Jonny Duddle - The Pirate-Cruncher

'The Pirate Cruncher' is an awesome book i bought with 'A Bit Lost' and its so different but still just as awesome.
This time the book has comic strip style illustrations in it that seamlessly blends with the full page illustrations and adds a good storytelling element to tell more on one page. 

The style of the illustrations is wonderful and is created digitally. It seems very painterly as apposed to the normal bold and graphic digital work of other artists and could easily have been done with acrylic paints.

The digital renedering though, adds rich colour nd added textures and it also plays better with the text. It being directly involved with the illustrations and complimenting.


The pirate characters are larger than life and really funny which makes it so appealing and adds to the bright and happy style.

I really like the comic strip scenes spread throughout the book and they work really well to get as much going on in a double page spread as possible. The pages are cut into tall rectangles which follow in quick succession to get a good feel of the action, and it works really well.

I really love this books and its a joy to read and just look at. I wouldnt hope to create anything to this standard just yet, but it gives a good idea of how digital outcomes can looks great in a childrens book and in turn looks great as a sequential image.
Its far removed from traditonal comics and has a graphic novel feel to it, but its for children. [and big kids too!]

Chris Haughton - A Bit Lost

Here is a lovely children's book i bought the other day called 'A Bit Lost' by Chris Haughton. I couldn't resist buying this for the lovely story and amazingly cute illustrations.

Ive chosen to just look at the style here, and in terms of sequential illustration, its only sequential in its format as a picture book really.

All of the illustrations are created in a really appealing collage style, whether it is real collage or not, im unsure but the images feel as if they are layers of torn coloured papers layered over each other. If you look at the bear, the slightly frayed edges give a collage feel and the tones also suggest this as they seem to be the muted colours of sugar paper.
Anyway, it creates a really nice crafty feel and makes it more appealing to a wide audience in my opinion. It would appeal to children because the forms are big and bold and its easy to understand what is happening, but i also think it would appeal to am older audience because of the crafty feel and the fact that its really really cute.

I really adore this style an think it could be achievable providing I had lots of the same and slightly varying colours and restricted myself to using angular shapes. It could be easier to create digital too, if i loosened up the way I worked...
Overall though, I think if done right, collage mediums can fit in very well with ' style illustration and is something id definitely like to explore a bit more in the future.

Sequential comic concertina books...

Here are a few little concertina style books I made, as a way to experiment with the constraints of a 5 page comic and the idea of sequential images, be it as a traditional comic or an elongated scene spread over 5 pages.

This was done for illustration friday this week under the topic 'Contraption'. I wanted to play with one scene being spread along the whole book and keeping to a restricted palette of purple and brown. Overall I really like it! I used layering and made some of the cut out pieces stick out from the background to add depth, like what I did with my viking one.
The image is supposed to be looked at as a whole but each page still looks complete on its own.

This is the result of a hilarious train journey a friend, and she came up with the characters which I incorporated into a concertina comic for her.
The comic is read from the outside-in. [Ie. read the first page, then the last, then the second, second to last and finally the middle page.]
This was fun to do as its a very unconventional flow to the comic and the imagery was humorous, which I try to include in most of my works. The restricted palette works nicely and the layering and relief makes the characters stand out and also elevates the comic to being more than 'just a comic'.

This is another one... But this time a kinda 'bestiary' of 'minions'. 

Its not quite sequential but it is in terms of the layout and medium. The colours dont really jell on this one, but its still quite cute and funny. 

This last one shows characters from a planned storybook [personal work] called 'The Mushroom Fairies.'

It shows a few of the different coloured fairies set against a watercolour background and silhouette town. I really love the looks of the background but think that the colours of the mushrooms could be more refined and compliment the background more. 

They look like a big happy familly! How sweet! :)

Howl's Moving Castle- Storyboards

Animation storyboards are an interesting form of sequential imaging, as their purpose is to effectively communicate camera angles and motion to the animators. They are the backbone of any animation or anything recorded on video (film etc). 

