Amy Gallagher @joxterboxterart - Tumblr Blog

ZINES (Week 7)

Second photo taken by Tiger

Today’s Fundamentals lecture was our final lecture, and the deadline for the ‘Create A Zine’ brief. For the session we placed all of our final zines on a table to pick up and look at. It was a fun and wholesome experience to get to know everyone further via their zines and what their interests are. It was a good way to look at the different styles, themes, and even techniques used in making the zines. I could definitely see all of them published in a book shop!

For my tutorial with my lecturer there wasn’t a lot of negatives to discuss. He said he really loved by characterisations and i had a good sense of what to do. The only pointers was that i add things to the inside and back covers. Could be a continuous pattern to help liven up the Zine. Another critique was that i make my contact page a lot more neater with its writing and placement. All minor and understandable things.

‘The Vile Stuff’ by Richard Dawson

“The Vile stuff” task was our final in class task for the remainder of the session. We followed the theme of the song and everybody in class was given a snippet of the lyrics. Once being given a verse to cover each person had to draw something based on it, or at least something that fit the theme/mood. We were to draw in black ink so our lecturer could inverted it for the final Zine.

Doing my illustration i choose to draw it as an already made inverted piece for the sake of it being easier on myself. I wanted to draw something gross so im glad i got the last verse of the song. Drawn in procreate.

"I only drink a few little droplets. I only took a tiny drought of the vile stuff"

#Joxterboxter

ZINE WORK (Week 5 & 6)

“Norske Folke-Evenlyr” - Norwegian Folklore

In this week’s Fundamentals lecture, we continued working on our own personal zine project. A three week project to end off the first half of our first year. My choice of Zine is all about Scandinavian mythology, especially Norwegian mythology. I did a set of 12 images regarding the mountain trolls to the forest nymphs and water spirits. I didn’t realise how many water spirits Norway actually had before doing this project.

All images were drawn and finalised in the application Procreate, using grey scale colours to help make printing costs more cheaper for my own sake. I didn’t want my illustrations to fill the entire page if i could help it. Some where, but i wanted most to be in a centred square or to be strictly inside a border to feel like it was also a guide then just a art book.

I could have chosen to also type the names of each creature, but to help mimic the style of how i drew my lineart i handwritten the names myself. I felt like it looked alright at the same, but now as i look back on it i could have improved on typing it and drawing over it as a guide to help it look more neater.

Making the physical copy of the book stressed me out. It was a good experience, but this was the first time i would be making a zine. When i got down to it after getting everything i needed i was set. I bought a good pack of quality card paper from WHSmiths. At first, i had trouble printing out pages due to the printers in the Uni library jamming everything i sent out to print. But printers upstairs within the uni were more trustworthy when i was shown were they were.

The pages did come out alright in the end. Not as vivid in ink as i wanted it to be but it was over and done with and i was definitely satisfied. The only thing i would have liked to do is go back and trim the edges.

#Joxterboxter

ZINE RESEARCH TASK

For this research task i have collected three different zines to reflect, analyse and take inspiration from in terms of materials. All three zines are handcrafted using cheap materials, which is very beneficial to freelance artists who want to make a package of zines quickly to send out.

"INFERNAL" - a risograph demons zine

a three colour (red, black, fluro orange) risograph zine of demon drawings by SOPHIE ROBIN & ELI SPENCER

The first of the three is a Risograph demons zine by artists Eli Spencer and Sophie Robin. Both illustrators from Glasgow. Both with very similar interests, have decided to dedicate a zine towards demonology, using spooky and surreal characters to help represent the theme of their zine. The black inked characters placed over the red grainy paper. It looks sturdy and the pages have the obvious texture to it.

This can be purchased on Eli Spencers shop,

https://elispencershop.bigcartel.com/product/infernal-a-risograph-demons-zine

"WYRM" - a risograph dragon zine

an 18 page zine of dragon goodness - printed in blue & fluro orange on grainy paper. made by ELI SPENCER & SOPHIE ROBINSON

Same artists, but different zine theme. Using the same materials, what draws me towards this particular book is how appealing it looks, the front cover has limited colours and it gives me a Tolkien vibe.

Things for this Zine ,as far as illustrations go, feels imperfect that its so good. Using blues for linework and a peachy, pale red for colour. Things are supposed to be limited and the dragons themselves vary to being droopy looking, prideful, or even crooked.

