Animal Designs.

I have spent the last few days animating different animals on illustrator in the same style as the chick. I first made a dog and a caterpillar just to try out the technique out more and also experiment with shapes and colours.

Dog

I then went onto relating it to the theme of the story. As I was going along the lines of “loneliness” or “anxiety” I chose to create animals that started with an L or an A, as alliteration is quite traditional and common in children’s books. So the four animals I animated was a Lion, Lemur, Alligator and Antelope. I then downloaded a bold and simple font which was called “Ice Age” (from the Ice Age films)

Picture Book Front Covers Picture Book Front Covers2 Picture Book Front Covers3

Picture Book Front Covers44

 

What I am really enjoying about this style is the different textures, colours and tones. I am still undecided on which animal out of the four to chose from and I still have a bit of work to do on the antelope illustration, despite the fact I am leaning towards The anxious alligator design and the lonely lion. I am thinking of still using these other animal designs as supporting character designs, despite which one I pick. I also like the idea of having a complete white background. I may however, illustrate grass and some minor features for the background, however I do really like how its bare, I think it brings out the colours in the title and the animal really well.

Steve Simpson Pastiche

I took Steve Simpsons style of illustrations and created pastiches of his work in Illustrator. Doing this has increased my knowledge and abled me to create a certain style that I’m gonna stick with in my children’s picture books. The first pastiche I did was a mix of his works, and I tried to create a person. However this didn’t turn out well in terms of attractiveness, however I have taken away styles that I really like and now I know how to apply these techniques in Illustrator I can create my own illustrations. I didn’t finish the human version as I felt like it wasn’t going anywhere and it was just a practise on methods of style.

SIMPSON PRACTISE

 

I then looked at a children’s book that Steve Simpson illustrated which was called “Mise Agus An Dragun” which features illustrations of a young bear and a dragon.

Mise-agus-an-dragun

 

I took an illustration of a chicken and animated in the same style as the previous pastiche. I really liked the outcome of this animation and I will definitely carry on this style. I also feel that creating animals would be a lot easier in terms of shapes and proportions. Chicken