Thomas . R - illustrator

[thomasrillustration-blog]

Artist Research - Beth Walrond

Beth is an Editorial Illustrator I have found who’s style I really enjoy, I particularly like her choice of colours and shapes which I find very appealing. Another aspect of her work that I like, is the textured effect she uses throughout her Illustrations which I personally feel gives her pieces more depth.

I am going reference the way Beth uses shapes in her work as an inspiration for my own, as I enjoy using shape and colour as strategetic as she does in hers.

[thomasrillustration-blog]

FMP Evaluation

For my final major project, I wanted to do a series of paper toys that could be fun, simple and have playability and I believe I have achieved just what I set out to do. I based my designs on the ‘Adventure Time Totem’ which is a part of my research and stylized them which was inspired by the Illustrators of which I had researched.

What I enjoyed most about making the paper toys was designing and assembling them, I wanted to create a unified style that could implement whatever/whoever onto them much like Funko’s ‘POP! Vinyl’ series, to achieve this I first created a series of endangered animals to promote them, but I felt as though they would not be enough for the exhibition as I wanted people to come up and swap the heads and bodies with different characters, so I decided to throw in some MARVEL superheroes as well as DC Comics heroes too. What I enjoyed about designing these toys was the more I designed, the more the style was developed. 

The style for the toys had three major elements: simplicity, colour and union. So I made sure to tweak the designs so that they appear as though they belong, which I feel I had achieved. The ‘Animal’ series did not look out of place next to the MARVEL/DC superheroes as I made sure that the unified style was being implemented throughout every design. As I have stated I used the ‘Adventure Time Totem’ as a basis for the paper toys design as I felt they would work perfectly for what I wanted to achieve, although I had tweaked it so that the bodies and head would not be one singular ‘totem’ but, two separate pieces. Which would add more playability to the paper toys by having the body of a Panda Bear with Spider-Man’s head and letting people be more creative and have more fun with the variety of combinations they could come up with. 

However, there are few things that I disliked/did not enjoy about this FMP despite one thing; It is nitpicking but, I wish that I could have used the same card for all of the paper toys, and could have included more for the exhibition. 

I am still very proud of what I have achieved and overall it has helped me improve my design skills extremely well, I feel as though designing these toys in a unified style can further help me as a designer which means I can implement these skills for the future for whichever work I may get will help created a unified style for whatever may come up in the future. 

[theartofthecover]

Team Fortress Comics #1 - Ring of Fired

(John Romita Sr.’s Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 #50 [Splash Page] Homage)

Art by: Maren Marmulla

[thomasrillustration-blog]

Jay Leisten - Secondary Research

Jay is an illustrator that I have very recently discovered after reading MARVEL Comics’ “Secret Empire #1″ and who’s ink work I fell in love with within an instant. His crosshatching/mark making techniques help bring depth to the characters that he is portraying and also help display very dramatic moments which help give the tense moments of this issue, even more, feeling as though we; the readers, can feel the drama or struggle that the characters are going through. 

For example; This panel here, it displays Captain America’s feelings of guilt and his struggle, with the usage of a heavy dark shadow against his back as he turns away. What I find brilliant about this panel is once again, we can not only see Captain America as a person as though it is from a film, but we can see the inner-struggle. It’s hard for him to walk away from the voice, as he feels guilty for the choices that he has not only made but is going to make in the future and to fear for what is to come of his future.

The reason Jay’s work is that even with the colours stripped away, we can still make see the depth of Captain America’s face, with every wrinkle in his skin and with his suit. This panel shows so much emotion in one image, without the context of the comic we can feel the struggle and we as the viewers can emphasize with Captain America as though we are in his place. 

Here is another example of Jay’s work that I find stunning to look at, it shows the MARVEL character, Thanos. In the image, we can see him displayed as a gigantic, brutuing, titan. His usage of shading techniques shows that this character is a force to not be reckoned with, the almost pitch-black sky of the galaxy helps that character stand out, even more, due-to the outline displaying Thanos’ power.

As I have said before, Jay has a gift to giving depth to all of his works and it is no exception here, we can see every muscle of Thanos and to show how threatening he is, there is a pile of skulls and bones at his feet which could strike fear to those whom dare challenge him. Once again, it shows in a single image that the character is not like the heroes of MARVEL, but a very scary villain and Jay has done an exceptional job of portraying him here. 

[thomasrillustration-blog]

Alexis Marcou - Research

Alexis’ illustration work, is visually stunning. Their usage of linework and watercolours is something I cannot put into words, as their work is absurdly beautiful to look at.

Once I again, I am finding it difficult to explain their work. I have so much appreciation for Alexis’ work, the way that they build up their illustrations by just using lines to slowly develop the illustration is a process that I love to see slowly develop more and more with the way that Alexis uses simple lines is a technique I have not seen someone tackle before which makes me love their work and process even more.

Another aspect of Alexis’ work I love is how geometric parts of their work looks, as though they have not used lines to build up their work but how they have used a lot of diverse shapes to build up the illustrations. 

