Exaggerated Series

Filler post, by nature. Just thought I'd post some of my most recent work: a small series of caricatures of myself, my boyfriend and my sister...




Hoping to add my brothers and maybe my parents/friends to this series. I've finally finished uni and am free to do as I please until I can get a job, haha! Moving into a Bungalow soon too, so it's busy times for Jemmy. Still, I'll be doing some work for a friend of mine and his business, so that'll hopefully bring some money in. Until them I'm free for commissions, but am working on starting up a professional business: calling cards, stickers, postcards, felties etc... also hoping to show up to some conventions with my work within the next year.

Blogs on the way:

+ Kapow! Comic Con
+ Highgate Cemetery (and other photos)
+ Liverpool Tattoo Convention
+ Manchester MCM Expo

In the meantime, here's my latest avatar(d):


Finally (I promise), I've given my FanFiction.net account a serious make-over and joined FictionPress.com, so if you're interested in reading some of my written work, both fan and original, just click on the links! :)

Character Designage!: Blue and Dom

Wow, it appears I may have something relevant to talk about for once: my artwork!

I don't usually post my pictures for fear of theives, bandits and ruffians making off with my goods, but then again, I need to get my work out there somehow.

Bluey and Dominic are two characters I came up with when I was about fourteen, as a way to vent my teen-angst. Since then, I haven't really been able to put them down, because I love them so.

Dominic is shy, sweet, adorable, and always looks ill. He's a bit of a pervert too, as his hormones generally run his life. Girls love him, women want to mother him, guys want to kick his pathetic arse. Oh, and he's a yanky-doodle, because I love Californian surfer dudes :)

Bluey on the other hand is his polar opposite; loud, obnoxious, promiscuous as hell (kind of a lovable slut), and a bit of a tough cookie. But underneath she can be nice sometimes, and she's ferociously loyal, unlike Dom who's cheated once or twice.

The pair are best mates and get up to all sorts of shenanigans, though I can't think of any off the top of my head... except an old Legend of Zelda Cosplay comic that I'm going to re-boot at some point.

Anyway, there's a brief description of them both. Enjoy the doodles:







You'll have noticed there's only one page for Dom, and that's because this is basically everything I've done today. More Dom to follow, and also I'll be designing tattoos for them both.

The idea behind these character sheets is to give me a solid (or thereabouts) basis for them when I'm drawing them in comics and illustrations. It also helps me get to know them a bit better, since they've been on the shelf for a while. Anyhoo, as you can see I like to play around with shapes: Blue is mostly soft shapes and curves, because she's so laid-back and fancy free. Meanwhile, Dom is made up of straight lines and angles, because he's rigid as hell and always stressed... aha! See what I did there? Always gotta think about these things in character design.

The whole shapes idea also helps to emphasize the opposites between the pair, and also the size difference (Dom is a good head taller than Bluey-the-shortarse).

*sigh* How I love character design! :) I'll post some more soon, and hopefully I'll soon have some of my other comic characters Morgue, Gor and Demon Bob. Imagine that...

Please Vote!

Wow, I'm so chuffed to make it to the finals of the Gorillaz Design the Evangelist competition :) But it would be great to get to the semi-finals!

If you think I deserve the chance, then you can vote for my entry here. You also get to see my entry being drawn in super high-speed, so it gives you a good idea of how I work.

My love to you all! x

Welcome to October 2009

So... this is my "Artist's Journal".

It's basically a diary of what's going on in my professional life, as I adapt to working freelance. I've been advised by pretty much everyone to keep a working blog, in order to help me reflect back on my own experiences as an artist, and to perhaps allow anyone, who's interested, the chance to see how I go about my professional work.

Currently, I am working on four big pieces:

1. My first paid commission, for a well-known company. I'm keeping it under wraps for the sake of it being a private matter, but I will let you know how I'm getting on with the project. At the moment it's still in the planning stages, but I'm doing a lot of research in my own time in order to give my client more than what he initially asked. I believe giving more than your best is always a good thing. Who's going to say to you "That work is too good and you've done too much of it"? It's better to do too much than too little.

2. I'm working on a project (a Graphic Novel basically) that defies all the basic rules of a horror movie, but is still able to be classed under the title of "Horror". So that means no blood, death, scares, monsters, etc. Sounds hard, doesn't it? Well it certainly is. Still in the planning stages of this one.

3. My third piece of work is based around the story of the Collyer Brothers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers). At the moment I'm experimenting with ideas because, although initially it's going to be a Graphic Novel short, I would also like to fiddle with the idea of an interactive piece that will get people thinking about the subject in different ways. For example, if they're empathetic towards the Collyer Brothers, perhaps a set designed after one of their cluttered bedrooms will have the viewer reeling back in disgust. Maybe that sounds too ambitious, but as I said earlier, it's always best to do too much rather than too little.

4. I am also working on a article that explores this quote from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a 20th century philosopher:

"The body is much more than an instrument or a means... it is our expression in the world."

As an artist I feature mainly human characters in my work, as I have a great interest in our physical body and it's language. The quote gives me an excellent opportunity to explore my theory of the human body as art, whilst also dispelling myths about beauty and pornography. I will post my article when it is complete, and am open to any feedback.

As well as these larger projects I am also working on improving my portfolio with some side-projects, including a tattoo porfolio, which I am hoping will land me a job as a tattooist's apprentice in a year or two; a series of greeting card designs, featuring 'cute' Manga-style characters. I hope to personalise these for different clients to make some extra money and get my work out there; I have a few short films in the planning stages with my partner, including a documentary on body modification in November; I am also hoping to work with my partner on some album artwork for his band, and will be entering this years Welsh Libraries Arts Competition (http://library.wales.org/express-yourself/), as well as participating in Liverpool's Big Draw (http://culture.org.uk/News.aspx?newsId=98).

So I'm frantically busy!

Until next time,

Jem