ajslaterportfolio

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Three is Company.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited.

A full-sized illustration in my final undergraduate project. I wanted a strong contrast in character between the Black Rider and the Hobbit.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: The Mirror of Galadriel.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited through Photoshop.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Fog on the Barrow-Downs

Medium: Pencil and Watercolour on paper, digitally edited.

I wanted there to be strong contrast between the light and the darkness here. The Hobbits being bathed in light, while the sinister Barrow is shrouded by shadow. I used Photoshop to add cool tones to the shadows here, while keeping warmer tones in the light.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Peppers and Oranges

Medium: Oil on Board

This painting was done for one of my second year painting modules. The medium is oil on board. This style was new territory for me as I tried to capture a more painterly style than I am used to, comprising of thick brush strokes and a heavy application of paint. What mattered to me here was capturing the various shades of the object in a more isolated and abstract sense.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Jug with lemons.

Medium: Oil on Board.

This was painted in a similar vein to the Peppers and Oranges piece. I tried to achieve a harmony between the earthiness of the jug and the vibrancy of the lemons.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: An Unexpected Party, accompanied by development./

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited through Photoshop.

This was the first illustration for my final undergraduate project. The thumbnails display the development I took to get to the finished piece (top left).

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: At the Sign of the Prancing Pony.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited through Photoshop.

The fourth illustration of the project. There was a strong focus on the characters for this chapter, therefore I tried to instil a sense of personality in their design - reflecting their characters within the text.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Alternative book covers

Medium: Watercolour and pencil, watercolour and ink pen on paper.

Alternative cover pieces done for my final project. I wanted a strong contrast between the rocky crags and the moon. I chose red, despite its artificiality, to signify the danger of the fellowship's journey towards Mordor.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Development and thumbnails.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on sketch paper.

Development sketch work for the Fog on the Barrow-Downs chapter. It was challenging to find a composition that worked for me. The rule of my project was that one element of the illustration would be partially outside the frame. This created some difficulties for some pieces, but I was ultimately happy with the final outcome (rough colour sketch bottom left, final piece further on in portfolio). The character designing of the Barrow wight (bottom right) was my favourite part of this process.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Journey in the Dark.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited through Photoshop.

This illustration was for the 7th chapter of my project. It shows the descent of the Fellowship into Moria. I used digital editing to create a 'coolness' in the shadows. The green-blue tones that were produced lend to the atmosphere of Moria, its dark and dingy reputation.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: A Knife in the Dark.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited through Photoshop.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: The Council of Elrond.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited through Photoshop.

This piece doubled as the cover art for the front cover. I was pleased with the way it turned out, especially after some work in Photoshop. Playing with the image digitally allowed me to paint some colder, distant shadows in the background and was where I came up with the dappling effect from the trees, to show their presence since they are out of frame and to create an atmosphere. The deterioration of the statues and the floor, along with the choice for autumnal leaves was to reinforce the idea of the end of the age of the Elves, and Rivendell.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: The Bridge of Khazad-Dum.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited through Photoshop.

I used a pitch-black background as I wanted the Balrog creature to stand out and 'glow'. To this end, I did some digital light rendering to increase the exposure of the flame. I think the mark-making of this piece is the most successful out of all of them, particularly the difference in texture between the wizard's cloak and the Balrog's 'skin'.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Resident Evil: Village graphic novel cover.

Medium: Digitally drawn using Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop.

This was a self-driven project. Its purpose was for artistic practice and to familiarise myself with Illustrator and its various tools - mainly the pen tool and the texture filter.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Three is Company: Book spread.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on paper, digitally edited in Photoshop. Text compiled in InDesign.

This shows a spread of my finished final project. The text was compiled in InDesign. I experimented with the font and the paragraph spacing many times until I produced an outcome I was happy with.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Three is Company, sketches and plans, artist research.

Medium: Pencil and watercolour on sketch paper.

Thumbnail and character design sketches. Features artist research of the well-known Illustrator, John Howe. It was important for me to study artists who had worked on my project subject. I have gained much inspiration and understanding of design theory because of this.

[ajslaterportfolio]

Title: Dune cover and associated planning.

Medium: Pencil and paper, Adobe Illustrator.

This was a self-driven project. I decided to create a hypothetical front cover for the book 'Dune'. This was new territory for me as I had not used Illustrator (or any vector software) beforehand, and it was exciting and refreshing to create work in this new manner. As can be seen from the thumbnails, I initially had the idea to put the title in the jet stream. In practice, however, it came out not as I intended, as my ability to utilise the program to its full extent was lacking at the time. I fell back to a previous idea, which I felt worked much better.