David Firth

I have been watching videos from an animator called David Firth, he is well know for his 'Salad Fingers' series, but he has made many other random spin-offs and other ranges of animations. He draws the characters and backdrops by hand, then scans them into a computer and edits using Macromedia Director

Most of his animations have a very dark and sorrowing feel to them, and I find this to be interesting because you can really feel the eeriness straight away from either the colours or music. Some of his work even seems scary from how random and weird he makes his characters and what they say, in a recent David Firth interview, he says he likes to work when he is really tired because it helps him to think of more weird and wonderful ideas, he also likes to use dreams as they are generated randomly.

Salad Fingers - Episode 3 - Nettles

This is an episode of Salad fingers, probably his most renowned work. It's strange how something so random and spooky is so good to watch, most of his work makes absolutely no sense but has a really interesting deep flavour and they are addictive to watch! Some of his work reminds me of my own, he uses random scribbles, simple shapes, quickly drawn art, but together they have a low-quality feel that works and is really humorous. It shows that you don't need to be the finest artist to create amazing things!

Running Errands

Last night, I was lucky enough to get talking to some people in a pub and have been asked to do a couple of jobs for separate people. These will be paid and I have been given several weeks to complete them. These are effectively my first proper paid illustration jobs so I am excited!

Firstly a girl wants me to design her a tattoo featuring a dragon spiralling cherry blossoms, I find this request both honourable but kind of challenging because someone is going to be placing a design of mine to their body for the rest of their life (bar laser surgery to remove it (haha)) and so they are putting quite a lot of trust into my work. But at the same time, that makes me feel happy that my drawings are respected by people I don't know.

The second job is from a man who wants me to sketch a professional portrait of his dog who is really old as a memory of when he passes on. He is going to send me a picture of the dog and I will draw from the picture, he also said that pastels are preferred but is completely open to any form of sketch. I do like to do observational drawings

To be completely honest, money does not mean very much to me, I'm much more thankful for the opportunities and the experiences, as this is all worth a lot more than just Happy Meal spends. I am very excited and will get round to doing these jobs as soon as I can.

-Shatty

Just-So Festival 2012

Over the Summer, I have been working with Lord Whitney once again to create and set up the Just-So Festival; a much larger and demanding task than the last festival. This involved a lot of heavy lifting and walking to dedicated spots, painting, den making, crafting, origami, decorating, more walking and many other exciting tasks! 

First day of opening, wondering round to make sure
 everything is running smoothly and all is well...

Lord Whitney have created some really interesting pieces of art and they think cleverly outside the box and make both simple and complicated ranges of art and I think that some of their skills have rubbed off on me and I am starting to think a lot more about what I do as an illustrator and even when I see other people's work I can appreciate what they have done and understand the values of their work.

Parents and children enjoying the day, hay everywhere because of damn kids! :@

I think just being around Amy and Beks has inspired me to create more and better quality designs in my work, because there is only the two of them and they manage to make and organise most of a festival, and if two people can do that, I think the possibilities are fairly infinite in terms of completing future briefs and tasks that I will face next year.

Hanging bird cages surrounding an area in the woods

There were so many amazing things to see but I was unfortunately too carried away to take pictures, but you can see more on the Lord Whitney website once they've uploaded them. I had a really fun time working with them and will definitely work with them again!