Day four and five

#inktober kitty wants some meow mix.

Day two and three

#inktober in Oktober street. Day three & as yesterdays post didn't get throught here's yesterdays on the streets of Budapest

#Inktober day one

#Inktober day one

Thought it would be fun to do all robots... we'll see how I get on.

Inktober and an exciting October

As if October wasn't fun enough with Halloween. This October there will be lots of opportunity to draw.

Yay! you all scream. On the 4th of October there is the 24 hour non stop comic drawing international day! "Bring me my Redbull/Monster/Espresso concoction please".
On top of that, it's #inktober so wip out that inky pen that stained your shirt pocket and get drawing. A drawing a day posted with the above hash tag.

Lastly the lovely town of Chislehurst has asked me to draw a spooky activity sheet for their annual Halloween event. If you were in that attractive greeny edge of London last easter you may have seen the Eggsplore map I drew. If not here are some of my fav buildings in the area. You may have to tilt your head...

Pimp My Robo

Sorting out my apartment has really consumed my life. But today I gave myself some time and sat down to do some design work. Yes that's right I am working on new things! They may not be ready to present just yet but I have dug up this illustration to show you all while you wait. Well I say 'all', but in reality its probably one or two .

This Hand drawn Illustration is for a Kickstarter project that was successfully funded last year. This Kickstarter project was set up by a group of artist/illustrators and designer who get together weekly to draw comics. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Kickstarter, you set up a monetary goal to fund a project and ask people to pledge money. Once the goal is achieved, money is transferred to the group of people/ individual and the project begins. After days and weeks of drawing we successful completed and published our project. For those individuals who pledged there are certain awards/gifts. This particular drawing is a gift for a pledger who requested a robot looking dapper.

 

The details of our Kickstarter can be found here;

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324352192/uzomuzo-alternative-comics-from-japan

The Uzomuzo group website can be found here;

http://uzomuzo.net/comic/

 

And Axiom Magazine which prints monthly and features Uzo Muzo can be found here;

http://www.axiommagazine.jp

Thames Moon Olympics

In light of the Olympics I’ve dug deep into my hard drive to find this project. The Thames Moon is an object that sits in the Thames. As the Thames’ tide falls gravity works within the object to filter water. Compared to the overall filth of the Thames such a processes will hardly make a difference to the cleanliness of the river however the object’s purpose is more than a filtration system. It aims to bring attention to the Thames and the space that is created everyday between the tides, it encourages the citizens to be more thoughtful about the river and celebrates the fact that the river is slowly improving and now supports aquatic life. It reminds us that the city of London was built around the Thames, without it, it is unlikely London would exist. Thames Moon generates electricity using both the tide and solar energy for its lighting. Careful thought has been put into its position and shape so as to minimise the effect it has on water flow and to increase its visibility to passersby.

What do you do in the train?

On a chockablock train one is likely to see people reading books, playing games, using phones, talking loudly and more often then not, making passes. Rarely however do I see people drawing. Until recently the odd glances I got when drawing made my notepad shy away, yet I have learnt that by focusing on the drawing I am able to shut out the world and speed up the passage of time. Give it a try!

Armed with my empty Muji diary and a long train journey; I started to think about fonts and different ways to represent text. I've found a really cool magazine in Japan called +81 that focuses on graphic design, layout and text, and it has inspired my to experiment.

Some fonts have the ability to slow down the reader making them dwell on key words whilst others, can have the effect of leading the viewer. Layout and font may be limitless however the fine line between tacky and cool is Hazardous. At university I remember everyone being scared to use anything other than Times or Arial. I'm unsure on the effect my diary fonts have, if any. But I'd love some feedback!

Happy 2012

Happy year of the Dragon! Finally after sketch upon sketch the dragon nengajo is complete. I hope that I was able to send you one, if not I still wish you the best of luck in 2012 and if you send me your address you will definitely receive a 2013 nengajo in the post. I’ve been using the second image as my laptop background, so go ahead and use it too; it might bring you some good fortune.

I’ll leave you to contemplate these Chinese proverbs…

The dragon teaches you that if you want to climb high you have to do it against the wind.

To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

And last but not least

He who wants to be a dragon must eat many little snakes.

Happy snake eating!

Nengajo

As it is coming to the end of the year, and I haven't posted anything for a while. I thought I should post some Nengajo (Japanese New Year Postcards). These cards were made mostly in Illustrator. The rabbit is from this year and the cat is from last year. Seeing as 2012 is the year of the dragon, I have been working on something cool, and this time round I'm having ago at a hand drawn picture. Come back before the years out, to check it out.

Serengeti Bird Visual

Some very old Max work, in fact possibly my first attempt. During the first summer of university, to encourage us to become proficient at max we were asked to design and create a bird. The presentation was made with photos, Photoshop, Illustrator and of course 3DSmax.   

From old to new

Finally a new background, I hope the new one is just as appealing and easier on the eyes. The old background was designed with 2011 fashion trend in mind, bold prints and retro patterns. However I aimed to make the background more asymmetrical and opted to not use the neon colours that are also being pushed on the catwalk. The new background came about when I was looking in an old sketch book. I found a small piece of tracing paper with a print design I was working on at university. At that time I was researching textiles of the 1950s which drew inspiration from the current atom age. Many textiles had prints and weaves that symbolised cells, atoms... things looked at under a telescope.  The colouring however is inspired from Paul Klee's

 'Flowering' (1934)