Animals in Anguish Update 2

Some of the patterns used in my designs

 I have still been working on poster designs, On the left are two characters that will feature in one of them I want to make a series of these characters, merging humans with animals, to shock people into identifying the issue.

I have also uploaded some of my newer drawings from my sketchbook.

Squirrel

Bird

Website is up!

I now have a website set up. Currently the address is http://tom5550123.wix.com/tomshatwell but will soon change to tomshatwell.co.uk after the domain has finished processing.

I have put most of my favourite works in the gallery so feel free to have a look. It is still a working progress and I am gradually learning how to use all the tools, but more will come soon.

Animals in Anguish - My Project Drawings

I have started my final project and have decided to make it about Animal Cruelty, maybe lead into environmental issues that are affecting animals, I have started out by drawing animals just to get my head into the project. Here are a few of them:

Duckling

I feel that it is important to get into the project by just drawing and drawing and drawing. If I am going to feature birds or reptiles, I need to know how they look, how they position themselves, how they move. So I have started by drawing them.

Mouse

Kitten

A few attempts at birds

Next I am going to think about making posters and how the drawings I have made would factor in to them.

Little Brown Book Project, Initial Ideas and Thought Processing

Trying to come up with a few starting points for book designs for Little Brown Book Publishing, the Josie Dew character seems to be very funny and spontaneous, so I had an idea of making her bike look ridiculous as I could imagine her to be carrying lots of luggage and have a basket with lots of items shoved in, like buckets and spades, sleeping bags and umbrellas.

I have also started to implement the typeface I made, but it doesn't seem to be working too well, making a typeface is quite difficult and seems to look better on paper as an alphabet than put with a design. Going to continue to work on these and play around more with shape.

Little Brown Book Publishing Project

I have been given a chance to design sever book covers for a series of books for Little Brown Book Publishing. The books are by an auther called Josie Dew who has travelled all around the world on a bicycle, the stories seem to be very crazy and funny as she goes anywhere and everywhere on her bike, and it will be a fun and interesting experience to design the covers for these!

I really want the designs to reflect my style of work, as well as Josie Dew's humour. I'd want her to appreciate the thought of design behind the book covers. 

I wanted to start off by making a typeface just to see what it's like (and how difficult it is!) I thought this threaded typeface I designed might look good on the designs, but we'll see..

Gears: The Movie (Radio 4 Final Stop-Motion)

This is my final design for my Radio 4 Project. Firstly, I felt I could have added alot more to the stop-motion but time was heavily afflicted due to all the presentations, essays, and everything else I've been doing over the last two weeks. The project has been slightly neglected, but this is the first animation I have done all year and it does have a nice charm to it.

Without careful planning, animations never go well, same with films, bad directed = bad film. But anyway, enjoy the animation. This was for a segment of a Radio 4 show titled 'Birth of Radio'. I think it goes with the theme, because cogs are old fashion mechanics, and they fit the atmosphere of what is being discussed. But to be honest, I wish I had more time to amend this. 

FairTrade A-Z Finale

I have just about finished my final designs for FairTrade A-Z. Just missing a few final letters, those being 'M', 'X', 'Y', and 'Z'. For X Y Z, there are no actual products, so I must try to think outside the box with this one. I haven't properly implemented colour yet, I just wanted to get the designs done and dusted, but I think in colour, they will look great.

Oh, and the 'M' is there because I fail at drawing mangoes.

A-Z Final Poster Design (Beta)

This is my final poster for FairTrade! Well, almost, it isn't quite finished yet, I still need a fair few letters, but they seem to be piecing nicely. The background needs tampering with as there are a few white marks that need to be erased. But as far as it goes, this is an initial final design... If that makes sense...

After doing this, I'm starting to get sick of the blue, but probably just because I've been working on it all day...

Wind in The Willows - Final Design

Here is my final design for the Wind in The Willows project. It has been a really fun and exploratory few weeks and I really had fun making characters and investigating their habitats and characteristics. Overall I feel fairly accomplished with my final piece, I had a fair few final design ideas, and this is the one I decided to implement  just because I thought it said more about how I've been working in the past and made the most sense to put into play. 

If I could do the project again, I would probably spend longer on character design as I think that is the weakest (although most crazy!) part of the piece. I do really admire the creation of the scenery, this is the strongest part of the project, because this is how I started it, the scene is the most important thing in my opinion because it is the first thing you see and feel. I am going to submit this design to the Puffin competition later today. 

A-Z, Sketch Mania!

Just to show what's going on with my FairTrade project at the moment...

Speaks for itself!

I have a lot of designs I could use in the actual poster. But I still have a number of letters (haha) I need to think about. I also noticed I'm pretty good at drawing toilet rolls.

The Wind in The Willows - A Few Design Ideas

Design Ideas for The Wind in The Willows. The first design I have is this preliminary very simple design, created in the style of the Halvetica Penguin books. Simple imagery, simple typeface. I was trying to express the world in a simplistic manner and I think I captured it rather well here. I really really like the effect with the trees turning transparent over one-another, it appears as if they are disappearing into the distance.

This is another simplified cover I made, each of the sections are supposed to contan a character, looking back at this, I don't like the use of line, I think it would probably be more striking without the black lines. Oh well, here it is in all it's glory...

Age UK - Air Raid Shelter Memeory

This is my final piece of work for Age UK. I have been using Photoshop alot recently, and so it makes a change to go back to mostly hand rendering work. I am actually fairly proud of my final design, because it has everything I have looked at over this project merged and I can see all the bits of research built together. The Air Raid Shelters that I looked at, the doll on the floor and the chips on the bench, provided by Betty's tales, various objects were found in the room when I visited the Shelters.

I eventually edited the final piece on Photoshop, just to give it that watercolour paint effect (because I am terrible at painting, very terrible). I think the paint effect worked quite nicely, the floor looks really dusty and the area looks very eerie and dark. It gives off the Air Raid Shelter vibe I was striving for.

What a lovely project this has been. I was really glad to work for Age UK, I will finish the project by leaving with the message I sent with the final piece...

A few weeks ago, I went to a daycare to talk to a few elderly people who are suffering from Dimentia. One person that stood out in my mind was Betty who told me a few stories from war time which she went through. She told me a story about going to a chip shop and buying fish and chips, but because she knew the person behind the counter, she received three fish instead of one! Another story she told me was when the sirens alarmed and everyone was rushing to the Air Raid Shelters, and she wasn't to be found anywhere. Her parents eventually found her in the Air Raid Shelters playing with her dolls safe and sound.

I have taken a visit into the Stockport Air Raid Shelters and had a good look round to get a feel of what it must have been like during war time. I have been sketching several areas and objects from the shelters, both on-site and at home from photographs I took. My final piece is an area in the shelters that included a bike, a gas mask, a fire extinguisher and several other objects. In reference to Betty's stories, I also included a doll along with fish and Chips in the scene. I feel that my image has captured the atmosphere of what it would have been like in the war time.

I really enjoyed talking to the people at the Day Care, they had some very interesting stories to tell, and my heart goes out to those suffering from Dimentia. I hope my piece of work brings back memories from the war time, and lights up the memories for those who lived through that time.

- Tom