Jim McKenzie – The Scarecrow
The Scarecrow is a short documentary of the process of creating ‘The Scarecrow’, an art project created by artist Jim McKenzie. The short film displays the process of McKenzie creating the sculpture while also cutting away to show the original drawings as well as inspirations for his ideas. I find this a very interesting way of showing how McKenzie has developed his project. It is very interesting to see the character come to life and I think this would be a great way to showcase my own work in this style.
It is also interesting to see the results from the pieces as they are being showcased to people. It gives an impressive presentation to his art rather than just seeing a finished piece.
Real life doodles
As my project very much revolves around using illustration and putting it into the real world. A great example of a popular use of this is real life doodles. In these videos, artists have placed simplistic cartoon faces upon objects in the real world in pretty common situations though the cartoon reactions create a funny reaction. These animations bring life and comedy to otherwise unfunny, lifeless moments. There are different techniques used to bring the characters to life, some are simple 2D faces imposed onto objects whereas some combine 3D elements as well to enhance the life-like effect.
Examples of Popular Illustration on Social Media
Adam Ellis
Adam Ellis has a massive following on Facebook from his funny comic-style illustrations.
Adam is a prime example of how he has used social media as a platform to showcase his work. Facebook is the main platform for his work and is constantly updated with engaging audiences that share and tag friends with relatable artwork.
Other Social Media Examples
Adam Ellis is shows great social media uses to distribute his artwork. Other artists often showcase their work through social media platforms. A similar page is Cyanide & Happiness.
Cyanide & Happiness is a dark-comedy comic strip which is featured on their website on www.explosm.net. An example of their success is through different platforms such as Twitter where people retweet and favorite constantly. This has led to further development such as animated shows on YouTube.
These are prime examples of established artists on social media. They have a large amount of followers due to the consistency and quality of the work they produce. To have a strong social presence, you’d need to produce consistent and quality content for followers to engage with.
Stylization of Character design
One big area that divides different artist particularly is visual style, the most common and obvious differences is within character design.
Above is a famous example from artist Kevin McShane who re-drew himself multiple times in many different cartoon styles that have been showcased in popular culture from the 20th Century to present day. (Link to website: http://cartoonkevin.com)