After all the Marvel, Disney, and anime conditioning and after visiting the Temple of the Seven Camels I realized that I do have a handful of different illustration styles. And through a bit of introspection, studying my education and experiences, I have I tend to pursue styles that can exist in 3 dimensional space and styles that used idealized realism. This is a result of animation and illustration instruction and not of a graphic design education that my peers in children’s books illustration have been fortunate enough to have 4 years of. I like keeping characters simple enough to cross multiple mediums yet detailed enough to express subtle emotion. This revelation prompted me to delve deeper into my quest for defining what “style” is and I questioned whether the goal is truly to come up with a style of one’s own.
I will remember 2006 as the year I discovered and grounded myself in the fact that drawing is design. I had previously known that 2 dimensional qualities of a drawing (composition, rhythm, etc.) take precursory importance to 3 dimensional construction of forms. But reading into the Seven Camels blog has led me to explore (graphic) design oriented decisions while drawing characters (yes it sounds so common sense now.) Something I usually overlook on the way to character gestures, poses, and facial expressions. I mean you can build a character with cylinders and prisms, but that’s not really much of design now, is it? It’s the contractor’s job to build building through various parts, it’s an architect’s job to design the building’s look. As illustrator, especially in children’s books, you want to have both jobs. If you are an illustrator, please do visit that the Temple of Seven Camels. It’s a sharp education you won’t find in the classroom quite suited for the character designer.
I’m now trying to break out of the habit of just slapping together cylinders and prisms. I have begun my exploration of caricatured versions of reality and I have faith that this will reinforce my illustration portfolio.
