The Infinite Idea

Here are some of the first digital work I have created on my tablet:

I’ve been busy strengthening my skills as an illustrator, especially drawing and composition. I have particularly been keen on scrubbing up on my watercolour artwork and working traditionally. Here are some of my favourite watercolour illustrations I have worked on in the last few months:

Last year I went on my first holiday abroad, this year I had my first plane trip. I don’t know anyone else who has never been on a plane before, but me. I used to have dreams of being on a plane and imagining what the experience felt like. I can’t quite put into words the entire experience. I have never even been to an airport, so the size of the aeroplane took me by surprise, let alone the journey. Anyhow, I loved having this experience and it was insane to be flying! Though I was not a fan of the night flight home.

Here are a few of the sketches I did on the go in Rome. Sorry about the not so great resolution, I’ll update with proper scan ins soon!

  Here’s a great snap my buddy Lewis Allum took of me drawing in the Colosseum (severe concentration face):

I have been using my commute time on the train to and from work to create various characters. These four lovely women (you wouldn’t want to mess with) were ridiculously fun creating and I’m hoping to create some further work using them. I am very happy how each of these turned out from roughly hour sketches on a moving train. It’s great to see improvement in how I draw faces and poses, from…

I really enjoyed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it was great to revisit the wizarding world with such a great selection of characters and plot. Those who know me will know that I adore film soundtracks and this was no exception. I have been listening to it on and off since seeing the film and I couldn’t resist creating a little illustration and possible poster… This was a really fun…

Hello! It’s been a while! (Happy New Year by the way!) I thought it was time to share some of my recent illustrations, where I have been practicing my digital painting and finessing my style. I think over the last year of working full time and working on plenty of personal projects that I feel confident in two styles. Working hands on with watercolour and combining hand sketches with photographs.…

Here are my favourites:

Day 3: Collect & Day 4: Garden Witch

Day 6: Oracle & Day 7: Lost

Day 8: Rock & Day 9: Lolita Witch

Day 10: Jump  – by far one of my favourite sketches!

Day 13: Gravity & Day 14: Tree

Day 20: Mermaid & Day 26: Flower

Day 22: Moon & Day 23: Fire

Day 24: Bird – I love toucans, I’m really happy with this sketch

Day 30: Ghost Witch & Day 31: Free Draw

  I really enjoyed Inktober and felt my old style & approach resurfacing. I definitely feel that my style and technique is improving and becoming stronger. I would love to do anything like this again, whether its Inktober next year or something I can setup myself I think it’s definitely worth it. Visit my instagram to see all my entries: Infinitiveidea

see you there!

I have been going to life drawing sessions for many months now, and I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge and seeing my improvements from week to week. I decided it was time to change which week I went to and go to the male session (men’s anatomy is hard to draw!)

  Here are some of my favourites, some are 5 minute sketches and most are 15 minute studies:

  These few are what I consider show the most improvement and best use of charcoal:

  After a few months of studing the male anatomy, I have decided to go back to the woman’s week. Even here I can see the improvement in my sketching, the shape, weight, details and tone:

See you soon, got some more updates to come.

The last time I did any life drawing was a year ago which was free to join as part of univeristy events: https://theinfiniteidea.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/life-drawing-part-2/

  The sessions are run by Adrian (http://www.adriandutton.com/), these sessions are on everyday in London in different locations the price is cheap for one-offs and drop ins (£8) and you can buy sets if your a regular. I really recommend this sessions as they are laid back, you can request for some tutoring by the session leaders, if not just pop along (materials are provided) and just draw. Here are my favourite outcomes:

Can’t we go now?

You may find this quite mad. I’ve never ben abroad, not even for a school trip. I got my passport last year, after having an interview to confirm I am who I am. I’ve always wanted to travel and explore the world, my entire perception of the world is horrifically stereotypocal. I say that because I’m embarrased to tell people or explain what I think the world is like. Anyhow, next week my best…

I was at the age that you draw your characters to look like you or in this case I imagined her to look like me grown up. In these games I used to play one plot over and over and the different scenarios which could take place.

It occurred to me a couple of months back that I had a character, a back story and a plot (all of which I can remember perfectly). Why not bring her to life?

This was my first attempt of drawing this character, using my new love of pencil and digital colouring. But her pose, anatomy, posture wasn’t right. Looking back at it now it is not good at all, though I really liked the costume I had designed (and used this as future reference).

  Instead of drawing her in the typical facing forward, I thought it would be best if I learnt how to illustrate her in those scenarios I mentioned. I decided when I was a kid that the most interesting powers there could be was a teleporter, which allowed her to jump from place to place. Here you can see on the left is my hand drawn and watercoloured illustration and on the right is my pencil work digi-painted.

  On this recent drawing and digi-painting you can see the improvements. I have joined a fortnightly life drawing class which has helped me grasp anatomy, poses and body shapes (should be posting my drawings soon). I think the refinements and developments to her suit really work, and adding a different colour to step away from that initial Egyptian colour scheme.

