Visualising and Communicating Illustration

OTHER RESEARCH

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FINAL OUTCOME

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These two drawings are my final outcome, on the left is a front cover in a comic book style, and on the right shows 1 page of the comic displaying my thought process through out this project, without using any text to describe what is ment to be shown within the frames.

MY IDEA'S

2008-11-19T09:09:00.001-08:00

Going from all the research below, I compiled all this into a brain storm and tried to decipher what i was going to produce as a final outcome. I also did a few sketches using different media for each and a variation in idea. Below are my 4 designs.

This sketch was done with just pencil and paper and keeping it with simple lines, no shading. The idea behind it was to show the path of how I was thinking about how illustration can communicate to people and my idea's along the way. With a tv for when i first saw Unbreakable and the things I noticed like the Hieroglyohics in the background and so on...

For this image I changed media, and used a brush pen and ink, then with water blended the ink to give a wash effect like in Tim Sales sketches. Here i was thinking more literaly about the comic book itself and where the illustrations stem from, so possibly having a comic book with the pages flying out for people to view, as if im sharing my thinking of what illustration is.

Looking at my other sketches I decided that they were a bit bland in colour, so i took the same image but using watered down acrylics to give a wash effect. I think this worked effectivly but Im drawn to the idea of combining paints with washes of black ink.

Moving away from the more traditional way of workin I created a mock of a comic book front cover that I could maybe use for my comic book. I did this using Photoshop from a photograph i took of myself. This sparked an idea of possibly using all photographs of images to use in my comic book style final piece.

TIM SALE

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Although I found Scott McClouds work interesting, for the style of my piece i was more drawn towards the work of Tim Sale. Another comic book artist whos work has been used alot in the tv series heroes. I like how a painting can have a comic book feel to it, even though he doesnt render them himself. Tim Sale is colour blind so alot of his work is black pen and ink then send off to be rendered for its use. But even his pen and ink drawings are very well done.

I decided to go for this rendering and drawing style because i feel it suites the most up to date style of comic art, and that links back to the Unbreakable idea of comics passing on history of our present day.

SCOTT MCCLOUD

2008-11-19T08:48:00.000-08:00

Through my research into non textual comic books, the name Scott McCloud kept appearing so i took a look at his work, and he is a comic book artist himself that also does numerous other things to help starting out comic illustrators. For instance there are books by McCloud that teach you how to layout your own comic book, which I found that you can purchase from a website in the website links section of this blog. Also he has a 50 state tour and own blog set up for people wanting to begin this line of work. I have also included one of his quotes into the website links section, where he defines what a comic is.

http://www.scottmccloud.com/

His quote on what a comic book is, influenced me to produce a piece without text for my comic book style final outcome, as i believe it to be more of an illustration when the viewer has to see it and think about it. Also its not quite a book because it doesnt require the viewer to read through sections.

NON TEXTUAL COMIC BOOKS

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Here is an extract of a comic book that has been produced using purly pictures, and no text boxes with words to show u what the characters are sayin or what is happening in each frame.

I like this idea and way of working as it closey links to what I believe illustrarion is about. As illustration doesnt always need words to explain what its about or trying to show, this can be shown through images, colour and mark making. (Going from the theory class we had on changing music into drawings through feeling, here are my examples of the music into drawings).

To the left of this passage are my 3 sketches of 3 different piece's of music purly illustrated from how i felt the music sounded and should look if it exsisted as a drawing.

UNBREAKABLE (Initial idea)

2008-11-17T18:07:00.000-08:00

My initial idea came from watchin the film unbreakable with Sammuel Jackson and Bruce Willis. In a scene in the film Sammuel Jackson's character explains how he believe's that comics books are a means of passing on stories and history, also that when one thing exsists in the world their must be an opposite to keep the world in balance.

From this I began thinking about how the comic book illustrations can be seen as historical papers in years to come containing stories of the past, also through a means of communicating through pictures as not all comics include text.

I also like the fact that they talk about ther beging a balance in the world with one thing having to exisit in order for the other to exisit. This display's the directors way of thinking when making the movie. its very much like that of the eastern world where they believe in ying and yang (balance), also in the way that (art) illustrations are produced and for what purpose.

HIEROGLYPHICS

2008-11-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Hieroglyphics is the ancient text in that Egyptians would write in, by carving the symbols into rock on walls of buildings. I have researched into hieroglyphics and dispite their existance for centuries it wasn't until 1799 that the rossetta stone was found and the secrets of the symbols began to be revealed and understood by archaeologistis of the present day.

Its downfall came with the religious change into Christianity stopping the hieroglyphics and changing the ancient language through time into Arabic.

This is similar to illustration in the sence that where as hieroglyphics had a code to relay the information to people and what each symbol meant. Pictorial illustration can be difficult to decipher the meaning without any text following it, like in a childrens book for instance. But Illustration is sometimes produced purposly not to be easily understood, if purly pictorial.

LINKS TO WEBSITES FOR RESEARCH

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9q3QAOjtIRU - Video clip from the film Unbreakable. Sammuel Jackson explains his theory on how comic books are an accient way of passing on history.

http://www.timsale1.com/methods.html - Artists style that has influenced my work for this project. Also Tim Sale produces work for the series heroes, his paintings are used to show glimpses of the futur. Opposite use of illustration compared to the story line in Unbreakable.

http://ww.informationillustration.com/ - This is a company that uses illustrations to rely infromation in the form of scientific diagrams.

http://www.idealliance.org/papers/xml02/dx_xml02/papers/05-05-04/05-05-04.html - Useful information about comics and non textual comic books that incourage the use of your brain to read through the images. Quote - Scott McCloud provides a useful definition of comics: "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer"

http://home.earthlink.net/~copaceticcomicsco/GiftGuide.html - Looking for books on non textual comics books I came across this website that has a wide collection of books to order and buy on making your own comic books and other vital comic book reading.

This book is by Daniel Wallace and shows the art of the film superman returns. It shows good examples of how storyboards are produced for films.

THE BRIEF

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Aims and Objectives:

To explore the function of illustration as a means of communicating information
To examine historical and contemporary use of illustration to deliver information
To examine the function of visual style in relation to the delivery and reception of information
To explore the relationship between words and images
To develop the ability to produce artwork for print and digital reproduction
To understand and apply time-management skills relating to illustration practice