Wednesday 29 September 2010

Enjeru: Caroline Breault

I made a post about this graphic designer back in year one and she is someone that I admire. She is an illustrator and Graphic Designer from Montreal, Canada and I've been looking back over her city streets for some inspiration.





I've never been very good at drawing 'real life' it always comes out a little bit more stylised than is should. However, for my November comic I'm aiming to show what my skills are when it comes to comic making (this includes all aspects, not just the illustrating. The layout and composition have to be just right or the whole concept simply falls apart)

Caroline Breault

Tuesday 28 September 2010

Le Cafe

I know I keep saying that I don't want to be an animator, and I don't...but I love finding little short's like this.



It's about an office worker who one day has a little bit too much coffee and can't handle it and it results in his murder of his secretary and a nice little old lady. As well as booting his small son.

The song is terribly catchy as well, I've been humming it for about a month.
I also admire the coffee stains and drips that are apparent through the animation.

Dir. Stephanie Marguerite & Emilie Tarascou / music Oldelaf & Mr D / France / 2007
Produced by Ecole des Métiers du Cinéma d'Animation (EMCA)
http://www.angouleme-emca.fr
Oldelaf et Mr D: http://www.legrosours.com/








Monday 27 September 2010

Avengers Fairy Tales

Continuing my theme of posting something every day, take a look at the covers for the Avengers fairy tales mini series that came out in 2008.




Something is telling me that only girls like these kind of series.
Kind of like when X-babies came out and I could get away with buying it but a guy I know couldn't without looking strange. (Despite Skottie Youngs fantastic cover designs)

Sunday 26 September 2010

LIMBO: X-box Arcade


I don't know if anyone else has played Limbo for the X-box but I got it a few weeks ago and I am in love. The game is short, only took me about five hours to compete it the first time around and the ending comes out of the blue. The graphics are amazing however.



It was made by Playdead an independent game studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded by Arnt Jensen and Dino Patti in 2006.

LIMBO is Playdead’s first production with Arnt Jensen as Game Director.

Young Avengers!

Young Avengers is an American comic book series written by Allan Heinberg and published by Marvel Comics. It follows a group of young superheroes, each of whom patterns himself or herself after a member of the long-established Marvel superhero team the Avengers.

The series won the 2006 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book and the 2006 Harvey Award for Best New Series.

It's also awesome.

YA follows the events of the "Avengers Disassembled" storyline. The four founding members of the team were gathered together as a result of the Vision's plan for the reformation of the Avengers in the event the team disbanded. In the series, newspapers refer to the young heroes as "super-powered fanboys" and label them the "Young Avengers," a name the team members initially disliked but which stuck nonetheless.

Hulkling: (resembling Captain Marvel and the Hulk) is Teddy Altman. He is a shape-shifter who also possesses enhanced strength and healing. He is the son of Kree hero Captain Mar-Vell and the Skrull princess Anelle; he is a Kree-Skrull hybrid.


Iron Lad: (resembling Iron Man) is the young man who will one day become Kang the Conqueror. He is armed with a neuro-kinetic suit given to him by Kang the Conqueror (of the future) that responds to mental commands. (No longer a team member)


Patriot: (resembling Captain America). Initially he had no inherent powers, obtaining enchanced abilities through drug use. Patriot was revealed to be the grandson of super-soldier Isaiah Bradley and claimed to have gotten his powers through a blood transfusion from his grandfather, though it was later revealed to be a lie. However, he eventually did receive his grandfather's powers through a blood transfusion. His original costume resembled that of Bucky Barnes.

Wiccan:
(formerly Asgardian; patterned after the Scarlet Witch and Thor) is Billy Kaplan, who may be the son of the Scarlet Witch and the Vision. Billy uses magic for various effects, such as casting spells for flight, lightning generation, and locating people, and activates these spells by repeating the intended effect out loud. Thomas Shepherd (Speed) may be his twin brother, and the reincarnation of the twins that the Scarlet Witch lost.


Hawkeye:
(a combination of the original Hawkeye/Mockingbird/Swordsman), whose real name is Kate Bishop, is a civilian who forcibly introduced herself into the Young Avengers, saving them from a botched rescue. While Kate has no inherent powers, she is competent with a bow and arrow as well as a sword. She later adopted the codename Hawkeye with the blessing of Captain America, who bestowed to her the original Hawkeye's bow and arrows as a gift.
Speed: (patterned after Quicksilver) is Thomas Shepherd, a boy the team rescued from imprisonment. He may be the son of the Scarlet Witch and the Vision, and thus the twin brother of Wiccan. Though he was part of the Vision's contingency plan, he was not an original team member. He is a speedster who can also accelerate atomic matter as well as destabilize it.


Stature:
(patterned after Ant-Man/Giant-Man) is Cassie Lang, daughter of the late Scott Lang. She has the power to change size at will. Initially planning on running to Los Angeles to join the Runaways before learning of the group's existence, she instead tracked down the Young Avengers along with Kate, convincing them to allow them membership.


The Vision: (a combination of Iron Lad and the original Vision) Iron Lad uploaded Vision's "operating system" into his armor to execute the android's contingency plan. After Iron Lad was forced to leave the team, he activated the software, causing his armor to become a new version of the Vision — albeit one with none of the memories or life experience of his predecessor.

