Doodlezania - The homeland.

Apologies for the delay. But I'm a bit of a couch potato on vacation. (Insert a puppy dog face here). I'm pretty floored by the Gutenbergs. Just got my copy, lets just say, that that copy made my smile reach my brain- in a very literal way. If you don’t know about the Gutenbergs its a magazine devoted to ‘illustrators and their surroundings’, a cross between studio culture and doodles.It's lovely to read the interviews with illustrators about their working lives, and some really exciting work is showcased too. Subscribe! you won’t regret it !

Another really amazing illustration magazine is Varoom. The 21st Century has chosen illustration to be its defining art form, and Varoom is the perfect platform. The award-winning contemporary illustration magazine, relaunchs this summer with a fantastic new design and expanded editorial content. It correctly documents, reports, analyzes and showcases new illustrative talent. It also has leading illustrators drop their comments on contemporary work of illustration in modern society as well as have their own work featured. Varoom has been one of my personal favourites, to have your work published in either of these (or my other illustrative favourites) is a personal goal :D

Varoom covers.

The magazines feature works of artists such as Matthew Rose, who did a really famous junk piece illustration in 2008. With all the current news of doom and gloom, what better way to celebrate the seemingly imminent apocalypse with this print by Matthew Rose entitled The End of the World? It's based on an original collage (Junk-2008) which juxtaposes pop art style images found on the street or in junk stores to create a confusing and disturbing, but also fascinating, piece.

Junk print, 2008.

End of the world print.

Below are the few illustrations/doodles I've been doing in my spare time- hint hint : loner child, all time is spare time.

doodle print.

doodle print that i re-drew on a bag that I stitched and made from scratch. Yes, I do take pride in knowing how to stitch up a bag, considering that 3 days ago, i couldn't even thread the needle right.

serge

random doodle again.

chracter design in my pocket book.

Next post would include pictures from my school magazine, and the cover, which was illustrated and designed by me. And also, the illustrative elements inside. Cannot wait for the next post ! yaaayy !!

Pictures of the day-

Nothing depicts spirit as perfectly as this picture does. The pure joy it gives me ! Its got a deeper, more significant meaning than just what the eyes see. Spirit and hope, and a glint of joy. Perfect blend.

When people fail, dead people help. Love yah C-blud. (Yes, me and Charlotte Brontë are tight) xx

Poster on my wall in my hostel room :)

 P.S- Merry christmas everyone, hope you all had a lovely time ! xxxxxxx

Passion lies in screams of estacitic dreams

Nothing beats waking up to find your window pane covered in soft, fragile flakes of feather-light snow. Sitting in my balcony, with waffles for breakfast, and freezing. But it's all worth it, a little numb-ness for the backside is totally worth watching the city being blanketed by a vanilla coat of magnificence. It's days like these that make me not want to move at all. Sit there like a lump and watch the layers of white build beautifully. But obviously, I go to a school where your parents are notified if you miss a lesson. Hence starts work.

So, about work.
I've been working on a few illustrations for my graphics project, which is to devise covers for a band you like, and I obviously chose The Beatles. So, first I drew some random illustrations and then (tried to) turned them into CD covers.

Below are a few random sketch designs I made, these are base designs which will (at a later stage when my couch-potato-of-a-body decides to get off the bed and work) be photoshopped to make a cover, with the beatles' members popping out randomly. Now, I do not know what it will look like (the end product), but lets be optimistic ? :)

Covers - (theres 3 now, but thats only because I left the rest on my school graphics server. Brillianto!- I'm not sure if thats even a word)

I love this fat-boy I drew, he's mushy and adorable ! P.S - these are experimental, not what the final covers will look like. Also, I forgot to add a few more covers that I just realized I had. Must upload later.

Photos of the day:

Look at you, you're young and beautiful. Be wild and loving, generous and happy, live like it's a friday ! I hate it when I wait for the weekends to come, each day should be just as carefree and relaxed. Why are you so scared ? why so paralyzed ? Why do you swallow your words ? Say what you feel like, in fact shout it. Take risks, tell secrets, this life is yours :) 

P.S- You know what I really hate ? How you can't increase/decrease the volume on your i-pod when you're wearing gloves. IT'S SO ANNOYING. I use my nose to assist me when I'm wearing gloves, but then people on the street tend to stare...But it's the only way ! Unless you want to remove you're hands from your warm woolen gloves and turn them into popsicles. Just saying. X

Superman vs Darcy - The branches of literature.

Comic books are a primary source through which the youth of the 50'5,60's and 70's formed their attitudes, while the world faced wars, civil rights battles, racism, sexism, hippies, protests, inventions, science against christianity, there were heroes that entertained them, helped them escape into the adventureland, in the chaotic hot mess, comic books gave the youth heroes they could follow and look up to. 

Comic books are also seen as a new branch of literature, modern lit. To be honest, why not ? If Jane Austen can create Elizabeth Bennet then why cant Kurt Shaffenberger create Lois Lane ? Comic books are like ice cream to the brain especially with such slick artists, (most of the D.C comic book artists were my favorites), who are highly entertaining with their pristine artistic styles and light hearted, nonsensical stories.

Cover Artist: Jack Burnley

The university of Cambridge, being one of the oldest and also one of the top ranked universities, has now recognized the impact comic books have had on the youth and how they have managed to shape them, and create a new formed culture. Hence, the university board has made it a point to further study the comic books/ graphic novels more in depth at the University of Cambridge's Literature Centre. 

