Life as an illustrator…

Still interning at the super awesome games company, Mediatonic, I’ll be interning here till I go back to uni in October. It’s amazing here, everyone is incredibly friendly and passionate in what they do. They have a gaming room with all the consoles where you can game throughout your lunch break (Or during games night) and a lovely communal kitchen, where everyone eats together.
My duties are to draw alllll day, a wish come true! I had no idea there’s actually a job where you can just draw all day! Here’s a photo of my desk… wanted to decorate it more, but I know my time here is temporary and it’ll be too sad when I’ll have to pack my belongings… everyone’s desks are full of quirky game figures and vinyl toys!

As Mediatonic moved into a new office in Soho recently, we celebrated like crazy and had a mad office warming party… full of rock band, football (England was playing) and lots of alcohol… these are cupcakes featuring some of the Mediatonic characters!

Below is a photo of the reception which is still under construction… a small collection of all the wonderful toys in the office… Which I will dearly miss when I leave… T__T;;

I’m currently drawing items to sell on an international, successful children’s game based of a television channel. Unfortunately, I can’t give too many details about the project I’m working on or show any pictures. My Illustrator skills have increased immensely and I’m curious to see how it’ll impact my own work and style. Below is an example of my simple illustrator style before Mediatonic…

I hope during my time here that I’ll speed up, I feel like I’m churning out work quite slowly… The downside is, since I’m drawing all day for work, when I come home, drawing is the last thing on my mind… so I haven’t produced anything for myself lately. I haven’t blogged on my personal blog in a while too…

I took some time off to go to Hong Kong. The trip was refreshing and enlightening, I learnt a lot about the culture and the lifestyle there. The purpose of visiting Hong Kong was to gather research material for one of my final major projects, which is going to be ambitious… (.__. ;; ) Below is one of my favourite places in Hong Kong, a protected garden near a temple.
- Susan

CAPTAIN

Today is my last day at New Statesman magazine! Four issues have been to print and it’s great flicking through a finished outcome, spotting the places where I helped out. To date, this is the internship where I have learnt the most and I’m extremely grateful for that…!
After two interviews, I have officially been accepted as the new creative intern for Mediatonic, a british game company. Game studios in London are receiving positive press lately, for the reason that there is now a tax break on games, as they are deemed culturally significant. It is extremely exciting as I have been putting a lot of thought of which field I’ll like to work towards when I graduate and games is a huge possibility! I would also get to do design work here too… whoopee…!

Attached are some recent drawings doodles… been doing a lot of flat styled drawing lately…!

Support the Chicken.

The week after I completed my comics internship, I jumped on the bandwagon and helped out at DK Books for the London Book Fair. Lots of cutting, sticking, it was, however, very therapeutic. I got to catch up with a few people from DPS as well as meet some of the second years. The working environment in DK is extremely friendly, without the intention of being cheesy, everyone is like a family there!

Straight after DK Books, I started my internship at New Statesman Magazine, which is what I would classify, outside my speciality as an illustrator. It’s almost coming to an end and I have already learnt so much here, one of which is befriending Quark, illustrator and relearning shortcuts on a windows machine. I have most definitely become more aware/confident with grid systems, layouts, image sourcing and type. The team here are amazing as they work so efficiently to churn out a quality magazine every week…! I got to work on a fun campaign for Press Gazette (neighbour magazine) for their latest issue, encouraging journalists to seek adventure/stories/contacts outside the office working environment, after all there’s a huge world out there. The campaign is called “Free-Range Journalism”.

On the 5th, it’s free comic book day!!! At the risk of sounding geeky, it’s my first free comic book day that I’m not working at a part time job! Thus, a route must be planned beforehand, as learnt well from the star spangled man with a plan. /end comic reference.
Below is a quick piece I did for an interview… Hopefully soon, I’ll have some good news to share with everyone…??!

- Susan.

March

March is flying by and with equinox soon approaching it’ll mean that there’s so little time left to the DPS year! My internship at londonprintstudio has officially ended, it was a great 6 months and I learnt an incredible amount, from networking, writing/delivering workshops, curating tricks etc!

Earlier this month, we had the opportunity to meet the publishers at Jonathan Cape. It felt so surreal but they conveyed how passionate they were about comics, despite publishing a range of books. It was a motivational experience, especially when you start to realise that being a comics artist is extremely difficult! You really have to work quickly and love what you do.

