Shojo Fashion- Manga art school

Shojo fashion- Manga art school   Irene Flores   Book review

I am not really a fan of the Manga look, apart from a couple of exceptions, but this book interested me with its approach to drawing clothing. In my own illustrations clothing is something that I find tricky to draw realistically but this book is one of the best guides to doing so that I have seen.

The first section of the book features drawing bodies, heads and faces- all in the manga style- so to be honest I wasn’t really interested in this section. However I had a read through and the step by step tutorials seemed to be very informative and covered quite a bit of ground including facial expressions.

The following section on drawing clothes was what I was most interested in and it didn’t disappoint. It began with looking at different types of fabric and materials and explained the best way to draw them. As the section progressed it went into further detail on as many different types of clothing as I could think of including skirts, sweaters, shirts, jeans and coats. These were interspersed with mini tutorials on things like drawing ruffled skirts and quilted fabric. As well as the extensive range of clothing there were also lessons on drawing many different kinds of accessories.

The back end of the book gives you a few double page spreads of different types of manga characters and what to outfit them in giving you a chance to put all the previous lessons learned into practice. The final section demonstrates how to set a scene for your characters to live in and covers perspective and adding props.

Overall a very good book and not necessarily limited to fans of the Manga genre



Monster Friday

Pink blobby guy

Sketch dragons book review

Book review- sketch dragons

This is another book from Impact publishing’s “Sketch” series. So to follow the concept it comprises of a couple of pages of tutorials followed by some blank paper to practice them on. Because of this set up I have the same problems with this book as I did the Sketch funny faces book and that is the fact that I would rather have a book of drawing tutorials and a separate sketch book.

Sketch Dragons is a well presented hardback book with good quality drawing paper but unfortunately for me the content just isn’t up to scratch. The book is missing basic dragon drawing tutorials and the absence of this means that any beginner would really struggle when it came to drawing the body shape and pose in the later more advanced tutorials. I showed this book to some year 11 pupils who attend my art club and all of them had the same problem with it.

That being said there are some good points, in particularly the guides to drawing different types of dragon horns and the guide to drawing scales.  Unfortunately  that is all the book has to offer and on that basis there are far better ‘How to’ books available when it comes to drawing dragons.

Book review- Otherworlds by Tom Kidd

First of all this is not your usual art instruction book where the author takes you through several step by step guides to drawing the likes of a Dragon or a Wizard’s tower. I find this book much more valuable than that, this is a book which takes you into the mind of who I consider to be one of the modern masters of Fantasy art. The reader is taken through the thought process and inspiration behind many pieces of his work with lots of insider knowledge undoubtedly acquired over many years.

Included are many examples of his work covering a variety of media and there is nothing to stop you from trying to follow the same processes as the artist uses to either replicate his work or create your very own fantasy worlds.

The book is divided into three sections. The first-The Basics of getting started- covers the use of different media in your work and has features on the importance of studying nature and your environment, and the usefulness of generating your own reference photos, to name but a few.

Section 2-Techniques, theory and subject matter- covers things like the use of colour and perspective before moving onto some stage by stage processes of the artist’s work. This is all accompanied  by features on themes such as action scenes and inventing your own creatures.

The final section-Putting it all together- was a bit pointless in terms of having its own section. I see no reason why this part couldn’t have just been tagged onto the end of section 2.

This is just a minor gripe though for what is ultimately a very informative and well presented book which has been produced to a very high quality finish.

monster monday

Another monstar

Sketch funny faces-book review

Book Review- Sketch funny faces, by Impact publishing

I must begin by stating that I did not initially like this book. The main reason being the format;- A couple of pages of instruction then a few blank pages to try out the techniques. This may seem fine in theory, (keeping all your tutorials and drawing paper in one place), but when put into practice the constant back and forth really affects the work flow. I personally find it better to have a book of art instruction and a separate sketch book where I can use paper of my choice. This is my personal preferred way of working. The way that the book is set out may be perfect for others.

On a plus side the tutorials and step by step demos are easy to follow and short and punchy, ideal for short attention spans. I used this book with my Fantasy Art club just before Halloween to help my students create monster portraits. The kids loved this book and I think ultimately that is the sort of market it is aimed at, (a couple have actually requested a copy of this book for Christmas off their parents!). Perhaps they find it easier to work in the format it is presented in as they wont be as stuck in their ways as I am.

