The Daily Monster

The Daily Monster is a project devised by illustrator Stefan G Bucher, in which he draws a new monster every day with the same technique, with varying outcomes.

He starts by spreading black ink on a clean sheet and blowing it around using a straw, providing the base of the monster.  Bucher then draws the rest of the image in, making sure not to subtract from the original ink work.
I think in terms of design it looks very contemporary; I know I shouldn't throw this word around lightly, but there is a specific style to these daily installments.

It is rather self explanatory, so I will leave you a Youtube link and the website URL.
Have fun.

http://www.dailymonster.com/

Tom Hodge aka The Dude Designs

Tom Hodge is a British illustrator/designer, whose area of expertise lies with movie posters, an art, which unfortunately, is becoming more obsolete with the advent of digital art.

Hodge hopes to bring back the charm that comes with hand drawn/painted movie posters, some examples being the Blade Runner or Indiana Jones posters (leaving out Crystal Skull of course). The movies which Hodge provides posters for appear to be of similar genre to one another; a sort of Grindhouse drive-in style of movie. I would go as far as to say the movies he's provided posters for are in a similar vein to some of Quentin Tarantino's, or Robert Rodriguez's (in some cases both) movies.

As seen above, Hodge's work oozes exploitation cinema, with the seemingly organic feel to it, rather than pixel perfect Photoshopping. This appeals to me especially as an exploitation movie fan, as in terms of poster design, I feel that the digital age has made it all too easy. Sure, it's efficient, and with some movies it comes as standard; take, for example, Inception. The mood and themes of that movie would require a clean, smooth and high resolution poster to compliment them. Exploitation movies don't have that problem.


Also, a quick update. I unfortunately haven't gotten much work done this week; the whole trip up to Preston ended on a sour note and I've been in a mood to end all moods. I'll try and get some more work up here in the coming days and a bit more to compensate the dead air that's been lingering over this blog for the past few days.

Until then, farewell.

http://thedudedesigns.blogspot.com/

From Memory

Just a quick post to inform you all about this rather nifty blog concept I stumbled across; draw something entirely from memory and post it. This harks back to the times I have been told to draw from life more often (my post of Heath Ledger's Joker is evidence of this!).

This may be my last blog post for a few days as I am going up to Preston for *ahem* reasons. While I'm up there I'll try and get some drawing and other blog-related things done. Until then, farewell.

http://frommemorytopaper.blogspot.com/

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

I've had less than a pleasant day. I'd originally gone to town to do some reportage work, but was blind sighted by a whole ordeal with a pair of Converse. I won't go into it, but let me assure you I wasn't in the mood for anything afterward. I'll try again next week, if due to some horrific twist of fate I don't end up going to meet a friend back in Preston. I'll keep updating and all that, don't worry. As a matter of fact, here's a book review, and a book that I hold close to my heart.

Written in 1994 by Japanese master of the craft, Haruki Murakami, the book plays with concepts often used but never quite worked, yet Murakami nails it with almost surreal story telling, and characters who, despite being far from ordinary, can be identified with in a strange sort of way.
The book's main protagonist is a simple 30-something man named Toru Okada, who after being unemployed for some time, has been living quite a banal but blameless, easy going life doing tasks around the house whilst his wife, Kumiko, works. The story kicks off with the realization that the cat, named Noboru Wataya (after Toru's brother-in-law), has gone missing.
In the search for said cat, we meet many characters who all have a profound effect on the story, sometimes taking entire chapters for exposition on said characters, which I have to say, Murakami does very well. Whilst at parts it does tend to drag on just a little too much, it picks up rather sharply; it's like literature whiplash, in a good way, mind.

Adding to this, another thing the book does well is it focuses its attention on all of the main characters, rather than just sticking to, say, Toru Okada the whole time. It really gives the story a sense of depth, and you feel like you can identify with these characters as if you knew them in real life; you learn their interests, their professional lives, and even moments that the reader is sure the characters would not want them to know.

