Narrative Illustration Development. Trying a mid-century look

As I had stated in my early work I wanted to incorporate some form of mid-century into my final illustrations. This led to a lot of experimentation with different types of paint. The main look I wanted to achieve was a flat mat look. The best mediums for this were Acrylics and Gouache paints as they dry relatively flat and come in a variety of colour.  

I began by completing some rough experiments using acrylic paints. This was to get an understanding of the media and how it looked on a flat surface e.g. board. By using board and card the final result will appear flatter. I’m not fond of acrylic from past experiments but I found it to work in this case however, I did have to layer it many times to get the desired effect. This can cause damage to the card underneath as it is being over worked. The colours were never as vibrant as I would have liked but this seems to be a common thing when using acrylics.

I moved onto Gouache paints. These gave a much flatter effect with less layers. The colours also seem to be more vibrant then the acrylics previously used.  When trying out texture and brush strokes the gouache seemed to work better and has a much smother flow. I also found it easier to blend as gouache is reactivated with water, unlike the acrylics. This is one of the flaws I have with the medium, it’s good for blending but it makes layering slightly more difficult as the previous layers tent to lift.

Painting 1

 Once I had a good idea for the mediums I began to translate them into a character. I chose Grasshopper for the initial experiments as I found him fun to draw.  The first attempt to translate Grasshopper to mid-century didn’t go too well. To begin the drawing I created the line work using India ink and a brush. Using Gouache I coloured the Grasshopper and tried to add a bit of texture. I was happy with the line work but the colour choice was a bit poor as it comes across as dark. I applied the yellow highlights over the green which took a lot of the vibrancy out of the colour. Despite this the textures came out OK but I think they could be better.

Painting 2

  Attempt number two consisted of two quick paintings of Grasshopper using Gouache. This time I didn’t paint any line work and just tried to depict Grasshopper using all Gouache. These results work much better in my opinion. I use more colourful Greens and let the Yellow have its own space. This resulted in a more vibrant and interesting depiction of the character.

Painting 3

Attempt three was trying to combine the two. I still wanted an element of line work in my designs so I brought back the India ink. When the line work was complete I coloured it using Gouache. I tried to use similar bright colours as with example two. After it was dry I then added a lot of brush texture to give it more of the mid-century look. I’m fairly happy with the final result bur I think this one has lost the mid-century look. 

Painting 4

With my final attempt I went back to the basics. This time I tried to make the image as flat as possible and use no texture. Instead of starting with the line work I started with the block colours, then adding a green line work over the top. To do the line work I used green Gouache. This image is by far the simplest of the bunch but it seems the most mid-century.

Deciding to experiment further I translated some other character designs itto the style I used in the final drawing. This led to a drawing of James, Ladybird, Earthworm and Centipede. I found these to work very well and the character come across as more cuddly. Centipede is probably the best example and I think this works for the character as well as the story.

Once I had complete all this work I was left with mixed feelings about the whole idea. I like the gouache paintings I have done but I feel it strays from my drawing style. I miss the fact I won’t use as much line work with this style but it might be a worthwhile sacrifice.

Narrative Illustration/ Development. Character designs for Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker

The two Aunts were the last characters I needed to design. I wanted to make them look as revolting and awful as possible. The aunts are fairly well described in the book but the description still leaves room for interpretation. Sponge is described as being ghastly and vain whilst Spiker is very thin and sharp (in both appearance and personality).

I began with Aunt Sponge and drew some brief sketches of my first ideas. At this point I wasn’t sure what would work for the character. In the book she finds herself to be beautiful which led to the idea of frilly clothing. The fact that the character is quite rounded led to the use of curly hair styles, to help reinforce that look.

A lot of my early sketches focused on Sponges face, the first few attempts were not working in my opinion. Compared to the style of James she looked nothing like a person. Instead she was looking more and more distorted, although I wanted this from the design I felt it went too far. 

After working on the face I then went on to draw some clothing designs. I wanted her clothing to like it was once nice but now looked torn and gaudy.  Even though the character thinks she looks beautiful I wanted her appearance to be the opposite. Some of the initial sketches already featured this and I thought it would be ironically funny. 

The final design for sponge works well in my opinion. I enjoy the look of rag tag clothing as it makes her look particularly unpleasant.

Once sponge was complete I moved onto aunt Spiker. She is meant to look the complete opposite of sponge but still unpleasant. Once again I started with some sketches to get my early ideas down. Spikes design was a lot easier to complete than sponges as I knew what I wanted. At first I drew her with a short Pony Tail hair style but in the end I changed this for spiky short hair. When drawing sponge I put a big puffy ribbon on her back, I thought this would work for spike as well. It helps to tie the two characters in together. Apart from that I gave her a thin dress and facial features which fit well with her original description.

Narrative Illustration Development. Character designs for Earth worm, Silk worm and Glow worm

It's now time to design all the “worms”.  Starting with sketches of Earth Worm I tried to construct the character. Being an Earth Worm I didn’t find much to play with, there is simply not much to this animal. The character is blind and the obvious designs would be to give him blocked out glasses. This was something I wanted to avoid as I have seen it in other interpretations of this character. Instead I wanted to give the character some form of hat. I tried designing a sock to use as a hat so it could fit on his tube shaped body. This looked kind of funny and so I stuck with my other designs. In another early drawing I drew Earth Worm riding a skateboard. This was another jockey drawing but I actually thought it worked. I went on with developing Earth Worm but that first design seemed to be the best. The final design isn’t much different but I’m happy with its look.

Glow worm was the next character on my list. As I discovered in my research, Glow Worms are actually beetles and the females have no wings. When I drew my first sketches I was trying to keep the segmented look of the Glow Worm’s carapace. I think this is a really distinct look and I wanted it in the designs. She was a lot like ladybird in the sense of her design. I found her easy to draw and had a good idea for what I wanted the final deign to look like. One of the features added was a clearly visible light bulb in her tail light. I also added a big bushy ribbon to her back as I thought it would add a little extra to the design.

Lastly I began work on Silk Worm. she is probably the simplest of my characters as I basically made a Silkworm look cute. Despite the simplicity I think she fits with the other characters really well. I’m not too bothered about the design being simple as this character is in the story the least. I started with some quick pen drawings and soon found a look I liked. Moved on to drawing out a final design which I think works well. final designs are shown below.