We got to show our presentations about the work we create at Laydeez Do comics, a monthly comics meet up event. Here we explained the themes we explore through our work, our inspirations and described our experience through the internship. It was quite nerve racking (especially as we didn’t realise Tom Gauld would be there…!!) but I am now a lot more confident in interviews, presentations and generally introducing myself! I believe this Laydeez Do comics event was featured in The Stylist Magazine? They are now arranging a pop up meet in New York which is exciting!

The day after, we were rushed for time as we were putting up and curating our comics exhibition, “Frames of Mind”, which will also be the book launch to our anthology “Parallel Lives”. Lisa was kind enough to help out as the star photographer for the night, snapping photos of the visitors who posed in the make shift photo installation I created. It was a great private view and a positive reception! The experienced John, who owned the studio was pleased as it didn’t look like a student show, it worked well together as a whole, taking advantage of all the space. I received a lot of lovely comments and feedback about my work and even got to speak to someone from Penguin Books.

During this time, I also kept in contact with DK, letting them know which days I am free to help them. I’ll officially be joining the interns on Monday to help prepare for the London Book Fair! I really cannot wait as it’s a different environment! I also had an interview at New Statesman and will be interning there in middle of April!
- Susan.

Publication!

Behold… my cruddy iPhone photos of the Taiwan International Student Design Publication! (It’s pretty battered from the post… but at least it wasn’t lost during transportation! (Excuse the angry photo of myself… ahaha…)

Last year Summer, I was selected to be a finalist for the International Student design competition, under the category “Visual Designs”. They received 3,766 entries worldwide and during the preliminary stages, only 97 pieces were selected as finalists. Fourteen experts and scholars around the world, took part in choosing the winners. Through the statistics, I found out that there were only 7 entries from UK, including myself and I managed to be the only finalist.

At the moment, I’m preparing for the comics exhibition, as well as churning out some editorial work for an interview on Friday. Truthfully speaking, I’m not the greatest at editorial design… but through the internship I’m determined to learn as much as possible…!! Whilst practising layouts in indesign, I used my illustrations as dummies/mock ups and I realised that my illustrations are incredibly non-layout friendly… So if I want to be a serious illustrator, to create work for publications, I really need to be more aware when creating illustrations and be more versatile.

- Susan.

March

A lot has happened since my last post! I got to meet the very kind Lizzie Spratt at Walker Books, she guided us through the different sections of the building and was given an introduction to the history of Walker. It was a great opportunity to see how a publisher runs, we also got the chance to see what a successful pitch looks like! I noticed that the quality varies but essentially the idea is everything!!! However, the more effort you put in your pitch, the more likely they would read it! The sure-fire way for your pitch to be seen is to send it through the post, via next day delivery.

Later in the month, we met Emma Hayley from selfmadehero, who are specialised in publishing graphic novels, thus her feedback was more specific. This is a smaller publisher with a team of three, but they are able to accomplish so much due to their passion!
With the chance to pitch our graphic novel idea and show our portfolios, they gave us critical tips on how to improve our pitches and presentation which was really helpful. Even through the words we use, the organisation, everything counts! I guess it was difficult for me as I’m not sure how my story ends yet, so I’m pitching an incomplete product. My graphic novel idea was intended for one of my final major projects… but now I feel like I have a head start with the project!

***

I was invited to a monthly comic group called Laydeez do Comics, where they talk about themes and different topics in comics. It’s incredibly intellectual and I learnt so much in one talk! The organiser/comic artist, Nicola Freeman asked me to do a comic blog about the this month’s event. Here is the first part of the talk, featuring the comics collaboration between Emma Mould and Andrew Godfrey. In short, It was a moving experience.

***This month, we’ll be presenting our work in Laydeez do Comics, which is so exciting… The Stylist magazine will also be there to write a feature!

After a long 6 months at londonprintstudio, the internship ends this month on the 13th. We have very little time preparing for the intense exhibition as well as printing our anthology. We are still concentrating on the  workshop participants; it’s a little sad as we have to say goodbye to them soon, but not without a bang! We arranged to take them to the V&A… it was shocking as they haven’t been before, despite the fact that the majority of them are studying art and design at school! For me it was a great experience because I forgot how therapeutic drawing in museums are… so I decided that when I quite my part-time job that I’ll spend a day drawing at the V&A, in every two weeks! (Possible more if I can…!)

