...a successful concept is one that nudges the viewer to unconsciously want to know what happens next. Otherwise, it’s just representational.
You really don’t need a degree to be a working illustrator. It won’t buy you anything, or provide you with an advantage regarding your career in most cases. However, enrolling regularly for online art courses, mentorships, and workshops that populate the internet–particularly those focused on building your illustration skills–is a smart move to stay creatively agile.
I’m currently enrolled in a nine-month long one-to one training with the most knowledgeable mentor on the subject of illustration I have ever met–Giuseppe Castellano. His online platform offers an impressive menu of educational choices taught by established and working professionals in the fields of illustration and publishing, It’s called the Illustration Department and I recommend it highly. Beyond it excellent training platform, the Illustration Department has a top-rated podcast, an illustration form, a free weekly open illustration critique, and more content in the works.
I’m taking this nine-month intensive to begin rebuilding my presence as an illustrator with publishers and reps, after being outside of the field for six years working as a full-time illustrator at Lumistella, in Atlanta.
Understanding my current portfolio could use some fresh work, my mentor suggested I begin working on a piece with the simplest prompt; two or more characters emotionally engaged in a situation. Easy... right? After brain-freeze and several false starts, I finally landed on a piece I feel works strong for the criteria, and will be fun to bring to final art.
I also decided to share my progress of the process with you here.
Phase One: Noodling Out the Thumbnail
This is a messy process to get the basic concept of that bright shinny thing rattling inside your head at 3:00 AM down in form before it drifts away like smoke in a breeze.
My first two attempts at meeting the criteria of the assignment (above) just felt a little flat and predictable. They don’t really do what every narrative illustration must do, and that is engaging the unseen character in the composition: the viewer. In other words, a successful concept is one that nudges the viewer to unconsciously want to know what happens next. Otherwise, it’s just representational.
My breakthrough came and I stuck gold when I scribbled together the mess below. Although it don’t look like much of anything, I knew I was finally on the right path.
Phase Two: Pencilling
Of all the phases in the process of creating a successful illustration, I consider pencilling the most crucial. It’s here when characters start to take form, composition takes shape, and the stage is set. And if you are lucky, creative flow happens, (but that is another blog post in it’s self).
Here you can see the character design is coming together as I explore personalities and varied emotional states. In life, nobody emotionally reacts identically as their neighbor to a situation. This rule should also apply to your characters.
Keep in mind, everything in a composition is a conscious choice made with the goal to communicate as a whole. The mice-made sailboat is treated with as much personality and character as the mice themselves. In a way it has to be, in order to relate with the characters, and not to break the fantasy by looking out of place.
Finally, I add the reason for emotional tension of the mice, and a key piece to the overall composition, a hungry largemouth bass.
I would regard this as simply my rough pencil stage. Depending on the feedback from my mentor, I’ll likely rework several pencil versions of this composition until it’s cleaned up and tight enough to go to color with. As I tell my clients, the pencil stage is where all the hard work is done.
Note on the overall composition at this stage: The shape of the composition is triangular. The eye follows up the side of the fish to it’s snack and then down the sail of the boat to the mice who in turn leads the eye back to the fish. The angle of the viewer is the same as the mice, thus creating a sympathetic emotional link with the character’s situation. These are elements are usually not consciously noticed by the viewer, but picked up subconsciously.
All Images © Prescott Hill 2021
Next time, I go for a bigger fish and bring this comp to the final art phase.
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