Tag: Illustration

Business Cards

From the pressures of Black Friday, and with the desire to make new business cards, as I can’t find or remember where the last ones are, and the fact that I had ended up not really liking them when comparing them to the rest of my classes, they did match my portfolio book, however by themselves, the pattern was a bit busy and over overpowering in a sense, I decided to take this opportunity to design new business cards, and potentially get a good deal for them.

Recently, I had seen an artist I follow on Instagram, by the name of @Imzeferino post an image of her new business cards, and I had really enjoyed the layout of them.  As shown in the images below, she had created a character, which may be a representation of herself, on the front of her card and had put all of her information on the back. I like the idea of this, as her business card is so beautiful that it is almost a print in itself, so when people receive her work, they would also receive the business card, which in my mind, would be like getting two prints for the price of one, even if the second is smaller.

 

Isadora Zeferino – Business Card Front
Isadora Zeferino – Business Card Back

business cards woman

So taking inspiration from this layout, I tried choosing one of my own designs, that could be the best representation of my work. I had initially planned to use one of my queens, click here to see which, but I could not seem to fit her correctly into the template I was using, and I had started to lose faith in her, whether she was, in fact, the best representation of myself and my work. So back to the drawing board, I decided that I would use a different design, one which I am quite proud of, which I have not seemed to get sick of as of yet. I am talking about the piece to the right, which I had initially designed to go on the window inside of my classroom, using a vinyl, but as that was a representation of my work during the exhibition and will be until it is taken down, and as I have not fallen out of love with it yet, after seeing it in class for the past however many weeks I have been back at college for, I decided it will be a good motif to use for my business card.

When first designing this, using the templates on Vistaprint, (review possibly coming when the business cards arrive?) due to pressures of the Black Friday sales, as I had started this process on Wednesday night, I did partially rush the process, basically only using sources available to hand, as opposed to putting some actual time and effort into the design, which I do regret now looking back, but I have gone back into the design and refined it further, putting the actual time and effort into it, as I should have done in the beginning, so, as the woman did not need much work, other than positioning her on the layout, I tried taking shortcuts with the back of the card, using the fonts available from the website for the titles, and for the social links I had tried to take the ones I had hand-drawn for my inktober zine, which were pretty rough but at that time, I just thought ‘it’ll do’.

 

I am so glad that I had decided to get a second opinion the following day, however, as there was a lack of effort within the design, and I believe it would have been visible if I had sent them off, which would not have been a good selling point to potential clients, for them to see that if I can not put the effort into my own branding, why would they want to hire me. So, my second opinion had come from my tutor Laura during a one to one, who had suggested that I have look on google fonts. This suggestion was mostly directed at the font I had used for the social links as the one I had drawn is very common and quite ‘indie/hipster’ these days, (if the term hipster is still even used nowadays?). So once home, I had searched google fonts and found a couple which could work. The sans serif ones were more directed at the titles, as my tutor said that since I create more fantasy inspired pieces, I would be more able to get away with this type of font, but personally sans serif fonts are my favourite, as I feel they are more historical or fantasy inspired than serif fonts? The serif fonts I had selected were more directed at the social links. Taking inspiration from the original (but rough) layout, I still wanted to use a thin and slightly elongated text. Again when talking to Laura, I had found this was another preference of mine, as I do tend to like tall and slim things, like models or illustrations of women with elongated necks, or creepy hands with long thin fingers, (I’m trying my hardest not to make this sound weird).46849209_206065056988570_6106583255912284160_n.jpg

So I had decided to work with both types of fonts, but from a list of options, I had asked my friend Kellie if she thought the fonts would work together or whether she thought I should keep looking. My friend is currently studying Graphic Design at Lincoln University but has more knowledge, more love and a better eye for typography so her opinion was very valuable to me! From the options I had shown her, she had selected two fonts that she felt would work together, one being a serif and the other being sans serif, and I had very much agreed with her choices beforehand, but I did want her genuine opinion so did not tell her until afterwards.