Both Zines as final products are made beautifully. Things don’t fall apart and the pages have textures to stand out from the rest. It’s overall good quality. Even the stapling is not out of place and its all in line.

You can find the Wyrm Zine here, https://elispencershop.bigcartel.com/product/wyrm-a-risograph-dragon-zine

INKTOBER 2017 ZINE

A5 zine, with all of my 2017 inktober pieces inside. By MATTHEW BAILEY

Third zine is by tattooist and Illustrator Matthew Bailey. He does a lot of black and white, almost ino printed, illustrations to do with the supernatural and undead.

Although not as colourful as the previous too, Bailey’s work has the same quality of paper. It’s sturdy but has a shine to the pages. He doesn’t go as far as to use textured paper for inside pages. Though he is known to have thicker, smoother cover pages to help protect the product that i like. He has used different choices of paper in the past, but he doesn’t seem to keep to one thing. Which shows that he likes different things and to experiment. The one problem i have, which is shown in the photo up above, is the ragged and uneven cutting of the pages. Otherwise i really do adore his work.

you can buy the Zine on his shop.

https://www.baileyillustration.com/product/inktober-2017-zine

#JoxterBoxter

CREATE A ZINE (Week 5)

Week 5 marked the new week for a new project, and that featured making zines. I had never made or prepped for any before, but i’ve always had an interest in wanting to make one, so this week felt good for trying something new.

IN CLASS TASK - Collaborative monster Zine.

For our class task we were given a list of monsters to choose, and an hour or so to produce a quick greyscale drawing on A5 scale piece of paper. If we had finished early we could snag a second monster. But this was between everyone in the class, which in the end, would all be bunched up together to make a monster in alphabetical order Zine.

I got the Headless Horseman and a Yeti/Big foot. I managed to give the headless horseman a very spooky vibe and sinister smile that i liked. but for the Yeti i wasn’t feeling it too much. I made the eyes too big and cartoon, but the fur i did like doing. For materials i used Fine-liners and grey scale corpic markers to help with the shading and filling in the black ink shadows and background.

Sadly i do not have pictures of the final pink coloured copies of my illustrations, but i do have the originals.

#Joxterboxter

ABSTRACT NARRATIVE #2 (Week 3 & 4)

For Abstract Narrative we were given the brief to use two random images to book end a narrative. One image being our beginning and the other being our end. But we could only produce 8 panels worth and use no words.

This was a fun project, but i have trouble finishing the final narrative. The pictures featured up above are my work in process of the whole 8 panels (doing chunks before going on to sketch the rest in mind) but i could only manage rendering page 1 and 4

The two images i had were of a Valkyrie and a Medieval, but cursed looking, Elephant. The narrative i wanted to tell was that a Valkyrie wasn’t too happy with the choices of Pegasus’ they had in Valhalla, she wanted something more different and badass. So her friend comes along to say “i know a even better steed!” so they go around back and the Valkyrie meets the elephant and she...isn’t really too impressed. “What in Odins good name is this??” would be the facial expression.

Im gutted that i didn’t have time to finish everything and to the standards that i visualised it to have. It was all due to poor time management and organising between Fundamentals and Colour communication. I did like the style choice i tried to do for this project though.

#Joxterboxter

DIRECTED STUDY (week 3 & 4)

https://www.instagram.com/eli__spencer/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/goyagoat

Eli Spencer is a 23 year old Illustrator from Gaslow, and one of my many inspirations. She heavily enjoys medieval artwork and goats, and she often portrays it in her own art pieces. Their sense of character design is great and their sense of style is appealing.

The main thing that draws me to Spencer’s art is their characters and the stories that go behind them. Recently, she has done a lot of concepts for ‘witchfinders’, a story that they have been uploading concepts to twitter for.

What i like most is the masks, its fantasy based but it also keeps that medieval style towards it, which Spencer reflects on a lot with characterisation.

Other noticeable features that i enjoy from their artwork is how they draw hands and especially eyes. Everything is loose in linework, and there are different tones of grey that help flesh out the character or the surroundings.