What you haven’t seen is her development in small sketches and face drawings, trying to harness what kind of character she is. I feel that there is potential to make this childhood story into a project. I’m hoping to perhaps do a small graphic novel for my portfolio. So, stick around folks! Updates and posts to come!

See you soon. x

  This is one of my initial sketches of Lyra, she was/is quite hard to stylize and develop. I thought by dressing her like this there is a connection to the film adaptation as well pointing out straight away that she is quite tomboyish whilst giving a subtle hint to Pan’s last form in the final book. I don’t like her face in this sketch, the shape is too rounded and childish which does not suit her character. I also made her hair far too dark here, it should be a dirty blonde with hints of a mousy brown.

I drew the above on the train over a few days on & off, I had just drawn her sitting down with out any suggestion of buildings or perspective. I was worried to ruin the sketch but I jumped in anyway (bravely without any perspective grid lines) and produced a sketch. I watercoloured this but found that I needed to use lighter shades and colours. Also watercolour gave this washed out (no pun intended) effect rather than the 3d feel I wanted.

Thankfully before comitting to watercolour I scanned this one in……

I’m so happy with this one! The watercolour one disappointed me as I thought it woud turn out fine. Using the sketch I scanned in, on Pshop underneath the drawing layer I digi-painted each section of this drawing. In doing this it emphasises the concept and perception that we are looking at 3d elements. I have been colouring this every lunch time at work for a few weeks and it was definitely worth it! This is my first full on digi-painting since school, it seems that working with different tones and opacities comes to natural to me.

I intially wanted to create illustrations in a similar method to my ‘Tale of a tail’ and ‘Alice’s adventures in wonderland’, with photographic elements. But I am seriously considering using the above style. To create a depth of field, I selected all the elements in the distance from Lyra, Pan and the roof, and used gaussian blur.

This is a new favourite technique and style, there is so much more experimenting I could do!

I’m hoping to do some more digi-painting soon, so keep a look out!

One set or collection of books ‘Dark Materials’ by Phillip Pullman aimed for young teens but read by all are amazing. You may have heard of the film ‘The Golden Compass’ based on the first book in this triology, ‘The Northern Lights’. The film came out a while ago and from what I know, flumped. As a kid though, I really enjoyed the film but it did not do this amazing story any justice. I remember seeing all three books in my school libraries, I always read the blurbs but was unsure abiut reading this triology. I would give you a short summary but I encourage to either read the triology under the name of ‘Dark Materials’ or look it up!

Mrs Coulter has to be one of my favourite characters in the book series. She’s charming and manipulative, which is always a bad combination. She’s used to getting what she wants, the focus of everyones attention and an undeniably strong woman.

I know I mentioned that the film adaptation wasn’t very well recieved but I do like the chracterization and style of Mrs Coulter played by Nicole Kidman. Some of the scenes and stylization of her character inspired me.

One thing which I felt was important was the relationship between human and daemon. I wanted this to be visually noticable bearing in mind how subtle details can enhance the connection. For instance the above look I have been exploring for Mrs Coulter’s North wear, I have kept an element of her Golden Tamrian Monkey daemon’s mane, with in her coat, her black gloves to match his hands and his stern expression.

This is a fun project to work on as it includes drawing people and animals, which is something I love to do.

  I’m still working on creating some finalised illustrations for my portfolio, I feel like Mrs Coulter’s style and look is almost there…

  Lord Asriel..

I always struggle drawing men, I understand the female anatomy and body language but men are hard!

I still have a lot of work to do on the character of Lord Asriel, but I know how I want him to look and how to portray the relationship between his daemon and himself.

If you’ve been following, you’ll know that I was commended for my illustrations entered for the Pan Macmillan.

https://theinfiniteidea.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/ycn-student-awards-201/

Being commended was one of the most exciting things to have happened to me, and my illustrative work. All commendees have been shown and included in their annual, YCN 2014-2015.

This annual is sent out to all creative universities, studios, agencies and a fair few big cheeses.

Three years ago…

Hey everyone, Three years ago today, I started this blog. It was part of our university work, in which setting up a blog we could see how to represent ourselves and get our work out there. Many other people I know never continued their blogs, they started fresh or decided blogging wasn’t for them. This was my first post: This is a new journey I’m embarking on through the world of blogging. I have…

Heres a mouse…

Working full time in a creative and busy role, has led to me having constant illustrative output. Ideas sparked by something I’m working on at work or applying a new technique I have learnt. I doodled this little mouse on my train home last week, (ignore the slight colouring to his face, I got a bit carried away) You just have to remember when you draw mice that they look like they’re wearing…

A little bit of magic…

As you may notice, I have a passion for many films and series. One of which I enjoy but didn’t realise how much I love it, until recently. The series of course is Harry Potter, I grew up with the books and films.It has such a sense of my childhood and I always enjoy watching them. One of my friends, the lovely Jenny (go check her out here:https://definitelyjenny.wordpress.com/) and I decided to…