ASS3 - Project 7 - Creating Mock Ups

Making a Mock Up

After reading what this exercise entailed I was really excited to give it a go. My ambition is to become a Children Illustrator so this gives me a little opportunity to pretend I am and that this is for a customer.

The task is to make to mock-up a book cover. I have to choose a book title that appeals to me from the books I have here at home. Examine the design of the cover to identify what the brief would be for the illustration and establish the function I want my image to perform.

I had had a look for my books and have decided to do a cover for Alice in wonderland.

Here is a picture of the book I have:

I have read the back of the book and here are the key points:

• Rabbit down a whole
• A grinning cat
• A queen

I have decided that I want the book cover to show the Rabbit and Alice as it is at the beginning of the story and It is the main start to her adventure.


I am now going to do some sketching and see if I can come up with a good idea:

 I really like the idea I have come up with, with the viewer in the hole, the rabbit jumping in and Alic looking into the hole to follow the rabbit. It is a good visual for the story and will be a good illustration for the book cover. 

I am going to draw it again on a bigger scale:

   Here is my finished sketch. Looking at it I am not happy with the Title being at the bottom of the book. I think is should be in the middle of the illustration so I may move the rabbit down a bit to be able to have room for the text.

   Now I know what illustration I want to do. I wanted to see if there was a way to create an interesting layer.
   Looking at the illustration I have decided I and going to put a hole in the cover of the book for where the entrance to the hole is and on the inner page on the book, I will draw Alice looking into the hole. I feel this will give the idea depth and make it fun for children to look at.

    Here above is my front cover I have cut the hole out for Alice to be on the inner page. I have decided to used a brown recycled card for the cover. I wanted to show that it is muddy in there and have a soil texture.

    I have decided that I am going to put the title in the middle. As the hole is like the inside of a cylinder I wanted to emphasize this so with the title I am going to make it flow in a curve shape along the wall of the hole to make my illustration location look more rounded.

For the font, I have chosen a fairytale style Here is a bit of practicing I have just done:

I am now going to attempt to create the scene of my book cover:

    Here is the start of my book cover above. I used watercolor pencils and a graphic pen to create the volume in the hole. I did lines and the flow of the watercolor pencils in a curve motions to grasp the idea of a hole which I think looks good. I think the style was a great idea. it is going to suit the book well.

I am now going to try to draw Alice.

 

    Here is my Alice, I think she looks ok but I may change her later depending on what the main area of the final book cover looks like.

I am now going to continue and report back once finished. I will comment what issues I have along the way and how I will resolve them.

Here is my mock up design:

    I had so much fun doing this. As you can see I redid my Alice again. I felt the style of the original of her did not work well with the style of the cover, once I had finished it. I think the rabbit looks great and I have captured him looking like he is in a rush. I decided that my muddy background wants a bit plain once I put the rabbit on, so I added some worms and weeds which were a great idea and made the hole have more character. I feel the only issue is that I do not like Alice's hands they are too big and look funny on their own. I have had a thought about this and I am going to attempt them again but this time I'm going to add her arms to make it look more clear that Alice is leaning in.

    Here is now my final book cover. I am really happy with it and I was right to change the hands it now looks more together and you get more of a sense she is about to follow the white rabbit.

    I had a lot of fun in this and realized there is a lot to think about when creating a book cover, such as colors composition and how to make it attractive for children. I enjoyed this task. 

Trash Hero Competition

   Here above is a character I created for Trash Hero Charity. They help clean up the environment and learn children how to deal with litter and recycling. They advertised a competition to create a character for a children's book, for kids to read to help them understand how to clean up rubbish. I didn't win but I got the runners-up prize and I will be getting advertised on their website with a link to my website. So that is still positive.

Messing around With Paper

      Within the last year, I've discovered that I absolutely love playing around with paper and seeing what I can create. Here below is a few I have picked out of what I have done, to show my experimenting.

    Above- I scrunched up an A3 piece of paper as much as I could and then drew a fish using posca pens, oil pastels, and other markers. I think the crinkled paper gives a unique effect which is original and different I really like it and had fun doing it and being expressive.

     Above- These three illustrations I did I just sat in my living room and ripped up bits of paper naturally and then used the shapes of the ripped up papers to create illustrations. On some pieces I used a fine liner to add detail. I really like them I also like the crinkled background to the seahorse. I also like the rabbit one a lot as I like how I used the fine liner to create a few patterns on the background piece of paper. There's just something great about paper and I feel I can really experiment with it and want to discover more ways how to use it. It would be good to create all my illustrations out of recycled paper and it would show I'm a green illustrator and that is something important to me. 

Above - Ok I know I'm not usually allowed to copy characters etc but I just love Disney and to celebrate the new Beauty and the beast film I wanted to create a piece of artwork to put in a frame and hang up in my home. 

I decided to use paper to create a 3d rose and then ripped up pink sugar paper to draw the outlines of beauty and the beast on to it. I think it is very different and great for my house :) This also gave me ideas that the backgrounds paper in some of my art could have been ripped up also as it creates a cool different effect to my art.

Some Other Illustrations

Below - A cute sloth I did this using pro markers and colour pencils I like his fur and how I created his texture. I really like this illustration it's bright and happy.

Above - A fat fly stuck in a little spiders web. I think this is a funny illustration and I hope it has made a few people smile on Instagram.