Yesterday, animators, Edwina Ashton and David Jacobs came to showcase their showreel and explained how they animate. Through the talk… I felt like my brain just exploded with logical reasoning, the way they animated made so much sense and now I’m itching to try animation…! I also need to take the time to do editorial work for my lacking portfolio. I have come up with a self-initiated project which you’ll all hear from soon!

- Susan

Last Month

I have one more month left before I finish my internship at londonprintstudio, completing the social youth project. It’s been really great and I got to meet so many people who passed on enlightening advice, such as, Paul Gravett, Frederick Peeters, Ellen Lindner and Al Davison, just to name a few.

Poster draft for my comic, “Hungry Ghost Festival“.

The comic anthology, “Parallel Lives“, has been sent to the printers and we’re now waiting for our proof copy to arrive. We were really lucky… because the great Dave Mckean wrote the foreword to the anthology!
The rest of the internship is to prepare of our book launch and exhibition. We’ll be also pitching to Walkers, Selfmadehero and Jonathan Cape publication with our presentations…! We get to see what successful pitches look like too, this is a rare opportunity as it would allow me to plan how I can reach agents and publishers in the future.

 Preview page of my comic in the comic anthology, “Parallel Lives“.

My last self written workshop with the youths is based on “Digital colour and tone“, thus I’ll be teaching them how to colour on Photoshop and tone their comics. The outcomes will hopefully be displayed in the exhibition.  I feel like the youths have learnt a lot from our workshops and have gathered knowledge to expand their own styles and work processes.

I’m not too sure what I’ll like to do after, but I know that I’ll like some studio experience, perhaps editorial or something screen printed related…! I’m planning on entering D&AD and YCN student competitions. I also need to plan out my trip to Hong Kong as I’m going for only 2 weeks and want to do so much there…!

Comic Exhibition and the book launch
[22 March at 18:30 at londonprintstudio]

https://www.facebook.com/events/352637991426868/

To pre-order:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parallel-Lives-London-Collective-Anthology/dp/0956915914

- Susan.

January

Happy new year folks!
We’re still delivering comics workshops at londonprintstudio for the aspiring 16-20 year olds. Spent most of my time focusing on my anthology comic pages which will be published and pitched to a few publishers next month~ I’m not too sure how I feel about the outcome~ but hopefully I’ll grow to like it!
We’re currently putting the anthology together in indesign, ready to be sent to the printers~ we’ll then be preparing for our exhibition in March.
In March my internship will be ending, so I’ll start applying to various places next month! I am quite excited~

I’m also planning my short trip to Hong Kong to gather research materials for my final major projects~!

To read more about my adventures in Brussels in comic form please click here.

- Susan.

Meet Al Davison.

Meeting the admirable, Al Davison in londonprintstudio was an eye opening experience! Not only a knowledgable and a passionate comics artist, he also is crammed packed with touching personal stories. His client list includes, DC/Vertigo comics, Dark Horse Entertainment and Penguin Books.

To read more about his life experiences and see his drawings of the unconscious, please support his project, “The Alchemist’s Easel“. 

To read the full short comic: Click here to blog.

- Susan.

Fairylight Starscape

Part of the 26 stories of Christmas project, a project of which features a new festive story and illustration till Christmas! Yesterday featured my illustration partnered with Sara Sheridan‘s lovely story!

I felt really lucky to receive her story, as it immediately appealed to me! Simon laughed and commented, “It’s very you!” when we shared our stories with each other in excitement. I guess I’m just a big sucker for romance stories!

I was focused on not giving away the sweet ending of the fairy lights eden, but rather how the couple came together every breakfast for coffee. They made the effort, despite having busy contrasting lives, with Alfie working during the night and Miriam working throughout the day.   I also wanted to include the observatory, of which, I made it look like a tea pot… so it can be either object!
Seeing constellations in objects was an amazing touch in the story… so I did some research into constellations. I came across “Telescopium”, which worked really well in the illustration’s composition and story. It links Alfie’s and Miriam’s heads together, so even though they spend a lot of time apart, they are always connected.

- Susan.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! (*≧▽≦) ♥