Visiting the Aquarium

I visited the plymouth Aquarium today and took some awesome pictures of various sea creatures! I mainly tried taking photos of octopus, squid etc, but the jellyfish were so beautiful I may have to add them to the post too!!!

I went with a friend and it was a great way to sketch from life the creatures I'll be drawing, even though I'll be simplifying the drawings, it's good to get the basis of how to draw the octopus/squid etc.

The photos came out well, it's a great reference imagery tool too, and because I took the photos I can draw for them without breaching any copyright issues!

Many Ways to Illustrate An Octopus

Just a few artists I've found whilst searching for octopus illustrations

Martin Hsu: 'Beastie Boys Intergalactic Elementary' I love the style of this illustration, there's a multi media feel to this illustration, but it does ultimately look digitalised with various layers and textures added to it, the stylised octopus is really original too.

 Vladimir Tomin: again another mized media feel, but mainly the use of pen to outline the illustration perhaps? Love the style of this illustration too, little hints of the sea theme like the shrimp and the scuba divers.

Cittlalli Guemes: 'Don't Find Me' I think this is one of my favourite octopus illustrations, it's a a really sweet illustration looks as though it should belong in a childrens book, but it has such a story to the single image, makes you think what's going to happen next, love the colour pallette too.

Yoann Plard: ' Don't Breathe Under the Sea' I like the idea behind this illustration, really simple colour palette and the title explains the story behind the illustration, would work really well in an editorial circumstance.

Lizzy John (GraySapphire): 'Fun Time Go' I love this illustration, it's probably my favourite out of my mini artist research, the style reminds me of some of my work (only the characters not the actual rendering of the image) I love the eyes and the fun little emotions and character in this image.

Sheena Aw (Caramel Aw): 'In My World' this is such a colourful 'kawaii' image, has a lot of character, and although the octopus have 4 tentacles it's immediate to tell what they are!

Contraomnes: 'Just Ten More Minutes Mom' Another favourite for me, really lovely colour pallete, and the rendering on the image is beautiful, tells a lovely story but ultimately I love the octopus character, it's a lot more realistic as opposed to the artist before who's really simplified the form.

Nicholas Roberston: 'No Sweat' Poster for Cardiff Arts Institute, I think this rendered image is more what I'd like to achieve, I'd probably go for a simpler pallete and character design, but the bold outline is what I really want to go for.

Fuxu: 'Octo Attacks' Although it's quite a dramatic image theres such a sweet innocent expression on the octopus, also love the hint of the background and the scene as it's more of a frothy sink that an ocean.

Kingcroco: 'OctoPirate' really love this idea, really original concept, it's like a futuristic bar, the sealife has taken over the world! Lovely Rendered digital image.

Toby Triumph: 'Octopus Ampersand' love the idea behind this too, really creative way of using illustration in text. Simple colour pallete, something I'd like to achieve when creating my illustration SIMPLICITY.

Amanda Quist: 'Octopus Garden' I love the style and rendering of this image, looks like it's been collaged and then digitalised or something? Really love the colour pallette and although it's a complex image, it's been made simply so for possibly children to read into a lot easier?

Berk Cankat: 'Pirate Fish and the Octo' I really like the characters in this image gives me a lot of inspiration for the characters I'll create for my controller.

Rubens Cantuni: 'Sweet Nightmare' really love the style of this image very 'kawaii' the colour pallette is amazing and really love the characters on this image, really want to interpret some of this style in my work.

Poked Studio: 'The Destroyer' really interesting colour pallete for a sea creature, quite a stormy but fun kawaii character again really great character in this image and love the additional little illustrations to the image.

Christopher Lee: 'The impossible circus' another image which is full of character, slightly different to the others whereby it has a clearer background, another lovely colour pallette, love the pinks and reds in this.

Meomi: 'The Octonauts and the Great Ghost Reef' I think this is a great piece of work to follow up on as there are many episodes and illustrative pieces for the octonauts, it's current I love the colour pallette and character design.

Little Box and Octopus Illustrations

Today I also painted some little wooden boxes with the blue chalk paint. I then used a permanant marker to draw some of my octopus characters on it, initally I tried just drawing them on without overlapping it but it looked too neat, so I developed my idea a little more and overlapped all the octopus characters.

This is the sort of thing I'd like to achieve for the controller, a cleaner approach to the design though, very minimal colour pallette, I could then do 3 submissions in three different colours, I'm also thinking of doing 2 whole A4 pages of the pattern to make it easier for the design to wrap around the controller template.

Initial Sketches and Sea-theme

Recently I've been doing some little sketches of octopuses which I think would tie in well with the Xbox controller theme, I'm hoping to create a sketchy overlapping pen design, but for now I need to create my characters, I might set myself a little challenge 25 different ways to draw an octopus [=

Mighty Boosh

Mighty boosh has been a great source of inspiration to me especially the illustrations Noel Fielding has done for the programme, it really fits in to the style of work I want to achieve in this module, working with pens in particular, I work with a lot of fineliners for my tattoo designs but would be good to carry it on in my other work too.

I got hold of this book in the charity shop it goes through the booshes journey as well as sooo many of the amazing illustrations that Noel has done, it really helps for the XBOX controller design I want to do.

3D Objects

After a tutorial, my tutors suggested it might be good to get an idea of what it's like to paint/draw onto 3D objects, just so I know what it'll be like when I design my image for the Xbox controller.

I went down the local charity shops and bought these two items, the simple toddler toy for hammering blocks and a mini chair, both different shapes giving me different scope of stuff to work with. I then bought some chalk paint so I could paint straight onto the wooden objects, it also means it'll be much easier to draw on after. Just a few pictures of the before and after the objects being painted

Being Painted

Painted!

It's ready for getting drawn on now!