Anomalisa

Went to see anomalisa at Hyde park, Adam got free tickets from this quiz about sustainability we went to so he can mingle with the union and become president. Turns out just us and one other girl showed up so we did a casual version of the quiz and won the tickets.

So the movie. Charlie Kauffman and duke Johnson working in mesmerising stop motion to tell the introverted story of mentally unstable narcissistic guru of customer services Michael Stone taking an inane business trip that ends up pushing him over the edge.

I enjoyed it a lot. It was horribly unpleasant to watch for the most part, which is quite a feat to acheive. The main reason for this is that everyone except Michael has the same crash text dummy face and the same unsettlingly neutral voice. This is his disorder, called fregoli, where one perceives everyone in the world to be the same person. Pretty freaky stuff. So obviously he's pretty miserable and completely isolated in this perceived world of empty clones and this gives him a lot of desperation and intensity. Quite an unlikable guy really, and i do love an unlikeable protaganist. 

There's an unsettling level of intimacy throughout the whole thing right from the benginning when Michael shuffles restlessly around his hotel room drinking chain smoking and practising embarrasingly what to say to a woman he abandoned ten years ago. This continues as we watch him stammer destructively through drinks with said woman, who he clearly destroyed. Here one begins to feel less sympathetic and more guilty as if he reflects the worst case scenario in all of our characters. I mean maybe if I started seeing everyone I loved as a vapid replica of everyone I hated with no ability to differentiate between them, maybe I'd end up abandonning and ignoring said people with little care for the consequences. It's not like he can even hear the sadness in their voices.

I'll note at this point that one of my favourite bits was when he turned the big tv on, I think it's meant to be early 2000's but it makes that static fizz noise that id forgotten about. What attention to detail and faith to the time frame does that demonstrate on the part of the sound people. Greatttt stuff.

So then he hears this voice, and we hear it like he does cos we also have been heading incessant Tom Noonan. It's a happy lady voice and he's like woaaaah who is this and goes crazy knocking doors to find her and he does and she looks different too and he's slated. They go for drinks with her friend, they've come to see the seminar on customer service he's giving and are kinda can girls. Emily, the friend, we're told repeatedly is more attractive and popular with men, but since we see her as another androgynous crash dummy we, like Michael, dismiss her in favour of Lisa and her proper human face. 

Then after awkward drinks he takes her back to his room and pursues her despite initial her reluctance. He gets her to sing for him, I guess singers probably all have that same voice, so thats a nice little moment. Then begins the most excruciating sex scene in the history of film, television, or really any visual media, to my knowledge. I'm uncomfortable jsut remembering it, it really must be seen to be believed, and I'm certain I will never forget the experience of watching two soft puppets have hyper-realistic, unnappealing and unglamouros intercourse on a cinema screen with a room full of equally baffled strangers. 

So then (spoilers), after they've had horrid sex, I forget what happens, but in the morning theyre eating breakfast and Michael is like MARRY ME LISA BALLS TO MY FAMILY I HATE THEM INCLUDING MY SON HES A DICK LETS ELOPE NOW, and the beat after she agrees he starts getting pissed that she's got egg on her mouth and clacks her fork on her teeth and tells her off and then her voice, subtley at first but increasingly clearly starts to have echos of the voice. We feel his desperate and gutting frustration as the only joy he'd found in life slips away and she becomes another one, like the rest of them.
After this he finally goes to do the conference in the midst of which he has an excellent mental breakdown and starts swearing about the futility of existence in front of a crowd of fans. Then he goes home to his family and says he doesn't recognise them and then gives his son the weird japanese sex doll that we saw earlier, but I agree with mark kermode on this that the sex toy joke thing kinda brought the whole thing down a notch as if it was just there to engage the people who weren't enjoying the grinding existentialism.

Animation-wise its a visual masterpiece. Every detail, every prop, is faultless and seamless, the more you think about it as you look it at the more boggling it is. The figures are perfect too, comletely captured the essence of neutral, like they are the most neural faces possible.