So getting back to my design, using the two new fonts, I had redesigned the information side of my business cards, and I had also created new social icons by using a watercolour brush in photoshop, taking a swatch from the red on the woman, then I painted it into a selected area that I had made from a specific icon.

 

From Laura’s advice, once I had recreated my business card, (with more effort this time) she had told me to ask one of my other tutors, Sarah, who teaches graphic design, and will have a better idea about layout, typography and so on, so I had asked her the following day.  Although we were both somewhat sidetracked at that time, more focused on creating zines with the risograph, she had explained to me the improvements I could make, one being making more difference between each set of words, my name, job title, then the social links, and she had drawn me a diagram which did help in showing her view, but as I had gotten sidetracked for a while then came back to it, I was more confused than I originally was, wondering whether I had actually gotten the layout correct and so on. At this point of the day, Sarah had already gone home, so it was too late to get her opinion again.

So, I had rallied up a few classmates, Katie and Grant, to try to get their opinion and potentially make any more improvements. From this, I had moved together with the spacing between my forename and surname, I had resized the job title and had repositioned the social media links. Then, with the help and suggestion of Grant, I had added in a line between my name and job title, so that they would be more separate from one another, this did make it look more professional, but also helped in tying the design together, especially as Grant was experimenting with the line, and had turned it into a textured brush stroke instead. This again made my business card look more professional, but also gave a hint to my job with the brush stroke.

For a final nod of approval, I sent the design back to my friend Kellie to get her opinion of the design, and all she had suggested was centring the design so that there was the same amount of white space above as there was below, but other than that, she loved it. So after making this final adjustment, I uploaded the designs to Vistaprint and have now sent them off. From my email, the expected delivery date will be on the 30th, so next Friday, so I will potentially review the company and the quality of my business cards then.

 

I would like to say a great big thank you to all of the people who had helped me through this process, two of my tutors, Laura and Sarah, who I believe read my blogs because they have to (I’m sorry, but thank you for your input) and I would like to thank my fellow classmates Katie Marshall, otherwise known as NosticArt on both Instagram and WordPress, and Grant Oliphant who goes by his name on both Instagram and WordPress. I don’t believe either will probably read this post or get this far if they do, let’s be honest. And lastly my friend Kel, who again, probably won’t read this blog, but she is the most amazing and valued adviser, and she is amazing at what she does, so if anyone is still reading at this point, you should definitely have a look at her work on Instagram @Kxllixdesign.

 

business cards

Edit/Addition – 18/04/2019

Since creating a website for myself, I felt this would be a key link missing from my business card so I decided to redo the information side. In this second attempt, I had downloaded free vector social media icons from iconfinder.com, a group which was named ‘Social Media (Solid) Icons created by Bagus Kusnadar, click here to download them yourself. By downloading the icons from the same group, this made them more uniform than the previous ones I used, as they are all square, as opposed to a mixture of circles and squares. I still applied the same colours and textures to the icons, however since there are now more links, the layout has changed slightly so below is shown the new information.

 

List of Illustrations

Figure 1 and 2 – Zeferino, I. (17 Nov. 2018) Instagram. [Online] Available from:  https://www.instagram.com/p/BqSkrJllskE/ [Accessed on 23 Nov 2018]

Icons Downloaded – [Online] Available from: https://www.iconfinder.com/iconsets/social-media-solid-2 [Accessed on 18 Apr 2019]

All of the other imagery used is my own.

 

The Timeplan

9 weeks into the first semester and I’m already not following the timetable I had originally planned within my proposal for the year.

 

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Original Timetable (Before I had switched the Wizard of Oz project with the L.W.W project in Semester 2)

I believe this is due to multiple confusing factors from the beginning till now, one of them being that I have chosen to read all of the books. After finishing The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and realising how long it had taken, (which wasn’t exactly long, but longer than I had initially expected) I decided to start reading ‘Howls Moving Castle’ for the House of Illustration competition, then after I finished that, I started and am currently reading Norwegian Wood, but I still have to read Wonder, both books being apart of the Penguin competition.

