Comic and Graphic Novel Research

This page is reference to the research I've been doing throughout Part 3 of Illustration 2, to help me learn about comics and graphic novels. To understand the different ways they can be put together, the different art styles, use of colour and themes. I want to see if this path is something I'd like to develop further and what styles I like. I've also been to Waterstone's book shop a couple of times to look through the graphic novels and also the whole children's and teen section. Seeing what's out there, the styles and differences in the art for each age group.

I bought the following books to study the art styles and how the images are presented with the text/story.

Graphic Novels:

'Crushing' is a beautiful book, I got the hardcover version and I love how the red is made the focal colour on the spine and within the illustrations. What drew me to this book was the soft pencil illustrations. They remind me of Raymond Briggs work which I really enjoy. The whole design of the book has been really well thought out and has a lovely tactile finish to it.

Burrows, S., 2021. Crushing. David Fickling Books.

'I Love You More Than My Phone' is a really sweet comic book based on the authors Corgi. The stories are so relatable as a dog owner and are beautifully coloured in a simple way, it all works well together to tell the funny stories of life with a dog.

Fabiero, D., 2021. I love you more than my phone. Skyhorse.

'Quiet Girl in a Noisy World' is part of my research for my critical review but is also relevant for the other exercises in part 3 as I explore how to create simple people characters and I was interested in how the author/illustrator created her black and white illustrations using various strengths of black ink and water.

Tung, D., 2017. Quiet girl in a noisy world. Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Again, this book 'Positively Introverted' was for my research for my critical review, the illustrations aren't really my style, but I like the bright colours, and the content is very relevant to me as an introvert.

Wilson, M., 2022. Positively introverted. Adams Media.

'Cassandra Darke' was suggested to me by my tutor, the illustrations again remind me of Raymond Brigg's style when he created 'Father Christmas', ink lines and quite a bit of detail. The lighting is what fascinated me the most. How it really glows off the page and brings the atmosphere to the scenes.

Simmonds, P. and Scheer, S., 2018. Cassandra Darke. Jonathan Cape.

'In Love & Pyjamas' is a book I discovered through my research on Instagram. I had been following the author/illustrators comics on there and went on the buy her book. The illustrations are so funny, relatable and cute. Very simple black and white characters, but so effective. I really like this style.

Chetwynd, C., 2021. In Love & Pyjamas: A Collection of Comics about Being Yourself Together. Andrews McMeel Publishing.

I also got a selection of children's books to see how the images and text are presented together and how the illustrations are designed for the younger age group.

Children's Books:

Briggs, R., 2015. Snowman and the Snowdog, the. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Uttley, A., Tempest, M., Dickinson, S. and Symons, R., 2016. Little Grey Rabbit's Christmas. Templar Publishing.

Potter, B., 2018. A winter's tale. Warne.

Bradbury, L., Stone, P. and Andersen, H., 2008. The ugly duckling. Auburn, Me.: Ladybird Books.

Taylor, D., 2018. Hansel and Gretel (Campbell First Stories, 15). Campbell Books.

Carbone, C., Risoldi, F. and Fejeran, T., 2021. Luca. Random House Disney.

Courses:

Learning about the origins of Kawaii style characters and how to draw the faces in a kawaii style.

Kawaii Illustration: Create Charming Characters - Ilaria Ranauro

This was more to learn about how to draw people more simply and use traditional media to achieve every day illustrations. This is part of my ongoing learning about people sketching.

Character Creation from Observational Drawings - Sarah van Dongen

I've only recently started this one to learn about using more light in my illustrations to create more atmosphere.

Atmospheric Scenes in Procreate: Paint with Color and Light - Ramona Wultschner

Instagram Research:

@Katnippstudios

@Jesswashere.studio

@frannerd

@chibirdart

@catanacomics

@threeundertherain

@leighellexson

@mrs.frollein

@cassandracalin

@studiomeggy

@jisoupy

@wheresmybubble (Debbie Tung)

@slothilda

@pusheen

Looking at all these different ways of drawing comics has been so inspiring for me. I have found I enjoy the simpler styles, with the block colours, mainly pastel shades. I was very intrigued by @jisoupy, how she had shown different depths of detail in her comics. They still looked like her work by the colours she uses and the texture of the lines. I really connected with this because I too like to do more detailed drawings and some more simpler but still have a delicate, natural, pastel look to them. I can never seem to choose between the two styles and so seeing other artists do this successfully, was a great encouragement.

