TFNation Convention

I went to my first proper convention in the summer, and it was a great experience in meeting like minded people and just being in a space dedicated to a whole groups interests and passion. I didn't really understand the relevance of it in terms of my practice before, but since going to ThoughtBubble and my experience there, I thought that this convention really did prepare me for that energy beforehand.


TFNation is a Transformers based convention, and while I was there I met Nick Roche and James Roberts, who are two of my favourite comic writers and worked on one of my favourite books ever, Last Stand of the Wreckers:

It was great to get a chance to talk to them briefly about how they come up with ideas for characters and narrative, as its a creative process I'm trying to get my head around.
I also went to a panel with Alex Milne, the artist who illustrates More Than Meets the Eye, a series I really enjoy. That was a great experience as he made an improvised comic on the spot going off nothing but audience suggestion, which made for a really funny and dynamic set of sketches at the end.
Because I've always been the only person I know who's into this kind of thing, it was really great to suddenly be in a massive hotel with hundreds of other people who felt the same, and there was this shared experience between everyone there.
I also bought a metric ton of retro toys.

Study Task 2 - The Creative Industries

• Publishing & Book Design

• Editorial & Reportage
  Editorial work is something i was not familiar with or confident with at all before starting the course last year, but since then I feel my understanding and skill at adapting to different perspectives/stories for editorial work have improved, and I find editorial work intriguing and stimulating. Also, my context of practice work this year will be fuelled by historical examples of editorial and reportage work, so my visual responses will likely be influenced by this method of working. 

• Character & Narrative
  I think that character and narrative are the main strengths within my practice as I really enjoy drawing figures and faces, as I feel they are great mediums through which to express feeling and meaning. This has always been the foundation of my work and I aim to keep improving and developing my practice to ensure my work in the future has a strong base and I can adapt to various opportunities, challenges and briefs. 

• Product & Packaging

• Retail & Merchandise

• Object & Environment

• Advertising & Promotion

Thought(s) Bubble

My favourite get from Thought Bubble: a print of this adult Finn by Mister Hope.

Thought Bubble was amazing! I didn't know what to expect at all, having lived in Leeds forever and never having gone before, I didn't expect it to be as massive and as varied as it was. I loved the energy of the huge rooms with like minded people just sharing the whole experience of drawing weird stuff for a living.

It really gave me a lot of confidence in terms of the industry too, as it was so open and welcoming to hundreds of different styles, methods, products and people that it felt like there was a place for everyone there.

I mainly bought prints and spoke to artists whose work focused on character and colour, as these are things I'm beginning to explore a lot more at Level 5. Nobody seemed too busy to talk to us, which was great because they could appreciate that they were annoying students once too. I'm really excited for next year, as we'll be in third year by then (hyperventilating) and should have a better knowledge of how it works and how to get the best out of it. I think I'll definitely go to more of the talks next year, as this time was so focused on getting into the halls and buying stuff, but I really want to hear people talk about their practice there, as there are so many different disciplines and ways of thinking about illustration.

Creative Networks - Mike Mignola

It was a real inspiration to see Mike Mignola speak last night, for a man who's worked on iconic characters like Alien and Batman and taken his ideas to Hollywood he seemed like a normal nice guy who just uses illustration to make sense of the world he's found himself in, like the rest of us here.

As my work this year especially has been influenced by a conscious move away from formulaic and mainstream comics that have driven my work in the past, it was great to see an example of someone who was inspired by comics but decided to put a different spin on that world rather than trying to fit into it. This is an attitude that's really thought provoking for me, as he repeatedly spoke of how he didn't think his work on Batman or Alien were his best, as he was restricted by the rules of pre-existing characters and audiences, and found it much more refreshing just scrapping that and having a go at his own weird ideas. That's an idea that I've been aiming for especially this year, trying to be more confident in my own ideas and stories, rather than depending on what I know can work.

Overall the talk was very interesting and unexpectedly relatable and it's helped to give me a boost by showing a real life example of someone who's let his work develop and change according to his own ideas and influences, which is reassuring for me in terms of having more faith in my own ideas and work.