I will post the pictures my class did as soon as I have photographed them.

Monster friday

Oh look, another monster!

Yet another monster!

Yet another monster

Explorers guide to drawing fantasy creatures-book review

The explorers guide to drawing fantasy creatures by Emily Fiegenschuh.

First of all I need to begin by stating what a beautifully presented hardback book this is. It is the first time I have seen an art instruction book in hardback form.  The colour and presentation of the artwork is very eye catching.

The book is set out in what seems to be the standard way for art instruction books but in a refreshing change it only dedicates a double page to workspace and tools and then jumps straight in to drawing.

The drawing section takes you through a few features on things like constructing your creatures, human bodies and proportion, perspective, foreshortening pencil rendering techniques and using colour. All of these are very useful but one I found particularly inspiring was a section on using gesture lines to create more dynamic poses.

The author goes into great detail about using reference for your art, something that I cannot get across to my students enough. The use of real world reference is mentioned throughout the book, reinforcing its importance in creating realistic fantasy creatures.

A feature of the book that I like are the “pop up” tips that appear throughout. These give an artist’s insight into solving a particular problem.  I always find it very useful to get tips like these from artists as they have spent many years honing their skills and these sort of tips can prove invaluable to an aspiring artist.

The bulk of the book focuses on designing mythical creatures. Each creature gets a few pages dedicated to it, demonstrating how to draw the creature from bare bones to finished piece. There are also in depth guides on specific elements of each creature, for instance, on the “Draw a Minotaur” demo it goes into detail over two pages of how to draw monster hands. All the demonstrations are easy to follow, beginning with gesture lines and building blocks to create the rough shape with subsequent steps fleshing out the creatures until you are left with a complete piece. There are over 20 of these demonstrations split up into sections depending on their habitat. There is only one step by step painting demo, a lantern bat, and I would have liked there to be more of these as she is one of the few artists who specialises in gouache paint. Maybe this will be the direction a future book of hers goes in?

Despite this, I really enjoyed the book and found the demonstrations easy to follow and informative. Out of the many art instruction books I have read I must say it was very refreshing to have one that was more concerned with teaching good art techniques rather than be a showcase for the artists work.

Another monster

Another monster

Monster 1

Heres a monster from one of my stories. He likes to disguise himself as a tree and then jump out and eat you!

Dreamscapes-Magical Menagerie Book Review

Book Review

Dreamscapes-Magical Menagerie, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

This is the second art instruction book that I have used by this author, ( the 1^st one being Dreamscapes- create magical angel, faery and mermaid worlds in watercolour).  She is a wonderful watercolour artist with a very feminine look to her fantasy artwork which makes a nice change in what is predominantly a male genre. The dreamscapes series caught my attention because it is one of a few fantasy art instruction books which demonstrate the watercolour media. Along with tips and demonstrations for designing and painting fantastical creatures and their environs it also offers watercolour techniques that can be applied to all sorts of imagery.

The 1^st section is the materials and techniques section. This type of thing appears in many instruction books but as this book is about using watercolours all the techniques are based around this media.

I picked up a couple of good tips along the way, like which is the best pencil hardness to draw with if you want to over paint it in watercolour. Quite  a few of the techniques here are slightly repetitive from her previous book but that does make it better for first time readers and it never hurts to remind oneself of certain techniques.

One demo I liked in particularly is a glazing demo in which you can create a very effective piece of work using just 3 colours.

The remainder of the book is divided into different types of fantasy environment which feature step by step instructions.

Waters- This section begins with a few pointers on drawing fish and then it jumps straight into a demo on how to paint koi. Not a very fantastical beast I know and there are a lot of demos featuring everyday creatures like owls and seahorses. I viewed this as more of a way to put your fantasy designs into a more believable setting then creating magical beasts.

The demonstrations are quite thorough though, it lists all equipment and colours of paint you will need and then step by step instructions on which colour to apply and where. I do feel it would have been better if the instructions also included how to draw the image you are to paint in the first place as a good paint job will still look bad on a poorly drawn pencil sketch.

The demos include painting things like eels, sea turtles and sea dragons.

