Oceana

This character was inspired by Ian Macarthur's highly detailed, intricate illustrations. Influenced by his choice of mixed-media, I similarly created this illustration using pencil, pigment pen and watercolour paints. The stern expression, strong stance and vivacious splash of colour convey Oceana's powerful, wilful, spirited personality.

Antlers

This graphite-on-paper drawing was inspired by the amazing Shaun Tan's illustrations. I feel I have successfully conveyed the personality and emotion of this character through his expression and body language. Overall I am pleased with the final illustration of this timid, shy, endearing antler-boy, who is my favourite character out of the seven.

Thumberlina

 

I created this character on a piece of wood using black fine-liner and chalk, inspired by Audrey Kawasaki's beautiful, evocative wood-based paintings. This character is influenced by Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale Thumbelina, as seen through the lily pad and petal dress. I like how Thumbelina's simplified style contrasts with my other more detailed characters. 

Tortoise-shell hare

Graphite on paper

This character was influenced by Mark Ryden's graphite-on-paper creatures. Ryden's evocative, poignant artwork contains layers of meaning and subtle twists. Inspired to create a thought provoking character, I decided to play on the Aesop's fable The Hare and the Tortoise in order to produce this intriguing character.

Foo Dog

Foo Dog final design, black fine-liner pen

Dry point perspex printing plate 

The medium for this character was inspired by the dry-point prints of Estonian artist Vello Vinn, the intricate detail seen on the Foo Dog relating back to Vinn's intense prints. This was my first attempt at creating a drypoint print, which I produced onto a piece of perspex. So far the prints I have tried to create without a printing-press at home have been unsuccessful, I plan on using the uni printing press soon to try and produce some good prints. The character was influenced by chinese Guardian Lions, known as Foo Dogs in the west, believed to have powerful mythical protective benefits. Overall I am very happy with the end Foo Dog character.

Ollie the Orangutan

This is Ollie the Orangutan, one of my seven characters for this years Uni summer project, inspired by Amy Schimler's illustrations. I created this character by scanning in a line drawing along with various different textures and then editing on photoshop; developing techniques I used when creating 'Kara the Koala.'

This post is dedicated to my brother and sister on their 17th Birthday, love you Ali and Claire.

Psychedelic Butterfly

This years University Summer Project included the task of creating 7 very different characters, influenced by 7 different artists/illustrators. This psychedelic butterfly was inspired by Louis Wain's cat drawings. I created this illustration using watercolour paints. Without doubt this is the most colourful illustration I have ever produced! For someone who avoids colour, I actually quite enjoyed painting this fun, sinister character.