Another factor to my confusion is that my tutor has been wanting specific things done by a certain point, such as a statement of intents or the research for the projects, so instead of working at my own pace, following my set timetable, I have been trying to complete them all at once which has not done me very well.

So, with these factors, I feel I have just gotten confused in which project I should be working on, so probably have not done as much as I could have if I were specifically concentrating on one.

SO, with 9 weeks left, (8 now that I am posting this) I am going to replan my timetable so that I can properly concentrate on one project at a time.

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New and Improved Timetable, Starting 12/11/18

Inktober – I have spent wayyyy too long on this project, so this week (and possibly a bit of next) I am going to try round off this project, getting the zines printed, making sure that everything is fully annotated, making an evaluation, and just getting this project out of the way so that I can concentrate on the others properly.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – I know I need time to work within the college, using the facilities available, so I believe I am going to work on this project next week, then break off for a month or so to do the competitions, then during the last 2 weeks before deadline, I will print my final designs and round off the project

House of Illustration – 3 (now 2) weeks from now, I plan to focus on my House of Illustration project, creating a book cover and set of illustrations for the book ‘Howls Moving Castle, over a 3-week time period. This time will be spent on researching, sketching, experimenting, then producing the final designs.

Penguin Student Design Awards – 6 (now 5) weeks from now, I will start working on yet another competition, which again I plan to do within a 3-week timeframe. Again, I will be working in a similar routine/method to the previous project, researching, sketching, experimenting, then producing the final designs, however, this time I will be doing this process with two books, one being Wonder by R. J. Palacio, and Norweigan Wood by Haruki Murakami.

I hope that with this new timetable, that there will be less confusion, I will be able to focus on one project at a time, and inevitably, I will be able to get more work done.

Melon and Lime Comics – Meet Arya!

Following from last weeks comic, ‘Meeting Tilly’, we had wanted to introduce our other cat, Arya.

When coming up with a concept for this comic, we had so many different stories about Arya and her typical habits, so instead of just focusing on one story (as we had done for Tilly) we decided to incorporate all of our ideas into one, working in a similar style as to the comic we had created based on mine and Liam’s ‘Artist Quirks’ when that subject was trending amongst the artist community on Instagram.

arya

Although I did not have many technical difficulties with this comic, I believe because they were all designed on one page and opposed to designing the frames one by one which would be on a bigger scale, looking at the piece now, I do think I should have made the text within the frames bigger, so that they could be more readable. So this will be something that I will consider more in future comics.

If you enjoy this comic and would like to see more of our work, feel free to have a look at our Instagram page @MelonandLimeComics. We hope you enjoy!

Melon and Lime Comics – Meet Tilly!

Back again with a new comic!

This one is about Liam’s cat named Tilly, who I have practically adopted since first ever meeting her, seeing that she OBVIOUSLY loves me more!

Me and Liam were talking about the comics and how Wednesday (my kitten) has been a main character in most of the comics so far, but Liam also has two other cats that live in his room, who I also class as my children, so we wanted to introduce these characters into our comics too. This week we decided to start with Tilly.

Tilly is the type of cat that you have to be patient with, she pretty much hates everyone, including me when we first met (she’d just run and hide from me), but once she got to know me better, and I learned more about her tendencies, she let me cuddle her (at her specific times only) and has ended up sleeping on me most nights.

Liam and Tilly, on the other hand, have more of a love-hate relationship, I guess because he has to live with her all the time, and I’m just blinded by heart goggles, but she tends to do things that anger him more, such as jumping onto his PC, knocking things over, etc, but I seem to be more patient with her, which is why I believe she loves me more, other than the fact I feed her meat.

So, me and Liam had wanted to express this relationship and introduce Tilly into our comics, and to our audience, expressing her personality as best as we could.

