The next thing to think about for our crit was where these illustrations will go, I went in the library yet again to do more research based on illustration.I looked at View 2 a fashion magazine, only to find an illustration style I had already used for another project. What they must do is hire an illustrator per season, (when the magazine comes out), and then they do the magazines illustrations for them. It's a series per issue, but they are so good and simple, photography of models down the catwalk, with tracing per over the top with line drawing of the photo behind it. with shapes cut out of the tracing paper to reveal some of the photograph. Very good!
But I tried to find other illustrations and most of them were just computer generated. So I looked through and in the magazine they had clothes laid out not on a person so it didn't have any figure, but just laid out, it made me think whether I could do this, most illustration is on a figure, so it's all thin, so maybe this could be a nice contrast to what is out there already?And I could have the heads legs and arms coming through as one of those thin people. So I got a few of these images collected. Just another thing I could do!
Now I want to design.............
At the start i just did some illustrations based on some images I had collected from fashion magazine View 2, whereby there were clothes just placed so it wasn't on a figure, but i thought this was quite nice as looking into fashion illustration it is al on figures, made to look typical, but I thought this would be a nice contrast to the norm?!
So I just started drawing some of these in my style.
For this I needed to look at the fashion Graveyards I had been looking at. I created a list of 15 in which then narrowed down based on the research that I had done in looking at each of the things on the list. I mainly took put things because i just couldn't find enough images based on each fashion graveyard and some mainly because i didn't think they were that bad like boho style, and some I just thought maybe boring to illustrate.
So i gathered these images and now I can really get stuck into this.
We also had a crit based on concept before wee split for easter..I managed to find my final place to put this in.. Originally I was thinking about The Guardian, but in looking at View 2 I found that they have a newspaper section of about no more than 8 pages, but I thought that this would be a good place as I'm just so sure about putting it in a newspaper and not in a magazine...So I told Mike and he said it was a nice idea but to put it into a Guardian format, as Vie 2 is just A4, whereas The Guardian is nice size which has been recently changed 470mm by 315mm. (18.5 in by 12.4 mm), The Berliner.
What am i Illustrating...
Fashion based on worst trends according/in the Guardian a section called fashion Graveyards, I made a list of about 15, and narrowed it down to 8, they are;
Nude Clothing
Sass and Bide Leggings
Roberto Cavalli- Leopard Print, bejewelled necklines and skyhigh slits
Gareth Pugh
Tulip Skirts
Manty Hose
Clyde Shoes
Union Jack Clothing
Footless Tights
So Far I have done illustrations for Gareth Pugh; These seem to be going really well to be honest, I could do a whole 8 illustrations based on his clothes, i love the use of pattern and texture, its just great, and getting all that detail i think has made mt illustrations good, as its nice to see little details.
Nudes; I've just done 1 illustration for this, but I really like it, its so simple and I may just keep it, unless I have more time at the end. Though this is in fashion graveyard, in some way I like his clothing, though I wouldn't wear it I think his clothes are just different, more experimental and some people just don't like its difference.
Roberto Cavalli: This has been a a bugger, I drew one that had a really different stance on the model, I like it, but I keep looking at it and not being certain, but I've been drawing others and they just aren't good, but I'm willing to continue, its just finding the right images to work from
I was having a conversation about this with my sister, about what is in fashion graveyard- and I just said at the end of the day, its all opinionated. I mean whose to say Gareth Pughs are bad?
Tulip skirts- why are they so bad? Personally I love them, but I think the point was on big people they don't look good so this is what i will have to show on my illustration. Footless tights why are they so bad? I mean the are in look as a fashion must have or something, the don't look so bad to me.
Illustrating this was quite easy, I found several images on this, but it was a case of which one to illustrate, I found a lot with not a lot of pattern, so the images seemed to be lacking. But I finally found one with pattern on, when I finished it though I thought it looked a bit half done- like I spent a lot of time illustrating the skirt and then half-heartedly doing the top half. I gave this a rest just to see if later I could work over it/improve upon it
Sass and Bide leggings- For this I looked at many images generally on the web, and then I looked at the
Sass and Bide website, where I found several good shots of clothes with the leggings, with the models in different positions which would make the illustrations more unique, and strong. Some were quite hard to draw- for instance this one:
But others I found not so difficult, infact I've just found some others in different patterns;
These are quite interesting, zebra rats ( as they are called), pvc rats, and some that just show them off pretty well.
Footless tights- This one I have found quite difficult to illustrate, mainly due to the lack of research I could find, some of the image were pretty boring, but I tried to make the best out of it. I found when I was illustrating one of them , the model was wearing black shoes, so its hard to differentiate where the leggings end and the shoes begin.
