The dog digs up Earth in the front yard

Hi there!

Welcome to another fabulous blog entry! With your host...Well actually it's just me. Also the title will make sense, just read on.

I have recent artwork to share and I've started a new sketchbook, but what I wanted to start with today is some older published work.

To start with it was pretty big milestone for me. It was the very first time I've had work in a publication. It also felt great that it was supporting a good cause too! It was so exhilarating! I'll start with background though.

So I was approached by the Director of a local design company looking to commission some illustrations for a publication he was putting together. His client was Melbourne City Mission, a local Non-profit welfare agency supporting vulnerable Victorians. This publication has been going for at least 5 years and is targeted as a school resource book though their youth arm, Frontyard Youth Services. It's aim is to educate school aged children about youth homelessness in Victoria and the avenues the organisation can provide in terms of assistance. As part of the booklet, there are several real-world client stories featured - I was to provide visual context to these stories in the form of a before and after image of them accessing support through Frontyard.


It was my first time illustrating an entire 'story'. The first thing I needed to decide was which images presented within were the most catching and visually interesting. I must've read the stories many times to gauge what most stood out. While the stories are real people, the names have been changed and I had no description of the actual writer to go off, so I had to design the narrator/character as well. It was like trying to imagine what someone looks like when you read their emails or hear them on the phone! After that, the rest of my design process was pretty much the same as you've seen in the Whitney post. Here they are!

Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image

I came up with a great idea to really make the characters stand out, and to give a good emotional sense of what the reader should be feeling at that point. I used colour to convey this. For the 'before' picture I focused on cool hues, (blues and cool greys). Then with the 'after' image it was opposite: Warm hues (purples and yellows). The narrator was then treated with an opposite colour to their environment., for example Ling is wearing a yellow top in a blue-grey office.

I'm not usually big on interior environments, I find it difficult to visualise a room spatially, but this project really called for interiors, so I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to try them out. Overall I'm quite happy with the result and think it illustrates the stories quite well.

As per usual I couldn't help but stretch my penchant for pattern design into a couple of the images. The houses for Ling were tied to the sentiment left by the narrator about the importance of having a home over your head. Here are some flat versions



I remember how great it felt after I'd completed the work and delivered it to my client, but by the far the best feeling was having a copy of the publication in my hands and seeing the end result. It was just incredible!

Here are some shots of the final product. Aside from the illustrations any other elements remain copyright of their respective owners.

If you'd like to know more about Frontyard or Melbourne City Mission click the links!

Moving on, the other piece I have for you today is my newest entry in a series I try to do every year: Chinese new year. I've been a bit slack getting the last few years done, but here is 2018, Year of the Dog.

I'd actually started this one way back in January of this year, but could quite figure out how I was going to do the rendering. Even when I got up to doing the background relatively recently, I still spent some time trying to decide between drawing and painting it. There's good things that can be said for both methods, and I don't think I can ever decide on sticking to one method. I keep telling myself I should keep things consistent, but I'm starting to realise that it can also stifle creativity to think that way.

Time for some background. Like I recently stated on my Facebook page, one of the reasons I started doing Chinese New Year is that provides lots of imagery and constraints to draw from (pun intended). Making for a rather often unique outcome. This year is certainly an example of that!

The element for 2018 was Earth and not one I've illustrated as yet. Of of the main things I learnt about this element is that it's the balancing one. What I mean by that is it's both Yin and Yang, hence the balancing pose and precarious rock formation. It also symbolises nurturing and what can be more nurturing than raising a bunch of puppies? The whole breast-feeding thing came to me out of nowhere though. Aside from rock, when I think of Earth I think of underground and dampness, so of course I had to include moss and mushrooms. The eyes were a last minute decision. I usually leave the rendering of them as one of the last things I do in an illustration. I was going to with my standard approach, but I thought to myself: "This creature is god-like Reiko, the eyes should be extra impressive!" and what's more deep and impressive than Shoujo galaxy eyes? There are even some stars in there.

Other constraints and imagery from my research include the planet Saturn, the number 9 and using purple and red while avoiding use of blue and gold. If you'd like to know more, have a look at these wikis on Dog (Zodiac) and Earth (Wu Xing).

Here are some detail shots.

I decided the background should be a desert as it gave the best raw example of Earth, there are no plants to confuse it with the Wood element and it fit the colour scheme nicely, well that and I was probably channelling the homeland of Earth-benders from the fantastic animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is a very rocky desert landscape. I might have to look into trying my hand at speed-painting sometime.