Each frame is roughly sketched, as can be seen in these storyboards for Studio Ghibli's adaptation of 'Howl's Moving Castle', and sometimes washes of colour are added to help define forms or express a certain mood that the animators can replicate when fleshing it out. 

Storyboards are useful for creating comics because you can easily map out how the panels with flow and work out the flow of the story. They're essentially rough comic strip mock ups.

Anyway, as pieces of art themselves I really love to look at them and especially these ones from the 'Howl's Moving Castle' artbook. I love the rough and ready nature and the lovely watercolour washes over the loose pencil lines.
Id love to replicate this sort of roughness, but still withhold in the intentional nature of it (ie. so they still look like finished illustrations and not just rushed sketches.)

Looking at these would help greatly for comic strips or sequential illustrations that rely heavily on action, the sketchy nature helps to create a dynamic feel and the transitions between them reflect the intensity of the scene when animated so i can provide alot of help with making an exciting comic scene.

I mostly just love storyboards, and I also love this film which constantly inspires me.  

Easterm Style Comics- Manga

Eastern styled comics have a very different feel to those of western art. The comics are read from right to left (the way Japanese read) and they adopt a 'Manga' style of characteristically. Ill have a look at one manga comic 'Full Metal Alchemist'.

Firstly, eastern manga comics are drawn in a 'Manga' style which is known for exaggerating character's eyes and other features and using more rounded figures. The art is often black and white, which contrast with the more common coloured artwork in eastern comics like Marvel etc.

This particular style found in FMA (drawn by Hiromu Arakawa) is one of my favorites because the characters are robust and rounded and you get a good sense of them in their surroundings. She also uses a lot of exaggeration which can bring in alot of humor and show of emotion or action.

In terms of sequential images, the frames are very mosaic like and fit together nicely as boxes. Its very easy to read and the panels flow nicely, telling the story well. Sometimes elements appear out of the boundaries of the frames which accentuate action of helps to focus on a certain point/direct attention to somewhere else.

I really love the art style of this manga in particular with the 'screentones' applied that add shading and effects. It is very cleverly done and looks beautiful.

Nick Hayes- The Rime of the Modern Mariner

'The Rime of the Modern Mariner' is a fantastic graphic novel that i bought last year and is an interesting retelling of a classic tale 'The rime of the ancient mariner'.
I just love this books and its a joy to read as well as beautifully illustrated throughout. It has a lovely blue colour palette, focusing a few desaturated blues and black on the off white paper. It creates a great nautical feel and helps make the piece as a whole work together.


The drawings are very stylized and often intricate with lots of texture thrown in. The drawings frequently go outside of the boundaries of the panels and create obscure shapes which make it make it more interesting to read.
I especially love the typeface that accompanies the illustrations, it fits so well and I love the way the size changes so that the words fit nicely between the frames.

It also has a really nice print feel to it, although it seems to be digitally produced. The handmade feel this gives makes it much more desirable and interesting to me.

Id love to create something as complete as this with the wonderful restricted colour palette and awesome typeface. I think this could come in handy for the instructional illustration part of the module as a way to make it engaging to the viewer. Which is important for instructions...

Lilli Carre- Woodsman Pete

I love Woodsman Pete! The comic stips are so funny! 

They're drawn in a simple but unique style that really helps increase the comedy and the simple layout of the pages make them really simple to follow.

I also love the 'headers' on top of the strips which are different each time and add a nice variety to the comic strips.

Kicking Ass in Six Frames

'Kicking ass in six frames' is a cool little idea from the magazine 'Little White Lies'. The idea is to tell the story of a film in just 6 frames, and use the frame layout provided. This throws up alot of cool comics strips that push the limits of a comic. It seems impossible to fit a movie of 1-2 hours into just 6 frames, but it can be done and shows how man comic strips rely things happening outside of the frames for us to fully understand the story. 

The comics are all done in black and white which again limits the storytelling aspects as yo can rely on colour to set the scene of add various effects. I think it would be a good experiment to have a go at this as it will puhs my storytelling techniques alot. 

