Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse
3D Illustration - fabric, Paperclay, wire, paint, wood, other stuff, Photoshop
10 x 7 inches
actual figure - 15 x 8 x 8 inches

Project #3 in Illustration Markets was to interview an illustrator working today and make an art piece for the same market that the interviewee works in.  I interviewed Chris Sickels a few weeks ago.  He works in a lot of different markets but primarily editorial illustration.  Since Sickels works in 3D, I chose to the the same.  I made Amy Winehouse.

She was a TON of fun to make.  Making the accessories and clothing was the best part; it was a bit like grown up paperdolls.  The purse is my favorite part.  It's made from a furry leaf or seedpod I found on the street.  I soaked it in water to soften it to make it easier to sew.  After it dried, it stiffened up and held the sewn form.  I stuffed it with a tiny flask I made and a bag of coke (corner of a ziplock bag filled with salt, then sealed).

I photographed her with the help of Megan Berkheiser, Drawing For illustrators professor, and her husband, Mike.  Megan works three dimensionally too so I was able to get lots of feed back from her on how to go about working on the background.  I drew and painted the background on paper with watercolors, scanned it in and worked it up on Photoshop, playing with color saturations, levels, and textures.

Ringo

Ringo
3D Illustration - fabric, Paperclay, wire, gesso, acrylic, gouache, wood

For our final projects in Illustration Techniques II we got to choose from the assignments we all wrote earlier this quarter.  I decided to do Jeff's 3D illustration assignment which expanded on last quarter's project to make a musician (to be eventually used on in Rolling Stone Magazine).  Jeff's project wasn't limited to musicians but I decided to continue with The Beatles and make Ringo playing the drums.  This assignment not only required me to build models but also to photograph them to create a scene/mood.

During the Ringo Photoshoot, I also included John.

 

 In Giant-World:

Some photos that didn't quite make the cut:

3D Illustration: John Lennon and his Rickenbacker

John Lennon
16.5 inches
wire, gouache, acrylic, gesso, aluminum foil, felt, pins, liquid laminate

For our final Illustration Techniques I project we had to make a 3D illustration of a musician to potentially go in Rolling Stone Magazine. I narrowed my list of artists down to David Bowie and John Lennon, and ultimately chose Lennon. I took pictures with my phone while I made him. It was more fun that I was expecting it to be, and definitely more rewarding towards the end when everything started coming together. At times I felt like a surgeon reattaching extremities, and other times I felt like a tailor, cutting out and piecing together the felt for the suit. I had to cut the pieces much like clothing patterns for them to drape properly.

Lennon was sculpted from this material called Paperclay. It is essentially airdrying clay made from volcanic ash, paper pulp and a few other random things. It was easy and hard to work with depending on situation. I made a basic frame from armature wire, covered it in aluminum foil then applied the clay to the structure. At some point I had to adjust the posture a little so that he can stand. I painted John with gouache, and added liquid laminate to his shoes for the shine. The suit is made from felt. The guitar is paperclay painted with gesso, acrylic paint. I used thin wire wrapped on tiny pins for the strings and tuners.

My professor, Ed Briant put up the pictures he took of the project on his website.

John joins the Mantel Collection:

Work in progress: