3 designs entered the arena, only one emerged victorious

That's right, I'm here today to announce the winner of my 'Choose the project' competition!

This was first foray into creating a survey and overall I'm rather happy with how everything turned out. I think next time I really need to look at other ways of getting it in front of more eyes, because there really was not a lot of participation going on. This was despite the lure of winning a free print.

However enough about my musings, you're here for the winner aren't you? It sure was a close one and it seemed like the Procession was the design to take the laurels of victory, as for most of the time the survey was open it was in the lead by several votes. In the end though a couple of extra votes towards Pirates in the last day or so saw it take the lead and claim the prize.

Here's a visual representation (a fancy way of saying i made a column graph) of how it all turned out.

As you can see, Pirates only won by a single vote! Party had a lot less love as it only got 3 votes.

I'd like to take a moment to give a big thank you to everyone who took a few minutes out of their busy lives to enter the competition. Thank you for your support and interest in my work. Also I hope I didn't annoy people too much with my continued Facebook posts about voting. I hope you enjoyed being part of the creative process.

Now it's time to start developing the design as chosen by you, the people. I'm really looking forward to developing Pirates to it's full potential and will endeavour to keep you well informed of it's progress. Once the final artwork is all finished and done, I'll announce the winner of the free print. Good luck to all!

Here's another look at the rough that gets to go all the way to the top:

I'm going to try and make sure I post plenty of in-progress images for this work, particularly since I've already shown you what the rough looks like.

Watch this space!

^_^ Thanks for reading

The 3 P's - Procession, Pirates or Party?

Hey there blog watchers, I haven't seen you since January, (totally my fault). It's been some time, so I thought I'd do something exciting for my new post. Details below.

While I was designing my Chinese new year illustration for 2016, I came up with 3 distinctly different ideas. Usually this is a normal part of the design process: To pick one to finish and discard the rest. Then I thought, why not involve others in the process? I want YOU to decide which rough I should bring to finished artwork. I'm going to dub this idea "Choose the project," catchy title yeah?

Of course you should be possibly rewarded for your hard work, so 1 (one) lucky person shall receive a FREE A4 fine-art print of the finished illustration. I'll be choosing an entrant at random. If you would like to enter, please make sure you fill in question 2 so I can get into contact with you to send you your new art.

You can find the link to the survey below. It's only 2 questions and some contact info, so it shouldn't take very long at all...Unless you're the kind of person to agonise over which one to choose, in which case your guess would be as good as mine. Please make sure you do the actual survey, if not you're entry won't count and the hard work will be for naught.

Choose the project: Chinese New Year 2016
 

See the worlds of possibilities below. Remember, only YOU can decide the path I shall take. Will it be Pirates, Procession or Party? Happy voting and good luck for the draw (if you choose to enter). Just also keep in mind that being rough as these are, changes are likely to occur, (that's the nature of the creative process), though mostly this will be detailing, the basic design and structure will remain.

I'll be posting again in a few weeks to confirm the winning rough that I'll be taking through to finished art, so look forward to that.

Thanks for reading, be back real soon.

Supergraph 2015

Hi there, hard to believe I haven't posted on my blog in almost a year (pretty close)! Things have really been quite hectic, particularly of late when I started a new full time job (unfortunately not illustration) in January, which leaves me very little time to do the things I love most.

Still, things are progressing well for me regardless. The first work I have to share with you today is a piece of work I recently did for IA's (Illustrators Australia, of which I am a proud member) booth at Supergraph 2015. Supergraph is an annual event for all things Illustration held right here in fabulous Melbourne.

I had 3 copies of my artwork available for purchase at the booth during that weekend, alongside many of the other great illustrators in IA. A big thank you to the anonymous person who purchased one of my prints, I do hope you treasure it!

If your mental arithmetic skills aren't half bad, you've probably realised that this means I have 2 prints left. They're still up for grabs, so if you're interested, please get into contact with me (since I don't as yet have shop functionality, plans are in motion though) if you're interested in obtaining it/them. Details of the prints follows:

Size: A4 - 210 X 297mm, with a 10mm border for mounting
Paper: 300gsm cotton rag paper
Protection: Cello wrapped and padded envelop
Price: Prints are available for $35 AUD each (Shipping included)
Availability: There are only 2!

