Pattern 3 : Humpty Dumpty/Birds

I am a bit stuck with my final pattern for studio brief 3. I wanted to draw birds as the title of this story is Four and Twenty Blackbirds. However, I found it difficult to draw 10 different blackbirds so I decided to illustrate 10 Humpty Dumpty with different emotions as this story is about the death of Humpty Dumpty.

I wanted to add a trouser for my character because it looks too empty but after I add a short trouser, it looks weird so I might try to add a longer trouser.

I think the trouser still look weird and I cannot get the hand right. So I decided to give up on illustration Humpty Dumpty and try to draw birds hopefully it will work.

^ Image references

I don't know if this count as cheating by I traced some birds images then added some my own imaginary details onto it. This is because I couldn't draw birds. I tried but they looks wrong.

The making of one of my bird.

10 birds

This is what my final pattern looks like after I laid out all my birds. I had to rotate the birds so the all facing to the left. I showed this to my industrial design friend, she said it looks cute then I told her that this meant to look creepy. She advised me to change the eyes.

Below are some experiments :- 

She told me to change the eyes shape to something like image below

Then she advised me to rotate 180 degrees 

The eyes still look wrong and I decided to leave them as they were.

Final pattern number 3. I hope by using a dark colour scene will still create a creepy mode even the bird illustrations look cute.

Sign up tutorial

I had my sign up tutorial with Fred and he advised me to :-

1. think about the layout for my pattern
2. use a bit of my printed pictures  for animation
3. think about the paper stock for studio brief 3

He also said for my animation - because I want to make some sketchbooks/note books for my studio brief 3, why don't I use my sketchbook/note book that I make behalf of my animation. E.g by using my 1st idea of animation (someone holding a book ad the book open, then some character jump into the pages - click here)).

He told me that I would not be able to have enough time to create new stuff for my animation as I only have a month of studio time.

Pattern 2 : Clown

Image below are my reference images for clowns. I looked at Jack-in-the-box, scary clown, scary makeup and frogs' eyes.

I think it is interesting to mix variety creatures into one. e.g. using frogs' eyes for clown.

^sketches of scary clown, ready to digitise in Ps.

I created clowns in photoshop using the same steps, brush tool and other tools as I did in my previous pattern (houses with feet)

I used the lasso tool to create the path and used the brush tool to colour it in.

Sometimes I can't digitise my sketch to look exactly like it because I think it looks wrong (like image above). THis is due to I work with a limited colour pallet so the detail in the illustration have to be quite simple and legible.

These two images are my clowns that i already digitised that ready to arrange as a pattern. 

I had to change the height so the pattern got some breathing space. I also cropped it a bit.

This is how my pattern look like when I placed all my 10 clowns. However I think my clowns look too cramp and close to each other. Because I already separate the  layers according with the colour, I had had to rearrange my clowns again

I created a new document to rearrange my clowns.

Done ! I am very satisfied with the gap between each clown.

Apparently, the clowns look creepier without the green face.  think I am going to use image above as my final design for Pattern 2.

Pattern 1 : Chicken feet houses

My first pattern was inspired by one of Gaiman's quote from one of the short story that called 'The Witch's Headstone' and this is the quote '.. travel on a house of chicken legs' . 

Below are images of Neil Gaiman's  official book cover.

Below are my reference images for the house. I found a very useful website called http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/ which contain a lot of variety different type of houses.

^Sketches of houses with chickens/witchs' legs.

^ These are some illustrations that I created using some tools in Photoshop. I think I am going to do 10 different houses (5 with chickens legs and 5 with witches legs). I did more than 10 sketches so that will benefit me.

This image above fail because the house look too bright and doesn't suit with my theme and concept. So I might change the colour similar to the previous house. e.g. black colour for the wall and dark yellow colour for the window.

I had to use Hue/Saturation to change the colours

I came out with this. I don't like the outcome as the texture is too big compared to the other houses that I creates.  So I probably not going to use this house to put on my pattern, perhaps I could remake it.

After a while, I realised that the house doesn't have a creepy and dark feeling into it because I put them in a white background. After I had a long battle with myself, I decided to change the colour of the background from white to black (as most Gaiman's book cover background colour are black) and black colour will give more creepy and dark feeling into my design. Which mean I had to change the colour of the house by using Hue/Saturation.

I either use the lasso tool or the pen tool to create those shapes in Photoshop. I am trying to not use Illustrator as Illustrator is my comfort zone

Because I will be screen printing, it is my job to make sure all the same colour in the same layer

In order to get some part of my illustration look identical, I usually use a duplicate trick where I duplicate the object/layer then flip it if i needed to.

Because I am so demanding on make sure everything is neat and tidy, I usually use the grid as a guide for me to get everything align. 

The image above are my 10 houses that I have create for the repeated pattern. 

Below are some experiments on colours. 

I know I will be screen print this pattern, I just want to see the possible outcome for the colour after I screen print it. 

At first I picked yellow but suddenly I realised that it didn't give a creepy and dark effect so I experimented with other colours e.g. purple, blue and red. I think for colour I probably going to use monochrome and dark red.

I just realised that I haven''t separate the colours. So I had to restart my pattern again by making a new A3 document and placing each one of the house illustration in the pattern document. 

But before placing them in the pattern document in Photoshop, I had to group and name them so they will not mix up with the other house documents. 

^ I grouped each house and place them in the A3 pattern document.

Then I merged all the same colour shapes into one layer.

For screen printing then I changed each of its level until it turned black, save as Jpeg and ready to expose.

^ These are some of test of screen printing. To be honest none of them are successful. It could be because of :

• The colour meant to be dark red and monochrome but I mixed the colour wrongly.
• My screen is too small so all the positive cramp into one A3 screen
• My paint is too thick - not enough emulsion
• The illustrations are too small for the paint to get through the screen

After talking to a technician in the workshop, he told me that my paint is too thick. He also advised me to come back at 1pm to buy some emulsion so I can make my paint less thick and not easy to dry. 

Concept review and final project proposal

Fred told us to swat our brief to other people to see if they understand the same way as I do about my brief.

1. What is the brief asking?

Asking me to produce 3-5 patterns

2. What is it trying to achieve?

Handmade, hand bound pattern books. the contact of which is dark with a limited colour pallet and playful yet creepy

3. what is the products be ?

Hand bound books containing a handmade cover, possibly including some postcards.

4. what is the audience?

People who like be spoke station e.g. an artist need sketchbooks, gift buyers, teenagers who like creepy yet playful imaginary

5. what is the content ?

Character of Neil Gaiman can be sold in Waterstone, Colour May Vary

6. 5 questions that jumped into you ?

-each print isn't yet considered

-no description of what each individual pattern will contain, too 

-why sketchbook covers? is it because there is a specific audience that you want to target?

- book cover perhaps you will be making more work for yourself with less reward

- are there other area that are more suited with the argot audience of Neil Gaian's books of which you could create a product. e.g. children's colouring book

-screen print cover with colour black outline artwork to 'colour in'