Illustration Now!

I found this Taschen book in a gallery and had to buy it. Illustration Now! Portraits.... It's perfect for inspiration for this brief.... Rather than photocopy everything I wanted a record of I went through and took pictures....

This first Illustrator is Stina Persson from Sweden. I love the style and colours of her portraits... She uses watercolours, plastic film and Photoshop to get these effects. I especially like how often her portraits have a lot of white space within the face itself, it brings so much depth to the rest of the portrait, making it look as though a super bright light is being shone right into her face...

Edel Rodriguez uses acrylic and pastel on paper. He often illustrates for Time Magazine. He says 'I try to get at the essence of the subject in a clear and concise manner and often include biographical details that help inform the viewer' As I said before I think this is a good idea and make an interesting portrait...

Paula Sanz Caballero is an illustrator from Valencia. She creates portraits of high society using embroidery and hand stitching. Her work really stood out to me, it's different from the average portrait. The hand stitched fabric gives the illustrations a lot of depth and texture. I like the idea of using mixed media for my portrait. She also states how important it is to get the feeling and meaning of the characters into her portraits, she loads her work with 'irony, dark humour and unsettling details that hint at deeper meanings below the polished surface'

Helen Schiffer is an illustrator from Frankfurt, she uses mainly ink on paper to create charming line drawing portraits.
I don't particularly like the larger drawing, it seems very soulless, I don't get anything about who the portrait is of or what's on his mind. The other 2 however feel very different, I think it's in the way she has drawn the eyes. They kind of remind me of a colouring in book but for adults, it's almost up to the viewer to make the characters who they want them to be...

Dugald Stermer creates Illustrations for publications such as Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and Esquire to name a few. His work is very varied in style and he creates anything from portraits to anatomy or food. I love the portrait below, it shows the globe turning in the corners and if you look closely you can see the mapped out lines on the face (like in a map showing various heights of mountains or hills)

Raphael Vicenzi is an Illustrator from Brussels. She has created a few works for clients but mainly just has her personal work displayed in books (like illustration now) She uses, pencil, ink, watercolour and photoshop to create these pretty, fun portraits... I love the mix of media used in the illustrations, the girl 'crying a rainbow' is beautiful and delicate...

Silke Werzinger is an Illustrator from Berlin. She has won many design awards, has been commissioned to create illustrations for clients such as Elle magazine, Carlson and McDonalds. She combines ink and colour to tell amusing stories or to re-create scenes from everyday life...

Fumi Nakamura is an illustrater from Japan. She uses graphite and colour pencil to create mainly portraits. She has worked for magazines such as Nylon and designed t-shirts for Gap.

Lapin is a French freelance illustrator who has been comissioned for work by clients such as Viktor & Rolf and Intermarche. I particularly like the portraits below on graphed paper, he uses ink and watercolour to create beautiful portraits to add to his 'collection of faces'...

Eduardo Bertone's work is very comic book like. He uses a huge range of colour and typography in each of his illustrations. I particularly like the style he uses for his characters, the vintage comic book black and white feel comes to mind, but then overlaying blocks of colour in different textures brings it to a new level....

DRIVE - RESEARCH

I thought the next step would be to research Drive in more detail (not that I haven't seen it enough already) I want to look at the film itself, various poster artwork, stills from the film, DVD covers, the soundtrack, reviews and interviews... I think this could help understand the character more, maybe giving me further ideas I could incorporate into the artwork...

Firstly I found this interview with the director and struck gold! My superhero idea has come to life with this!

Superhero idea it is then!

Most of the poster art and imagery focus on the main character just like the brief for LWL which is good for inspiration....

The image below is very powerful, the lighting on the character enhances the power of the image. It is so strong with the blank, quite tough look on his face you can't really tell what he's all about, as in the film, where he doesn't actually speak for the first half an hour or so....
The type almost looks as though it has been driven over with rough tyre marks. The colour of the type matches the jacket of the character and the glowing streetlights in the background, all this together against the blackest of black darkness of the background work perfectly...

The iconic scorpion jacket.... There are a lot of shots like this in the film and I'm thinking it could work well creating an illustration from behind, a bit different to the usual face portraits of LWL covers. The title on this poster is used on most of the poster artwork, when I think of the film I immediately think of this hot pink, script typeface, the neon type style is very fitting with the film, very American, very retro...

The below poster is one of a series with each one showing different portraits of all the characters. I look at this and think cheese, it's too much, it doesn't convey the 'coolness' of the film. Again using the retro script typeface....

I love the image used in the poster below. It shows the driving gloves which have many a close up in the film. With the characters eyes looking to the left, it makes the viewer think what is he look at, what is he worried about...

I have never come across the below poster before. It's definitely very retro, very in keeping with the hot pink typeface of Drive. It seems a little too graphical and digital for the film though, I think the film has such amazing cinematography that when stills from the film can be used, they should be.... Doing this brings a lot more feeling and emotion to what the actual film is like....

Although the below doesn't seem to be a poster I imagine that it was made for one, as it is so over the top! I think it looks too airbrushed and fake to convey the film properly. Although it is one of the only ones that actually shows any of the outside of the cars...

The below is a memorable still from the film, it shows the love interest and her son in the background, I would like to bring her into the design in some way, although it does say to do the main character so I don't think this would be allowed...

The below still is Ryan Gosling dressed in the the mask which is kind of his alter ego in the film, I think this could definitely be incorporated in the illustration in an interesting way, I like my idea of putting it in the reflection of the driver in someway. I think this would be ok, as it's not a separate character, they are as one...

The scorpion imagery from the infamous jacket.... I will be using this in my design 100%, it's the first thing I think of when thinking about the main character...

The below titles typography as mentioned above, I would like to edit this slightly to fit in with the artwork I create, but not alter it too much as I think the type is memorable to the film...