The State of Illustration Today

After recently hearing hearing one of Adrian Shaughnessy's podcasts on the current state of illustration it's really had me thinking about where illustrators stand in this world and my future work. You can listen to Adrian's podcast here: http://www.shaughnessyworks.com/ Currently the man runs Shaugnessy works, a consultancy combining design and editorial direction, he's a co-founder of the london based design company Intro, aswell as being a co-founder for Unit Editions, a publishing company producing books on design and visual culture.

The State of Illumination:

Taking part in a small forum in response to the above podcast, I learned that illustration's effectiveness in this world is based on the commentary the image has, it can illuminate text, decorate articles but then again so can a lot of art do that. Social and political commentary, that's where I think illustration is strongest. A progenetive and early example would be Francisco Goya, a historical painter who infuses this responsiveness and story telling to his era within his work. And we can see an evolution of this responsive, satirical style within the works of Gerald Scarfe and many modern illustrators, especially of the political cartoonist variety. These are people who are not only highlghting something in an image but they do so in their own prefered colour, like a movie director, they adapted an existing text in their own way. And like a newspaper story, they can easily paint who we should feel apathy for.

The State of Commisions:

Personally for me, establishing your own presence, visual world and language would be the best way to form a portfolio; where as a weak portfolio is too full of commissions, it has no flavour. I believe illustrators thrive on self promotion more than photography as it’s easy to imagine what an end product of a photo will look like. Illustration is purposefully made to "illustrate" and "decorate" an existing state of text or media however an illustrator should never have to wait around for the next commision. They need to find their own voice and establish their presence, thanks to the internet this has become far more eaier for us. Also thanks to the internet, opinions are easily exchangeable, and I welcome any one who wishes to comment or argue with the points alluded to here.

Aya Suzuki and World Animation

I found an interesting article on animator Aya Suzuki who originally began her career in the UK before she went on to work on films like Belleville Rendezvous, found here: http://www.mangauk.com/?p=aya-suzuki There's something inspirational to me about working across the world and reaching an audience that covers a wide variety of culture, especially in comparison to people like Amano Yoshitaka who once went to his local animation studio to show his portfolio before he landed the job. In previous years studios never had such easily established ties to other countries but it's now considered the standard in business thanks to current technology and the internet. The article linked also puts light upon the working methods that Aya has used since there is a notable eastern and western style of making animated feature length movies.

Varieties of Animation

As the hardcore gamer may know, The decennial release of Tekken Tag 2 occured this month. My brother is a big fan of the series since 1997 and I play with him as a new release comes out as per the "bro-time". The tag titles being a subsidiary to the series, it acts as a megamix for prior games that are first released as arcade cabinets before they are ported to home game consoles. The best thing about these home ports, and the topic of this post, is that as gamers win enough rounds they are rewarded with a short cinematic movie relating to the character they choose to play as their avatar, since there are over 40 playable characters then there are over 40 movies. In the past these movies would build upon the same graphics and art direction as the rest of the game however in the newly released Tekken Tag 2 there are a few movies that have their very own, specific art direction and unique animation style. Take a look:

Just the sort of thing I've been wanting to see! The movies are distinct enough in their own style and methods that it gives me the opportunity to think about how to do my own animation.

How to Make Choppy Animation Look Good?

The next project I have to do is an extension of the summer project, based around consequential art, the whole idea around the brief is to build a world and test out story making skills visually. The end product that I am going to be doing is a “narrative sequence”; in the form of a short animation.

I’m no animator and so I thought about what would be a feasible and good looking aesthetic to set off the whole look of the animation, I instantly thought of the Japanese anime intros of ‘Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’, translated in roughly in English to ‘So Long Mr. Despair’. Simply the look of these openings to the cartoon series looks spectacular and hypnotic as it forms this cut out like collage style. To have such a look seemed to make up for the lack of smooth and fluid animation and I figured that it’s an approach that I should consider. The next clip here shows a whole episode known as “Mystery Train” done in the look of these openings (which is rare for the series). I’m not sure how hard it was to make the episode but it certainly looks like the animators had a lot of fun on this one! If anyone is into animation I implore you to watch the video below.

I am not expecting to animate anything better than a South Park cartoon but the Zetsubou Sensei series certainly intrigues me with its use of lighting and textures in these rare moments. I haven’t shown any spoils for my work just yet, so I’ll be getting into practice as soon as I can and we’ll see just how much this has influenced me later. Hopefully I'll see more animation that empthasises look and texture over motion.

AX Manga and Takato Yamamoto - The limits of making Manga

I recently bought the first volume of AX Manga after looking at the work of Takato Yamamoto. Newly published in English, AX is an anthology that showcases alternative Japanese comics. I was wondering how the art style of Yamamoto and Vania Zouravliov could form to the graphic novel format, especially since manga is an industry of mass produced gradient tones I could not help but think what counts as too detailed for mass production let alone function? What is the challenge to make manga in this way and how do we make it easier for ourselves? First step to finding out these questions had to be me to pick up this book that defies manga convention and see how Yamamoto turned to making the only Manga he has ever made (at the time of this post), it may be just a simple matter of playing spot-the-difference between his art or it may be a matter for me to have to emulate the man’s work and find out for myself.

 

The black and white panels here are from Into darkness by Takato Yamamoto, a one-off comic from the AX anthology that reminds me very much of an Oscar Wilde quote:

“Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful, to lie in the soft brown earth with the grasses waving above one's head and listen to silence, to have no yesterday and no to-morrow; To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.”

Having quoted that it’s understandable that Yamamoto has a strong influence from Aubrey Beardsley and Edgar Allan Poe. Yamamoto has an interview with Yoji Shinkawa that can be found in “The Art of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty”, I’ll certainly be giving that a read since my brother and best friend are Metal Gear fans. For now here's some more of Yamamoto's work other than his Manga.