Anyway this has become very long, basically I enjoyed the movie and I would watch it again, perhaps out of pure morbid fascination.

Spreeeee

Spent the bank holiday morning spending my $250 gift code on threadless before I go to work for 8 hours.
I get paid time and a half though so its okaaaayyy.
AND I recently discovered I can blog at work so wahoo

Anyway threadless.
To be honest I was not overwhelmed by their catalogue.
A lot of it is the side of illustration I hate.
The lazy word play puns, the pop cultural multilayered references, and more recently memes, which is the most unforgivable.

After a lot of trawling, and arranging the results to least popular first (people don't know whats good) I assembled a reasonable collection of shirt designs to clad myself in.
Four of these were Will Bryant, one of very few worthwhile artists on there.
That led me to his website, his work is great its so loud and obnoxious in a friendly way

I picked these shirts

Will bryant one, it's pretty basic shirt design wise but hes a nifty looking guy evoking 70s summer vibes.Does he get mustard on his glasses

Also Will Bryant, I like this one because of its awkward composition and general weirdness

This one, also will bryant, is called banana wobbler. Isnt that great.
Those tiptoes, great direction and centre of gravity consideration

They were all the Will bryant shirts available so then i had to venture into the abyss of other creators.
Found some reasonable designs though.

This is great. That aesthetic of weird Toyko sinage. I like it.
Also how silly is that mouth and those running legs
Great running legs and inaccurate knee bend
I like that he doesnt have arms
Makes him more bumbley and it more of a humorous idea that he'd be participating in a run.

This is just great for obvious reasons.
Love that B movie poster style.

This one's a nice 40's/50's style space obsession type thing. I love that space race 50's futuristic aesthetic. Great helmet.

This ones nice and simple but pretty effective in the sublimation printed format.
Works very well as one colour, no fuss or distraction from the point, that being just the ripple of the stripes, slight surrealism in a very wearable way, warping of assumptions and that.

This is a strange one, it's unlike everything else on the whole website. Just watercolour stripes across a whole shirt. Even the paper texture showing through. It doesn't strike me as a threadless shirt design but it's a great take on the way oversaturated market of striped shirts, as is the previous design. Those colours are great too, not ones I would've thought to put together, its like a muted rusted rainbow. Very interesting shirt design angle.

And all of those cost me
NOTHINGGGGG!!
competitions do pay.

On the front of actual payment through sales, I've sold one so far
This is hardly surprising as I really don't think my design works well on the shirt.
Oh well

portfolio?!??!?!?1

Don't know what to put in my portfolio
I hardly have any finished pieces of proper drawing that isn't awful

Lets look at some maybe options

Hmmmm
maybe itll be fine but there doesnt feel like theres much stuff
like i've been doing loads of work but none of it is portfolio enough
i guess thisll have to do for now

One Year On

Just read this article on the Creative Review of interviews with illustration graduates one year on.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2016/march/one-year-on-designers-from-the-class-of-2015-offer-advice-to-this-years-grads/

Quite informative and reassuring.
It sounds like it was less stressful than they were all expecting.

Interesting points
- The importance of keeping online presence updated, and how there's a noticable increase in contact from clients in times of more prolific online content making.
- The stress of third year will prepare me for the stress of graduate life.
-The imporance of trusting your own judgement when there are fewer peers and no tutors
- It can be detrimental to look at the work of others too much and compare them to yourself.

Bookmark

I figured since I'd like to be in the publishing area of things then a bookmark would be pretty fitting to my promotional pack and work in general.
The existing parade image is too wide to fit on a book mark so I've redrawn a longer thinner one.
This image is still condusive to the long format I think, because of the banner.

Here'sthe drawing
I decided on a second banner underneath with contact details, because the back of a bookmark isn't viewed as much as the front.
This time theyre all playing instruments instead of holding signs.

Here it is in spiffy colour

It looked quite plain just coloured in so I added this pattern in the background, that I made the other day with my new paints.

