Illustrated novel, part 4

This is part 4 of a series of illustrations that I developed for the book A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle. This is earlier in the book when the children (Meg, her brother Charles Wallace) discover a grave threat to our planet.

Illustrated novel, part 3

This is part 3 of a series of illustrations that I developed for the book A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle. This is near the end of the book, where the main character Meg finds her father on another planet.

Illustrated novel, part 2

This is part 2 of a series of illustrations that I developed for the book A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle. This is the introduction to chapter 2, with an illustrated capital letter.

I chose to do a starry background, since the novel is science fiction and involves space travel. The manner in which they travel is by tesseract, or a "wrinkle in time." A tesseract involves passing through the fifth dimension; the concept is explained to Meg (and the reader) with the demo of an ant travelling across a string. So, I also included a string to represent the tesseract for the letter illustration.

Biography book cover final

Changes I made for the final were adding details to her face and changing the pattern on the chair to be less distracting. People seemed to like the 'melting' chair effect.

Here's a mock-up of how the book would look:

Illustrated novel: title page (part 1)

The next few weeks I will present five illustrations that I developed for the book A Wrinkle in Time. This is the title page with Meg and Aunt Beast, full page in black and white.

The title page illustration features Meg, the main character, being carried by an alien who helps her recover when she is almost frozen to death. The aliens live on a planet that gets hardly any light so they are blind. They also happen to have four arms with lots of tentacles. Meg fondly calls her alien caretaker Aunt Beast. It was perhaps my favorite part of the whole book, and I remember Aunt Beast fondly myself.

Biography book cover proof

And here it is, the proof! I think it turned out pretty well. While I was making it, I decided that I really liked the idea of parts being unfinished and having her face have the most detail for emphasis. I will probably add even more detail to her face--blending the shadows and adding highlights to make it have more depth. I changed the background from grays to brighter blues (too depressing otherwise). The spine design is there as well. Click for bigger images.

Interesting tools for colorblindness

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be colorblind? Do you wonder what your website looks like to someone with colorblindness?

Here is a website that will let you know: Colorblind Filter

Just put in a website and you can view it like someone who is colorblind (my own colorblindness is most similar to the 'anomalous red cone' filter). Some websites, like those with flash applications, don't work.

I occasionally try tests to help myself learn to compensate for my colorblindness--although it is a biological and inherited trait that has no 'cure' or 'fix,' I think that to a certain degree, familiarity with color can help anyone with color recognition and discrimination.

I found this website today, a Hue Test that will tell you what hues (colors) you have trouble discerning.

Take the simple test yourself, before you look at my results below (I don't want to give it away).

Take the Hue Test here. (Takes about 3-5 minutes)

Here are my results below...
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(Click to see bigger images)
Were your results better?

Revised wine label illustration

Some alterations... I tried it out on a wine bottle but I had to turn it in to be graded. I'll put up a photo sometime (maybe).

Illustrated novel concepts

The chapter opening illustration will be of a W (there are a lot of W's, with three characters named Mrs Who, Mrs Whatsit, and Mrs Which). I chose to do a starry background, since the novel is science fiction and involves space travel. The manner in which they travel is by tesseract, or a "wrinkle in time." A tesseract involves passing through the fifth dimension; the concept is explained to Meg (and the reader) with the demo of an ant travelling across a string. So, I also included a string to represent the tesseract for the letter illustration.

The full-page, full-color illustration is of the first planet that the children travel to--Uriel. Uriel is the mountainous home of beautiful centaur-like creatures with wings. The image reference I used below is for the landscape.

The quarter-page illustration will be of the Happy Medium's globe looking at the earth. The Happy Medium is a cheerful sort-of sorceress who has a globe that can look at anything in the universe. The Mrs W's take the main characters to see the Earth, which has a hazy cloud around it. The children--Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and friend Calvin--learn that the Dark Thing is pure evil and is threatening the universe. This is what they are fighting against, and it is what has trapped Meg's father, whom they are trying to find.

These are the stock illustrations for the earth, hands, and globe of the illustration.

