Self promo print

One of my ideas for Self promo print-

its like a fold up book/business card

Covers and inside panel

Inside panels showing off a few of my book illustrations

Bio/statement on the inside panel

Website progress...

Its coming along.. slowly...

After many changes..

I feel im getting much more of an identity now, clean backgrounds and colourful and cute

illustrations. I think this kind of theme should be how my self promo things look...

I like clean things..

Jeremiah's Journey update

I had a meeting with Joanna from Jeremiah's Journey two weeks ago, and since then have created some more designs for Jeremiah ready to show her when requested. I think I need to develop it a little more at the moment and maybe come up with a new double page spread because I feel my digital skills have developed allot recently and I think it would be good to show off what I cant achieve.

My alphabet book on Utales!

Utales is a fantastic site and app that lets illustrators easily make ebooks to be viewed on ipads etc as well as browsers. I put my 'Klyde's animal alphabet' book on there a while ago and completely forgot about it, however I got an email yesterday saying that a few changes need to be make and then the book can get published on the site.

I had a look at the feedback given (from the editing team on the site) and I changed the font size and made a few other tweaks as what was suggested. Responding on the feedback has made the book look so much better, more professional and ultimately more fun to read!

After the changes the book was published on the site and is now ready to buy and download!!!

And a good thing about Utales, is that a portion of the profits make go to a great charity 'Pencils of Promise' which helps build schools in lesser developed countries! What could be better? Great children's books and a helping hand to those in need!

Here's a link to my book. A preview of the first 8 pages is available to see the changes I've made.

Ebooks for kids - Klyde's Animal Alphabet - uTales

Some of the feedback was really confidence boosting!

Here's a taste...

"Hi Toby, I'm sorry but we decided to unpublish the book again. We received many complaints that the font was too small, and I also urge you to have another look at the feedback you recieved earlier for how the book can be improved.

Our main editor truly believes there is more potential for this one to be a big hit, so if you would consider making changes - that would be fantastic!

/Nils (founder)"

"I like the clean lines and consistency of the stylized illustrations, and the characters are engaging."

"Adorable illustrations and very fun to read..kids will love this!"

Revised National Trust Cider House poster

Final poster design based on things said at the critique last week. 

Oh my

It won! =D

Illustrator Questions

1. How long after your education did you start illustrating as a job? (Full-time or part-time.)

2. Was there anything you did that kick-started your career?

3. Do you think it is important to have an agent?

4. Do you feel you have had to change or style or the way you work during your time as an illustrator, to meet the needs of a client or get more work?

5.What would be your best piece of advice to pass onto someone who wants to become a full-time illustrator in the next few years?

I sent these to Will Terry (http://willterry.blogspot.com/) 
and Shirley Ng Benitez (http://shirleysillustrations.blogspot.com/)

I got responses too, which are in my WBL write up

Behance Portfolio

I made a portfolio on Behance Network!
Its a little confusing at first, but the results are great and looks very professional! =D

http://www.behance.net/ZestyDoesThings

Buckland Abbey Cider House- Rough & Final?

Rough for the new National Trust competition.

Final maybe? If not, its very close to how it will look.

Jeremiah's Journey

Here are the illustrations I entered for the Jeremiah's Journey competitions/brief.
I went a bit overboard and produced better quality artwork than was requested, but that's not bad thing.

Character Design for the main character, Jeremiah.
It was asked that Jeremiah was specifically drawn in the brief.

Character design for Nancy, the aboriginal wise woman who helps Jeremiah near the end.

Coloured version of a double page spread. I included a black and white version as requested, but also handed in the coloured one just to show them how it might looked coloured.

Update on my Children's book

Recently my self published children's book Klyde's animal alphabet' has been circulating around my local area and is being sold in the local bakery/post office. My mum orchestrated the distribution of my book and has since send it off to distant relatives and anyone else who will be willing to view it personally.
My mum has also taken the book to the schools she teaches at and they have gone down very well in the early classes.
They have photocopied pages from the books to be used as worksheets for the younger children and read out the book numerous times.
Its all seems to be going well at the moment.

I also uploaded my book onto the site Utales, which is a service offering children's books to be easily accessed through iPads and devices like that. The site is free to upload and with that you can get extremely valuable feedback from the Utales people and also the users. I got some really great feedback with I will take on-board to make the book even better.
UTales works as an app that is free to download but to read the books you either have to purchase a subscription or buy the book in its Utales format. A portion of the sales go straight to me, and a small portion also goes to charity, which is great!

Illustration Agencies

http://www.beehiveillustration.com/
Children's book illustrators agency.

http://www.illustrationweb.com/
General illustration agency, but with children's illustration section.

http://www.thebrightagency.com/
Able to create own accounts and submit images, it seems to be an open agency.

http://www.organisart.co.uk/
A general agency with a strong focus on children's illustration as much as the other forms.