I did have similar struggles when it came to producing these comics as I had last week, (i.e. my computer running slower, especially when it came to colouring) but since I knew this would be an issue again, I was somewhat more prepared, in the sense that I knew what was to come, so I would say that I got slightly less stressed than I had in the previous week.

If you are enjoying our comics and would like to see more, please check out our Instagram @Melonandlimecomics. We do hope to make and post at least one comic per week. We hope you enjoy!

Howls Moving Castle – Review

SPOILER WARNING! Possibly? If you have not read the story or have not seen the movie, there could potentially be spoilers within this blog. There may not be, but the warning is there just in case!

After finishing this book I have found that I have personal issues with letting go. I loved this story so much that I just wanted it to keep going, I wanted to know what else happened, even if it was just following the characters day to day life. This book had me well and truly hooked, and I’m sad that it is over and I can’t read onwards.

I had also come across this issue when watching Bohemian Rhapsody, I have become so drawn in by the people and the story, that I want to find out more about Queen and the members, especially Freddie, I just want to know more of their story, I want to know everything! I went to see the movie on Halloween, and since, I have been watching old interviews or documentaries, or interviews from the cast of Bohemian Rhapsody, etc, pretty much on a daily basis, it’s becoming a problem. If you haven’t seen the movie, I would definitely recommend!

Anyways, moving away from my tangent and getting back to the review at hand, I loved this story. I was going to try explaining the story, but I could not find the words to do so, to do it justice, or not give away too much of the story, so quoting from the book’s blurb by Diana Wynne Jones:

“In the land of Ingary, where seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist. Sophie Hatter attracts the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste, who puts a curse on her. Determined to make the best of things, Sophie Travels to the one place where she might get help – the moving castle which hovers on the nearby hills.

But the castle belongs to the dreaded Wizard Howl whose appetite, they say, is satisfied only by the hearts of young girls” (Diana Wynne Jones, 2009)

The book managed to suck me in, not with the battles between Howl and the Witch or Sophie and the Witch, but more within the simplicities of the everyday happenings within Sophie’s life, because there was always something new happening, whether it was her conversations with Michael, Calcifer or even her disputes with Howl, there would always be a new interest within that day, whether Sophie was (SPOILERS?) jumping from place to place with seven-league boots, accidentally growing Howls suit too long,  getting lost around Kingsbury, the list just goes on and it is what I believe made the book so much fun to read, the battling with the Witch was just a bonus.

The book is different from Studio Ghiblis adaptation, although I did personally enjoy the book more, as I felt I learnt more about the characters than the movie had given, I do believe they are both amazing in their own rights.

DEFINITE SPOILERS AHEAD!

There have been changes made in the process of turning the story into a movie, some more obvious than others such as:

  • Studio Ghibli have definitely added their overall aesthetic to the movie, such as
    • the appearance of the characters and the castle. In the book, I believe Michael is supposed to be older, whereas, in the movie, Markl seems quite young, but does disguise himself as an older wizard a lot.
    • the castle is a lot more creature looking within the movie, with elements that could suggest eyes, a mouth and possibly wings, whereas the author had described a more typical castle, which is blockier with turrets and chimneys etc.
    • the Witches henchmen have a more blob-like appearance, they do not have faces so it is quite creepy.
  • The theme of war is more present within the movie. According to an interview at the end of the book, the author had said that this was Miyazaki’s influence as he “crammed the story full of flying machines and war scenes” which was based on a brief mention of war from the king in the story. This explains why:
    • Howl is more part of the war. He is more heroic in this adaptation, as he did seem quite cowardly within the book, not really wanting to work with the king.
    • Although the witch is still a threat in the movie and does still kind of do what she had intended within the book, I believe the King is more of a threat that the characters worry about, as the king wants Howl so that he will turn into a beast and fight in his war.
  • There was also a change with where the black door led. In the movie, it was to a memory of Howls childhood, whereas in the book, the door led to Howls family’s home in modern-day Wales, which REALLY took me by surprise. From the movie, I was not expecting it at all, and actually enjoyed discovering more about Howls life and his family.
  • Sophie’s magic in the book was not really present in the movie? She had the ability to talk to objects to give them power, for instance, her cane had a protection charm which had kept her safe and helped her in defeating the witch.
  • The girls family wasn’t really a big part, although you briefly met Lettie within the bake shop, it did not really go into depth, talking about how she had two sisters, Lettie and Martha, who were both sent to do different apprenticeships, one in a bakery, the other being trained in magic, but they swapped places, so that Martha was the one in the Bakery, and she was actually in love with Michael.
  • The scarecrow was waaaay more friendly in the movie, whereas, in the book, he terrified the characters, and even made Sophie’s old heart shiver.
  • As I have mentioned, the Witch was not as much of a threat, but Howl was not being chased or running away from a curse sent by the Witch that would potentially catch up with him. The Witch actually seems more weak within the movie, so it makes sense when Sophie takes pity on her and takes her in, not due to better judgment.