As a bonus I also cooked up a flag version of the logo design seen on the Dog-mother's robes. Yes that is a dragon encircling Saturn. You even get to learn some Japanese!

The characters (From top down) read:

Ni - 2
Sen - 1000
Jyuu - 10
Hachi - 8

=2018

Inu - Dog
Tsuchi - Earth

The last two are the symbols for  the planets which date back to Byzantine times

Earth
Saturn

I'm really happy with how this one came out. I love dogs, so this one was a real joy to work on.

Are you still with me? Oh my this was a big post, this must be the most images I've had in a single entry before. Thanks for reading, there's still plenty more to come. I know I mentioned a new sketchbook, but I might get to that in another post, this one has got long enough.

Thanks for reading.

See you next time!

Bartering sheep

Hi there, you might hardly believe it, but I've just completed a new post for you mere weeks after the last. I have not one, but two new pieces to show. Shocked? I'm trying really hard to push myself to spend more time on this thing I love called illustration. "But what does this mean for me?" I hear you ask. Well to answer your question, I hope it means updates more often and more work to share. Now let's get into it.

First up, I've got an illustration I completed of local Melbourne musician Ali Barter. This was originally going to be for a client, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, it was never published. I left it alone for several weeks and then one day decided it was a waste of my time and effort not to finish something I'd already spent a considerable amount of time on. So here it is!

Colourful, no? I'd never heard of Ali before, so like I mentioned in my previous post, research was key. I found myself particularly drawn to the bright colours and style found in her clip of the song Hypercolour, so I that was my main inspiration. Just the term made me imagine super-bright and high impact colour schemes. The flowers were inspired by the same clip, though in this instance they're magically growing from the guitar itself. I think it strengthens the sense of 'hypercolour:' Almost sickly bright flowers.

In terms of background, the clip for one of her newest songs, Girlie bits features synchronised swimming, so I thought, how about a pool without water as a setting? I had a tight deadline originally with this work, so I had to keep things fairly uncomplicated. The tiles I think make a for simple but very catching design. I've always loved drawing environments where nature has taken over, so expect to see more of those as my background painting skills improve. I discovered working on this, that though guitars seem like a relatively easy thing to draw, they can take some time to get right. I'm still not 100% on spot with line drawing using my tablet, so it took a few attempts to get the strings where I wanted them. I'm particularly happy with the way the eyes came out.

Up next is a personal work I've been working on bit by bit over the last couple of years. As you can probably imagine, producing a work over such an extended amount of time often leads to many changes. The lengthy production period mainly stemmed from my desire to try my hand at painting the background. If you look through most of my work, it's either got no background at all or a very simple drawn one if any. I was very apprehensive to start it once I got up to that point. Which I know is kinda silly given that in Photoshop, everything can be undone.

I'm not entirely sure what I was going for with this image...I'm guessing sheep were likely the starting point. I think I was watching The Musketeers at the time and really loved their... shoulder capes? Which lead on to considering a striking heraldry logo: I started out in graphic design, so I always like to find ways to combine it with my illustrations. All this doesn't really fit with a simple sheep farmer, so let's just say that in this world sheep farming is considered a noble profession. The idea behind the glowing gem in the crook is that it in some way hypnotises the sheep to follow her. The design of her hair eludes me and is lost to time.

Working on a piece across such a long period of time was a great way to sense my progression as an artist, there are some things here that are quite different to how I do them now. Though I did try my best to change little to keep it in line with the original. The major thing I tweaked were the colours, mainly to harmonise them with the recent idea I had for the background. I was originally going to use a textured brush, but decided against it: I'd read from a few artists that it's best to start with the basic flat default brush until you get a feel for painting.

Considering it's one of my first attempts to paint digitally, I'm quite happy with how it all turned out. I think the sense of distance is captured quite well, particularly with the foreground grass. I'm always amazed with how plain background can be to still have a good feel of the environment. The stone sign, (in an unknown language so you know it's not Earth) shows the distance to the next city. Perhaps our sheep herder is taking her flock to trade? As a bonus to the detail shots I quickly drew up a completed graphic of the heraldry shield. Sometimes these things look better flat.

I'm currently trying out a 'sketch a day' exercise to speed up my drawing skills, So I'll probably make a new section or possibly add to my sketchbook section.

Well that's it for this post...next time I'm hoping to have something done from a galaxy far away. Thanks for reading!