Penguin Design Award

I've been checking  up on the 'Penguin Design Award' all summer to find out the next brief and Its finally out and I couldn't be more excited! The book cover to illustrat this year is 'Grimm's Fairy Tales'!
I absolutely love fairy-tales and especially those of the brothers Grimm so this is really exciting and i will definitely be having a go this year as apart of the WBL module as well as the illustration practices module if I can.
Heres the link to find out more!

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/puffin_brief.php

First self published Book!

Over the summer I also worked on a little children's book that I was going to self publish as a little insight into how book making works and thing like that.
I came up with the idea of making an alphabet book using my character Klyde..
It took me 3 days of solid work but I made 28 full colour illustrations and a front/back cover and all the other stuff needed for the book.  I wrote it myself too, which was a challenge as I don't think im very good with writing an engaging story.. although alphabet books don't have to have much of a story.
Here are a few sneak peaks at some of the illustrations in the book.
There not too fantastic as I did them all in a short space of time, but it was mostly an experiment anyway!

 

It was then made up and printed by lulu.com, which is a great little place to self publish providing you can put in the work to put the book together and then just upload it as a .pdf file.

I can also sell my books on the Lulu site if they come out okay. So it could make me a little bit of money and get my work out there...

The books came and they look fantastic! Im so pleased! 

This has been a great little thing to do, and a great practice into what I want to do in the future!

Id love to create and illustrate for books like this as a job... =D

Illustration Friday

Over the summer, I started doing 'Illustration Friday'.

Its a great platform to get your work noticed and also pushes me to create work based on themes I wouldn't usually work on. Theres a great community of Illustrators on there that can give great advice or show their appreciation. 

Ive learned alot from doing it every week and it has also been a great deal of fun! I think that by doing it, my illustration work has improved alot. 

Here are a few examples...

Mesmerizing-

I'm really impressed with this one. The composition looks good and the colours seem to work really nicely. I pushed myself to draw more realistic characters and a more realistic setting and it really payed off.

To me, my digital work has improved alot in terms or cleanliness and its overall impact.

Mysterious-

This was an experiment into making a storybook style illustration, using a character Id made up for use in Comics and Storybooks that I aim to produce during my second year. I think It came out really well and good easily be straight out of a storybook. 

Like it said before, my digital work is becoming much more refined and dynamic.

Imperfect-

My Illustration Friday debut. Which was received extremely well, considering I didn't take too much care over the piece in terms of execution. 

I based alot of my IF's on constructing a character from the prompt, so in this case I created and imperfect mouldy onion character. 

This was a great idea as it pushed my character design skills which to me is the most fun part of illustration... creating the characters to play around with.

It was featured in 'Friday Favourties' on this blog-
http://hello7arts.com/blog/2011/08/friday-favorites-imperfect/

Plymouth Music Accord Live Brief

At the end of my first year, I took on the live brief to create a new logo for 'Plymouth Music Accord'. I had to work on a new design for their logo then come up with a refined one and pass them onto Mel who would meet with the judges and choose a winning design from the other entries.

Excitedly, my design was chosen! This was great, as it was my first opportunity to work on a live brief and actually work for/with other people. 

My original logo design was this-

However there were a few adjustments to be made. The little people had to go, and there needed to be a few alterations to the text underneath, aswell as it being black and white.

I made these amendments and met with 4 of the team from 'Plymouth Music Accord' to see what they thought and make any more adjustments if needed. 

This was a bit scary as Id never really met with clients before and Im quite a shy person. But Mel assured me and went with me to meet them. They were really lovely people and were so pleased to have me onboard and creating a new logo for them!

I edited the logo some more and came up with this- 

It went down really well but after some more corresponding with Sylvia there were a few more

things to be changed, such as the thickness of the notes.

This correspondence continued for a while with lots of new ideas being thrown in on how to make the logo looks its best. 

Many different designs were sent to and from and the logo ended up looking quite different, in order to satisfy all the members of the group.
A new font was decided upon, and we changed the notes to more traditional ones, so in the end it looked rather different, but definitely suited the charity well.

Here is how the finished logo looks!

Im really pleased with how it came out, and although it went through many changes and the correspondence went on for weeks, it gave me a great insight into how working with clients is, and how they obviously want to get the best outcome they can. 

It was a really valuable experience and boosted my confidence alot!

It got me used to meeting and talking to people I dont know, and even talking to people on the phone- Something I used to shy upon. 

After it had all been settled, i went to see one of the members who wanted to personally thank me for the work and have my picture taken with her and the logo for the Plymouth Herald. 

It was lovely that she wanted to thank me personally and I had a lovely time chatting and having coffee while we waited for the photographer. 

You can see the logo on their site- http://www.plymouthmusicaccord.co.uk/

I owe alot to Mel for asking me to do this, and helping me throughout. Its definately helped to boost my confidence in my work aswell as personally, and given me a great insight into the creative working world.

Oh, and it was paid.. which is always nice.