These are just some of the many changes from the book to Studio Ghiblis adaptation of it, but I am in no way saying that one is better than the other, because although you may have more information from the book, Studio Ghibli has given such a beautiful visualisation of the characters and scenery etc, for instance, you are actually able to see Sophie’s age changing throughout, and see what howl can see, whereas, in the book, you just find out that he has known about her curse the whole time.

If you have not read the book or have not seen the movie or both, after reading all of my spoiler warnings, I definitely would recommend doing both. If you have read the book but not watched the movie, do it! If you have seen the movie but have not read the book, do it! Both are so amazing in their own right so I would not recommend one above the other, you should just watch and read both!

 

Bibliography

Howls Moving Castle. (2004). [Film] Directed by H. Miyazaki. Japan: Studio Ghibli.

Jones, D. W. (2009) Howls Moving Castle. London: HarperCollins. Blurb.

Jones, D. W. (2009) Howls Moving Castle. London: HarperCollins. Anime and Author.

 

Melon and Lime Comics – The Routine

One week later and we’re still going, are you amazed? I’m amazed!

This comic is based on my love for my new kitten Wednesday. My partner made a comment that we were basically the same, just constantly eating and sleeping, so he had suggested that be the bases for our next comic, so HERE WE ARE!

routine-f5

I did have struggles with this piece, not necessarily with the content, but more with the process of creating it, I found it took waaaaaaay too long to create this piece, as my photoshop file would have too many glitches or would buffer a lot, especially when I was trying to colour. Ideally I think this piece should have taken 20 minutes per frame at maximum, but instead, it had taken me 5 hours to finish the whole piece. I was not pleased in the slightest.

I don’t know if this had meant that the file was too large, or whether I need a new computer, but I don’t believe I could have done much else to make the document smaller, and I probably have attachment issues to my laptop, I’m scared to get rid of it and get a new one, which I probably should do, but probably won’t, not until its very much dead.

So, this may be a recurring issue in weeks to come, when I work on the comics once again. Soooo, FUN TIMES AHEAD!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Inktober: Days 29-31

Day 29: Double – Azalea

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For this piece, I had chosen a flower that grows in bunches but decided to only draw two, as to fit the theme of the prompt, and with it, create two sisters.

These sisters were initially planned to be twins, however when it came to drawing them at different angles, I seemed to struggle with the features, so they look more like sisters as opposed to twins.

On one hand there is an older sister who protects her younger sibling, but on the other hand, the younger sister is quite mischevious and gets her self into trouble. So, the older sister often has to look after the younger one, and often has to apologise for her sister’s actions.

 

Day 30: Jolt – Dianthus

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For this piece, similar to previous ones, I had wanted to create an afro silhouette with the petals from the flower I had taken inspiration from. With the Dianthus flower, it has a ‘jolt’ of colour going in an almost circular pattern around the petals, and I had wanted to incorporate this element, but when I have done so, the petals almost look more like butterfly wings, which as our Lord and Saviour, Bob Ross says, is a happy little accident that I had came across, as I feel it makes the character look sweeter in a sense.

