Chimps, Prints and Presentations

So...In my last blog, I said how I had missed a part of the summer brief based around my animal spirit, so in the time since my last blog I have been trying to put this right.
To do this,... I have taken a long hard look at myself, and my personality and eventually coming to the conclusion that if I was an animal, I would be a Chimpanzee....with a Mancunian accent.
Right then, off I went researching Chimps, which in parts was actually really fun!.
Taking my kids to the Welsh Mountain Zoo in Colwyn Bay and taking photos of the troop of Chimps that reside there.
Also reading about them and looking for photos of them in their natural environment and learning about their behaviours...and after a while it was clear I'm actually more like a Chimpanzee than I even initially figured.
They are a notoriously territorial species and protective of their young, but also intelligent and fun loving as well.
These were not the only factors in my choosing the chimpanzee as my animal spirit but they were probably the main ones.
Here's a few of the Photos I took while at the Zoo, apologies for the quality but it was a bad day and they were taken through fairly thick glass.

After my research I wrote my animal memoirs, I can honestly say that I have never had so much fun while writing a piece of creative writing, I pretty much laughed the whole time I was writing it, As I was writing in entirely in a Mancunian accent, this led to my comic strip which I also had so much fun drawing! 

Here it is...

From this I began creating hybrids of the Chimps and my Pulp Fiction drawings from my previous blog, or basically turning the movies characters into Chimpanzees. Here are some of them....

I thinks its fairly obvious that I also had a lot of fun creating these!.

These images also became the 1st step along in the 3-D model aspect of the 1st brief I was given for the 2nd year of my course.

Chimpanzee's also take a central role in my repeating pattern for the wall paper aspect of my new brief as well, the image below is going to be the key element within the pattern, wether it will work or not remains to be seen but I suppose experimenting is all part of the course and procedure.

Well I think that's all I have in the way of monkeys until my screen print and 3-D model are completed but as soon as they are I shall share them and what i think of the outcomes.

That leads me onto the pod cast presentations that the group started to do on Friday afternoons...

The pod cast titled The State Of Illustration which if I'm honest i still have not heard, due to catching up with my Monkey related work, was well covered by the three classmates and brought up some good arguments for the rest of the group to discuss, even though we did not go into too much depth with it being the last thing on a Friday! 

I will listen to the pod cast and draw my own conclusions in my next post.

No time wasted!

Again, I have left it way too long since I last updated this, my apologies for that,
I put it down to trying to balance so many aspects of my personal life.
Anyway now that's out the way Ill attempt to explain and show exactly what I have been doing with my time.
Firstly, I accidentally stumbled across the Generation Gallery in Manchester, It is situated on New York St behind the Piccadilly plaza for those interested.
It specialises in Urban, Contemporary and Modern art, I spent the best part of an hour walking round looking at the works the exhibit and sell, some of it is mind blowing and similar to the paintings I do and sell (examples of which will be further down).
Its the kind of place that appeals to both the Illustrator and the child in me, an inspiring place!
http://www.generationgallery.com/
Take a look for yourself, the staff in there are very helpful and approachable too
Now onto more pressing matters, my own work!. Because I'm an idiot and didn't read the summer brief properly I missed a whole section (something I'm putting right at the moment),
so due to the fact Id missed the section, I figured I had lots of spare time, in which I painted some canvasses Id been commissioned to do, here's a few of them...

Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry

Vincent and Jules from Pulp Fiction

This is actually a reproduction I was asked to do, since the original was by an artist I admire and respect, Ben Wachenje, I naturally jumped at the chance

Marlon Brando as Don Corleone

Another project I have gotten involved in is designing logo's and ideas for a friend of mine who is bringing our a line of clothes based on Manchester, its people, towns and connections.

Since a lot of them are still in production I cant really post too much, but i will show this one as its a little too advanced at the current time...

Keep your eyes peeled for 'Manni' clothes in shops and on the streets!

Right onto the work I did manage to do after reading SOME of the brief,

The film I eventually chose to draw from after some serious deliberation was Pulp Fiction, I concentrated on the 'innovation in pace' aspect of the brief coupled with the diverse camera angles Tarantino used in the film.

I came up with some sketches that I was personally very pleased with, some not so and some i felt were entirely ropey! but using the ethos of last year, embrace mistakes I kept the ropey ones, the examples below are naturally, the ones I felt I had done well.

These images make up my sequential film screen shots part of the summer assignment we were given, I was really quite excited to get going with them as faces and characters make up alot of the work I do and are something else that i find massive amounts of inspiration in.

So, that's where I'm up to now and my next instalment should contain some of the animal spirit section I completely missed!