Norwegian Wood...

Over the last 3 days i have been working on a poster for the film "Norwegian Wood". There's this poster contest going on so i thought i'd give it a shot (well there's that and the fact that i got this school project concerning freelance projects like this to complete... erk...). Anyhoo, so the poster is composed of 3 vital elements, these consist of the main couple/characters, the vital forest location (that's where the magic happens...) and the song "Norwegian Wood (The Bird Has Flown)" by the Beatles that entirely influenced the novel. I felt that the most direct way of communicating the song was to transcribe it into a score, this was truly a pain in the ass as i really do not like the Beatles (you can all kill me now...), then by having the couple overlaid on top of the score, it makes it seem like the song is playing through their entities. Thus setting the story into motion...

Feel free to vote for it on:

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/designbrief/norwegian_wood/entry/1451

D*Dreg

Neville Brody Vs. Marvel Vs. Capcom...

Last thursday i had finally received my copy for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, a game for which i have been waiting for 10 years so you can only imagine my excitement (call it sad, its just part of being a geek...). However, the following day was to be an important one as a pretty famous graphic designer was coming to our school to gives us a lecture on graphic design and all that jazz... I found myself conflicted between goin' ape shit on my new game and bein' a serious student and taking advantage of the rip off supposed benefits of my school, a truly tough call. So the night ended with me playing MVC 3 until 5 am and waking up at 8:30 to make sure i got a good spot in the lecture theatre to see this supposed god like guest.

Now i'll be honest, i have never heard of Neville Brody until last week (this is apparently very very embarrassing for a graphic design student... But heck it's not like this guy created spider-man or anything soooo yea... big deal...), so i came to this lecture with a pretty vague state of mind. Hoping this guy will be as mind blowing as everyone claims he is, my friend Andres tells me he designed the font for the "Public Enemy" film, that was a pretty sweet font so that already boosted my expectations a bit. Then i see my friend Sid sitting next to me about to piss himself with excitement over this one dude (who i repeat did not like create spider-man or anything as remotely awesome), so i reckoned wow this dude must really be the shit...

Putin...

Thus began the lecture, and this guy did in fact blow my mind but probably for the wrong reasons... His constant approach to somewhat dismiss my school and it's tutors simply made my day as he points out that LCC has failed him and told him he had no position in the commercial industry was the most beautiful bitch slap i had ever witnessed. Now the dismissal and piss taking elements aside he did have some interesting topics to discuss.

El Brodinski hard at work...

What really caught my attention was his advice on taking risks in art and how there can be no faults to taking risks. Personally i see this differently as i don't usually like taking risks in my work as i am too specific with i want to do, however looking back at this has made me want to take risks as you never know what could happen, things could look a vagillion times better for all we know. Then Mr. Brody, or as i now like to call him El Brodinski, started talking about how Print is Dead or rather dying as well as how we should be hippies and think about the environment and all that weed smokin' mambo jumbo, and that we should be moving onto the digital format and media as that's where the shit is happening right now. A valid point i guess, but i don't believe print will ever die just as i don't believe deforestation will ever end (there isn't enough pot in the world to make everyone believe that...)

Anyhoo enough of that, here is an illustration i made based on the event:

The Art of Russian Roulette (a.k.a Taking Risks): from my understanding taking risks is sort of like playing a game of russian roulette. You got your Colt Revolver with 1 out 0f 6 bullets placed inside your cylinder barrel, this means you got 5 out 6 shots to live. In this case let's say your working on your very own Mona Lisa and you believe it to be complete. However you've made it from your exact specifications and requirements but you have not taken any "Risks" on experimenting with it. Now with the digital media aside, this is your only version of the piece and you doubt you will ever be able to re-do it as perfectly as it is now. What do you do? Do you take the shot? Do you land on one of the 5 safe shots and turn the piece into the ultimate Mona Lisa or do you land on the 1 fatal shot and have your piece shot to shit?

So to conclude this event, Neville Brody is an excellent speaker (no doubt about it). He'll woo you with his audible skills but at the end of the day, you might end up more confused, questioning, lost or curious as ever before...

P.S: if none of this made sense to you i honestly do not blame you... I wish i could tell you i was high whilst writing this but sadly... i wasn't...

D*Dreg

Ballet Shmallet...

So this is from a while back but i feel like i should bring it up before it gets too old...

Last month we had a drawing project based around the theme of ballet (personally, not really the fondest of projects...). Now this ain't a subject i am particularly fond of let along interested in. However, having witnessed an actual ballet performance of the nutcracker at the English National Ballet (E.N.B), i believe to have been proven wrong as it was a truly remarkable performance with stunning visuals and costumes. Then to top it off the "Black Swan" film came out which completely changed my outlook on ballet... Anyhoo here are illustrations based on this ballet mambo jumbo project...