Simon C Page’s Hero and Villain Series.

Simon C. Page is a British graphic designer and illustrator whose passions are typography and geometric design. With his Hero and Villain series, he combines heroes with their nemesis. Brilliant. Enjoy!



What I like about these are the simplicity of silhouettes which still make it quite clear who is who. This is something I'm looking at for the comic con ad's I want to produce. Something simple yet effective that can be still recognisable.

Matt Kaufenberg

Matt Kaufenberg is an illustrator from Alexandria, Minnesota with a real nice cartoonist style. He's drawn heroes from GI Joe and He-Man. As you can see, it seems that Hordak just destroyed Skeletor’s nice staff. dam him.




Saturday 25 September 2010

The Art Of Jon Pinto

Just stumbled across Jon Pinto's art work illustrations and I think I may have found a new hero for my list of awesome illustrators/designers. According to his blog, he's worked with clients such as Disney, Universal Studios, Ron Jon's, Six Flags, Americrown and various periodicals nationwide.

These are some pretty wicked illustrations:




I'm under the assumption he's a big Doctor Who fan. Thought I'd throw in one of his Iphone painted picture as well. Because I like Errol Finn. Not that Doctor Who or Errol Fin have anything to do with what I'm currently working on but the illustrations themselves are quite amazing.

Friday 24 September 2010

Lantern Corps

I seem to be a bit obsessed with Vector graphics of late:


Link

Also, not a lantern corp but still on the DC route:

I really like the style of this cover and I think for this fashion brief that vector is a route I'm most certainly heading down.

The New Mutants!

For my Fashion Hero brief and in conjunction with this post.

It's all well and good me making designs with various superhero teams and superhero's but not if no one knows who they are.
So, small load down on the new mutants and why I want to put them on a t-shirt.

First, the problem I have with the Marvel T-shirts currently for sale is that they don't appeal to current trends in teams and what people are following. I've found that a lot of women comic readers are following the New Mutants for various reasons. One being a bigger girl to guy ratio. Warlock doesn't count what with being an asexual robot alien.


The New Mutants were a group of teenaged mutant superheroes-in-training published by Marvel Comics. They have been the main characters of three successive comic book series, which were spin-offs of the popular X-Men franchise.

The first team of New Mutants characters was created by Chris Claremont (long-time writer of Uncanny X-Men) and artist Bob McLeod. They first appeared in 1982's Marvel Graphic Novel #4 and were subsequently featured in their own title from 1983 until 1991. Also, like its parent title, The New Mutants highlighted interpersonal and group conflict as well as action and adventure, and featured a large ensemble cast. With the end of the first series, the characters were relaunched as X-Force in a new, eponymous series.

In the first volume there were 20 characters used between eight years before the series turned into x-force. When the series was later relaunched it was with 7 new teenagers and the original new mutants making small appearances here and there.

Then finally last year the series was re launched and eight of the original characters were reintroduced. (Including a reanimated Cypher-dead for as long as I've been alive and Warlock who'd been re introduced a year before after roughly a ten year absence.)

Warlock:
Warlock is a member of the Technarchy race, and a New Mutant. Warlock is considered a mutant because he can experience emotions while the rest of his race can not (Not including his adopted son) Also my favourite.

Magma: (Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla)
Magma has the ability to transform into molten rock & has control over the Earth. She was one the New Mutants, but left them to join the Hellions. She has since been a teacher at the Xavier Institute and rejoined her team-mates from the New Mutants.

Magik: (Illyana Rasputin)
The younger sister of the mutants Colossus and Mikhail Rasputin, Illyana is a mutant teleporter, sorceress, and the ruler of Limbo. Currently, she seeks to reclaim her soul.

Cypher: Douglas Arron Ramsey
With the cerebral ability to understand all languages, Cypher was considered to be one of the weakest New Mutants. He was best friends with Warlock, but was killed while defending Wolfsbane in battle. He was forcibly resurrected during Necrosha, and soon returned to the X-Men as a powerful strategist. (2nd favourite.)

Karma: (Xi'an Coy Manh)
Karma is a mutant with the ability to mentally possess other beings. A founding member of the New Mutants, she is one of the few confirmed and openly lesbian characters. She has repeatedly been a librarian at different schools and now aids the X-Men in San Francisco.

Cannonball: Samuel Zachery Guthrie
Current leader of the New Mutants. One of the very few who hasn't actually died yet (but his little brother has) Has been one of the most prominent acorss the X-men franchise.

Mirage: Danielle Moonstar
A Native American and a member of the original New Mutants, one of many mutants to lose their powers on M-Day. In order to stop Ares when the X-Men fought the Dark Avengers, she struck a deal with Hela in order to regain her Valkyrie powers.

Sunspot: Roberto DaCosta
Born in Brazil, came from a wealthy mixed-race family. A mutant with solar-fueled super strength he has a long history with the New Mutants, X-Force and other X-Men related teams. Often brash & quick to anger, he has been allied with many friendly & villainous teams.


Next on my list, X-men First class and The Young Avengers!