Come back fighting.

Ok i've had a little break from art and stuff and come back fighting. I've finished my latest calender fairytale image here..

But also had the inspiration to get back and do some of my old school stuff, this image i'm very proud of which is saying something as i haven't been proud of my work in a long time.

.Update.

Latest finished piece in my fairy tale drawings.

My latest ventures in to the unknown creative realms of my mind, involve sketching up plans for the pages of my next kids book. The story for the book was entered in to a compertition and got in to the top 300 out of thousands of stories and I got a a 'well done' from the big guys.

While the planning commences slowly i will carry on with the digital fairy tale images and also a little side project of 'ninja bunny' t-shirt designs.

.Little Miss Muffet.

Latest finished picture.

Little Miss Muffet.

More on the way... watch this space.

More Characters.

I've gone back to the whole 'fairytale' thing again but it's always fun so I carry on. I'm trying a slightly new way of drawing and colouring my characters. It takes longer to do but it looks better in ways, also the before sketches and line drawings have to be cleaned up a lot.

I've picked a few character from fairytails and nursery rhymes and put a twist on them to make them my own, here are the line drawings of a few of them.


Here is one of my first drawings i did for this chain of sketches along with the finished thing.

Preview of what's to come.

Thought I'd let you have a preview of the next kids book I'm working on. This one is more for 'baby babies' for the parents to read to their kids and for the kids to enjoy the rhymes and colours on the simple images. This is also the book I'm intending to sell to raise a little bit of money.

.Update.

Ok! so a quick update on what I've been up to since my last blog.
I watched the film Arthur and got really inspired to want to get my kids books published ( wonder why ) but anyway.

So the weeks after that i worked like crazy to get my Timmy book finished, then i spent 3 days after that researching in to kids book publishers that take on unsolicited manuscripts.

NEXT! I wrote a manuscript then posted 6 out to selected publishers. So far i have had three back, one saying they love my story but the illustrations don't fit with there work, and two saying thanx but no thanx good luck with your work.

This alone is awesome because publishers rarely even look at unsolicited maunscripts :) and getting the rejection letters back only makes me want to work harder at getting my work published. So now I'm plodding on!

..oh and in the mean time, I painted this :D

.caricatures.

As a few of you already know, I've had a creative block for a while now so to get me back in to drawing I did a caricature of a mate and this is how it turned out.

Also i've recently been asked for another caricature/cartoon commission that I will be starting work on very soon. See my website for details of commission prices and terms, thank you!

.Book.Almost.Done.

Working like mad to get this book finished, all the images are done and arranged on the pages, I've typed up the text now all i have to do is apply the text to the pages and place the pages in the book making program, :)

Next I'm gonna read up on sending work out to publishers and see if I can get anywhere with it apart from just selling it on blurb and lulu.

Below is a preview of the front and back cover.

.More.Chibi's.

.chi-bi.

Continuing with chi-bi's and i'm working on more :) it's fun and they look cool. can you guess who these two drawings are?

.It.Starts.

It started with an experiment of drawing myself and it looked good, so I drew some one else..that looked good too. All of a sudden the potraits became popular and i'm being asked to draw even more, so now i'm charging :) all details on potrait comissions on my website http://www.wix.com/bex_eden/bex-eden-illustration check it out!

Below is the first few potraits I have done.

.A.Bunch.O.Stuff.

It seems the Alice picture has been put on hold for a while as I've had to work on images for booklet/mini exhibition called What Hull Means To Me. Here is the second image for that, the first image I didn't like much but I like this one a bit more.

..and to continue with the chibi drawings here is my latest one. They are fun to draw and simple enough to colour and i think they look cool :)

.Chibi.Newton.

Whilst working on an Alice image, I suddenly had the urge to draw a chibi so I did and not just and chibi newton faulkner!

.Space.Man.

I found yet another competition with a deadline that was close enough to make most people go 'NO WAY!' but I gave it a go.

The theme was 'future living in space' and there is literally a million things you can draw for this theme so I chose the one which I was most familiar with... gardening!

Also I tried a new style of keeping the same sort of tone through out the whole image and keeping it simple and fun! this is what I ended up with.

It wasn't until I read the fine print that I noticed part of the main prize was a trip to Russia to experience a weightless environment in the space center, this prize is non transferable. So yer I still hope I win, but I'm not liking the idea of a weightless experience!

.Comparing.Styles.

After re-assessing the situation and approaching water colours with a different style here is what I got as the end result.

I would appreciate feedback, good or bad as it always helps. Me myself I like this new style, it suits this purpose more and even though I also like the other style that one suits limited things but work sometimes.

.Creative.News.Updates.

I have recently started my Doodle a Day mini sketch book and have been posting each image on my website http://www.wix.com/bex_eden/bex-eden-illustration check it out! I am always updating it, adding pages and putting up new images.

Also I have decided to start making sock monsters..as I had some 'pair less' socks that looked a bit lonely and too pretty too throw away so I gave them a new life :) below is 'Freddy' the first monster to be created, As soon as I get my hands on some more stuffing I will make some more :)

.Checkmate.

Quick idea for a competition with the theme Yorkshire Wolds. When I here that phrase all i think of is fields...and I think that pretty boring. So I tried to make this idea comical to brighten things up a bit.

'Checkmate'

Water colours.

.Free.Stuff.For.All!.

Ha ha! made you look...

Mr.Guitar in full colour, playing his music to the worlds eagerly awaiting ear drums. This image is digitally coloured in a new way of using tools that I've only just found out how to use (why 'only just' I have no idea because this could of helped me a lot in the past).

Rest assure I will most defiantly be using this colouring style more in the many creative days to come. Later on I will get round to doing the same image styles but with acrylics and good old fashion paintbrushes and sponges, to get a contrast and find out which way of colouring works best for me.

TA DA!

.GNOME.Comp.

An idea that I started drawing a while back and I thought would work well as a design for the GNOME 3.0 t-shirt design competition. Being a bit psychedelic and crazy but also fun, I thought it was a good way of representing being able to be creative and fun whilst using the GNOME program to simplify and keep your files safe without any worry.
There are many variations of this design which can be used on different coloured t-shirts, obviously the original design would be the most expensive to make as it has lots of colours but I think it looks just as good in one or two colours. Below are a few examples of the different ways it could look and simplified sections of the design.

.Hugo.Mixed.Tape.

The latest competitions I've been working on, the deadline is at the end of the week and I managed to get these designs done before then so yey! The aim was to pick a list of mixed songs from the hugocreate.com site and draw an album cover inspired by the music, also it had to include the Hugo bottle image somewhere. These are the three ideas i came up with, i tried to make them all very different to give voters a bit of variation to chose from.

Feel free to pick and vote by clicking on the links below...
http://www.hugocreate.com/gallery#art_4653
http://www.hugocreate.com/gallery#art_4644
http://www.hugocreate.com/gallery#art_4631