Friday 13 August 2010

The fluff's on hold

yesterday I decided to prod my agent to see if he thought that the mouse gawping benevolently at disguised acorn would pull the publishers. Well, he had other ideas as to what I should be doing. He sent me the illustrations of another chap on the agency's books, who it seems is no longer on the agency's books because he has gone and got himself all famous, not with illustration but music. You may already have heard of him, Bruno Merz. I think my agent figures that I should use his looser technique, something that sells perhaps. Well, anyway, I spent this afternoon listening to Bruno as I worked, excellent stuff. Is it possible that someone can have too much talent. Doesn't he realise that there are people out there with no talent at all?  Maybe I should learn to play an instrument and sing...hmmmmm!
UPDATE I'm designing cuddly toys which is something new for me and by way of another departure from the norm I'm producing an illustration of an old type of whaling vessel. I suppose its some kind of artistic historical reconstruction.
The fluffs on hold for the moment but I shall return.

Tuesday 10 August 2010

To fluff or not to fluff.

In the past I have made attempts at creating illustrations of the soft and fluffy animal type. My problem has always been an inability to do cute. I suppose that I must have progressed through art college with high ideals and a head full of radical noises. The idea of doing cute n' fluffy would have had me running for the gag bag. Since having kids I have mellowed and decided not to conquer the world of illustration. Instead, I will conquer the technique of cute. My first attempt involved a couple of mice doing something vaguely amusing. I sent it to my agent for feedback and later the phone rang and the response was short and sweet, "...but they're rats!" he said in a tone of incredulity. So much for my debut.
I have made some vague attempts since but now it is time again, the season of fluff has returned and the god of Mousey Nutkin must be appeased.
The illustration below is my latest attempt and I think I'm starting to get somewhere.

Thursday 5 August 2010

Being an illustrator (all proper like!)

Well...I'm having a welcome break from a busy year and a half of artworking and so I have time to blog and develop my portfolio (... and eat biscuits, play with the kids toys etc etc etc).
Making a living at being an illustrator is not an easy business for anyone. The last piece of colour illustration I did was a character design of a Grumpy Dragon. I'm very pleased with him but i need to develop some other subject areas and so I will sniff about for some alternative avenues.
I've been an illustrator for 5 years but I've always had a day job to keep me sane. This summer I have needed to drop the day job and plunge fully into the world of illustration and art. Never will I cycle through rain and cold to reach my work place. Instead I will go to work in my socks. Madness from isolation may well set in, but since so many artists had problems upstairs, I like to think of it as a career move rather than a problem.

I will need to do some serious promotion and development over the coming months in the hope of creating a decent client base and making the career work. I will update this blog as often as I can with my career progress, strange behavior patterns, successes, regrets, BCR (Biscuit Consumption Rate) etc.