New Challenges for 2014

New Studio 

The Dream, The Move, The Design 

The Dream

This year see Cartoon & comic Arts move yet again. To be honest we needed the move as the course continues to grow in popularity and goes from strength to strength. The first set of students graduating in July have left a profound image on the award overall, Giving it purpose and direction for the next 3 years.

The Challenge for me now is to re-imagine the work space and make it the best space that encourages students to us and utilise.

To do this did a bit of research into the best creative companies, and what they consider best practice. I strongly believe that face to face regular contact with people from the cohort is important, and not just years, but the whole way through. 1st years should be looking at what 3rd year students are doing and vice a versa, 3rd year students should be looking at what the others are doing as well. They need top be aware of the local and new trends, whats happening in the community they are entering, where the breaks are and which conventions to go.

here are some examples that I'm looking at 

Disney Studios, artist at work

 This is the entrance to Pixar Studios, the open and well lit space and to the left and right are the canteen and hang out places. Above are the offices where the artist work.

This is a Disney School were students get a chance to experiment with the latest technology

And here is an actual Disney Artist working away.

One of the office spaces at Pixar. Inspiration is very, very important. Also it should be a place you want to got to in the morning and not want to leave at night. It should be an extension of you and your personality 

The two images above are the Marvel Offices. Well Lit (and warm) very snazzy and a modern feel to them.

Pixar Chill out area!

The artist at Pixar are encouraged to decorate their areas and offices. See the image above and below

Here is what I've got to work with at the moment. It is worth noting that Fine Art should have vacated the studio space Wednesday 25th June, the image below were taken today at 10.00am Thursday 26th June. Seeing as we/I am having 30 tables and chairs being delivered tomorrow and over the weekend some thing is going have to go in the skip! (And it wont be my tables and chairs)

Rubbish or Art? I don't know?

Corridor/walk through. The offices have been cleared and the stuff as been moved to the walk way

I assume some one wants this stuff as its boxed up... Any chance or removing it please

More stuff???

I think I'm going have a fun summer trying to sort this out! I don't think there is a skip big enough to put all this stuff in!

At least one room is partly done. This is the room the 2nd years helped with during May. Yes some one has come in and sprayed on the painted floor and also dropped of charcoal drawing and lent them again a freshly painted wall so the black will rub off!! (As you can tell from my tone, I'm not impressed!) 

Captain Staffs

John Charles Re imagined Captain Staffs

John Charles from MarvelUK, 2000AD and colourist for the Star Wars Comic, decided to redraw the Captain Staffs Character making him a little more gritty and menacing... I little like myself!

Many thanks John.

Here John is with Jack Baker and Lex Harford

and the new Captain Staffs drawing.

Final Farewell

Gifts from the Crew

I think to call them sneaky is a little underhand, but both Gareth Cowlin and myself never expected what we received on the opening night of the degree Show. Unbeknownst to us, the gang had got together and produce a little surprise for us. I was totally gob smacked because I never expected it!

Here below are the gifts and the class of 2014 

Bryony (Nigel) Morey 

Alice (Give me pizza NOW!) Urbino

Millie (I've got a long neck and love snails) Harrop

Henrietta Looms (Our international student)

Claire (My hair is its natural colour now!) Smith

Jack (Let me run the award) Baker

Tom (Master Draughtsman) Stephens

Verity (I watch a lot of wrestling and I'll put you in a cross face chicken wing if you look at me wrong!) Hall

Esme (I'm a bad ass Manga girl and I do not smile in photos.... I glare!) Baran

Final Comic Stands

I had to laugh. We were discussing what we should call the new comic shop for the 3rd degree show. We already had the pop up comic shop for the 2nd years, and another one would just add to the confusion. After a brief discussion,  the 3rd years wanted to use the dreaded font Comic Sans, but I wanted to know what did we want to call it, to which the universal cry went out COMIC StANdS.
Genius.... pure, unadulterated genius!.

