town. They get married and Mr Fox comes out of hiding and drives them all away.

Nine tailed foxes originate in Asian mythology. You can read more on my blog

[jonmiletbaker]

The Elves and the Shoemaker

The fifth illustration in my series of fairy tale illustrations.

I couldn't resists the Christian Louboutin reference, oh and there is another subtle reference for Studio Ghibli fans in there, which shouldn't be too hard to spot.

Read more on my blog

[shinji--moon-deactivated2017123]

Hayao Miyazaki’s studio

[hannahchristenson]

Dat studio.

[jonmiletbaker]

As a massive fan of Hayao Miyazaki's work, this is fascinating to see

[jonmiletbaker]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I just wanted to wish you all a happy Christmas and good health and happiness for 2014. Thank you for your support in 2013, and welcome to all my new recent followers. I'll be back in the new year with a new illustration for you.

The above design are some Christmas berry inspired baubles and my first attempt at some animation.

[hannahchristenson]

Your colors are amazing! I wondered how you select, or generate your color palette for a piece. I struggle with this every time I do my stuff. Sometimes I will grab an image off the web, that I like the color of, and I drop it into Photoshop , pixilate it to knock it down to a few colors. Or I have even used Adobe Illustrator's color guild to start a palette just to know I'm on the right path using a formula that works. Do you work out a formula before you start , or as your going along. Thanks

Thanks for the question! You’re too kind. I don’t really have a formula or ritual when choosing colors. I imagine that choosing colors is different for everyone. Someone else’s method might not work for me and my method might not work for them. 

I always start with a color comp which I roughly paint under my sketch lines in Photoshop (like the examples below). I used to do watercolor color comps but I find it’s easier for me, personally, to change and tweak them digitally. I start off roughing in the colors I initially think would look cool and then I take a little break so I can come back and look at it with relatively fresh eyes. 

My initial colors are usually not as cool as I thought they were, so I change and tweak them as I see fit using Color Balance, Hue/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast or just redo it until I have three or four versions I like.

   Sometimes I’ll do very small color studies from life or from other artists so I can learn why they chose the colors they did or why I liked the colors of a sunset, a teapot, a flower, whatever. I feel like I have a lot to learn, but thats ok, because learning is fun, right??? At least, thats what I keep telling myself. :) 

I’m sure the way I choose colors will be nothing like my future methods and thats ok. There’s always room for growth and change.

The point, I suppose, is that you find what works for you and what clearly communicates your vision for the colors. Also, study the paintings, photographs, comics and cartoons you admire. Do studies from life, film, the golden age illustrators, whatever. Pay attention to their values and the mood they set, almost any color can look appropriate if it’s the right value. Do small studies that you don’t need to finish and show online, do them for yourself, for your own learning and growth. 

But above all, color comps, in my opinion, should be done very quickly so that you don’t get bogged down in the details.

And like I said, the process is different for everyone. I know illustrators that color comp digitally for a traditional medium painting and others that color comp with paint for a digital piece. I know folks that make detailed color keys and others that pull it out of their butts. I suppose there isn’t a formula? Find what works for you but don’t be afraid to change and grow. 

There is a lot of information on color, value, etc over on Muddy Colors, read the whole blog!

[jonmiletbaker]

Great advice from Hannah Christenson in selecting colours.

[jonmiletbaker]

Here is my latest illustration from my personal fairy tales project. Lazy Jack by Joseph Jacobs.

Lazy Jack is a funny tale about a particularly lazy boy who sits around at home all day. His mother eventually gets fed up with him not contributing and sends him out to work.

The boy goes and does some work for a neighbouring farmer and gets given some money in payment. Not knowing about money he carries it is his hands and loses it on the way home. His mother, furious, says he should have put it in his pocket. The next day he works at the dairy and gets paid in milk. Remembering the wise advice from his mother, he pours it into his pocket. You can see the pattern emerging...

It ends with him carrying a donkey on his back, making a mute rich girl laugh, they get married and all live happily ever after.

Laziness and stupidity clearly pay off.

[jonmiletbaker]

Star Talers, a Grimm brothers story of a girl who gives away everything, including her clothes

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[jonmiletbaker]

Jack and The Beanstalk

Second illustration in a series inspired by Fairy Tales. Read more on my blog here.

[jonmiletbaker]

First in a series of illustrations inspired by Fairy tales. You can read more on my blog here.