Looking at some of the strips, I really like the Psycho one by Claire Murray. The bold style makes it much less 'offensive' and almost makes it looks funny. I've never seen the film [and dont plan on doing so] but I dont think the storytelling works too well here, as I dont really have a clue what's going on..

Im not too sure whether the brief suggests horror movies as the subject, but it makes sense that alot of them are of horror movies. The horror genre is a very visual one and relies on shocking visual imagery, so its easier to capture that than it is to capture alot of talking into one comic frame. 

Im defiantly going to have a go myself at this, as way to experiment with storytelling. 

Dave McKean

Dave McKean is an English illustrator, comic book artist, photographer, graphic designer and film maker. (phew!) I really love his comic work shown here because they have a very painterly style which is so different to traditional forms of comic strips that are normally in a cartoon style.

It makes the much more dynamic and exciting, and due to the rather obscure story elements, the comics wouldn't have the same effect if it were in a cartoon style.

The images are rather disturbing, but intriguing and they really make me want to read more which is good for a comic obviously. Its quite hard to see whats going on in the individual frames and often I'm at a loss as to whats happening but again, that makes it more interesting and almost as if they are standalone images in their own right. 

Im never going to hope to replicate something like this as its very different from how I work, but it hives a little insight into how less illustrative styles can be blended into a comic strip really well and maybe even have a better effect or impact. Its also worth looking at the composition of the comics too.

I like the four panel thing going on, it keeps the action confined to very narrow frames which makes it more intense and also look more like a triptych [but 4 panels instead of 3] and therefore again make it more of an art piece than 'just another comic'

Meomi - The Octonauts

Meomi is the genius behind 'The Octonauts' which is a lovely kids animation as well as a series of really beautiful storybooks. 

I just love the style here, its so whimsical and imaginative. The colours are subtle and the attention to detail is great, even though at first the seem almost simple images. The characters are larger than life and so diverse.

I love the flat look of the illustrations and the way that so much is going on in them. Its like diving into a whole new and deliciously cute world. I love to create cute imagery, and it can be a hard thing to do well. Looking at these though, its helps to think of using simple shapes and large features as well as a sensitive colour palette. 

The storytelling aspect in the illustrations is really is cool, as many different little narratives are going on in the same piece. Either they be happening at the same moment, or one after the other like a sequential image, but presented together to form a montage or comic like feel without the constraints of using panels and frames.
I just love them!

Chris Ware

Chris wares work is very well known and can be seen on many magazine front covers as well as in the form of his comics. He has a very bold style which focuses on geometric shapes and subdued, flat colours. 

His comic strips are known for their interesting use of layout and the way he treats the panels as architecture, building a narrative by carefully placing each frame. Sometimes it can be easy to follow his comics but other times a little less easy, sometimes this is due to the simple style that makes it quite hard to understand what is going on.

In terms of said style, im not really much of a fan but its useful to look at his stuff because of the transitions between the panels and and his sensitivity to colour. Various blocks of colour present themselves throughout the comics to bring the separate elements together and sometimes help the storytelling aspect. It can however be a hinderance as well, the tree in the first frame is very close to the tree to its right, so my eye is drawn that way, I'm not really sure which way to read this particular strip becuase of this.  

There are also certain subtle touches in the comics, like in the superman one at the top. The way the crowd has moved suggests that the strip plays in quick succesesion. They way the other people interact make its clear what has happened and give an idea of what else will go on after the scene. 

I think this is a good thing, making people think about what goes on outside of the comic strip. 

Brian Ralph

I love the style of Brian Ralph's work and find his comics particularly inspirational. I really like the above image the most, the single colour palette and the sensitivity to line and shading works really well at making what could be a very simple image into more of a complete scene and helps to draw our attention to the characters and details. 

His style is really cool and he seems to capture the expressions of his characters really well. He always uses one or two colours which presents simple compositions without worrying about ideas around colour use which can sometimes effect the overall feel of the image alot.

He incorporates a lot of texture into his work via the use of line and this is something id like to look into more and it makes what could be a simple line image into something alot more exciting and ultimately easier to understant. For example, where it not for the rock like texture on the bottom half of the above image, it may be a little hard to see where he is.