Back to nudes- I found some other images on
Style.These were quite more detailed, they had more pattern though simple, throughout the means of illustration make a impact or change. I drew one of them, but to be honest prefer the previous one I did previously.
Union Jack- Now this was hard to illustrate, I looked a lot for any signs of Union Jack, the main ting I got was shops selling single items, I wanted to find something that was on a a model already ( as this seems to be for me the best way I can illustrate, when I can see the actual actual figure, i've tried illustrating figure and portraiture before, but I think this way I can get a feel for the lines and curves I need to draw). I found some images, where Kate Moss wears Union Jack clothing probably for Vogue;
The first image I illustrated (first one of Kate Moss), I drew but the proportions were a bit off, strangely I liked in tho in all it's weirdness, the second one I drew(second image of Kate Moss), I drew it but in looking at all the other illustrations I have done, it does to seem to fit in, to be coherent. But I do really like it, there's quite a lot of detail without being over the top, I also like the difference in composition, but I don't know wether it shows off the Union Jack theme enough.
But then there are others in which I think as a fashion they won't work like Mantyhose, but some people may love them. To me fashion is just so opinionated today.
Editorial illustration
I have looked at a few pieces of editorial illustration, mainly in newspapers such as The Guardian. Most of them are just cartoons done by an artist. others I have looked at I found in British best editorial. The first one I looked at is a really nice hand drawn illustration. There is a kind of collage style bout it, as there's several things put together, i also like the limitation in colour, using black and white with red, i think this is to represent the heart (love). The style of illustration is quite simple, doesn't look stylized, just drawn as the illustrator would do, but stylized in the way it all comes together as an image.
The second one i looked at is more digital, like a series of photos in a collage style. I love how it all comes together in layers, as to be made too look like a city. The colour works well too , yet again just the one colour with black and white. I like how slick it looks, mainly due to the image and media. In terms of interpreting the text into imagery, it works very well based on architecture week, which the illustration portrays.
The third one simply because of how the type has been worked in to fit around the image works well. Using a mixture of both photography and hand drawn techniques to produce this illustration works well combined, and how one leads from the other.
The fourth one, the illustrations are very simple hand drawn imagery using black and white on a colour background. I like how it's set into strips, some heavily illustrated an some less, but focussing on the same subject matter.
Newspaper Cartoons, looking into these and reading the stories, most of the illustrations are interpreted by the head line, they are so clever in how they work, using imagery that you wouldn't first think of, maybe like the first one with the piggy bank representing a bank, maybe you'd just think to illustrate notes, or the flight slump being an illustration of a bird, very clever in how they work and funny.
Fashion illustration
Francois Berthoud
I looked at this illustrator as a main point of interest. I thought that the use/ way to look like it's textured works really well, i love this textured look, just by using pattern, this is something I really would consider when coming to my final illustrations, but how could I achieve this- there are so many ways, using materials, lino cutting, layering, using smooth materials, sewing, there are so many ways. This is something I am going to have to think about.
Designing the final outcomes:
I have now almost finished ll of my illustrations, I need to just complete the 7th one and then do the 8th one which I already have my image chosen;
The second one mainly because of all the texture on it. Which I have illustrated but the proportions aren't right.
After this I have scanned in the images, I then took inspiration from the Wonderland talk we had, where they used bright colours and black and white photography ( which will be my black and white illustrations), before this I felt a bit hesitant about finishing off these illustrations- about how I would go about making them what I want, I think this talk with the person from Wonderland inspired me. He was also talking about the headings they did, or he did for each story, he said about using fonts that didn't really go together, and though my strong point really isn't type, I decided to look into this.
Before this I used the concept of colour, I cut out the background in Photoshop and then some of the white spaces I drew with the pen tool in indesign, and made each of these a colour, like this one below, i cut out the circle on the clothing, I did do the same with the other one, but then added a larger circle, which I do think works well, makes it stand out and I think brings out the illustration more. (Gareth Pugh).
The second one took me ages to use the pen tool, I did have less brown shapes at the start but I didn't think it looked right, but I'm still not completely sure on it now. I did also have the small font gold at first but when I chose my colours for the large text, it just didn't seem to go, so I opted for the grey which works well with the purple. but I'm still not sure that some of the white is still exposed?! When I printed this out too, I think maybe the type looks a little large but as I printed it out A4 at first it may look fine on an A3.
Just Plain unflattering; this one I think i like the most, I'm trying to represent the image by the type, and I think this one does exactly that. It's quite a soft illustration- uncontrolled with no real harsh shades, I tried to reflect that in the illustrations using what to me is an old looking font, but with a modern twist on the colours. For this also I found it hard on the image which colour to use, I did make it brown but I think the turquoise works well.
