After my last tutorial I do feel a fair bit better about my practice as a whole, as I sort of felt the music project I have been doing so far is a bit sporadic, so it was good to hear that it is getting more of a direction recently. The Polygondwanaland idea can be a good way to move forward with this project, as zeroing in on a certain piece of music for an extended time might give this project more bulk and direction.
Discussing the strange nature of the album (how the songs aren't really distinct and the album works as more a single piece of music stretched out over an hour, telling a strange neon medieval story), an idea that sounds good was that of a concertina book. I wanted to make more books this year as I really enjoyed book binding last year and want to put it to use. Concertina books are a bastard, I remember from first year, but if they’re done right they can be really cool and effective. The main idea is to make a book that illustrates the album as a whole (when the book is fully folded out) and communicates something about each song on the inner pages. I’ve very roughly started to sketch out these ideas, but I’m also trying to balance COP and the dissertation right now, so I might revisit this when we have more time after christmas and the 601 deadline.
Wednesday, 29 November 2017
Sunday, 26 November 2017
King Gizzard inspiration
Working on the King Gizzard design for the last brief has re-started my interest in the aesthetic present in weird 80s shows like Masters of the Universe. I love the neon nonsense presented in sprawling and majestic fantasy environments, the juxtaposition gives me a lot of ideas.
Friday, 24 November 2017
SOYOUNG Magazine - competition brief
Recommended Listening: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Wah Wah
Recently I’ve been trying to combine the digital skills I developed throughout last year and this summer with the more traditional hand drawn elements of how my work has been in the past. While I really enjoy working digitally, I’m conscious that I don’t want everything in my practice to be based on a screen, I still find doodling weird creatures and symbols a good way to get ideas out, and I don’t want to lose that in my work going forward.
With that in mind, I tried to combine the two forms of working in this entry for the soyoung magazine illustration competition. Instead of adapting a specific song as I usually would, I tried instead to get a feel for the band’s music as a whole, how it plays and what imagery it evokes. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard make me think of a sort of neon medieval future, similar to the sort of aesthetic seen in shows like He Man and Flash Gordon. I really love the over the top cartoonish nature of this aesthetic but combined with very spooky and atmospheric environments. The juxtaposition is what really sells this for me, so I wanted to capture both the zany and the spooky in this design.
Recently I’ve been trying to combine the digital skills I developed throughout last year and this summer with the more traditional hand drawn elements of how my work has been in the past. While I really enjoy working digitally, I’m conscious that I don’t want everything in my practice to be based on a screen, I still find doodling weird creatures and symbols a good way to get ideas out, and I don’t want to lose that in my work going forward.
With that in mind, I tried to combine the two forms of working in this entry for the soyoung magazine illustration competition. Instead of adapting a specific song as I usually would, I tried instead to get a feel for the band’s music as a whole, how it plays and what imagery it evokes. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard make me think of a sort of neon medieval future, similar to the sort of aesthetic seen in shows like He Man and Flash Gordon. I really love the over the top cartoonish nature of this aesthetic but combined with very spooky and atmospheric environments. The juxtaposition is what really sells this for me, so I wanted to capture both the zany and the spooky in this design.
Tuesday, 21 November 2017
POLYGONDWANALAND
The latest album by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard has been released, and I’ve started to develop ideas for a separate project surrounding it.
The album only exists digitally, as the band have not put the music into a tangible form. So no records, cds or tapes or anything exist with this music on. Their site encourages fans to make their own versions of this record however they want, they even provide all the necessary files to do so. I love this guerilla marketing strategy, it gives the music this extra dimension of universality, and feels very much like it belongs to everyone and no one at the same time.
I want to try to make some cassette tapes to go alongside a series of illustrations for the songs. Although, the way the album is set out makes it more of one huge sprawling song across the time frame, rather than the songs being very distinct themselves. Not sure how exactly to approach that yet, as it's hard to pull certain things from each song, as sometimes it's hard to know exactly where they begin and end.
The album only exists digitally, as the band have not put the music into a tangible form. So no records, cds or tapes or anything exist with this music on. Their site encourages fans to make their own versions of this record however they want, they even provide all the necessary files to do so. I love this guerilla marketing strategy, it gives the music this extra dimension of universality, and feels very much like it belongs to everyone and no one at the same time.
I want to try to make some cassette tapes to go alongside a series of illustrations for the songs. Although, the way the album is set out makes it more of one huge sprawling song across the time frame, rather than the songs being very distinct themselves. Not sure how exactly to approach that yet, as it's hard to pull certain things from each song, as sometimes it's hard to know exactly where they begin and end.
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