olio16

[olio16]

How do I create?

Looking at this question, I am uncertain I can actually fully answer it without feeling like I’m being disingenuous to myself.

A simple answer would be to say: “I just take an approximation of whats in my head, and it’s done when I feel everything in it feels -right-.” But working from that I understand it doesn’t really answer anything in terms of ‘How do I create.’

When I draw I don’t have a plan written or established in anyway. To me, sometimes those things can really drown an idea. If you just wanted to get that strange little character you’ve had in your head for weeks, down on paper, you don’t need a plan to begin with. I find the more planning I have to put into a character concept, the less I enjoy drawing that character because down the line it became too much to handle. Too many details here, different bodytypes there, becomes a pain. So when I draw, I just keep going until I look at the picture and say to myself “That’s it.”

I don’t find myself looking at a blank canvas and thinking about the composition balance, understanding of foreground and background as well as visual language and mark making because it just doesn’t fit into how I create.

And one lesson I’ve learnt with that is that it’s okay to not have a plan in place. If I am finding myself daunting and struggling to create work because I am too focused on worrying about the composition and visual language, I will never get the work done. But that’s not to say I don’t. Very recently I’ve learnt that through years of drawing I can remember certain elements from slight muscle memory of having drawn something similiar before. I don’t know how I can explain this more, only that it feels right when doing it.

[olio16]

Influences and References.

References

With anything I draw I tend to create things from scratch in my head. As someone who has an over-active imagination and a love for stories that tell weird, strange and spooky mysteries, I find it much easier to create something entirely new without any influence or references.

For example, when it comes to a new character design, going with the flow is my normal approach. First I do a rough quick shape line of how I want the character to look in terms of body and size, head shape, et cetera. Afterwards I look for colour palettes that I think fit the image in my head and adapt as I go. There is never really a plan to the art I create as I find that about midway through I’ve spent way too much time trying to plan when all I really want to do is just get it down on paper. 

One issue that I do struggle with is anatomy and that has been something I’ve managed to upgrade as time has gone on, but when I’m really struggling with a pose I will find free stock pose images online and rough shape the figure to catch the pose.

For the Olio module this is very much still the same. I didn’t look at any other artists to see how they’ve done something similar as that just doesn’t fit into who I am creatively; I get an idea, it goes down on paper.

Influences

As cliché as it sounds, I’d have to say that I am my biggest influence with art. Over the last year I’ve managed to create a world in my Obscura 1997 work, something I’ve wanted to do for years. And now that I have I find myself looking back at my previous work and using them as influences for bigger and brighter ideas. The first piece I ever did for Obscura 1997 was how I first came across my trademark artstyle

This was the first time I’d worked doing a lineless character. There is a lot going on here that’d I’d change now if I wanted to, purely because I’ve grown and adapted from this first drawing. I’ve influenced myself to do better and create wonderful things.

As for artists that sit in the same department as me, (character artists) close friend and fellow illustrator Charley Hall has been a massive influence in my work. We are both fans of characters, games, stories with strange occurances going on, so I find our works sometimes gel together extremely well! Not to mention over the last 3 years Charley has helped me develop myself as an artist, pushed me in the right directions as well as helped inable my weird ideas.

You can find their work at their website! https://charleyhallart.com/

[olio16]

Olio 16 - Inside Page ‘The Laughing Court’ Timelapse

[olio16]

Olio 16 - Inside Page ‘The Laughing Court’

This piece was something I had never actually created before. One element to character concepts I struggle with has always been the backgrounds of the artwork. Primarily I tend to focus more on the character in the foreground and throw together a basic, yet somewhat believeable background. This however was a test and a mighty one at that.

One of the prime understandings with this section of the module was that the inside piece could be something from our Final Major Project. I could pick several pieces, but ultimately I felt that nothing I had really fit the specs given, so I got to starting a fresh new piece of work that could be used.

The Laughing Court first started as something completely different. I have exported a timelapse of this piece and can be found in another post I will make after this one. In this timelapse you will notice that at the beginning I had started drawing a completely different character, testing the waters with new brushes and seeing what I can create. As time went on, I started to lose interest in this design and moved on to trying different avenues. One direction was to take all of the character designs I had done for the tarot cards in my FMP module, and put them all together in one large piece. Another idea was to paint a Roschach style piece that showed elements of the narrative world I was creating. Ultimately these ideas fell to the wayside after I took one character and tried to flesh them out more fully.

“The Tyrant, a gargantuan baron of authority, control, religion and gluttony in the form of currency. In this city of fears, Pandemonia, he is above them all. In his court, a mewling tide of laughter and degrading stares flock around him, his court of a thousand laughing masks. Red rope decorate the marble and golden pillars, tools of his ‘string pulling’ way of life. Those that enter this court do not do so of their own volition, only his.”