I feel this character would be very caring and gentle, with an almost healing and calming essence to her.

 

Day 31: Slice – Calibrachoa Lemon Slice

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As this is my final piece for inktober, and it falls upon the day of Halloween, other than the already given pattern of the flower, I decided to keep the colours black and white, in a stripe pattern, which I believe also fits well with a Halloween theme and style. The style also reminds me of Beetlejuice, which is one of my favourite Tim Burton movies, especially for Halloween.

I really like how this character turned out, and feel she is a good ending to the challenge. I feel I may have had good and bad pieces during the month, however, I am very happy to end with this character.

As of her backstory, I feel she would be an entertainer of some sorts, possibly the ringleader of a circus, as she is very upright and I feel she could command an audience.

 

My opinion on the experience as a whole.

OH MY GOD! I can’t believe I’ve actually made it to this point! I have managed to complete every design within the time frames, posting one to social media each day, and not missing one!

Although there have been some pieces where I have struggled with shaky lines, bleeding ink or positioning of features, I believe this challenge has made me more confident with working traditionally, especially with ink, and I would like to do more linework by hand in future projects.

I have worked quite small during this project, so maybe in future, I will try to work a bit bigger, as this may have given me more issues than necessary, as the little mistakes would be more noticeable on a smaller illustration.

But I am excited to work traditionally again in the future, as I have gained more confidence and would like to see how the techniques and process I have learnt would work when applied to different imagery.

I have missed working digitally though so I may give myself a little break from ink, just for a little while, once this project is out of the way and the zine has been created.

 

Future plans.

As I have stated throughout these blog posts, especially with some pieces in particular, when it comes to putting all of these characters into a zine, I will be returning to some of the pieces to refine them further, whether it be by doing so digitally, or by redrawing the whole piece.

I also wish to add in items that would go along with these characters. Not for each of them, maybe just for the ones who have a stronger backstory, as I don’t want to be spending another 31 days on this challenge, and I feel 62 pages may be a bit too much for a zine?

I do still plan to make the zine, possibly by using the risograph available in college. Once I have refined all of the characters to my standard, I will scan them all in digitally, edit them properly so that the colours are richer, and the white background of the sheet will not be visible, then I will lay them out into pages for the zine, ready print out and to make masters with on the risograph. I believe I will only be using the black ink on the riso, as I want to keep the designs as similar to the original pieces as I can, keeping the theme of inktober very apparent.

I’m so happy to be done but so excited to start the next steps of the process, creating my first professional zine! If you have been reading my blogs and have enjoyed my inktober posts, if the zine is something that you would be interested in purchasing, please let me know.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM MELON.R!!🎃

Inktober: Days 21-28

Day 21: Drain – Dandelion

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I’m not really sure on this character’s hairstyle, but I do feel the type of plant is identifiable.

For this prompt, I tried to think of plants that could possibly grow in drains, which led me to think of weeds, which led to thinking of dandelions. With the prompt as it is quite a yucky place, I decided to draw the yellow type of dandelion, as opposed to the wishy one, as I feel it is commonly known as the more annoying and less pretty version of the plant.

Like the plant, I think this character tries to be villainous but just ends up being more annoying than evil. I expect her to just turn up at unnecessary times, and instead of harming any of the other characters, she just ends up annoying them instead. This could potentially be a developing character, where the others discover that she has other emotional issues going on, which make her annoying tendencies more understandable. If I could relate this character to one from another tv series, I could potentially compare her to Peridot from Steven Universe, as she had started off on the evil side, but did not necessarily cause any real problems for the main characters, but was just more of an annoyance for them, but the character then developed and she became one of the crystal gems, converting to the good side.

 

Day 22: Expensive – Kinabalu Orchid

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This flower had originally come from my search of the rarest flowers in the world, and as I had said with the ‘Precious’ prompt on day 9, I had found two flowers, the Kadupul and the Kinabalu Orchid, which I felt most inspired by, but had felt the Kinabalu Orchid would be better fitted for this prompt, as it looked more sinister than the other had.