The title page illustration will feature Meg, the main character, being carried by an alien who helps her recover when she is almost frozen to death. The aliens live on a planet that gets hardly any light so they are blind. They also happen to have four arms with lots of tentacles. Meg fondly calls her alien caretaker Aunt Beast. It was perhaps my favorite part of the whole book, and I remember Aunt Beast fondly myself.

The reference images I used were mostly for Meg, but I also did some research on tentacles to find an example that didn't look too creepy. This example on the left is from a sea anemone.

When Meg finds her father, he is trapped inside a glass-like column. He's been there for a couple years, so his hair is unkept, and he's also sad, of course. This is a reference image I used for the position of his body and lighting.

Biography book cover concept

Here is the composition of the cover, which I pieced together with some photos. It looks scary right now but it will be better, I promise! I used one photo for her dress/sitting position, and other for her face (I liked the positioning better). Then I found a more sophisticated chair for her to sit in, since the original was not as much her style. The french arm chair I found was fantastic--just a picture off Google, which is unfortunate because it's such a great chair I wish I could take my own picture of it. It would have been awesome to keep the photograph of the chair and add her as an illustration, but (1) I don't have permission for the photo and (2) the edges aren't big enough for a bleed on the cover.

The font is pretty awesome, but I'm blanking on the name right now (I'll find out). Click image to embiggen.

Wynona Ryder practice book cover

This was a practice book cover. Some things I learned were separating the face to get different details when applying levels (on the photograph, before it's autotraced) and using Illustrator stamp tool to make the paint splatters. We used Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to make this art, so it was pretty comprehensive.

Holiday card published

Something exciting is that my holiday card was chosen to be published and distributed to internal recipients of the Parkland College holiday card. :)

I requested that a few extras be printed to keep in my portfolio. I'll show a picture once I get them!

Inspiration for illustrated novel

I really liked the scratch board-style illustration I did a while ago, so I looked at some more illustrations for books with that style. First I found Darrel J. Stevens, who does sci-fi and fantasy work. I really like the bold composition of this one:

Another illustrator I found was Eugene Smith. This one is for "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters." His work stands out because even though it's in black and white, it has a lot of texture and detail and doesn't feel simple or bland.

Illustrated novel brief

Client: Yearling Publishing (Random House)

Project: Illustrated novel

Specifications: Create five illustrations for a novel that is for high school students. The sample illustrations include (1) the title page, (2) a full page illustration, (3) a half page, (4) a quarter page, and (5) an initial capital for a chapter opening.

Reproduction: The proposed page size is 10 inches square. All illustrations will be in black except for one in black with one spot color and another in full color.

Justification: I'm choosing to do A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. This was one of my favorite books when I was a young adult, and it's really fun to do because it's science fiction/fantasy and has interesting aliens and characters.

Wine label final

Here is the final wine label illustration. I liked how it turned out--doing the text was fun! I started with black in a sketchy style to match the outline of the cat, then went behind it with the orange and purple complimentary colors to give it more pop. Next, I will print it and put it on a bottle to admire the final product! Click to make the image larger.

Biography book cover brief

Client: Penguin Publishing

Project: Biography book cover illustration

Specifications: The design will be for the front and spine of a biography of a person of the designer's choosing. The over must have the title of the book (who the biography is about), the designer's name, and an original illustration. The illustration must convey the subject's personality through the use of color, composition, lighting, line, or distortion.

Reproduction: The cover will be printed in full color. There are no requirements on the size of the book.

Justification: I'm going to do a cover for my friend, Jaime Hough. She joked that one day she will have a biography/memoir, so I thought she would be a good choice. She also has a big personality, so it will be easy to portray in an illustration using color.

Inspiration for a biography book cover

These are some inspirations for the biography book cover. I had difficulty finding actual biography covers that had illustrations (most are just photographs), so I looked up some other book covers and portraiture. I like how in each of these cases, the background or other elements of the image indicates something about the character's personality.