The book plays with themes and scenarios, which as different as they seem, all intertwine with each other in relation to the main story. We are taken numerous places during the character's backstories; for example, we are taken back to Japan and various other countries in east Asia during World War 2, in different circumstances; we are told of events which occurred in the Mongolian desert, a small zoo in Hsin-ching, and even what seems to be a Russian gulag for Japanese prisoners. As well as World War 2, we go even deeper when we delve into the minds of characters such as May Kasahara, a 16 year old girl who seemingly lives alone, and enjoys talking about morbid subjects such as death, even when the conversation is completely irrelevant. It is this sort of personality that drolly pushes the story on, when Toru begins taking extreme measures to find out what he is really about.

Whilst the book's theme does take a turn for the unpleasant (we are told instances of rape, murder, etc.), it is still enjoyable in the way that you are not left feeling repulsed by the dark tones which come from out of the blue. At times it does feel rather forced, but not to the point where it feels like Murakami decided his book wasn't dark enough and shoe-horned it in; it feels legitimate, hell, we live in a screwed up world, the topics talked about in this book are no surprise to anyone who has taken a step out of the front door.  Despite the way the book thrusts you into these instances, it grounds the story in a believable way, because let's face it, these kind of things happen. Murakami could have so easily gone too far and incorporated, hell, anything into the story and it would just make the whole thing seem rather silly.

If you are interested at all in Murakami's other work, or you feel like reading something which is as compelling as a lot of the best novels out there, consider giving this a read. It is a very long book in comparison with others I have read, but I reassure you, you will be rewarded greatly by this piece of brilliant, clever piece of story telling by one of Japan's best writers.

Whilst we're here, I'd like to post something I had done for a project a few months ago, in which we had to design a Guardian Review cover for a book we had read over the holidays. Without any representation of the characters in any other media, this was a test of how closely we paid attention to the smaller details of the book.
I should note that I posted this on my other blog, but it can't hurt to post it again now, can it?

Hopefully I'll have some more illustration for the blog in a few days, and not what I did in the coffee shop today; a full written tirade about the fact Office don't accept returns.

"I might just draw furries all night, the world feels less sh*t when I do that. Yiff yiff."

Weekend-Monday Reportage

The weekend has been fairly eventful. I mean, I've had way more eventful ones, ones where an entire 2 litre bottle of Coke didn't magically disappear, but oh well.

As I'm sure some of you are aware, this weekend saw the final flight of the space shuttle Atlantis, closing a chapter on space travel, but opening another. Because I gush over space travel, I decided to tune into NASA's live feed of the event half an hour early. Got a few prolonged shots of the shuttle being prepared for flight, and some inspirational quotes thrown in for good measure.

As you can see, I was able to get a few good angles of the launch site, which looked needlessly complex, but what do I know, I'm not an astronaut.

Yesterday I decided to travel to town for two reasons; one, I needed to get my hair cut (a vast improvement from what it was before), and two, to visit one of my favourite places in Manchester; the Museum of Science and Industry.

Sitting in the hairdresser's waiting to be seen to, I was stared down by a poster for BEDHEAD products (do the same as the usual hair products but cost a fortune). I had a few minutes to kill so I thought why not?

At least she wasn't Photoshopped.

After leaving the hairdresser's, I made my way to MOSI, to do science. My first stop when I got there was the air and space hall, filled with vehicles and other nifty bits. The space section upstairs was closed though. Bummer.

Now what we have here is a Bristol 192 Belvedere HCI, built in 1961. At first I thought it was a Chinook, what with the way it looks EXACTLY LIKE ONE.

Flat out forgot the name of this plane, and the pilot(s). The only thing I remember about the one at the top is that he seemed to be doing Trollface (the "cool" kids on the internet will know what that is).
After leaving the air and space museum, feeling disappointed that I couldn't have drawn things like the Viking probes and whatnot, I made my way to the main building, where the disappointment only served to sink in deeper.

Dude.

There's nothing there any more. At least I couldn't get to it. It seems nearly every time I go there, large portions are closed off for refurbishment. Must just be my luck. The same with that Camelot fairground.