Sometimes I found it hard about which sections to make into a colour, how and what looks better?!
On the second one I found that you can write within a shape, I haven't done this on some ( like the rat leggings), but I think the hanging in type works well on some and not on others.
4th one: this one I have found quite difficult to work with, especially the main type/heading. I just really didn't know what type to use, this type on the piece just dosen't look right to me, so I have changed it a few times, but I think I'm struggling with this.
But we have a crit today so it's something I can raise.
This crit went bloody awful if you ask me, Neil said about the illustrations even, he said what I could do now (bearing in mind we only have 2 weeks till the deadline), he said to take photographs, and then re-create these, but to be honest some of them are quite hard to do such as; Roberto Cavalli, Sass and Bide Rat leggings etc.
Then the other thing was the type, he said maybe you don't need it, but I this is something I was simply working on at the time, he said that maybe it would have been good to do some hand type. I felt like I just almost needed to start again.
But after I just thought with the time left to concentrate on the type, as I thought this is the major thing that would need changing. I must admit myself, as being not the strongest at type, I thought I would give myself a bit of a challenge,, so at the weekend I decided to make some finger paintings of type, or anything else that I could find, and then take these in monday and arrange these on the illustrations, which is exactly what i did. On monday I scanned in the type and started arranging it quite large over the illustrations I did, I continued this through tuesday and then most of wednesday. I thought that I would then ask one of my tutors to look at my work, so I asked Kit, I went through what my project was, and the main concern seemed to be that some of the text wasn't clear enough, so she said you could do one of two things:
1. was to make the text really small- put it in a corner or where the its not as obstructed by the illustration.
2. Or to put the text behind the image, so then the main thing isn't the text- as it felt overpowering when it was large and over the top of the illustrations. The illustrations are so delicate that the type was just more dominant , and this wasn't the point!
So I looked at the second option, me and Kit did a test in Illustrator which worked quite well.
However when I came to using the lasso tool in photoshop on my laptop it didn't seem to cut out when I placed it into illustrator. So I did the second one on y laptop, which in all honesty I think will actually look better, as some of the drawings I don't think would suit the second option, and I completly get the simplicity of the images as a whole.
Kit did say to try both of the options, but today I just set myself as an ultimate deadline, as I have to put these into an editorial. I still didn't finish one, footless tights, which I have scanned but I need to scan in the type and then arrange this, but I will go in early tomorrow and do this.
I want to show Neil and Mike these, and then I will get these printed.
8, A3 images.
I spoke to Kit after I had done this, she said about the geometrical shape, in the freak show (Gareth Pugh) one, she asked what the relevance of it was, I said it was mainly because it just seems to work on this one. She said that a possibility was to make a geometrical shape on each illustration, I tried doing this, but it just didn't seem to work so well on others, and some of them I just couldn't think in how to place a shape.
I then had a small crit with Mike, he said mainly about how I could present the spreads, and I also mentioned the geometric shapes, I said about getting rid of them as they just weren't working on some, he said my illustrations alone were better and there's no point to them which I agreed. He then said about presenting my spreads, he said you can have the illustration, and then have the text going around, there was two ways in which I could do this;
1.To make the text, like real text, articles that you find yourself.
2. Or make the text lines or any text,as to just put it into context.
This was something I hadn't even considered doing-just putting lines as text, just to represent a layout- I knew I could find relevant texts anyways on each fashion disaster.
I said to Kit that I had scraped the geometrical shapes, she said that it was probably best to do this. Before I had printed the final illustrations. I found one little hting wrong with the Roberto Cavalli one, in which I had some of the computer generated text still one there, when I didn't want it to be, so I just tweaked this.
I looked back at View 2 magazine, looking at the magazine spread- in the newspaper section, to get some inspiration for my layouts.
I started this on the thursday the week before my deadline- I did feel a bit pressured by time, but I think if I work hard on this I can get it done- afterall I am just showing how these illustrations would be put into an editorial. The style of the View 2 newspaper section is very simple, but very bold.
I think the main probelems were the type- there was one in View 2 that I was looking for, but I couldn't find the exact one- but i found a very similar one so I was quite pleased with that.
The other problems I had was the length in some of the stories- they seemed very long so I had to cut some parts out, cut the end off some of them.
The other problem I had was there wasn't much information for the RIP UNION one, so I just used many stories, and combined them for this one.
I managed to get most of this ready by the weekend- so it took me a few days to finish/almost finish my final pieces, and although I didn't spend a lot of time actually putting them into editorials, the main point, which i spend a lot of time on was the illustrations.