This pattern is also on the back of the bookmark.

Small Logo

While the parade banner is dandy, its far too large to be putting on the back of comics and printed things and books etc
So I've made a smaller version for this purpose

I'm using the same process and themes to keep my branding consistent.

Here it is in shiny colour

Initially the sign was yellow and red like the other signs but because this guy looked right in yellow I had to change it to blue and turquoise to avoid too much yellow.

The colours are alterable though if they need to be to coordinate with whatever it's printed on.

About

Here's a cheeky little sign to head up my about me page.

signs and banners, same deal right

Here he is all dressed up to the nines

About Me

I have updated my me drawing
This was my old one
It's a bit outdated now.
I've had a haircut
I'm an entirely new person.

So here are the sketches I did trying to get it right.

INSERT SKETCHES

In the end this was making it too laboured so I just went for it and got this one

It requires some titivating but it'll do nicely

So I scanned it in, cleaned it up and coloured it in and now it looks like this

I pippetted the same colours from the banner and used the same process of clean line and clean block colour.

I think it's suitable for this purpose as its not too basic but not too busy, branding should be pretty clean and fuss-free I reckon. 

Now to update all of my profile pictures.

Gosh what a laborious task

Im still not sure about the checks, maybe a different pattern in the background. 

Cool Website

Found this website which I think is selling paper but it has a really cool interface and downloadable embossed paper textures.

Also you can find complimentary colours to the paper colours available.
I guess it's like Kuler but more limited, but I like this interface,if only there were more colours it'd be a really useful resource.

And the demonstration of paper weights is quite playful.    

I take this as reference for building my own website, but I don't think I'll be able to get it this swishy.

http://colorplanpapers.com/50colours

Threadless queen (me)

My shirt went live on the site todayyyyyy
wheyyyy

Little disppointed at how awkward it looks on the shirt
but whaatever
i guess I didn't think about that at the time
I will now though

I'm also on the threadless blog talking about why I like Ferris Beuller

https://blog.threadless.com/whats-your-favorite-movie-of-all-time/

UPDATE:
I GOT A $250 GIFT CODE WOOOOOOOO
be right back spending spree

My job

This is where I work. 

It is quite a strange place because its an emergency dentists and out of hours doctors, so everyone I speak to is either ill or in pain and therefor not usually pleasant.

Also people come in and throw up into sick bowls in the waiting room (despite the toilets being right in front of them) or they'll have like massive facial swellings from dental infection and people get sent to a and e constantly and sometimes they get carried out on a stretcher and god its grim

But everyone who works there is very nice, they're all like proper people who do this all the time and have mortgages and kids and stuff, its a radically different environment to that of an art college.

Like at college no one bats a lid if i wear blue socks with dogs on them, it doesn't even enter into the public consciousness, but at work there have been lengthy discussions about my clothing choices, and I have been actively trying to dress in an acceptable manner with very limited primary colours.

It is a very motivating job because while its nice to have as a part time thing (mostly because i get to sit down) the thought of being there permanently and having to deal with those rude and ungrateful patients EVERY DAY makes me want to curl up in ball and weep/die

I'll keep this job on though until I get a proper creative job or become sufficient illustrator because I find when I get back home I'm bursting with the impotence to create stuff and I'm filled with pent up weirdness and basically make noises for like an hour but its liberating and helpful to the drawing, its like IM HOME BLAHAHR PAINT PAINT SCREAM GARGLE PAINT DRAW FUNNY LEGS 

So yeah its not bad

Website

I changed my website because it was too distracting.
Now I have the parade I can use it as the banner and it looks much better

Now its a simple gallery for each page so I'll have my illustration work like this, then comics on the comcis page and pages from my sketchbook on the sketchbook one.

Ive done the about me as well, now I have a little portrait

So now theres some information

It's still in progress as i need to add the comics and sketchbooks stuff but its looking better than before.

Plain white background is best