The eyes remind me of old school Disney. Droopy in some sketches, and the eyelids are round like Donald ducks. Spencer also applies some highlights to the eyelids to reall enhance that old school Disney feel. It’s a big aesthetic

Another thing about their work is that they really love deluded colour pallets. Mostly being drawn to earthy tones myself i can see the appeal. Spencer’s go to colours are often earthy browns, tinted brown/greys and almost gold and red clays. It goes hand in hand with what characters or narritives she wants to do, and to the mood of a character. I really enjoy their greyscale pieces the most - it shows up a lot in the zines that they do!

Some zines that they have done is a mini zine they did for themselves based on boss fights. It’s a nifty idea and the vibe has a cult horror to it.

They like to include a lot of funny little friends that are just amazing on their own. I often get a smug feeling from the characters and with more series projects i get horror and supernatural, or even a slasher vibe.

The other thing that makes Spencers work so great is that they don’t seemed too fussed on making all the lines perfect and straight, they have ragged edges to them and it’s not perfect. Which makes it a good choice for styling out artwork. It makes it more fun and a personality to it.

They also make shapes really interesting and fun as well. Mainly with their dragons or weird creatures, again the whole shape is loose and sausage like, but what makes it for me are the details and lines on the horns and eyes. It’s the little details are are simplistic that make the artwork more appealing to take a look into. What i also like about Spencers work is that they don’t clutter up a drawing with extra bit of trivia, things feel like the right amount and especially on characters you get to focus on everything without feeling like its too much and dreadful.

#Joxterboxter

ABSTRACT NARRATIVE (Week 3)

The Giant Ghost

I got emotionally attached over the giant ghosts and i only have myself to blame :/

For the start of our Abstract narrative we were given a mini task to create a small zine based on word prompts. E.g The Lonely Ghost. I decided to do a take on the set of words The Giant Ghost.

The narrative i had in mind for this was about a ghost so big she had to stay in the mountains. She couldn’t really do any haunting in the town, nor did the regular ghosts want her because she was just too big. But she has validation in a blind wolf that also lives in the mountains.

We were not allowed to use any words for this mini zine, so the wolf being blind wasn’t exactly told, but how the wolf loved the ghost back is still the same. In the end, the ghost has a happy ending.

Personally i wish i could have developed this into a full on story zine outside of this small prompt brief. But given the time management of an hour it was satisfying enough. If i could go back and re-do the pages i would choose the front cover, since how i’ve drawn the wolf bugs me to no end.

Feedback on this was very positive and it made me happy to see the rest of my classmates enjoyed and got attached to the narrative too.

#Joxterboxter

Idiom week (week 2)

For Idiom I went with a very Scandinavian approach. I chose to do “Owls in the moss” which is a Norwegian saying for “There is trouble or tension in the air”.

To illustrate this i did, well, owls. I wasn’t too sure on how to go about this so I wanted to make the expressions and mood of the owls more boastful. Dark shadowing towards their eyes, and a redness to show their sinister intentions. This is a hard idiom to do if you’re not from Scandinavian, but I have managed to get the point across that you can still come encounter with two very angry owls.

I would have gone with an English Idiom, but I wanted to make myself stand out and be closer to my Norwegian heritage, even if it’s showing it off via art.

Underneath are the concept art for the owl idiom and other trivia ideas i had in mind. All of these are Scandinavian idioms

“To get blood on your teeth” means to have an idea.

“You shouldn’t judge the dog on its hairs.” Means you shouldn’t judge a book by its covers.

#Joxterboxter

SCAVENGER HUNT (week 1)

For our first task We were thrown into doing a scavenger hunt to look for, and draw, various sights and iconic bits that make up Cardiff centre. Having very limited art supplies on me I thought I would go ahead and use one of my fine liners for some quick sketches and doodles, but considering how fast I realised I wanted to be so my group could carry on ticking off sights off our checklists I decided a fine liner wasn’t all too good to make quick but recognisable sketches.

I chose to draw with my corpic/thick grey scale markers, which worked much better with getting basic shapes down, and making finer details with a darker tone. I often prefer doing this when i want to make quick studies, as I can be as messy as I want whilst still making it presentable.

This first task was a fun and social way to get to know the course and my classmates, all while experimenting on the go. Despite not liking all my drawn out sketches the clock tower, Hands, and the (nicer) Welsh dragon were the ones I enjoyed the most.

#Joxterboxter

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Amy Gallagher