With this character, thinking of ‘Expensive’ I wanted to create a rich b*tch character, who would be more snobby and look down on all the other characters. In her eyes, she would be at the top of the hierarchy of the society, and everyone else would be peasants.

I enjoyed working on this character, as I was able to play around with patterns and new shapes, experimenting with how I could incorporate the unique flower into the character. Like with the ‘Cruel’ character, I wanted to use the main petal as a collar/hood, and with the two side petals, although they are usually sticking right out on the actual flower, I wanted to wrap them around the character, as if it was a fox scarf or expensive shawl of some sort, to give her more of the expensive look.

 

Day 23: Muddy – Daffodil 

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For ‘Muddy’ I thought of springtime, where the weather is still changing from rain to sun so there would be more mud, and the flowers that most commonly grow within this time are daffodils.

As I had loved working on the hair for the ‘bottle’ prompt on day 18, I wanted to do something similar within this piece, as to contrast with the lighter flowers.

With this piece, I knew that I did want to add actual mud splatters, however, I was scared of possibly going too overboard, so probably did go more light-handed than I could have, however, I am glad that I did, as they could pass off as freckles, meaning that they are just natural markings of the character, rather than she had been playing in the mud.

I’m starting to think that ‘Baby’s breath’, ‘Jasmine’ and now ‘Daffodil’ could possibly all be friends with one another, as I am imagining them to have similar traits and personalities. They are all quite carefree soles, with calming and caring personalities, so I do think they’d really fit well together.

 

Day 24: Chop – Cherry Blossom

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With chop, I feel she would be quite a strict character, very organised and likes things being right. I could see her being a sergeant or police officer of some sort, being a character of authority. I assume she’d take care of the society, and properly discipline anyone out of line.

For the prompt, I had thought of flowers that grew on trees, which led to thinking of cherry blossoms. Although this character would have a beautiful exterior,  I can imagine her being very tough and possibly cold on the inside.

 

Day 25: Prickly – Thistle

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I did struggle slightly with the imagery for this character, trying to figure out how best to show the influence of the specific flower, being a thistle. So, in the end, I had chosen to give her a prickly leafed collar, and prickle all around her head with the flower section growing from the top. With this character, I had wanted to give her a more androgynous look, with a mixture of both masculine and feminine features. So, with the hair, I had decided to create a shaved sides with a high top sort of look, incorporating the flowers elements.

I enjoyed working on this character, as she is unlike any of the other characters I have created so far, and it kind of gave me the chance to work with a new face, creating an alternative look which is still relevant to women nowadays.

To see how this piece was made, and the method I use to create the other designs as well, I have created a blog post about my process.

 

Day 26: Stretch – Sunflower

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I struggled when coming up with a flower for this prompt, until my boyfriend had suggested a sunflower, explaining that it ‘stretches up to the sun’ which all plants do, however, this one is usually taller, so it made sense.

This is actually one of my favourite flowers, so I did want to justice. I wanted to create an almost afro silhouette with the petals of the flower, and create a darker toned character to match the bud of the sunflower.

Ideally, I would have liked the skin to be darker on this character, however, I was scared of the ink bleeding too much and leaving my character with a patchy and muddy mess. When creating my zine, I may try to recreate this character, going darker with the skin tone, to achieve the contrast that I had desired.

 

Day 27: Thunder – Thunder Lily

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I don’t really like how this character turned out, although I feel she has an interesting silhouette like with the last piece, I do not feel she has enough contrast, especially as the original flower is so much darker in colour.

Again, when it comes to creating the zine, I will definitely be going back to this piece to darken up the petals, hopefully giving the piece and character more contrast and appeal to the eye.

 

Day 28: Gift – Roses

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For this prompt, I had thought of flowers that were most commonly given as gifts, this being roses.