These two illustrations derived from the concept of a ballet dancer being absorbed by their environment/surroundings, this can be linked to number of elements such as the scenery, stage, story, etc...

As i mentioned earlier the "Black Swan" film caught my attention with its somewhat dark and freakish visuals...

Here are a series of illustrations (displayed above) based on the movie, Portman's eyes as she becomes the black swan were simply horrifying (in a good way) so i decided to play around with that...

The black and blue illustration was another attempt at creating ballet dancers being absorbed into their performances, as their clothes blend with the background, they become one with the show. this concept actually derives from the early era of ballet where the dancers were less considered than costumes and props. So i thought of a way of reversing that by minimising the background and costumes.

Finally, keepin' the best for last (well in my opinion, this one came out the best...), this drawing was inspired by French Ballet and it's "ballet d'action" movement to be more specific. Ballet d'action consists of focusing more on the ballet dancers themselves, such as their features (gestures, facial expressions, etc...), rather than the costumes and props used to display emotions through the play. So i tried depicting a somewhat saddened emotion here through the dancers facial expression as well as their gestures.

Well that's it for ballet now, who knows maybe this subject will come back in the near future... actually cross that out...

More stuff to come shortly!!!

D*Dreg

World War Post...

So i had to design a series of postcards for a school group project, once again dealing with the theme of war... This was the outcome:

I was trying to bring out a somewhat dark imagery depicting the innocence of a child caught in the chaos of war and decides to ignore it, thus the little girl forced to wear a gas mask is picking flowers in a deserted wasteland...

Like the previous postcard, i wanted to evoke some more dark imagery. In this setting, we find a gas masked soldier (originally meant to be a nazi soldier) standing in a barely lit children's room where he encounters a child's teddy bear and begins questioning his acts...

[Originally this image was supposed to represent a soldier hunting for victims but i felt like this card related to the previous one so i decided to change the backstory...]

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The idea behind this postcard came from a gas mask that was designed for children during the war, it was called the mickey mouse gas mask. This concept felt like a product of propaganda and its illusions, hiding the reality of the situation from the eyes of a child. So i had this idea of making an interactive postcard where two perspectives are displayed. The first one consists of reality where a wasteland is depicted, the second one is what the children see through the eyes of the mickey mouse gas mask (where everything is colorful and eerie). One image is slid over the other so the concept is to slide the child's illusion out to reveal the reality of the situation.

D*Dreg

World War Doodle...

Here are a series of sketches based on the theme of war for a school project... blissful stuff...

This illustration came about after seeing "The Children's War" segment at the Imperial War Museum, which depicted how children went through the 1st and 2nd world wars. I kinda pictured this abandoned island (that looked more like a junkyard than anything) ruled by the children that have been lost throughout the war. There they created their own community fending for themselves whilst rejecting any outsiders from setting foot on their land, in other words... Trespassers Will Be Shot...

Some more war children sketches...

The next few sketches were inspired by the wide range of diverse gas masks the museum had on display, i quite liked the idea of having a somewhat faceless entity with a weapon coming spread fear/collect victims... kinda like the grim reaper...

This sketch was inspired by the numerous "Trench Signs" the museum had on display. This one sign read "Suicide Corner", as messed up as it was, it gave me this mental image of soldiers having a pathway in the trenches to an actual suicide corner where they could sort of give up on the battlefield. So i got this idea of having a gas masked nazi soldier lookin' like the grim reaper giving the soldiers a choice between giving up (by goin' to the suicide corner) or goin' out on the battlefield (by goin' to the death valley) where a somewhat inevitable fate would rest upon them...

This one was an obvious one i guess... Crazy naked gas-masked Communist Zombie lady on the verge of feasting on a lost soldier...

Random gas masked soldier standin' against the wind... deep... (was more of a watercolor experiment than anything...)

Anyways that's it for now alot more to come shortly...

Enjoi...

D*Dreg

Welcome to Cyber-Dreg. Come One, Come All...

Greetings Cyberworld (i would have gone with "Programs" but Tron: Leagacy has now ruined those once feasible geek terms. oh well the movie was still awesome...),

It has recently hit me (like a mind blowing/life revealing/reality check car crash...) that i need to be approaching my supposed artistic studies with a somewhat more "serious" tone. Sooo... Heck here i am creating a friggin' blog (a cyber enemy from the likes of which i would never thought of having myself face...), i guess that could be considered serious... who knows maybe it'll grow on me to keep this cyber journal (oh technology...) up to date... who knows...

Anyhoo updates are coming up soon hope you guys will enjoy the ride (well at least more than i will).

D*Dreg