Now that I've given you the sales pitch, it's time to see the work itself.

The title is urban evolution, which is essentially the concept as well. Many birds adapt to living in the teeming cities around the world. I decided to take the idea somewhat further, trying to imagine what it would be like for a bird to evolve in a urban setting. Then I started to consider the lack of trees which would make nest materials somewhat scarce. So, what if the mother bird could actually fly around with her babies inside pouches until they grow enough to fly themselves? (rhetorical by the way). I was inspired by Australia's many marsupials, which carry their young in this way.
 

 

Design wise, the bird takes many cues from birds common throughout Victoria, particularly ones which live in Melbourne's CBD. Colour wise, I considered the overall colours of a city. Bluish greys with bright orange yellows (lights). The pattern itself was inspired by sky scraper windows.

Background wise I wanted to have something that was truly iconic of Melbourne. How could one not think of trams? (once again, rhetorical). I didn't want to draw any particular model of tram however, so various parts of the design takes bits and pieces of various tram models Melbourne has had over the last 100 years. For the route number I chose the 86, as it's probably the tram I've used the most and is probably one of the more well known routes. There's even a cafe called the 86, which the tram goes past.

Oh, you may have noticed things look a little different (no, really) when you perused this post? Graphic design for me is a continually evolving skill, just like illustration. For some time I was unhappy with my current logo and really desired a change. I'm really happy with how my new brand identity came out. Evokes all the things I want it to, which was a great challenge by the way. Still not 100% sure of the colours yet though, so don't get too attached, as they may change in the near future.

Still got some big plans for this blog and hopefully a future website too. I'm a bit rusty on HTML and CSS coding but I'm sure it will all come flooding back to me when I start looking into it.

I've now also got my own Facebook page dedicated to my illustration work as opposed to posting on my personal profile you'll now find it there instead. Check it out here

Well that's all now, see you next time.

Venetian robots and goblins riding a dog, oh my!

Hi there everyone. Sorry again about the infrequency of my updating, I've really got to work on having something to post at the very least once a week, as right now I'm not even getting something out once a month.

Things have been rather busy though, I've finally found myself a job, but no, unfortunately it's not illustration or even design, but retail. It's something though! With some income at last I'll be able to save up some money for printing and gallery space next year. That way I can hopefully get my name out there and start getting some real work. It's true certainly for artists that you need to spend money to make money >.<

In-case you missed it, here's my piece from Illustrators Australia's annual 9X5 exhibition. It was a really interesting piece to work on as I haven't very often worked off a theme that hasn't come from my own head.

I actually sold my piece! My very first sale of art...ever! My wonderful and supportive parents bought it. Now they have the challenge of trying to work out where to put it in the house...one of the walls good for art is already covered in mine and my lovely sister's art.

So if you're interested in some background of it, I shall now provide...

Each year the 9X5 always have a theme, this year it was carnivale, so you can bet there were many artworks of masked characters based on the Venetian carnivale tradition. One of the most curious things I came to learn about the introduction of masks was that it was a way to remove the harsh class system imposed on the citizens of Venice. I loved the idea of hiding something completely different behind the mask.

Anyone who knows my art, will know that I love to mix old and new up in my illustrations. I enjoy taking something historic and trying to futurise (that's so not a word) it, or trying to make something of pure fantasy fit into a historic setting. This was of the latter, A robotic musician playing during the carnivale at the time of the renaissance. I chose a 3/4 back view to show both the illusion of real from the front, in which she (it's a female robot, machines can have genders!) is wearing a period dress, and behind to show the gears and other parts that make it work.

The reason she has a long neck was originally to fit in a speakers that were going to be attached to her shoulders. As this would end up blocking out some of the details I decided to instead have wires trailing over to a speaker somewhere out of view.

I really quite like the effect of graphite on wood, so I think I shall have to experiment with it in the future.

