Two Kinds

Took a stab at writing the other day and wanted to share it with you lot and hopefully get some feedback. The image I'm using is from the animation of 'The Tale of Three Brothers' that appears in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1'. It was produced by Ben Hibon and the ending of the tale kinda appropriate for what I've wriiten. Plus it's aslo one of the best pieces of animation I've ever seen and I love sharing that with people. So here's my attempt, let me know what you think.

'There are two kinds...'

There are two kinds of people who do not fear death. They neither laugh, nor cry, or make even a hint of a sound. They won't move, they won't try to protect themselves. They will meet death head on, maybe even with a hint of a smile on their lips. There are two kinds of people who do not fear death. The brave... and the broken.

A Study Of...

Hands.

The one thing I dred drawing, that I will avoid drawing at all cost (you'll notice it if you look at most of my drawings) are hands. I know I'm not the only one who has trouble with them, but I have a particular hatred of drawing hands. I recently decided that I need to improve, so I been doing studies (mainly my left hand).

 

Boredom...

When in doubt, get some random stock pictures you've collected over the years, open Photoshop and see what happens.

I know what I want to call this pic but for the life of me I can't remember the word.

Idea behind this was type random on 3 different sites & make a cover from the results.

He got the wrong hair dye.

 

Changing the Style (somewhat)

In my "Chibi" drawings I tend to make them as colourful as possible to keep in with the cute theme that's going with them. When I started doing "Sin City" characters I realised it wouldn't look right if they were all brightly coloured, so I've had to change the style a little.

Marv

Kevin

 As "Sin City" is mainly all black and white with no shading and minimal colour I couldn't produce these in my usual style, it would loose the feel the comics have. So these are a lot more dark then the others but I've tried keep the "Chibi" feel about it with the line work.

Hartigan

Yellow Bastard

 But it's not only "Sin City" I've done this way. I got a request from an old friend to draw V from "V for Vendetta" and for anyone who has ever read it or watched the movie, I really couldn't o it colourful.

V

 This has more colour in it then the others but it's still got an dark edge to it. Incidently the fire is in there not only for comic value, but so the light from the fuse would allow me to show some features of V's clothing. Otherwise it would have been all black and V's head would of looked like it would of been floating in space.

So do you think this style was appropriate?

Comparison

I'm just curious because I put up a lot of my vector drawings online but not any of my pen & ink drawings so I'd like to know what you lot think looks better.

 

 So peeps what ya think???

Type Design

One thing I had a lot of trouble with at uni was typefaces. In the first project of the second year we had to produce a book that described the different categories of typeface and it had to be innovative.

 

Although I was extremely happy with the final outcome, it was a struggle to do. I couldn't get a feel for it & couldn't get my head around it. The reason I'm bringing it up is because I have now designed my own typeface, and I wanted to make it clear just how much I struggle with type.

My typeface. Not sure what to call it.

 About a year ago a friend of mine wanted me to design him an album cover and logo for his band. I thought this would be a good way for me to actually design my own typeface. So after many attempts and chunks of hair pulled out, heres the full alphabet.

 

Rob's cover

So people how do you think I've done? Have my efforts been in vain?

What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes

When I was on my HND course one of the projects we were given was to redesign two book covers from the Penguin 70th Anniversary box set. The books I chose were "The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning" by Jonathan Safran Foer (big mistake) and "Short Short Stories" by Dave Eggers. 

My version of the "Short Short Stories" book cover.

I'm bringing this up because one of the stories in Dave Eggers book really stood out above the rest and for me was quite thought provoking. It was called "What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes" and I wanted to share it with you lot as I think it's a very good piece of writing and would love to know what you guys think.

"Like the fur of a chinchilla. Like the cleanest tooth. Yes, the fishes say, this is what it feels like. People always ask the fishes, 'What does the water feel like to you?' and the fishes are always happy to oblige. Like feathers are to other feathers, they say. Like powder touching ash. We smile and nod. When the fishes tell us these things, we begin to understand. We begin to think we know what the water feels like to the fishes. But it's not always like fur and ash and the cleanest tooth. At night, they say, the water can be different. At night, when it's very cold, it can be like the tongue of a cat. At night, when it's very very cold, it's like cracked glass. Or honey. Or forgiveness, they say, ha ha. When the fishes answer these questions - which they are happy to do - they also ask why. They are curious things, fish are, and thus they ask, 'Why? Why do you want to know what the water feels like to the fishes?' And we are never quite sure. The fishes press further. 'Do you breathe air?' they ask. The answer is yes. Well then, they say, 'What does the air feel like to you?' And we do not know. We think of air and we think of wind, but that's another thing. Wind is air in action, air on the move, and the fishes know this. Well then, they ask again, 'What does the air feel like?' And we have to think about this. Air feels like air, we say, and the fishes laugh mirthlessly. 'Think!' they say. 'Think,' they say, now gentler. And we think and we guess that air feels like hair, thousands of hairs, swaying ever so slightly in breezes microscopic. The fishes laugh again. 'Do better, think harder,' they say, encouraging us. It feels like language, we say, and they are impressed. 'Keep going,' they say. It feels like blood, we say, and they say, 'No, no, now you're getting colder.' The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like being pushed and pulled and yanked, punched and slapped and misunderstood and loved, we say, and the fishes sigh and touch our forearm sympathetically."