Consequential Art Practice (a time for film studying)

Am very much stoked on my current project, as a warm up I have to draw 18 frames from a movie so am going to take the chance to actually make something that looks like a comic book from a film that easily translates to that style. Being spoilt for choice I decided to work with the American Gothic gem ‘The Night of the Hunter’ since Roger Ebert listed it as one of the all time best and since the early 90’s it’s been in the national film registry. I use to stay up late at night taping films and this was one of the films that I recorded during Channel 4’s horror season in 2003, I was 14 back then. It’s going to be really fun for me to freeze and capture this film’s atmosphere but first I have to draw roughs, inking comes later (hopefully I may get time to play with standard comic tones more so later).

 If you haven’t seen this film but call yourself a horror movie buff then I recommend you watch the super cute Lillian Gish in her early movies, especially ‘Broken Blossoms’ before you watch this just so you can understand that her role is a response to her past in that she’s playing mother goose for the characters she herself use to play as. Just seeing her up against Robert Mitchum’s sick and twisted preacher you see one of the most beautiful depictions of good and evil in cinema history, Just look at this trailer if you need a reason to watch it.

It’s a well made love letter to German expressionistic cinema and economically shot too, there’s no heavy use of montage and it’s a film that whilst dealing with nightmarish and fundamental themes it didn’t try to be like its time and thus remains timeless because of it. It’s cheesy and hammy at certain points but once you see this visually striking film you never forget it.

Making Manga in the UK

I got in contact with Freelance illustrator Sonia Leong. (Through this link:  http://www.fyredrake.net/me.html  ) She works at Sweatdrop Studios which is known for making manga comics in the UK. I was surprised to find that she has no control over the translation of her manga comic work and leaves it to the ownership to handle how the product is seen overseas, she would still get royalties from any publishers outside the UK.

I believe she doesn’t have an agent, don’t quote me on that but she remains proof that having a strong inter-web presence does work well for job opportunities.   She told me that “Publicity is something that you have to peg away at on many fronts and it could take years for the results to roll in”.  She was also gracious enough to send me this very amusing link in regards to dealing with unpleasant clients and how it’s good to know the warning signs with experience: http://clientsfromhell.net/

I wish I'd done This

As a person who considers concept art for movies and videogames to be good revenue for art in general I’m glad there still is a love for traditional work in a modern world so use to pop prints and digital painting. This is a cover of the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night videogame released in the latter part of the 90s. Thanks to Ayami Kojima’s concept art it also documents a time where the famous game series strayed away from the self parody of its hero fighting classic universal movie monsters and underwent a more aesthetic and sensibly romantic style.

Ayami tends to draw with a conte crayon and adds volume by adding black Indian ink, the waterproof qualities of that ink makes it perfect to add glazes of acrylic, and on trying to imitate this style a few years back I was told how remarkably fast the process was.

The clarity of Ayami’s technique shows that she is well learned and highly practiced but she has an aesthetic taste to her work, her Asian-Caucasian complexion of her figures are her own trademark as well as her idea of a perfect face. It makes me think of what makes a face beautiful and for that matter what makes a face cute or scary? This may not be the standard of illustration quality as an imaginative illustrator but more so the standard of technique, the fact that this is a cover from a Japanese game, a country so full of commercial big eyed and loud manga games gives me hope that traditional art still is admired, especially when it is called for within a stylistically dark videogame.

123 - Things I've Learned (PDP)

1.)    “Do what you love”. Moby says it so well in this Big Think clip, most importantly you can’t please others if you can’t please yourself first and foremost. Sometimes people just want to see what you yourself think is beautiful. John Lennon once said “When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” Basically you may not have a successful career but as long you do what you love you’ll be happy for it.

2.)    “Nothing is original” so in the hopes of creating something new all you can do is broaden your research and vocabulary. I’m paraphrasing one of my tutors on that one. It’s important advice for me because I’ve seen people get bogged down into the myth of creating something original when the truth is that personal experience is what determines originality. It’s like when an artist gets obsessed with finding their own style when in actuality style is really there with them in that drawings and brush strokes already have a signature quality. Ted Brown said it well in by explaining that exploration is all about quantities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&feature=relmfu

3.)    “Graduation does not mean you are at your prime”. In other words it is okay to make mistakes. I’ve been studying for so long that I didn’t realise how hard I was being on myself, I was rushing myself when really being a student is all about just letting loose and just swimming in the cool waters of education. It’s important not to rush that process and it also stunts creativity to do so.