This month's updates (May 2023)

General updates

Things are beginning to pick up again art-wise - that student from my lecture last month was right - the new financial year really turned the tap back on because January to April, things were very dry! I don’t mind telling you that I had to seek employment outside of drawing. I was actually working in a school as a Teaching Assistant and I actually hope to go back to that at some point, even if it’s just once in a while. There are young boys in schools who really need male role models and I felt like I was beginning to make some sort of difference. To be continued…

What I’ve been working on

Illustrations for an English Chamber Orchesta performance
I started these illustrations in March but finished them this month. I was commissioned by an organisation called ‘Little People Big Noise’ to draw a poster and some illustrations to accompany a musical piece by the English Chamber Orchestra with a poem by acclaimed writer Sophia Thakur. I attended the initial performance of it with my friend and mentee and it was great to see how the illustrations were used - the music and poem were fantastic! It was a new avenue for my work for sure. Below is a comparison between my initial sketch for the poster and my final drawing. One of the more subtle changes is that the girl in the final drawing is based on Sophia Thakur whereas the first one wasn’t.

Final illustrations for The Christmas Carrolls Book 3 (The Christmas Club)
The Christmas Carrolls is a book series about a family that celebrate Christmas all year round and are generally over the top with it and don’t get why everyone else isn’t. The series was my first book deal with interior illustrations and it forced me to draw several things I’d avoided drawing for ages so I’ll always be grateful for that. However, I’ve improved quite a bit since I drew those initial characters in 2021 so trying to stick to the original style required immense discipline which took a lot out of me. Here is the final cover and selected rough interior illustration.

Character Designs for secretthingymabob
Yeah, that’s probably as much as I can say. It’s just a few days of work and I’m not quite finished yet, but it’s been really fun. Character Design is my favourite type of work (in case I haven’t said this enough).

Illustrations for a book about a Welsh sporting hero
Having said many times that I was running away from books, they seem to keep chasing me so I even considered getting another agent this month, but after some frank conversations with a couple agents I was made to realise a few things (basically I had unrealistic expectations) so it didn’t work out. However, I was approached directly about a Children’s Picture Book and I haven’t done one on my own before so based on my new realistic expectations I decided to take it on. My main issue with books so far has been the payment terms and this time and this publisher was able to assure me in that area (I don’t mind being honest about this stuff).

Takeaways from my mentor

Volume is king!
I’m being mentored by the amazing David Perez (cra0la on Instagram) who from what I can tell has worked with virtually every big Animation studio including the one he knows I want to work for wink wink*.. There are reasons he’s worked with all those studios and the reasons are that his work is amazing, he really knows his stuff and he’s a really nice guy with excellent communication skills, so when he says something I’m gonna listen! I asked him to mentor me in February this year and thankfully he agreed. He has been putting me through my paces in an assignment he set me to design a cast of four retail colleagues. His main aim at the moment is for me to push myself and get out of my comfort zone. I’ve definitely been scared to push proportions for some reason. I also have a tendency to flatten my drawings even when I don’t intend to and think that habit has come from the styles I chose for my book illustration work. David picked up on this and he’s been helping me realise that even when a style is graphic, there is still volume underpinning it. I’ll soon share a comparison of my first take on the assignment and the latest iteration and the multiple versions in between, but it needs its own post. Going forward I just need to remember volume, volume, volume!

That’s all for this week.

God bless,
Selom