I've gone on to use this inspiration in the exercises for part 3, especially for the comic spreads.

Part 3: Exercise - Animal Farm

I was very excited to start this exercise, I knew I wanted to create a cute duck type character. I've been doing a lot of drawings of ducks for the other exercises and I'm really inspired by white ducks at the moment. I've been following some lovely duck accounts on Instagram which has inspired my work further.

I thought about how I could make my character look more human and decided to put him in dungarees. I've wanted a pair of Lucy and Yak dungarees for ages and have promised myself some next month. I love the ethical nature of the brand, the diversity and the elaborate colours and patterns they offer. My general style is a bit more subdued so I thought I'd put my character in simple polka dot dungarees.

Lucyandyak.com

This is my initial sketch, I was just doodling really and he just started to come together. I made him fluffy with a kawaii inspired face to make him extra cute. I've been researching the kawaii movement recently and learnt from Ilaria Ranauro's Domestika course about the Kawaii style facial features. I was so pleased with this little fellow I decided to colour him digitally to bring him to life. This was the first time on the degree that I've started to feel like the coursework is lining up more with my own personal art style. I used colours that I've developed over the years as my 'brand' colour palette and I really love how my character came out.

Once my sketch was complete, I decided to make him 3D so I could see what he looked like from different angles. I chose plasticine because I knew it wouldn't dry out and I could manipulate him into different movements and facial expressions.

I found these packs locally, unfortunately I couldn't get a bigger amount of the yellow so had to mix in other colours to get his shape right. I'd really like to make him out of air dry clay in the future.

I had a bit of trouble getting him to stand up because of his big belly, but managed it by putting in a cocktail stick support for his back and making his feet bigger.

Having this 3D model really helped me with the next stage of sketching him from different angles and different facial expressions.

I tried to sketch a range of emotions in his face and use different angles to help bring my character to life.

I really enjoyed doing these sketches and could have gone on to develop this character much further with other expressions, movements of the body etc. I would of created a proper 3D model with all the details as well. Unfortunately I needed to stop here to make time for the other exercises but I do hope to develop this character in later work.

This exercise was definitely my favourite so far of the course and I feel like I'm starting to connect more with where my work is headed.

 

Part 3: Flick-books and Animated Gifs

 This exercise was another I was interested to try. I enjoy using other artists Gifs and animated stickers on Instagram, on a daily basis. I would like to create my own soon and use them on social media, including my YouTube videos.

Again I wanted to try to bring my voice into this exercise and so I decided to a chase scene between two dogs. I based this on our two Dalmatians Skye and Elsa. Elsa is a puppy and so it's not unusual for her to steal toys from her sister resulting in a chase.

I started by working in Procreate for this, I just used very loose colour shapes for the dogs to try to work out how to get them to move.

This was my first attempt. I was trying to get them to run in a circle but it got too complicated to I changed it to running across the screen.

Running in Circles

Running Across Screen

I then wanted to add more details so I sketched out Dalmatians running. I used a combination of videos of our own girls and royalty free images. It was hard to capture the body structure correctly. I watched how our girls move and how their legs work. I watched our video over and over to try to understand too.

I sketched these out to try to make a flip book but it was too complicated for me at this stage. I watched some videos on how to make flip books as well but I think my subject was too complex for me as I've not really done these before.

In the end I played around on Procreate and re-drew the legs over and over to try to get them as accurate as I could. I also make the tails and ears move. This was the final animation.

I'm quite pleased with how this has turned out considering how difficult I found animating. I have done a bit of animation before at college but I think trying to make eight legs move correctly and the tails and ears was quite a challenge. I'd still like to try the flip books and will have ago at doing more own animations in my spare time as I think this will be a fun skill to master.

References:

2022. Pixabay. [online] Available at: <https://pixabay.com/photos/dalmatian-dog-running-action-4025682/> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

Youtu.be. 2022. Flipbooks with SOUND FX // Awesome Battle 1-10. [online] Available at: <https://youtu.be/J2P-vU5EHBY> [Accessed 12 May 2022].

Youtu.be. 2022. How to Make  a Flipbook. [online] Available at: <https://youtu.be/Un-BdBSOGKY> [Accessed 12 May 2022].