[olio16]

Olio 16 - Artist Logo Design

This section of the module was something I was eagerly awaiting to make a start on. Logo design, although not a specialty of mine, it is a fond hobby when it comes to creating art. In the past I have had the pleasure of re-designing a band logo for a friend’s band, as well as t-shirt designs with logos created for a LARP (Live Action Roleplay) group in Kent. So to say I was ready to dive in to this section is a bit of an understatement, I was ecstatic.

The 1st Image ended up being my final submission as my artist profile. I wanted something that conveyed the lineless artwork I have made my own style over the last year and a bit, as well as the supernatural cartoonishness I try to inject into the narrative of my work. This character is me, but it’s a persona. When it comes to doing illustrative work I wanted to have that element of personal and work divided, seperate, so the moniker ‘Jack Tarot’ was born.

J.Tarot is now how I sign my work and aim to for the forseeable future as I build my portfolio and make a name for myself (literally.)

The 2nd image was a logo design I had created way before I had even started with the 1st image. This was originally for a Facebook group of creatives that I wanted to start up called ‘The Umber Society.’ These creatives would be able to create work with a narrative together, as if telling a story through their respective mediums and trying to connect them together on a social media platform. However this idea did not take off and this saw the logo becoming unused. I had tossed up the idea of using this as my artist profile, but decided against it as I felt it did not convey the right information that I wanted it to.

[olio16]

Olio+ ‘3am Thoughts’

At first I wasn’t too convinced with this part of the module. It wasn’t really a form of content I’ve focused on in the past, so the element of not having much experience with Riso printing put the mindset of being on the backfoot somewhat. This ultimately became quite an issue over the spring break as I took the initial idea I had submitted, ‘What if the Planets were alive?’ and get it down on paper (digital paper.)

One major issue I was struggling with was the limited colour palette of pink, yellow and black. Limited colour palettes, as cliche sounding as it is, can limit my imagination to a degree. Where with a broad spectrum of colours, I have a sense of freedom and ability to create exactly what is in my head. However, with these three colours (technically four as pink and yellow overlapping would create an orange colour) I felt a sense of needing to follow the path instead of deviating. An odd statement, but knowing I have creative freedom can heavily impact the final piece for me.

That being said, the final outcomes for Olio+ came out a lot better than initially expected. The idea of 3am Thoughts is not an uncommon one for me, as someone who daydreams a fair amount, as well as having the pleasure of vivid dreams when asleep, I had a plethora of dreams/nightmares that could be the focal point for this project. I wanted to pull on that eerie, spooky side of dreams/nightmares, as well as using the psychological ‘Rorschach test’ as a major theme. In the cover design (1st Image, top) you can see the Rorschach inkblot imagery breaking through with the butterfly type creature in the yellow section.

A fellow illustrator friend of mine introduced me to a brushpack that they use for their work, and I couldn’t help but test them out. In doing so I found one brush that gave me this scratchy, inky looking effect, something that I considered hard to create naturally at the time. This one brush enabled me to push out more dark and eerie looking content just because it could give this scratchy effect. I stated in my Olio 16 cover that you can’t have doom and gloom all the time, sometimes you need the weird and wonderful. Here I did something opposite to show that I can adapt and create work in different styles. The Olio 16 and Olio+ pieces are polar opposites to each other and that’s fantastic because it proves I have the ability to branch out and tell stories in through different avenues of style, colour and composition.

[olio16]

Obscura 1997 - OLIO16 Cover Piece

Here is my final piece for the OLIO16 Cover Piece segment for the AD6510 Module.

“The issues with fighting robotic demons in your underwear is entirely issues I create for myself, really!” - Tarot, reflecting on moments literally occuring a second ago.

When it came to creating my cover piece, I wanted to sit down and establish that it had to be something that was easy to follow, bright but not too harsh to look at. And it had to be brimming with character. The foundations I decided upon using was the community driven universe I helped create with my friend group back home; Obscura 1997.

Obscura 1997 is in it’s basic form is a mirror copy of our world, but what if magic, the strange, the paranormal are all part of the normal elements of society and living. Ghosts can hang out with their friends on nighttime picnics. Werewolves are a normal sight to see on your weekly shopping trip, they also need a pint of milk. In this world, there are ‘Alternate’ versions of ourselves, but with a strange twist to them. This world is weird, quirky, downright strange but also comical and lighthearted in most of it’s designs because not everything needs to be doom and gloom, sometimes you need the weird and wonderful.

This by far has been one of the most character heavy pictures I have drawn to date, and has been a starting off point towards creating more drawings like this. To me this picture means a lot in regards to my journey as an illustrator because of those reasons. And to possibly see it as a cover for an illustrator profile catalogue would be a highlight for sure.

A major issue that came from this piece was an accidental loss of work on my iPad, which meant I could not show more elements of this piece throughout development (sketches, timelapse video). However, this loss of work did not discourage me and I was able to collect a copy of this piece that had been previously submitted.