The best bit is watching Graphic designers trying to figure out the joke.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you the class of 2014 Cartoon & Comic Arts.

New Year New lick of paint

POP UP COMIC SHOP 

The 2nd year Cartoon & Comic Arts Students had a presence at the Degree Show, they were selling their work which had been on sale in London MCM. So from the old image of the Pop Up Comic Shop. the first challenge was to paint it white and come up with a new design on it. Here are some images of the students hard at work in the process of painting. 

You can see the final designs and comics at the Art show, in the Henrion Gallery!

London MCM
3rd Year Cartoon & Comic Art students take the show by Storm!

While the 2nd years were doing an organised trip to London Comic Con, the 3rd Years had other things on their mind. They were there to make money and see if they could sell their work which they produced in the last 2 semesters. 

Verity Hall & Esme Baran teamed up as they had worked on a selection of Family friendly Grimm Fairy tales. 

Esme also produced her own fantasy story Called "Undine Adventurer" which has gain a bit of interest in America and they are currently looking at producing a figurine of her character.

Verity's main book is "Like A Shark In A Swimming Pool." a tale of a young girl coming to terms with her sexuality. A brilliant read, if you get the opportunity, The comics are available at a string of Comic Shops up and down the country.

Millie Harrop teamed up with Illustration and Graphics student Emily Peacock to sell her Scrott Comic.  

This is truly one of the few pieces of student work that has made me laugh out loud. 
Also alongside Millie is Emily Peacock, illustrator and Comic Artist herself. 

I also think she performed one of the best pieces of advertising for a comic going. Let be honest if you saw this (Above), you would just want to pick the comic up and read it!! 

Jack Baker was back selling his next episode of the Guild of Winter series. He was sharing with Tom Stephens. 

This was Lex's first convention and she produced some of her digital prints for sale at the convention as well as her own individual artwork. 

 Alice Urbino and Claire Smith took the art of convention selling to a whole new level when they dressed in their Cosplay as Daria & Jane!

Claire had a good run on her comic "I work with Cats" based on her web series. Alice had to chapters of her comic "Dimension" which tells a story of a bloke who while relaxing slips down the drain in his bath and ends up in another "Dimension"

Look familiar anyone?

London MCM

London MCM

2nd Years venture into the Big City

I cant believe that its been so long since I've had an opportunity to post work that we've done over the last couple of weeks. This will be a little out of order so please bear with me, but we nee to start of with the London MCM Comic Con 23rd May, 24th May, 25th May. 

2 things to note here. One is the 2nd years all attending as part of their AM50422-4 The Art of Cartoons & Comics module. This was/is based on the Apprentice (Many thanks Lord Sugar for the concept, Many thanks Esme Baran for the idea) 

The general idea as mooted by Esme was that she never had the opportunity to go to a convention or run a table. She ended up doing a Stirling job at the October MCM and sort of got the bug for it there. Though her main concern was that there was very little she knew about when people asked her about the work. This got me thinking that if the students were forced to produce their own work and sell it as part of the module then that would make more sense.

Aiming to produce the best work we could, we asked John Charles Marvel UK and 2000AD artist and writer Kevin Gunstone Markosi & Marvel to assist in helping the students to do this. 

Both John and Kevin diod great work, delivering bespoke lessons in helping the students to set up their ideas and giving feedback on things that were working and not.

The Cohort was split into 2 teams 

Red Pretzel - Becci Such, Kieran Hayes, Will Vaughn, Emma Buxton, Michaela Clark &  Ryan Moss 

Aqua Rhombus and the Imaginariums - Callum Lawrence Bardsley, Connie Skerrett, Will Kellioh, Michaela Betts, Peter Dawson & Reece Pallatto

The idea was to get as close to £60.00 as possible. Needless to say both teams did, but the clear winner was Red Pretzel. 

Everyone, including Area Group Leader Mark Garner Looking very happy and pleased we found a cheap curry in Brick Lane London.