Redux & Errors

So yeah, I've been gone for a long time. A long long time.
This is just a short message noting that I do intend to return.

Here's a super quick digital sketch, I never do those.

Be prepared, this blog's layout shall be slightly updated, at some point,
so if things appear to just look plain wrong at some point soon, don't worry,
it'll be sorted soon.

If you read that back in a years time and think the same thing,
either I've gone wrong or I'm now insulted.

Also, if you actually know what I've drawn here, you're a certainly a friend of mine.

Hey, we made it through the night!
Cue an added dose of nostalgia!

Degree Show

What could this post possibly be about?

Yeah that's right, the CSM Graphic Design Degree Show is well underway!
The chapter's closing people.

Come along and see some of the best of illustration, design, moving image and advertising!

For more info check out the website:

http://2012.csmgraphicdesign.com/

Also, don't hesitate to say hi!

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On a ever so slightly related note, hells yeah I have a full on website!

And yeah that is a completely new project you can see up there...
For that and a few more unseen projects, have a look!

davidtolugraham.com

Near Killer

Hai thar gauise

As I expressed a few posts ago, I finished all my markable work for my degree.
Man, building up that portfolio was stressful, but hey, it was a mere taster of the rest of my life.

On the road to hand in I was taking work in progress pictures with my phone and tweeting it every other day. It was my way of forcing myself to do work, as in "if I have new stuff to tweet, I've done a substantial amount of work." Sounds a little silly, but I think it worked.

Just over half of the above made it onto twitter,

the rest of the images remained on my phone.

This in a way is a sneak-peek at some of what you'll see from me in my degree show in June.

I'll post the details super soon, hopefully you'll enjoy it.

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Now, because I mentioned twitter,

a shameless plugin for my twitter.

Simply, follow me if you like what you see:

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Oh, and if you ever need calming down, like I do these days:

D&AD: Little White Lies

Back in March I entered the D&AD Student Awards Illustration brief.
This year it was Little White Lies, and the task was straightforward - illustrate a Little White Lies cover based on one of their 5 favourite films of 2011.

I chose Black Swan.

'Black Swan' [Acrylics, Inks & Pencil on HeavyWeight Paper]

The image represents Natalie Portman's character Nina's transformation from the White Swan to the Black Swan, showing how the Black Swan was always within her, and the shattering of her face matching the shattering of her psyche.

Ok, and here's on super-dynamic photo of the cover
on an actual little white lies magazine, pages and everything:

Unfortunately my submission was unsuccessful. Looking back at the painting, I can see some things that probably didn't work in my favour, mainly the sidelining of the lettering, oh well.

I remember, I saw one of the eventual Black Swan winners on the internet before I even started this painting, and it's amazing I managed to convince myself to still take part after seeing it.

If you see it you'll know what I'm talking about.

Birdy, Birdie & Al

Back in January I designed a book cover for William Wharton's 'Birdy'
as part of a live brief set up by HarperCollins.

This is my final design.
This went through a lot of changes, way after the brief was over, and it's way better for it.

If you read the book, this cover shall hopefully make some sense.
It's somewhat literal, yet somewhat metaphorical.

The Work In Progress

This is an image I created as part of my proposal for the identity of the Work In Progress show we had a couple of months ago. It's meant to kinda symbolise how us illustrators were putting the core of our work together, the cores of our own worlds you see. But you know, we can have fun doing it too, hence the Tetris like pieces forming the cosmic egg.

In the end my friend Clara's proposal won in the end.

Clara's was way better.

But hey the image still ended up in the show, so it wasn't for nothing!

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So, my works now been handed in for my final assessment.

For those of you who don't know, that means I've now done all my work for this degree.

Yeah.

Technically everything.

In a little over a month I'll be completely done with education.

That puts me in a rather nervous disposition.

F***HEAD

Whilst working through the night I began to panic (again)

about how much work I have to do in so little time.

So I calmed myself by drawing Travis Touchdown.

11th Angel of Limbo

You... you can tell whats going on here right? 

Golden Coyotes

By the looks of it,
I might finally be about to do something with these guys.

You know what, I don't think I've ever told you their names.

El Niño Coyote/The Boy Coyote

La Hija del Oro/The Daughter of Gold

I currently have no idea how they're linked, time to get my story-writing cap on.

But I'll tell you this, they're not lovers.

CSM Illustration Work In Progress Show

Come one come all!

That's right, we're currently having a Illustration work in progress show!
This is taking place at the lovely Blackall Studios in Shoreditch.
Also, it finishes this Sunday! So those based in London come see it whilst you can!

For more information, how to get there, and to check out all the artists, check out the
Work In Progress Show Website here!

Just like last time, here's a sneak peek at what I've put in the show:

See you there!

Gemini I

An image from an upcoming self-publication, more on this some day.

With some luck that might be soon.

Oh, and just for the hell of it, here's a crappy phone image of the 

mammoth project I've been inking recently:

This project has really grown.

It's become 25+ pages people.

I'm scared too...

From Above: The Resurrection of Don Giovanni

Once again, an older project.
This time we had to create a piece of narrative based loosely off of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. My take on the original narrative transformed into a story of betrayal in which an Aquarian angel figures out it has the unique ability to kill people
and fellow immortals in a godless heaven.
Here are 3 images taken from the original 7 piece sequential narrative:

 'From Above IV-VI'
[Gouache on 250gsm Pure White Paper]

These have been done for a while. Remember?

I mean, cut back to half a year ago and you'll find me discussing painting, and how from time to time no matter how much I love the outcome, it can become a serious life-bane.

This is what lead me to that micro-discussion.

Notice how I've only put up 3/7 paintings? Well I think the rest need some substantial tweaking. If you ever see them, they'll hopefully be part of an upcoming publication.


My comrade Kenny, the good man behind YEAIKNOW brought it to my attention that my blog is mostly full of sketchbook work, and I should put more finished work up here. That's why this wild project has suddenly appeared after all this time.

The reason behind this is because believe it or not, I can be very merticulous with things. The more I grow up the more I find myself overanalysing things actually. I do a lot of projects, many that at the point of technically finishing, I don't see as 'finished', so I hold on to these projects, hiding them from the world, because my personal standards, according to others are too goddamn high.

Even though I've written this, aware of this fault of mine, I'm finding it very hard to change;
as I said earlier, this project needs tweaking,
but that's just according to me.

The First Rut

Hello everyone. It's 2012, and I need some help,
a little bit of alternate perspective if you will.

I've been working on a narrative project for a while now, the characters are developed,
the scripts are written, the storyboards are all done, but I seem to be having problems starting.
I can't decide how to render it.
Whenever it comes to making decisions with this project my mind keeps malfunctioning
and bringing me to a halt. This isn't great, as time is hastily running out

So yeah, could you help me, what route should I take?:


Digital...


...or Traditional

I suggest you click on each image for a closer look.

Please let me know which image you prefer, by commenting below,
Facebook commenting me (if you know me duh), tweeting me or whatever!

Save me internets!

Rather annoyingly, whilst messing about with both these images, I found merging them together to add a some texture to the flatness of the digital image is the perfect compromise. But in order to do that, I'd have to both digitally and traditionally render each image.

Screw that.