I see this character almost in the same light as the ‘Star’ prompt character that I had created on day 8, I feel she would be a sort of celebrity within her society, mostly because of her beauty. But, I see this character being very two-faced, in front of her fans, she is caring, loving and sickly sweet, yet behind closed doors, she is a diva and complete b*tch, especially to the people who work for her.

WE’RE BACK! Getting Back into Comics

Melon and Lime comics has been on a bit of a break whilst both me and my partner have gotten back into the swing of college but now, WE HAVE RETURNED! With a comic that gives a bit of an update as to what we’ve been up to whilst we’ve been away.

I’m so excited to get back into the flow of working on new comics again. We aren’t necessarily going to have a set day in which we will post as of yet, as we don’t want to make any promises we can’t keep, however, we will be attempting to create at least one comic per week.

If anyone reading enjoys this piece, we have more content on our Instagram @MelonandLimeComics, so please have a look, we promise there will be more content coming soon, now that we’re back into the rhythm of college, maybe? NO PROMISES! But we’re gonna try! We also plan to create a zine or book over the year, which we plan to release sometime in June next year, so keep an eye out for that too.

 

8 Tools I Use For Inktober

1.Pinterest

Pinterest has been my main source of inspiration throughout this project so far and during many previous projects. Over time I have built a collection of ‘Model Inspiration’ which include photos of different faces shapes, hairstyles different ethnicities and so on. I constantly refer to this board for inspiration, and if you were to look in it, you would most likely see the faces I have used as inspiration/reference during this challenge.

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2.Sketchbook

Throughout the challenge, I have been sketching each design out within my sketchbook, this allows me to make any changes necessary before I start inking the design.

 

3.A4 Light Pad

Once I am happy with the sketch, I rip out a page from the back of the book to create the inked design on, (yes my sketchbook is probably going to be very thin by the end of the challenge), then using an A4 light tray, which I had purchased from Amazon, and plugs into your computer or laptop with a USB, I start lining the sketch.

 

4.Derwent pens

For the inking process, I use Derwent Graphik Line Maker Drawing Pens, which are a pack of 6, varying from 0.05mm, to 0.8mm. I often use 0.1mm for the facial features, 0.2 for face or petal outlines, 0.05 for very fine details, sometimes even cross-hatched shading, and for flat black areas, I use 0.3 or 0.8.

 

5.Water + Paint brush

To add more shading with a softer blend, to the linework, I dip a thin paintbrush into a glass of water and bleed, drag and blend out some of the inked line work. If I feel it is bleeding too much or is too wet, I have often blotted it down with my sleeve or a piece of tissue.

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6.White pen

In some area, possibly where I have lost any highlights or the ink may have bled too much, once the piece is dry, I use a white ink pen and start adding back in the highlights or cleaning up some of the areas that may have come out too dark. If the white pen has gone slightly over some of the linework, I then just go back over with one of the fine liners.

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7.Phone camera

Once the piece is complete, I take the design to a place which has good natural lighting, then take a picture of the piece using my iPhone camera. I do feel the lighting is an important factor, as you want to take the best photo you can of your design, and if taken too late on in the day, it can make your piece look more cool toned, or if you are using the lights within your house, I don’t know about yours, but mine are very orange/yellow, so would make my designs look too warm toned.

 

8.Whitagram for editing

With the photo, I then crop the design, making the illustration the only part visible, removing any background or any white, unused space from the page. I then take the photo into an app called Whitagram, which I originally solely used as to make my images square, for the way in which Instagram is set out, but for this project, I have also been using the editing tools within the app, playing with the lighting, exposure and shadows, as to make my pieces as white as possible.

This step would be much easier if I had scanned in the designs and edited them within Photoshop instead, however, I do not have a scanner at home, and as this was a daily challenge, I would not have been able to take advantage of the colleges each day of the week. So for the time being, I just have to make do with the resources I do have.

When it comes to creating my zine, however, I will be doing this step properly, by scanning in all of my designs and editing them with photoshop. I believe it will give me better results especially with quality, which I feel is very important for the product I will be producing, as I do want any potential buyers of the zine, to get their money worth.