Further Character Development

Following on from the progress tutorial with Teresa, I began to think about if the character designs with the long arms were too inaccessible for a children's book, I also felt that my design's were becoming to similar to that of Chris Simpson Artist, and this frustrated me in terms of my own creative practice. 

I don't want my work to remind people of another illustrator therefore I need to consider if I'm using my inspirations in the wrong way. More research and experimenting with design needs to be carried out before I can be happy with how my work is progressing.

I discussed with Tersesa, how, despite my book being initially aimed for children, I'd like it to have a tone of voice that could appeal to adults that are interested in the graphic novel style book. I'd like to think that this book could be sold in shops such as colours may vary and travelling man as a piece of art almost that could be collected and appreciated for the craft behind it, and on a more basic level, the poems and characters for the children. 

As a method for creating my characters differently from other illustrators, I looked at my sketches that I have been collecting from my attendance to the life drawing society. I've been really enjoying studying the human form and feel that my basic drawing skill has improved even from a  few times of attendance. 

I began to consider the concept of combining the moon and star heads with the larger human bodies as a way of stepping away from the 'alien' and the characters becoming almost god like creatures, the bodies seem mighty and almost powerful with the heads still having the surreal aspect behind them. I really like this idea, I just need to continue to play and experiment and work out how this can work in terms of storyboarding and further development behind my book.

I initially experimented with using different media to gain an understanding how the textures and tones of the different media and colours can effect the appeal of the characters. Similarily to Ed Cheverton, I'm a big fan of the hand made aspect of illustration, I feel that the texture of the colouring pencils and the tone of gouache really add a hand made and more personal element to the book, making it able to appeal to a more child friendly audience. 

NEXT STEPS

• My next steps will be to begin to consider the layout of the physical poetry pages and see how these new characters can work out alongside each other.
• I need to consider colours and think about the different poses that I want the bodies of the two characters to have.
• If I'm going to be creating the 6 pages from the poem, I will need to think about the other poems that could be included within the book, even if I'm not eventually going to be illustrating them, it will be useful to see how the 'adventures of starry shine and shiny star' could come together as a book, and possibly a series.