Shaun Tan: The Arrival

http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html#anchor
http://www.shauntan.net/books.html

Because my idea for my book is 'A day in the life' I looked at Shaun Tan's 'The Arrival'. It is a wordless story book with very exaggerated images. He draws every day scenes but then adds something unusual like a big monster or some kind of creature and I really like the idea of it. I think it makes the images and story seem more exciting and interesting. The images below show some of the creatures and animals sketches that I thought were really effective. 

Sarah McNeil

http://sarahmcneil.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.400pencils.com/
http://www.400pencils.com/154718/books-zines

I researched Sarah McNeil because she makes very effectives books of drawings and I am very inspired by them. I like the way she makes her books because they look hand made but still very professional. I alos am really inspired by her sketches. 

Marc Johns

http://shop.marcjohns.com/products/i-made-these-drawings-for-you-book
http://www.marcjohns.com/

Marc Johns is an illustrator who draws very comical and random images. I really like his style of drawing because it is simple but it works. I chose to look at his work because he actually created a book of drawings which is what my goal is. (I couldn't save any of my favourite images but the majority of them are on his blog.)

Unknown artist

http://imadeyousomecookies.blogspot.co.uk/

I found this artist when I was searching for books of drawings that had been made and I was really interested in the style of drawing in which they have sketched. I don't think I will go down this route but I still really like the line work and the black and white style.

IMOTIV

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/IMOTIV/profile


IMOTIV specialise is creating animations but I was really interested in their storyboards they sketch out before making an animation. I think the drawings are really effective because of how sketchy they are and I think this is good because it creates movement and details.

Ben Tallon

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/BenTallon/view
http://bentallon.com/

Ben Tallon is an award winning illustrator who creates 100% hand made images using a wide range of materials and techniques. He has done work for clients such as Channel 4/E4 where he created the logo and sketches for the TV series 'Skins'. I really like the style of his work because it reminds me of graffiti and urban type art. I really like how his images are layered with line and colour it has a very nice effect. 

Caroline Church

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/CarolineChurch/profile

http://www.carolinejaynechurch.com/index.htm

Caroline Church isn illustrator from Surrey who creates her illustrations using scraper board and a craft knife then uses photoshop to add colour. I really like her initial sketches/engravings because they are really detailed but very effective. I prefer her black and white images to her coloured ones because I think more of the detail can be seen. 

Rodrigo Araya

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/RodrigoAraya/view

http://www.rodrigo-araya.com/

Rodrigo Araya is a self taught freelance illustrator from Germany who creates many graphic/digital drawings. I really liked his simple line work because it is sketchy but it looks really goos, in my opinion. The images below are the ones I like most, I do also think that they would look good with just a little bit of colour added to them just make them more aesthetic. 

Digital Manipulation Research: Ben Heine

http://benheine.deviantart.com/
http://www.benheine.com/
http://benjaminheine.blogspot.co.uk/

Quick Links: 
Projects
Exhibitions
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Shop

I was really interested by Ben's graphic work as I thought the dots/popart idea was really effective and would be so fun to have a go of. Below are some of my favourite digital images of his.

Digital Manipulation: Person

I started out with the outline of the image in black.

I then created a new layer and coloured the background with a round spray brush. I found this brush worked best because the edges of the connecting colours blend together.

I used a flat curve brush to create the hair. I think this brush was good to use because it created texture.

I found it very difficult to get the face proportions right on the face so what I did was I used the stamp tool to just copy the basic outlines of the facial features and then I used the mixer brush and a normal brush to create the shadows using blues and purples. 

For the hands I did the same technique as above and used a small round brush to create the shadows and hand texture.

The guitar neck was the most difficult part. I used the colour dropper tool to pick up the actual colours off of the photograph and used them as a mixture to create light and dark spaces. to me the strings seemed pretty much impossible to do by hand so I used the stamp tool to create those.

I think the guitar was pretty easy to do. I basically used the mixer tool to blend a light blue and a turquoise colour to create a gradient and I like how it turned out. 

Add caption

I added highlights to the guitar body and used the dropper tool to pick the colour of the pick guard and filled that in. I also added the black outline and used a circle brush to create the screws.

I used the circle tool to make the smilie face and used yellow, light yellow and a darker yellow  to colour it.

For the coat I basically just picked the colours off the original image and blended them together to create shadows and light areas. For the strap of the guitar I I used black and then just blotches of colour for the patches.

The shirt was the most difficult part at the point. I could not get the squares in the correct place so I used the stamp tool to copy the outlines and then spent a lot of time picking every individual colour and colouring each square. I also took off the outline and I think it works really well and I am very proud of how it has turned out. 

The image I have drew from is not my own work. It is the photography of Chas Stoddard.

Digital Manipulation: Dog

My last image I drew was an image of my dog. For the outline I just used the black paint brush. I started off with the ears and I used a range of browns and oranges to create the colour of the fur. To do the fur I used a brush called 'flat curve' which gave the effect of fur which I thought was really convenient. I used a normal round brush to draw the eyes and I used brown, black and white for highlights. 

It took me a while to get the nose right because I didn't feel it looked right but I got there in the end and even added a filter to it so that it looked textured. I think it worked really well and I am happy with the outcome. 

When I was colouring the body i found it quite difficult to create the fur because the brush was only one direction but I made the best of what I had and I am pleased with how it turned out.

When I finished I just added a grey background and a small shadow just to finish off the image. This is by far my favourite digital drawing because I think it is the most realistic and I spent the most time on this one.