In my opinion, comic books are under graded by the educational board, they are considered as immature trash, if it were immature trash why would it be so popular with the youth and children? If comic book culture will be ignored, there will be such a huge dimension of culture, society and literature that would be skipped. These comic books are a source of understanding how children/ the youth interpret stories. What I have gathered from my research on this topic is that, not only do comic books help create a culture, but they also have a lot of literary elements that are very similar to older forms of literature, such as novels. In the 19th century, the issues that were raised through literature such as sexism, (e.g : Emma, by Jane Austen, focused on breaking stereotypes of women), comic books try to do the same, by creating Lois Lane, Catwoman, Jenny Sparks, Tulip O'Hare...these female characters play a rather powerful role (if not of the protagonist) in the comic books, the role of the powerful woman, a silent comical protest (feminists should be delighted !) Although, sexuality is still a part of the powerful woman, with tight body suits and extra ordinarily large assets. 

The fierce, powerful and superior image of
Cat'WOMAN.' (Hint : think feminism)

Comic books are sprawled across a lot of cultures, including japanese, chinese, indian, american, korean etc. They provide a platform for illustrators and conceptual writers to come together, or illustrators with concepts to put forward their point of view. They concentrate on the artistic illustration as it is the primary way of building up a character image, attracting the audience (use of color scheme and character appeal), and telling a story, as the protagonist would have something to put forward and would do so, on behalf of the illustrator/author. The biggest guns in the game would be D.C comics, (Curt Swan for Superman Annual issue no.1 . Come on, no-one can beat that in a trillion years. Curt Swan did the Superman illustrations from the 1950's-1980's, and created various covers and illustrations for other comic book issues as well) , Marvel - eg : Civil war, Writer : Mark Millar, Artist : Steve McNiven. The one thing wonderful about Marvel comics is the "Marvel universe", in which the entire plot is based, and the particular comic book of civil war, is the story of an epic war between the heroes of the Marvel universe. Maus - by Art Spiegelman, one of the best comic books in my opinion, was released in the 1980's and was based on Holocaust. Written by a second generation Holocaust survivor, it has depth, freshness, and gives a new insight into the horrible historical occurrence and hence is an extremely important part of data, as it has a solid concept, and tells a story based on true events, how is it any different from literature ? Dont answer, it was a rhetorical question.

The narrow minded view of traditional historians such as Dr.Fredric Wertham went so far as to lead a crusade against comic books, which resulted in a temporary ban in places, and publishers that lynched themselves. Just because the text was accompanied by illustration ? Does that make it less of an important topic ? This view of the olden day historians is a completely conflicting with the modern day ones (THANKFULLY) who have recognized the value and importance of comic books as influential factors in society and how important a role they play in the development of literature. In the past it was laughable to consider them literature, today it is laughable to even question that they might not be.

A few really well sketched (mostly)vintage comic book covers - (The ones I have picked are either related to feministic issues or are very well illustrated or are just funny and they are all in random order!)

Alpha Flight was a group of superheroes part of the Marvel universe. The cover is drawn by John Byrne, and shows almost exclusively black and white. It's also one of John Byrne's favorite covers

Ivan Brunetti is without a doubt the most nihilistic and depressed alternative comic book artist alive today. P.S : Causes slight feministic rage.

The Batman: Black and White mini series was a showcase of beloved comic artists rendering Batman without any colors(I'm loving the B&W color palette, very vintage and powerful). This minimalist cover is by Alex Toth.

 When DC decided to kill off their most popular superhero (and one of the most famous superheros of all), Superman, mainstream media figured it was final. Comic book buffs knew that no hero is every really dead, and indeed Superman came back... in a couple of variants. This robot variant might have been one of the coolest, as the cover by Dan Jurgens shows. 

Captain America aka Steve Rogers resigns his old identity because he doesn't want to take orders from the government, taking on the new name "The Captain" with a black costume. The stars and stripes on the cover are made out of blood... this is just a very iconic image from 1987. 

           Kool-aid man no.2. He travels through time to                            

              fight the thirsties, with the help of (drumroll please)           

              GEORGE WASHINGTON. Kool-aid man blew my mind,

               right there. (insert laughter here)

                                

Below are a few random sketches of comic book style characters that I just made up - (very rough, just conceptual)

The arc tempest- rough sketch

Arc tempest, rough sketch scanned into photoshop + given a random whirl effect in the background
for fun ! (also, it was an error, but then I thought it went well with the sketch)

Comparing the clean photoshop version to the sketch

Comparison

(only sketch)

Octo chef - sketch

octo chef sketch, and different effects (right).

"wearing a superman t-shirt counts right?" - Yerrr, it does.

Random sketches page, none of the characters are related, it's all random ! (Must I mention, I deeply fancy
the "loo-roll monster". (Insert batting eyelashes here).

Just like the above one, random page of sketches, none of the characters are related.

Sultry space bee. Sketch.

Sultry space bee, colored in !

Comparison.

 sketch

colored in.

comparison.

BOOM ! - Tis the Bunny man. (Lame, but be supportive and laugh along!)

Materials used : Fine liners and color pencils. These were just random sketches I came up with over a span of 3-4 hours after getting inspired by all the great artists I mentioned up above in the post. Random sketches for giggles :)
Lots of love, kisses and warm hugs until the next post - also, feedback is essential ! xxxxx