Skies- This section begins with tips for drawing birds and goes into detail on wing structure and flight. I particularly liked the mini demo on painting owls eyes, the tips included in this could be applied to painting the eyes of all manner of creatures, you would just have to alter the shape and colours but I imagine the technique is essentially the same.

Demonstrations include painting a mourning dove, ravens, owls, peacocks and a phoenix.

The second half of the skies section looks at butterflies. It has some very useful tips for drawing butterflies in flight. Unfortunately there is only one butterfly demo, that of a butterfly kaleidoscope. This demo features many different styles of butterfly and I personally think that mini demos on individual butterflies would have been more use.

The final section is woods, which cats feature in very heavily. The other woodland creatures it features are foxes, horses Pegasus and dragons.

Although I enjoyed this book I do feel that there wasn’t enough of the magical and fantasy creatures and maybe too much of the real world reference. Of course to create believable fantasy creatures you do need to look at reality, but there are other books that do this in more depth.

The presentation of the book is very good, following the format established in her earlier works. The artwork inside is very colourful and some of the artists finished pieces of work fill a few double page spreads throughout the book.

I remember when I bought the first Dreamscapes book, I found it so inspiring that I went out and bought a set of Cotman watercolours to try out the techniques, this book has inspired me to get them out again- which can only be a good thing.

Heres a link to the book on amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1440310831/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img



Here are a few examples of work created by pupils from my after school fantasy art club. The pieces were done by following some of the demos within this book. The pupils are aged 11-12.

Theres a couple of pieces in here that are mine. Hopefully you will be able to tell which ones.

Darth Vader

A quick little pen drawing of good old Darth Vader

Darth Vader

Another Hot air balloon pic

Crocodile infested waters

Hot air balloon

Quick study of balloon in the air.

Heres another link. This time to the artist Justin Gerard. His fantasy art is done mainly in watercolour which he then sometimes adjusts in photoshop. I particularly love the work he has done based on Tolkiens books.

Justin Gerard Blog

Crooked house pen drawing

In this image I have taken the idea of the crooked house and applied the building to an illustration for one of my own stories. I dont want to give too much away about the plot at this point as the whole thing is a work in progress.

Crooked house pen drawing

Crooked house

  

This is an earlier version of my illustration for the crooked mans house.

Crooked house (earlier version)

There was a crooked man...

A few years ago I thought it would be a nice idea for a book to re-imagine classic nursery rhymes. This was done in inks with overdrawing in fineliner. I did a couple of other versions of this which I will probably post soon.

The crooked house

Mr Parker

This is Mr Parker from my "Danger-Do Not Open" story.

It is all his fault that everything is happening!

Mr Parker- he really shouldnt have opened that book!

"Danger-Do Not Open" illustrations

Here are some illustrations from a story I am working on entitled-"Danger- Do Not Open!"

The beast from the deep-outline



The beast from the deep-coloured pencil



The book-bearing tree- outline

The book bearing tree- coloured pencil

Greg 'Craola' Simkins

I am going to attempt to start adding links to my favourite artists blogs and websites.
The first one, (all being well), is the great Greg 'Craola' Simkins.
I would describe his work as being modern Surrealism. He has some timelapse videos of him painting on youtube and he makes it look so effortless. I can only dream of being as good as this guy. Painting is one of the art disciplines that I had spent more time practising.
I am not sure if I can include examples of his work without breaching copyright so to err on the side of caution I wont do it for now.
Anyway heres the link and enjoy.
http://www.imscared.com/news/archive

Robot Bugs

I'm back!

I know I havent posted in a while but heres a new one.

These are robotic insects inspired by the little robots that appear towards the end of Matrix Revolutions.

Troll fending off ghost

Just a quick scribble. I think the troll are in fact two seperate pieces it just looks like theyre together when I cropped it. As usual this was done a couple of years ago so cant really remember intention behind them.

Isabel Rock inspired piece

This piece is inspired by an artist I came across in a print magazine. Her name is Isabel Rock and she likes to take Victorian portraits and add hand drawn fantastical elements. I attempted a sort of Victorian era Doctor Octopus but I couldnt get it looking any good.

Patchies

These are some early designs for my forthcoming 'Patchies' series. The Patchies are a group of evil dolls who cause pain and mayhem wherever they go, ( with what will hopefully be seen with a bit of humour). Theres a lot more of these to come in the future as I have been working on these for about 18 months now.