My second piece for you today is my fourth quick concept piece. A suggestion from my sister: To combine goblin and umbrella, I instantly got the idea of using a giant leaf as an umbrella, and just now got myself thinking of Totoro and the classic scene at the bus stop in the rain. Before I knew it, rather than having one goblin I ended up having 2 goblins riding a dog as a sort of trader. travelling the world selling whatever junk they happen to find that they think is worth something.

I've got some more quick concepts just around the corner and some quite detailed Xmas presents in the tunnel too, so look forward to uploads of all of those, eventually. I'm also doing another re-design of my blog banner and a new design for my logo and business card coming too.

Until next time. ^_^
 

Keeping up with nature

 So without further stalling for time I present to you a somewhat recent illustration I did for a very good and very far away friend of mine. The Record Keeper of the Forest!

My friend is a big fan of nature, so I wanted to try and craft my artwork with a strong natural appeal. I wanted to come up with a character that would be really interesting and different. Rather than going the road of fairy or dryad, or any other countless fantasy creatures, I tried to think of a unique character and one that could sit in a tree at that. I tried to imagine what an office worker might look like if they worked in a forest. Even nature needs to keep track of it's assets, right? The blue bird is like an assistant, who bring up scrolls from storage for her to peruse.

I was really happy with how the face came out on this one. There's something I can't quite put my finger on. The main challenge here was the tree itself. As one of the largest elements in the image, just doing cell shading didn't seem appropriate. Especially since I was playing up the naturalness of the illustration, I wanted to express the texture of the tree. So it took quite a lot of playing around before I was satisfied. Textures in this style can't be too realistic, otherwise they don't fit well with the flatter parts. But hey it worked out in the end. Sorry about the lack of updates lately, I've been really hunting trying to find a job.

I'm also now a proud member of Illustrators Australia! Which is a professional body of illustrators in Australia, hopefully I'll be able to pick up some jobs through them. It's also good to be part of a larger community, so hopefully I can start making connections too. See my IA profile here.

Until next time, (note that 'next time' is not bound by any standard measure of time-space relationships).

Silhouettic

Hi there blog watchers! Sorry about the lack of new updates. I'm still working on speediness, but I've also been doing heaps of very dry and boring studies, which just really aren't that exciting to look at. I figure that if I'm not really enjoying doing them, they're probably not worth looking at. Anyways I digress.

So this new piece continues the same sketching style used in one of my last uploads. Each figure starts as a silhouette, just black paint on the digital canvas. This makes me focus on the overall shape and stops me focusing on all the intricate details, which of course comes later. It's been really great for coming up with more interesting designs, so I'll be sure to continue doing them in the future.

Soon I'll be uploading a new piece of work I did for a very good friend of mine, so look forward to that.

This is Reiko signing off...Beep...
Beep

Quick Concept Number Three

Hello there. As the title suggests here is Quick Concept number three. I'm thinking I really should come up with  a better name for this series: I think it'd be great to turn it into a little book. But enough of my secret plans for illustration domination.

So as you might have guessed, this concept was to cross Roman legion style armour with a current technology EVA spacesuit. Now the Romans can expand their empire into the stars. Veni Vidi Vici. 

 I developed an interesting logo on the helmet, but it ended up being so small that I only got a rough shape in there. It was of the mythological founders of Rome, 'Romulus and Remus'. In the story they were rescued by a she-wolf, So I chose to use the 'Capitoline wolf' for a logo, looking over two planets. This is a reference to one of Star Trek's more well known races, the Romulans. Their capital planets are called Romulus and Remus

Though I said in my last post that I try not to put so much detail into these works, there has been a steady rise in the amounts of detail from the first one to the third. Oh well, the important thing is that I'm getting quicker and better. I'm proud of the metal in particular, unlike some other drawings I've been doing this one really looks like shiny metal. I also didn't spend nearly as long agonising over colours like I usually do: This is probably because I've been getting colour palettes from photos rather than trying to blindly work out what colours would work well.

So that's it from me, see you next time.