These illustrations were done for my 'Extracts' project, luckily I managed to apply the brief that I had from Luke Kuhns for the Sherlock illustrations to a brief, but it meant doing three extra illustrations, so that's what these are : ) It meant that I ended up having to rush them, and I'm still surprised I got them done on time, phew... I think what I learned from this, is that if I have a deadline, I meet it, even if that means working flat out.
So, first off, Sherlock Holmes, A Study In Scarlet!A nice simple pose, and the pills from the case. Well, I mean, there's one pill in the case... I added some more.
Secondly, John Watson from The Hound of The Baskervilles! My favourite book : D It's SO good, you should all go and read it, the way Conan Doyle describes the Dartmoor scenery is AMAZING. Okay, so anyway, the sheets of paper are supposed to represent all of the letters that Watson sends Sherlock during the book, and the moths, well... the main villain of the story spends most of the book running around with a butterfly net catching moths, so there ya go. The moths that I've drawn are native to Dartmoor, too. I like dotting all of my i's ; D
Lastly we have Sherlock and John from The Dancing Men. Sherlock is sent a code to break, and realises near the end that it's written in semaphore, so along with the first code that Sherlock is sent, I've also put, on the left hand side up top 'By Amy Gilbert', bottom left 'John' and right 'Sherlock' in semaphore : ) Cuz' I could.
I like these, but I can still see a lot of issues with them, I really wish I'd had more time on them.
I can finally talk about this! Now that the illustrations are finished and sent off :D
This is what I've been working on for the last few months, and what
I've been working madly on for the last three weeks, and they're done!
Woo! I'm so glad : )
The first illustration is Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson from The Case of The Blue Carbuncle, I spent a couple of weeks agonizing over this illustration and realised after a bit that I was trying to do something that was A, very challenging and B, not in my stle at all! So I simplified it and ended up with this. I really like the composition, and the background was fun to do.
The second illustration is Sherlock Holmes' desk from a bird's eye view, as I'm sure you can imagine it's one thing to look up reference images of items from the 1890s, it's another to try to draw them from a completely different angle! I did an awful lot of research, for both images really, but for this one I worked really hard to make sure that everything on the desk is something that, if Sherlock and John had been real, they would have had on or around the desk.
I also wanted to make sure that anyone who has read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories would be able to look at the desk and recognise items from some of the stories, my friend Faye was a great help here as she's read all of the books and so was able to give me a list of some of the things that I should add, for example, the 'Practical Handbook To Bee Culture, With Some Observations Upon The Segregation of The Queen' (it's a long title, so you have a book with bees on it), the Musgrave Ritual parchment paper, and the bust of Napoleon to name just a few.
It was an awful lot of work, and the desk was the second technical drawing I've ever done, so it took me a lot longer than I had hoped, but I got it done! :D
These two illustrations were done for a Sherlock Holmes graphic novel written by Luke Kuhns, called 'The Case of The Crystal Blue Bottle', it's out on the 10th of December! Go here to check it out! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes-Case-Crystal-Bottle/dp/1780922965/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 and here to check it out on goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15834826-sherlock-holmes-and-the-case-of-the-crystal-blue-bottle Please do buy a copy, the proceeds are going to the 'Save Undershaw Preservation Trust'! Undershaw was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's home, and where he wrote a great many of the Sherlock Holmes books : )
Really just using this space to rant about some work that I have, although, I'm not ranting about the work, more of the situation that I find myself in that I don't like. I can't really rant about it elsewhere because I don't want people to know about it just yet BUT, auuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.
My teacher Chris Gibbs pointed out yesterday that everything is the wrong size, I.E not in proportion. AND NOW I HAVE TO FIX IT. AND THERE'S SO MANY THINGS. AUUUH.
AUUUUUUUUUUH.
Okay back to work.
Just a little something I did for our NUCA Comic Society, my friend Faye runs it and we needed some promotional images for the Freshers Fair on Tuesday : )
Oh hey I also had my hair cut : )
This was a commission from an old friend, Erika, for her husband John for his birthday : ) This took an awful lot of time, and though I was only offering sketch commissions at the time I hadn't done something nice for Erika in years, and I thought a coloured picture would be better for a birthday present. For anyone else I would have charged an awful lot more, and if it was for a publication a bit more again, but as I've never done any work for a publication... I wouldn't know how much to charge, I'd have to ask my tutors!
So, this took weeks to do on and off, I'm not entirely sure how long, you'll have to ask Erika. The colouring seemed pretty fast to me compared to the sketch and inking, but then the colouring took over twelve hours, so I wonder how long everything else took... I learned a lot doing this too, namely to never draw the inside of a TARDIS ever again. The line work was still quite sketchy, I would have cleaned it up for proffessional work but as it was for a sketch commission I let it go.
It's up on DeviantART if you're interested in a higher res version: http://acheronhades.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5ahlia
References:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/TARDISref.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/david-tennant-who-2.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/David-Tennant.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/-Kit19-/article-1240098-07BDF7E6000005DC-247_468x403.jpg
Textures used:
http://enchantedgal-stock.deviantart.com/art/Sandpaper-Sand-Texture-Stock-49297190
http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/art/rusted-paper-texture-259201596
The finished commission (finished a few days ago, actually) rough sketch and final sketch. Glad the commissioner liked it, too. I'm working on the next now, but it's a bit more difficult because I'm drawing the inside of the TARDIS, and oh man is that ever complicated.I saw the National Theature's Frankenstein with dad on Monday and it was absolutely superb, Benedict Cumberbatch was playing the Creature, Jonny Lee Miller was playing Frankenstein and they were both brilliant, I really loved the whole show and I'd love to see it again, with the roles reversed. I really hope the NT change their minds and release it on DVD for everyone to see, I think it'd be a real shame if they didn't.I also went to the third year art exhibition on Tuesday, I really liked the design work, and the illustration, especially Tai's work, so beautiful! Apparently John Hurt was milling around too, but unfortunately I didn't see him.Life is still throwing things at me, but I'm coping. I hope I can find a job soon, and find a new housemate to replace Danny as he's leaving soon, but we'll see.
