More Machine-People

Here's a couple more bits of my advanced drawing final project. The first one is the most recent piece (and perhaps my favourite so far), and the second is one of the earliest experiments I made for the project. You can see I deviated pretty far from my initial vision. This is mostly due to A) reading too much moebius B) switching from bristol to watercolour paper C) figuring out how my new paint set works, sort of.

Both are about 7"x8".

Shirt Design

I just finished up a shirt design for the Knowledge Bowl team of my dear alma mater, West Sound Academy. The zombie thing was their idea, I swear! I hope the team likes it and I'll be psyched to see how it prints in a couple of weeks.

On "Break"

I made it to Thanksgiving break in one piece! This calls for a celebration! Oh, wait, I have work to do, sorry. I'll push that celebration back until the winter holiday break. In the mean time I'll keep chugging away on my finals and trying to chip away at my cynicism problem.

Anyway, I've got a load of stuff to scan and upload, but even more that I just need to keep working on between now and December 16. In the mean time, here is an isolated piece from a series I'm working on for my Advanced Drawing final.

Conceptor Page Two

This week was a big switch up in comics. We had to make another page in colour, this time using Pelikan Opaque Watercolors on 300lb paper. For those that don't know, 300lb paper is REALLY THICK and also REALLY EXPENSIVE. But it is very worth it. Learning to use the opaque watercolors was a real trial for me and it took way longer than it should have. However, I'm pretty pleased with what the medium can do, so I'll continue working with the watercolors when possible.

I decided to continue the story from last week (conceptor) for two reasons: I wanted to see the contrast in materials and I just like the idea a lot. It's actually a pretty startling comparison as far as saturation and value range goes. The scan is a little too dark, but you get the idea. Below the page you'll see I've included the sketches I made to figure out the panel layout and value placement, as well as page one for contrast.

(page one)

Initial thumbnails

More finished value study thumbnail and some sketches

Forest/Home

Another work from my artist's book class. This was an altered book assignment, and this 1970s  gem on evergreens called to me from the Savers rack. The book is about remembering childhood play in my woodsy back yard, and the scents and colors and textures associated with these memories. Inside is a removable door which reveals a rosebud on a robin's egg, which is a callback to several very specific memories of building "nests" from twigs and flowers and placing them in a tree next to some rose bushes, in hopes that they would be occupied by a grateful bird in the future.

Diner Lift-the-Flap Book

Hey! Watch out! There's nudity & tiny cartoon genitals in this one!

Now that's out of the way...This book was made for my Artist's Book class in response to an assignment to do something involving a diner and secret or hidden elements to interact with such as flaps or sliding panels. Each of the four pages shows a "normal" set of people going about their business at the diner. But, what's this? A flap to lift? Below the table, they're all nude and every table has something hidden or unexpected.

New Contact Info

I'm finally making the switch to a more official sounding email and slowly shedding all the accounts associated with my old email (joshuatreelegume). If you want to contact me or give others my contact information, please use either my RISD email (mtrower at risd.edu) or my new address: m.r.trower at gmail.com.

Carry on!

Conceptor

This week in comics we had to make a page in colour, which was...intimidating to me. I looked very hard at some moebius comics and then made the comic you'll find below. I also included the sketchbook studies I made beforehand while I was planning it, for context. After class today, I made the digital version of the comic, to see what it would look like with cleaner, more solid colours. Next week is watercolour, so I'll be continuing this story into a second page.