Anyway, there were still lots of engines there. Old engines. And text. And this man, whose name also escapes me.

Oh and also, there was a peculiar hang-gliding apparatus in the air and space museum I rather crudely sketched. Not my proudest of works so I made up for it by drawing a true man of science... uhh... that guy.

Leaving the museum, I spotted a multi-story car park, with a decent view of some of the city, so I sat up there for a bit and sketched this.

So there we have it, a trip out to town which, I have to say, could have been better. I was told there was an exhibition with skeletons etc on at MOSI too... which was closed. Brilliant.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

This arrived at my door this morning.

And I know what you're thinking; "Why did you get a kiddie's scary story book?" Well I can justify this, honest!
The illustrations are by an artist named Stephen Gammell, who has illustrated children's books since the 70s, and since this publication in 1981, has gained a cult following for the surreal and quite unsettling images within.
The book itself is standard scary story material, some of which have cues for the reader to follow (for example, stamp feet or scream at a certain part). These stories are derived from common campfire tales, for example, the tale named "Alligators" was sourced from a book written by Vance Randolph, after an old lady had told him the story in Missouri in 1939.
Now let's have a look at the illustrative work.

From what I gather from the illustrations, Gammell uses referencing a lot, to the point where it looks horrifyingly realistic, as seen above. I believe that Gammell doesn't use ink either, that this is all done with pencil; the grainy quality of the pictures is enough evidence of that, although this could just be due to the way it was printed.
In any case, I am sure I could learn a lot from this illustrator; basically that referencing is gold; if you try and make things up along the way it could all go wrong. Well with any luck I will be out either tomorrow or the day after; I'll get a load of reportage done then.

MK12 - Follow the Sun

MK12 | Follow the Sun | 2011 from MK12 on Vimeo.

A whimsical short by MK12 (Tactical Design and Research Bureau) harking back to 1950s Americana. It is very well animated, with some live action thrown in for good measure. Although I must say, this happy-go-lucky, "Let's All Go to the Lobby" mentality, goes downhill FAST. I won't say any more, just see for yourself.

Watchmen

"Dog carcass in alley this morning. Tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face."

Released in 1986, written by Alan Moore, and designed by Dave Gibbons, the graphic novel pushed the boundaries of what many would have dismissed as standard brainless reactionary comics, and presented a thoughtful, bleak and frankly terrifying alternate world, in which superheroes and villains are a standard affair (despite their eventual decline in popularity, leaving the public branding them as nothing more than masked criminals), the Vietnam War was won by the United States, and the Cold War is dangerously close to escalating into nuclear exchange.

The story takes place in 1985, and follows a group of outcast superheroes known as the Watchmen, and their struggle to prevent the US going to war with the Soviet Union, as well as investigating the sudden uprising of "mask-killers", following the supposed murder of their colleague, Edward Blake.

The structure of the novel is broken into segments in which exposition on the characters and this alternate history is detailed; for example, we learn about how the superhero craze began with the first Nite Owl and the Minutemen. Whilst it fleshes out the story rather effectively, it can be jarring to be suddenly taken out of the main plot line and forced to read more back story, or in some cases, The Tales of the Black Freighter, a pirate comic which was actually a story Moore and Gibbons wanted to work on, but thought of integrating it with Watchmen instead. I have to note that the art style in the Black Freighter sections is fantastically lurid and reminiscent of the older colouring style of comics, mainly half tone patterns.

The main graphic novel's style is typical 1980s DC fashion, with large areas filled with a singular colour, "flats", as they are often known as. The colourist, John Higgins, did a brilliant job in keeping the colours subtle yet complimentary to each other, so there is no gaudy clashing with tones.

Overall, I think that this graphic novel may be one of the most important and innovative of its kind, and paved the way for sequential art and story telling for many years to come. It truly is a work of art, and I highly recommend you pick it up.

Oh and also, the Zack Snyder film? It has nothing at all on this.