Greetings!
I hope everyone's life is going good!
I'm making my re-appearance nearing the year. I know, I've been gone for so long! But I promise, I have good reasons. This place has been in my mind for the whole time. This post is going to be a little update on what's going on, as well as what I'm working on recently.
The reason I've been gone so long is... I'm back in University. I was a dropout before. I'd tried, struggled, battled with it but eventually I've dropped out. Earlier this year, a law passed in my country that made me able to return. I've applied and apparently, in two semesters, I was to graduate.
So... I'm a University student once again, this time running for the diploma!
Needles to say, it's hard. I had to temporarily say goodbye to my husband and my life with him. The schedule is tight. I mean, real tight. I'm nearing the first semester now. I still have a lot of work to do, but in the meantime, now I finally gathered enough work to be able to share with you! Yay!
This sketchdump will be about my diploma project. It's not finished yet, but it required some sketching and experimenting. Here we go!
The project is to make an illustrated children's book. Initially, I wanted to make an e-book app aiming at early elementary kids with animated illustrations and progress tracking. But the instructor encouraged me to make one single book. He was so convinced that I'd make a good children's book illustrator. No idea honestly, but I went with what he said.
At first, I collected various references, from the old books of my childhood, to the new book on the shelves today. The style variety is dizzying. But also, inspiring.
These example shots are from my presentation. (We have to make a project presentation in every few weeks.)
Then, I started sketching myself. Not my proudest sketches I might add, but still, they are work.
I was excited about the project, honestly. I could imagine myself illustrating children's book. I wanted to follow a "colored pencils over watercolors with natural textures" approach.
Then I wanted to elaborate on how different styles I could draw the character in. And yes, I included Adventure Time and Animal Crossing styles in those experiments, too.
Yet, the instructor wasn't happy. He said I could do these anytime if I wanted, and pushed me in a completely different direction.
Which is one-line art.
It didn't necessarily have to be one single art, but it looked like such.
I'm... Skeptical about this style. It's fun to work with, but I have no idea how I'm going to make this work. It's such a foreign style for me, I feel uncomfortable working in this style. But this is what we're going with apparently.
Eh, an artists has to push their limits from time to time, no?
Now I'm preparing the page layouts. Yesterday, we changed the paper format, but overall the layouts are going to be look like this, but on a larger, landscape look. I'm referencing from a lot of different artists and different styles as you can see. I can't draw everything in lines after all. I'm planning to give the environments a collage look, if I can make it.
So... That's it. That's what I've been working on. Of course, I have other classes and other drawings. but this one here is the most time consuming. I have no idea how the end result will look like. I still have a lot to work on, yet so little time to do so. I just wanted to share this big pile of experiments and sketches. I hope you enjoy them!
I have a couple more works to share up my sleeve, so, stay tuned for the future posts!