Influences for Hiroshi and the wish...

Dave Mckean:

Dave Mckean is one of my constant influences so I took inspiration from looking specifically at his graphic illustrations for children's books before creating my own.

I am inspired by Mckean's mixed media approach to illustration, the perfect layout of his pages and his ability to make an image appear childish, sophisticated, messy and beautiful at the same time.

Eric Carle:

Eric Carle is an acclaimed children's writer and illustrator. His best-known work, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' has been translated into more than 45 languages and sold over 30 million copies. Since 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' was published in 1969, Eric Carle has illustrated more than seventy books, many best sellers, most of which he also wrote, and more than 90 million copies of his books have been sold around the world. Eric Carle’s art is distinctive and instantly recognizable. His art work is created in collage technique, using hand-painted papers, which he cuts and layers to form bright and cheerful images. Many of his books have an added dimension—die-cut pages, twinkling lights as in 'The Very Lonely Firefly' even the lifelike sound of a cricket’s song as in 'The Very quiet Cricket' - giving them a playful quality: a toy that can be read, a book that can be touched. Children also enjoy working in collage and many send him pictures they have made themselves, inspired by his illustrations. He receives hundreds of letters each week from his young admirers.

I was influenced by Carle's use of collage to create images that appeal to children and his ability to create personality in a very simple face. I was also inspired by his use of bright colours and the incredibly jolly feel to his images.

Hiroshi and the wish.

I enjoy writing but continuously write introductions to or first halves of stories that I find myself unable to finish. I thought it might be nice to create graphic illustrations for one of these part-stories, making an unfinished book.

I have decided to create graphic illustrations for a children's story I wrote but never completed when I was younger. I have researched illustrators of children's books and have now made a front cover and several pages depicting certain scenes in the story.

Front cover for 'Hiroshi and the Wish'.

Here I have created a collage effect by photographing cut-out drawings and writing and bits ripped out of magazines, and cutting bits out of images from the Internet, and layering them. I chose to create this effect because I thought that there was something childish about the collage-like appearance, and because wanted the image to look unpolished, like a child had made it.

Alternative cover.

Here I experimented with different ways of placing the text as though it was floating on the waves. However I think the first cover looks more effective as I think some of the letters are too big on this cover

This page depicts the market place scene in the story. here I continued to use the collage style to keep the image childish, but used more layering and transparency with the cut-outs to give the image more depth and make it more interesting.

Alternative market scene page. Here I played around with the colour scheme and experimented with adding a box and a small amount of text. I also added Hiroshi's body to make him clearer.
This image depicts Hiroshi finding himself under the sea. Here I played around with colour, contrast, light, hue and saturation to give the feel of darkness while still making the page bright and interesting, featuring some 'under the sea' colours.

These images depict Hiroshi's journey under the ocean, as he progresses further towards the Sea God's lair. I wanted it to feel as if his surroundings were becoming darker and more oppressive as he also became surrounded by more strange creatures. I used very bright colours and a negative effect on for the sea creatures to give them a spooky, other-worldly feel, and to keep them visible against the dark background.

This image shows Hiroshi's arrival at the entrance to the Sea God's lair. For the door-(on the right of the image)- I cut out and altered the colours in a door by Gaudi that i had taken a photograph of in Barcelona. I felt that the door already had a sort of 'under the sea' quality about it because of its flowing form and eerie green half transparent window panes. i edited its colours so that it blended in with the rest of the page better .

This image depicts Hiroshi just after entering the Sea God's lair, but before he sees the castle and the Sea God, which is where the story comes to an abrupt unfinished end.

The process and materials used:

Firstly I began to rip out snippets and parts of images from magazines. While doing this I accidentally ripped out the piece at the centre of the above image, which I realised looked quite like a face. I had been planning to draw Hiroshi's face but when I came across this I thought that this version of his face would be more charming and had a certain simple appeal to it, so I used the piece of paper for his face instead.

Collage pieces ripped from magazines to represent sea, sky and ground in the background.

Previous drawing and embroidery of bird I had done, which I re-used to depict the birds in the story.

To create the under the sea scenes I needed images of fish etc. so I visited The Deep aquarium and photographed the tanks. I also used some photos I had previously taken in Barcelona Aquarium. These are just a few of the images I collected:

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