Houdini illustration, by Pat Kinsella

William Shatner illustration, by Karen Klassen

Novel book cover illustration, by John Vogl

For the biography cover I will be doing for my friend, Jaime Hough, I was inspired by the style of books by Amy Sedaris. They feature photographs with handwritten text, but I think Sedaris' style is similar to that of my friend. So, although mine will have an illustration, I'm going to go for a full-body, colorful, playful, and feminine cover for Jaime.

Foellinger Auditorium final

This is the final for my Foellinger Auditorium poster. The color was done with a Photoshop preset watercolor brush. I also fiddled with the copy and the positioning of the sidewalk X. I think this one turned out really well! It's probably my favorite that I've done so far.

This image prints at 11x17, so it's very large. Click on the image for a larger preview.

Color logos

This exercise was for learning about PMS colors and applying emotional color styles to logos.

Monico Chavez

The inspirational artist this week is Moniko Chavez. I like how he layers colors in a sketchy way (like on the scooter in this picture above, or the rooster below. It gives the painting a kind of rambling, dynamic feel.

Kitty sketch

Those cats... need to stop being inspirational.

Wine label proof

This one was surprisingly fast but turned out well. The outline was an auto-traced sketch in Illustrator, and the colors were added in Photoshop. The fur effect was achieved by layering color and then using the smudge tool. I used complimentary colors to achieve an interesting contrast on the cat. Next I'll add the handwritten type and small copy.

Click to embiggen.

Foellinger Auditorium poster proof

This is the proof for a 11x17 inch poster of Foellinger Auditorium. I tried to do a scratchboard style by putting a black fill layer over my reference image and then painting on a mask layer.

I still need to adjust the symmetry of the image with the text and add color (like a watercolor style). I will also add some more details, finish the fence on the right side, etc.

Color music and dominance

Similar to what we did with rhythm, we listened to different types of music and made color schemes that we thought represent that music.

This one was called color "dominance" but it has more to do with emotion associations with colors.

Style inspiration by Linda Fennimore

I found Linda Fennimore's portfolio on Workbook this week. I like her use of light especially. For example, in this illustration, with the sun shining through the woman's sun hat. Even subtle, reflective lighting on the right side of the face.

This illustration also intrigued me because of the lighting, again, but this illustration also has an interesting effect with the tight composition and details of the water. It reduces depth in the illustration and makes the water seem very close and the image flat--except for the men in the boat.

Sketch of my friend Katie

I did this from a photograph, which had really awesome lighting. Sometime I might create a portrait of her digitally sometime. For now, a sketch.

Wine label concept

Here are three concepts for the "Krazy Kat Winery" wine label illustration. I like the first two concepts more because the cat is interacting with the brand name, bringing more attention to it.

I like the position of the cat in the first concept because it is more believable than the second one, although the second was created from an actual video of my personal crazy cat. For style, I would like to do a sketchy-but-realistic illustration (example below) in crazy colors--purples, oranges, and yellows.

Click images to embiggen.

Architecture illustration concepts

Here are two concepts for the poster of Foellinger Auditorium. The building is very symmetrical (neo-classical style, I think), so I wanted to emphasis this elegance in the poster. The first concept shows only one half of the building and allows for greater attention to the details, and has good assymetrical balance overall--which I think is typically more interesting as far as compositions go. The second concept I also like because it shows the quad (large, open lawn with diagonal sidewalks) where the building is located. This gives it a very regal appearance, akin to the White House. But, there would be less details--something that might be hard considering I want to do this in a woodcut or scratchboard style.

Zen clouds exercise

This exercise was our last formal one for class and concentrated on teamwork. The assignment was to create (within the limits of the class period) five illustrations for the story below. The title page, first, and last illustrations were supposed to remain as they were (with "Clouds" or blank). Our group of five people ended up splitting up the illustrations for one per person but agreed on a style--solid color (from the Art History: Medieval standard palette) with a simple, single object to represent the words.

Our teacher was really impressed, and said it looked like it was made by a single artist (he used the word "perfect"). I really liked the assignment because I think we were really successful in working together, and it was a lot of fun! Go team!

You can click on the images for larger versions.