Carl Mitchell

12 May 2013, 3:55 pm No Comments

May 4th 2013 starred the third wedding i've attended in six months. I mentioned these upcoming nuptials when showing off the last wedding card i'd crafted… you can see where this is going.

As the Turners had been raving about Matilda the Musical, their card is in the style of Quentin Blake, famous for illustrating Roald Dahl's children's books. Like the time I made that Master System cover, it was interesting to actually try and reduce proficiency, making lines sloppier and slipping some colour outside them.

With the above addition, the trilogy of watercolour wedding cards is complete. Behold!

All three cards were gifts. They were also one of a kind. So, how did I manage group shots for this blog post and my portfolio?
Answer: Clones.

Along with earlier photo-shoots as each one was constructed, I had scanned or taken photographs of the watercolours – these provided the means to reconstruct copies using printouts. Fortuitously, once the clones had been completed I had 1" of heart ribbon left, and had used the last cream A6 card.

One fact worth pointing out is that the figures on these cards are not only based on the real people, but their real outfits too – not knowing what they'd be wearing on their big days, I delved into Facebook for 'costume shots'. Compare and contrast if you like.

23 Apr 2013, 8:14 pm No Comments

…Lay across my InDesign spread.

Yes, today's theme is layouts: Recently I put together a few new compositions, and polished up a couple of older ones.

When it comes to publishing software, there's essentially two rival firms: Adobe (them of Photoshop) make InDesign, while Quark produce QuarkXPress. I haven't used the latter for a long time, so I was sure to roughly re-create at least one of these ID works in QXP, looking up how to do particular actions when required. While features like arranging items forward/backward have yet to be discovered, it served as a good refresher task.

So, play the gallery theme in another tab and scroll down: You can click on any of the images for a larger view.

InDesign version on the left, Quark practice on the right. The Donkey Sanctuary's website has a pleasing colour scheme, which has been carried over to this. I also used a method from The Sun newspaper, in that specific words are made bold for emphasis.

Moving on to this magazine cover, there's a lovely triple meaning in the cover line "Second Life": First off, it's the name of an unrelated but well-known video game. Secondly, Vampire: Bloodlines is based around Vampires – creatures in their 'second life'. Finally, Bloodlines has been given a new lease on life since the development studio closed, as fans fixed bugs and restored incomplete content!

Next is a Prospectus cover for the University of Bradford – A mixture of its appearance back in my day, and the ones they currently distribute. Check out the watermark down the right-hand side, in the dark purple bars.

This is actually a preferred yet alternative take, which sprung to mind while composing another advertisement for the same outdoor retailer. In a further amendment, the main paragraph originally began "your hairdresser's prime question – so what's your answer?".

Playing journalist, I wrote the copy on this magazine spread as well as composing the layout. I learned while researching this that Countryfile magazine does not keep a consistent style across its articles – perhaps they are aiming for a "scrapbook" feel. And yes, I have been to see the Lucky Dog statue mentioned in the above.

Finally… OK, I admit this looks like an illustration. Let me point out that the bridges on the poster's map resemble the actual bridges used for the race, and surprisingly, it took a bit of digging to determine which two bridges they use.

I'll be filtering these into my site and PDF portfolio (itself arranged in InDesign) while getting my Quark knowledge bulked out. We've reached the end of this edition, so here's your answer to the opening reference.

07 Apr 2013, 3:32 pm No Comments

I've reached that age bracket where a lot of my friends are getting married. I made a card last winter for one couple who got hitched, and yesterday another pair tied the knot!

I've known Mr West for almost a decade, and the now Mrs West for nearly as long, so they most certainly had to have a homemade card too. This one is also a pen and watercolour work, yet there's no imitation of famous artists this time around.

This duo of feelies will likely become a trilogy, as there is one more wedding next month. The occasion is on May the Fourth, so stay tuned to see if I infringe on any Star Wars copyrights.

An acquaintance (who is already wed, for those keeping score) is branching out into his own first aid / CPR training business, and he knew I was the guy to hit up for a logo. Research showed that this kind of company always seems to use a combination of lovehearts, heart monitor lines and first aid crosses for it's identity, so this one took a bit of a think to make more distinct. There was a heap of back-and-forth communication involved: Getting it down to case designs, then the decals, the colouring, selecting the font and word arrangment…

…all leading to the result below. I'll update this post with a link to his website when it's up and running.

The third item I present to you is the result of a cold. While making their Emergency Escape Podcast, John of Final Boss Fight (who, like me, currently has no spouse) went for the phrase "Tech Ninja Dojo", ended up at "Tech Ninja Dodo", and decided he wanted to see that. We both have common grounding, but whereas I specialised towards imagery, he trained more to the production side of things. Anyway, he had a go and sent me his file, asking me to implement improvements.
Naturally, I went to town on it.

Once that was in the bag, I gave him a couple of pointers, along with the source file to use and learn from.
At one point the dodo was getting additional equipment, such as broadband cable Ninja rope and Ubuntu-shaped throwing stars, but we agreed to cut them in that they added too much visual clutter. At least it got to keep the sword, which is forged from the sharpest material known to man – plastic clamshell packaging.

That's your lot for today. Go read a book or something!

10 Mar 2013, 5:28 pm No Comments

Some personal projects run straight through, quick as a flash. Others get put on hiatus. Many sketches never get off the ground. Today's post is about one particular illustration of mine; one that has made it through development hell to see the light of day.

After watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the dozenth time, and laughing at that brat Malfoy getting clawed after provoking dangerous animals, this doodle of a cheap pun landed in the sketchbook.

I sourced visual references of both the film and the board game referenced, and drew it out A4-sized while I was freelancing: I distinctly remember working on this while at the Saatchi & Saatchi offices. Scanned it in, did some digital colouring, applied filters and textures while playing around with the colour scheme...

...I still didn't like how the Hippogriff looked. Or the woods. And couldn't think of a look for the frame (the above was a placeholder). The illustration was mothballed.

I would come back to it from time to time - you may recall it was teased on this very blog in late 2011. Buckbeak (the Hippogriff) and Malfoy were drawn again in more accurate poses, according to DVD screencaps. After scanning it received a full vector treatment, rather than painting behind un-scalable pencil lines. It last went to the back of the queue when it came time to fill out the background (trees and gravel).

Well, now it's old enough to go to primary school, i've given it one final push. Improved the frame, drew various branches and shrubbery, added smaller taglines and logos... and here it is. Hungry Hungry Hippogriff.

You can click on the above image for a bigger view.

I'm happy that this has finally made it. I really am. This was my longest-running project, on and off: One other from this "age" was finished last year. Personal projects have no deadline you do not impose yourself, and can be endlessly tinkered, but this is not always a good thing... look what happened to Duke Nukem Forever!

On a lightly related note, concerning that 2011 link I provided up there: I still work with Final Boss Fight, and CraftBoy is regularly updated.
To close this post, deviantArt is where I usually host these things, and not everything on there is in this blog... anyway, my deviantArt page passed some sort of super-devil milestone. Which was nice.