Assignment 6 - Editorial

Well, this is it the final assignment for this module!

I've been having trouble uploading the images, with server rejected messages, which has been really really really frustrating, however, after editing the last post to reduce file size to see if that was the problem, fingers crossed it's sorted!

Here we go....

We were given an editorial to produce an illustration for, as my city is Sunderland, it's an article from The Guardian

Stephen Hawkins article - 'There is no heaven or afterlife ... that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark'

Well, it's not something I agree with, so it posed another challenge, to try and be objective and just illustrate the article!....

So, after analysing the article, what I feel is a piece to focus on illustrating is,

'I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark' - Stephen Hawkins

the disbelief of God, and that there is no greater being guiding us.

My initial thoughts are,

Physics calculus proving our brains on a scrapheap when used.

Parody of Fairy Stories,

Snow White seemingly dead with a background image of reapers disposing of brains

Put them together in Photoshop to see how they worked as a composition

maybe ...

Looked at brains, and ways of rendering them, as there has to be a pile on the image, they're quite complex, worried about them being too intense on the image

Looked at ways of drawing the reapers, also toyed with having them as the dwarfs, but feel this may be overplaying the Snow White usage

Then tried producing a final image

Have also incorporated the Yellow Brick Road, as an addition to the parody of Fairy Tale and use of the Snow White image

Really don't like this! 

So Back the the Drawing Board!

I like the Reaper aspect of this, as that's part fairy tale, and bleak, as that's basically what the article offers - Bleakness!

So looked at simplifying the message in the image, with just the reapers hand throwing away a brain

With adding a dustbin with brain and broken hard drive in it, I've also included the Do Not Recycle logo to get the message, and essence of the article as I see it, so finally, finally:-

The final piece!

Assignment 5 - Graphic Novel

Our 5th Assignment is a graphic novel, 12 pages with added front and back, to be published online on issuu.com!

Well, never done this before, but going to approach it in the same way as approaching the novels we've done in the past.

A lot of information for this has been gathered over the two terms, with the research that has been done with each subsequent brief. Which has also helped with the development of a story.

The following scans show the development of the project - enjoy!?!

want to illustrate how people are buried in their own circumstances, how they can be hard to reach, to get through to

like the texture on the top sample, feel that images placed on this would illustrate life's complexities, and textures

staines kitchen roll here, and roughly sketched image over with twig in ink, kitchen roll used as it has texture and it's a part of everyday life.

Another try at getting my character illustrated in a way that is sympathetic to his circumstances. I've again drawn him roughly with a twig dipped in ink, the covered him with layers of tissue paper, over a textured pad made of crumpled tissue paper layered together with water and pva mix to get a thick base.

I like the way the ink bleeds through the tissue paper here, and that the tissue 'muffles' the underlying image

planning the story

The illustrations

with ink washes applied

haven't used these coloured versions of the illustrations in the finals as I feel the plain black ink evokes the sense of bleakness necessary

got some mullberry paper, for texture

then put it all together

and it can be seen on

Behind Closed Doors

As it's a tale that involves life's cycles, I've made a hard copy as a Flexagon Book to illustrate spirals, cycles, etc