Booktrust Best New Illustrators Award

Hiya,

Quick post here about the Booktrust Best New Illustrators Award which was announced last night.

Winners are here:

There's some good stuff there.

Illustrators whose work I've come across already are -

Claudia Boldt, who I met v briefly at LBF last year,

Chris Haughton, who does great stuff, lovely colours.

Viviane Schwartz, whose cat books are fab.

And Sara Ogilvie, and Kevin Waldron and Levi Pinfold.

But I must say I do think they are very well chosen cos I do rate all of them very highly, there's some really inspiring, marvellous work there.

Well done all :)

Hamble, Felix, Elsie, Ernie

Well, I was sketching out characters, and these two popped up.

Hamble and Felix Hamshanks.

Hamble dines exclusively on strips of salted beef and lemon juice, her husband Felix, subsists on whisky and dried prunes.

And here they are.

I think if I need a couple of baddies, these two might be it.

They make a dastardly living stealing pet rabbits, making them into slippers, and selling them to rich clients.

The dastardly cads.

But....

Would it be ok to feature them in an illustration aimed at early readers, to go in my portfolio, or are they a bit too creepy, OR, would it be a good thing to vary my portfolio with them even if they are a bit creepy?

Do you think they would they be suitable for children's books as they are, or should I make them a bit more charicatured and fun?

Any thoughts would be welcomed :)

Below are two slightly more friendly looking old characters, this is Elsie Hotterpoppercot, and Ernie Bramble.

Elsie makes the scones, Ernie makes the jam.

Red House Children's Book Award

Here we are, quick post, the shortlist for the Red House Children's Book Award has come out.

There's some good stuff in the picture book section, including a couple of illustrators who I really like, Alison Edgson, and Charles Fuge.

Good luck chaps :)

http://www.redhousechildrensbookaward.co.uk/award-shortlist.asp

Melvyn Quentinship The Lion

I've been sketching lions. Well, it's probably just one lion, really, but I've been moved to give him a fine head of hair.

As I was drawing his face, and was about to move onto his mane, images of Melvyn Bragg and Quentin Crisp came to me.

So I decided to make him finely and luxuriously coiffed, but was undecided as to whether to give him a big quiff, or a bisonesque centre parting, so I did one of each.

Do let me know which hairstyle you like best, if you have a preference.

I'll try and build him up into a full character, rather than just a head.

I think he will be christened Melvyn Quentinship, in honour of his hair inspirations

And he shall wear a cravat.

Basic Shapes

Hi again chaps.

I wanted to post a couple sketches I did recently of some people I saw in the street.

I noticed both of them because of their silhouettes, I think, because of the simple shapes they break down into.

I haven't done much charicaturing or exaggerating, they pretty much looked like this.

I just thought it was interesting how the little girl is a triangle on a box, with two straight lines underneath, and the lady is basically a triangle and two blocks with a little circle on top.

Breaking down into simple shapes and silhouettes in animation is a fairly major part of creating a character, and similarly is in illustration, and I thought it was interesting how these two people stood out in real life for me because of these characteristics.

Anyway, back to the colouring in.

Dogs

Hiya chaps,

Hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year, I've been away from blogging for a while now, so I hope to make up for that a bit.

I have a couple of actual commission type things on the go at the moment, so here are some sketches of dogs that aren't anything to do with them.

I will however, post some work stuff sketches in a bit, when they've all moved on to the next stage :)

These are two dogs called Elliot and Spiner that have developed in my sketch book over the last few weeks. I really enjoy drawing Elliot.

Elliot is the bigger one with big ears, and Spiner is the one with the pointy nose.

It's very satisfying doing the base of his nose just in front of his eyes for some reason.

I imagine Elliot being a bit slow and dusty, and like an old general, and Spiner is very energetic, never stands still.

The Leicestershire Children's Book Prize

There's some good stuff in the Leicestershire Children's Book Prize.

And, you can vote for them too, last day is today though (oops) sorry about posting this so late

http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/libraries/children/childrensbookprize.htm

Both Dirty Bertie and The Dunderheads has illustrations by David Roberts, who is very good indeed. So well done him for getting on here twice. Top stuff.

Ghost Goblins is illustrated by David Melling who is also very good indeed.

And The Story of Matthew Buzzington is illustrated by Ross Collins, whose stuff I really really like.

So those are my pick of the pops