The digital sepia sketch created in Photoshop from my original pencil drawing.Watercolour Illustration: I'm trying to walk the dog!I can't leave this theme alone! It is one of the best I have played with. Yesterday I was reflecting on how silly my Jack Russel is when we take her for a walk. She is so impatient to get going she almost chokes herself. She pulls on her lead until she is out of
With a theme like impatience the possibilities were endless. I thought of so many scenarios it was hard to choose. I settled on a little boy busting to go surfing. I was going to have his mother running over to him in a desperate panic, however because he is unattended (except for his little sister), this scene creates a bit more tension.Process:I sketched the illustration in grey lead in my
Scribble Freakys Do you remember how Mr Squiggle (a children's T.V character who drew with his nose) used to create a picture from a child's scribble? Have you ever looking at the clouds and visualised animals and shapes in them?I finished this children’s illustration with fifteen strange characters I call my "Scribble Freakys". Their name derived from the process in which I created them. Most of
Yesterday I finished three more illustrations for the game I posted about earlier. I have also altered quite a few of the earlier ones. It does pay to have a few days break and come back to revisit the Illustrations with a fresh eye. Some are quite different now. These cards are printed small and as a result the image lost some detail. I needed to print them out to see the impression reduced.
This is a classic example of how much we may modify our original idea. I was flicking through some old sketch books for some inspiration for a double page children's book spread. I spent the day playing with the image in Photoshop scribbling away in my imagination. This is what I came up with. It is hardly finished but I managed to get a bit done. Pretty tired again at 2.15am though. I need is a
I have managed to complete two more Illustrations for the Christian game I am working on. I have sketched up 5 more Illustrations and hope to get more done today. All the Illustrations done before where formed directly on the PC with no thumbnails but really I should be sketching everything up first. I have to say I love this happy crab.He looks so friendly for a creature with sharp nippy legs!I
IDLE"Of course your idle. All you do is sway in the breeze, drop a few leaves now and then and watch the gardener rake em up"I am working on a set of designs for a Children’s Christian game for young children. I am really enjoying creating the little cards for this. The tree is as idle as you can be I guess…he is not going anywhere! I will post when I have finished but for now here is a sample
Thank you to those who took the time to comment on the last post.Future progress on my Tango Illustration. I am not sure if i have finished with it yet but if not it is pretty close. The second image shows the detail better. I have tried to preserve some of the sketchy line work.To see earlier stages click here
It has been ages since I submitted to Illustration Friday and I have been itching to get into my painting more, but in particular Illustration, in fact this is the area I have recently decided to concentrate on. I have always wanted to illustrate children’s books so now I am going to devote as much time as I can to getting some work up and pursuing this professionally. Although I have yet to
Today I finished an illustration in Ilustrator CS3, inspired by the story of a boy with a very bad temper I recieved an email from a friend the other day. I was inspired to use it for my CRE Prep class so I re-wrote it for younger children and illustrated a book cover in colour. The pages will be in the form of a colouring book so the kids can read and colour in the pages. I will update my blog
Hi Everyone, this is another coincindence for me as I happen to have just started illustrating a story my friend has written. I've never done this before so I'm treating it a bit like a college assignment and hopefully will end up with artwork suitable to send to publishers! Here's a page of studies I made of one of the main characters. He's called 'Bear.'
Someone asked me about Edgar Allan Poe while I was signing in Mantova a few days ago, which reminded me that I wrote an introduction to a book of illustrated Poe poems and stories which Barnes and Noble published a few years ago. Seeing that their book is now out of print, I don't think anyone would object if I put the essay up here at www.neilgaiman.com
It's at http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/essays/essaysbyneil/poe/
(And for those of you reading this on an RSS feed, you can find it, and many more odd and interesting things at http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/)
I know that you are very busy at the moment, but should you find time to mention in your blog that Charles Vess and Charles de Lint will appear together tomorrow night (Monday, Sept. 10th) at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville, NC to read, sign books, and answer questions, then I just might be the happiest little bookseller in the world. Pretty please? Much Love, -Gina
easy! I hope that people read this in time.
Neil,
This has probably already been brought to your attention, but just in case it slipped through the cracks... Here's a little piece that thinks they've figured out the virus that's causing the colony collapse disorder of the honey bees.
Looks like we might be getting some Israeli honeybees!
felix
Yup, people had sent it to me, but I hadn't put it up here. And should have done...
...
Over at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wardomatic/1324443199/ you can see the CORALINE poster that Laika films made for Comic-Con.
...
Your nose looks fine in the Enormous Polaroid. I thought you might like to be reassured about this.
Also, that's a very nice photo for a camera phone (the photo you took of the Enormous Polaroid, I mean). Is it one of those iPhone things? I'm not trying to trick you into endorsing your camera phone - I'm genuinely curious as to which phone works that well.
Thank you!
My nose looks fine because the photographer sensibly had me looking in the other direction, so the side of my nose that had gone a bit wonky (but is now fine, thank you very much) is brilliantly hidden.
The phone is a Nokia N73, with a nice little 3.2 megapixel camera built in. I bought it a week ago in Amsterdam airport, and so far I really like it, although the little navigation button could be better designed. Here's a shot I took with it of the square in Mantova a couple of days ago, with one of the many festival tents below.
And now I'm going to do the sort of things you do when you fetch up in the UK and you've been travelling for a few weeks. I'm going to Boots, and I'm going to buy shaving oil and more toothpaste, for example. Then I'm going to M&S and I'm going to buy a black sweater or two, because it's going to get colder on my travels from here on out.
Then I think maybe I might do some writing. That would be nice.
...
Given that I was bragging the other night about how the readers of this blog between them know everything, I wondered if anyone knew whether there was a good on-line map of the actual journey from China to India made by the Monkey and his traveling companions in the Wu Cheng'en book
Journey to the West?
There is a theme in today’s posts. I was contacted by a nice lady from the media asking to talk to me about homelessness and libraries, no doubt brought about by this AlterNet post (originally here) written by the retired assistant director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System. I’d seen the link earlier but read about it, and participated in some discussion, on MetaFilter. I pointed people to the American Library Association’s Library Services to Poor People policy, and encouraged a visit to ALA’s Hunger Homelessness and Poverty Task Force website which is full of resources and thoughtful discussion.
When I was in Australia I went to many urban libraries and didn’t see the same homeless populations that I do in most urban US libraries. I also saw a lot of security cameras in the libraries, on the streets, everyplace. I’m fairly certain Australia has a better social safety net than we do in the US, but it was clear that keeping a close eye on the population may be part of that, which I was reminded of by reading Aaron’s post today about cameras in London. All the cameras just made me feel … weird.
cameras,
homeless,
libraries,
surveillance
Very cute :-)
That's a great illustration! Love the colors!
I love it! What a fantastic illustration!! She better hold on! Those are some powerful poochies!!<br /><br />Thanks for sharing your process!
This is amazing! I love the little girl's exasperated expression!<br /><br />Bravo, indeed!
Cute!