Colour is something I’ve always found that can showcase or make an illustration seem less appealing, Alexis is truly an exception. How they’ve used colour that seems to blend within each other is one separated by a line, they feel as though that the colours are going to bleed into each other but not ruin the illustrations, rather bring them out even more. With the colours gracefully working to blend together, and show how incredibly stunning their work is.

If there is one more thing that makes me appreciate how Alexis works, is how none of her work is digital. It is all done with Copic markers and pens, which gives off a water-colour look that makes her work more visually stunning to look at, and can make anyone love how their work looks even more.

[thomasrillustration-blog]

Jack Kirby - Research

What can be said about Jack Kirby that has not been said already, he is the mastermind behind some of the most famous comic book characters of all time. Not only do I find his creativity a heavy inspiration but also how he is the man we can call, The Father of Spider-Man.

Jack’s art is timeless, as the more we go into the future the more we find ourselves looking back at where our roots are. MARVEL is guilty of this as they’ve found a new love for their classic comics art and not only is it the building blocks for their fame but also, a very big inspiration for Illustrators and Comic Book lovers also.

I adore the way Jack uses heavy blocks of black ink to bring out the features of his characters and work, with his use of cross-hatching to further help bring our their features it also is very clever how he uses this technique. For example, take this image of Superman, we can see how most of his chest is covered with blocks of black yet Kirby has purposely left his iconic ‘S’ completely free of shading/black ink, to show the most important aspect of Superman. Even those who have never seen Superman’s design everyone knows his logo and it is something you could never cover up.

Kirby’s art is someone anyone could look at and instantly know it is from an early comic book, which has had a growth in love and appreciation over the years. It also shows how far artwork has grown much more over the years, especially when we look at a modern comic compared to its predecessor. 

For my own work, I will try to experiment with cross hatching techniques or possibly do a ‘Comic Book’ series for my FMP to not only show an appreciation for the industry but to also try and use them to make my designs pop or seem more dramatic by stragtagizing with how I will use ‘blocks’ or black ink and cross hatching.

[thomasrillustration-blog]

Andrea Rivola - Research

Andrea is a freelance illustrator who’s work I could look at for days upon end, her work feels soft without the hard edges used with her usage of shape and colour, and it all feels as though she’s been using colour pencils with layers upon layers of colour to give this textured look to all of her work.

Once again, I love the way that Andrea uses colours that work together ever so brilliantly. Instead of using a red then going into a darker shade she instead uses an orange or magenta to shade in her illustrations. The colours work together brilliantly, I especially love how she rarely uses the colour black and instead trades it for a dark navy blue colour upon further inspection of her work.

The way she uses shapes as well is something I find very appealing and common among most illustrators, everything feels; symmetrical with shape and it is no different with her work. It just adds to the charm of her work even more by helping bring out the clever usage of shape to create her illustrations.

The texture is something I’ve always found appealing in art, especially when it is used in the digital art to help bring out certain parts of the work. I love this illustration how everything feels like it was made by hand, with the imperfect lines of the tennis court and how the ends of some of the lines look as though they are made with brush strokes. It all feels as though it was not made in illustration programs like Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer.

Character design is something she also does very well, with the title image at the top of this page, the character is made up of different animals body parts which look like a Frankenstein monster. It stands out because normally animal character designs may use shape or colour to try and stand out but hardly seem to combine features of other animals such as Andrea has done here.

For my own work, I feel like I shall use colour as carefully as Andrea has done, with blue transitioning to purple, or yellow to orange. I shall also try out different textures with my FMP to experiment with how they look/feel. 

But the main thing I am taking from Andera’s brilliant work is character design. With how she uses shapes to make some very unique looking characters, with the main example at the very top of this page. I feel as though her characters would transfer well into what I am aiming to achieve with my final project as well.

[joe-sparrow]

finally finished this animated gif of the protagonist of my next comic, Lucille. I’d been posting all the WIP stages on twitter so here they all are, together in a row.

Sorry if you’ve sent an ask that I haven’t responded to recently - I get kinda shy about posting them and my natural response is to lazily put them off. i’mma make a post answering a bunch of ‘em tomorrow. 

Also: happy april 8th, everybody.

[kookylane]

Encounter

pingpong2.0 29:06 topics: Robot squid, lighthouse, alien, jade, cow, bomber jacket.

[lisategtmeier-deactivated201906]

Can’t stop working on this skater beau. Not sure if it’s finished already. 

[amaliamoonrose]

Mermay day 10

[czarnoxiestwo]

I haven’t drawn any skull in a while and it was simply unacceptable, I’m tellin’ ya.

[virginie-morgand]

I did a cover for La Revue Dessinée! 

[baroquegothik]

‘Why don’t you come out and play?’

[kentaropjj]

STURDY HERO “RED RIOT”

The Whole Set:

Deku

Uraraka

Iida

Bakugou

Shouto

Tsuyu

Tokoyami

Mina

Kirishima

[thdark]

Doing some drawing prompt challenges with my friend (and fantastic artist) @austenfm. Here’s my take on the first prompt, “Parasitic video-game system zombifies player”. Apparently my drawing takes place in the far off future-past where VR uses cartridges and the POWER GLOVE still reigns supreme.

[1000drawings]

by deerandbeard