A Christmas Story - final pieces

So, I previously posted the four images I designed for the Christmas Story brief, however, since then, we have had the group critique, and I have received feedback on these pieces. Now, I wasn't happy with these pieces anyway, and I knew they weren't as strong as the Pinocchio brief, so appreciated the constructive criticism given to me on Thursday. Anyway, I tried to take everything on board, and these are the improved versions (well, hopefully improved!)

Well, Happy 2012!

So, it's 2012! Hope it's started with a bang for everyone.
As previously mentioned, I am currently working on the Christmas Story brief. Anyway, the deadline is tomorrow! These are the pieces I have created, which I will receive feedback on in our group crit in tomorrow's session.

We will have the group crit tomorrow, where I will find out if there is anything that needs improving on it, and then it will be ready for assessments! And yes, these assessments actually mean something! The marks from these go towards our final mark at the end of the year, which in turn goes toward 30% of our final year mark. So, no pressure!

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a good one!

A Christmas Story (finally!)

So, I posted a couple of weeks back about the new brief we were given entitled "A Christmas Story". So, I finally, have my final idea; I am not doing a alphabet book anymore, because I was struggling to come up with words for every letter, and some didn't make much sense. Now, I am designing a collection of Christmas books, similar to the picture below:

The books in this set will be a Christmas Word Book; a Christmas Colour Book; a Christmas Number Book and a Christmas Colour-by-Number book, which will tie in the previous 3 books. Now I've got the idea sorted and okayed, I can now start to plan out the page designs for inside the book... I know what I'll be doing over Christmas!

An Evening in the Cotswolds

So, I went to see the lights be switched on at Bourton-on-the-Water, in the Cotswolds. It was a lovely village, and looked just like a toy town, with the river running through it, and the 5 bridges. They even had a tree in the middle of the river!

Some pictures:

It was snowing! (Not real snow though)

A Christmas Story...

So, after finishing the Pinocchio brief (finally!), we were given a new brief, which was titled 'A Christmas Story'. We can literally do anything we want for this, which I like the sound of. I'm working with ideas now, so should have it nailed down to what I'm doing by sometime next week.
Anyway, while I've been researching for this brief, I've been looking at what's in the market now, and illustrators/artists who use Christmas as one of their themes in their work. I've really started to look forward to Christmas now, so I can't wait Christmas to get here! (I've even got a countdown on the wall of our living room!).

Theses are some of the illustrators I have been looking at:

 Above: Betsy LePlatt "Joyful Elves"

 Above: Kerry Meyer "Letters to Santa"

Above: Chloe Inkpen "Zoe and Beans: Zoe's Christmas List"

Above: Emily McCann 'Angels'

Silhouetting Pinocchio final scenes

These scenes illustrate what is happening in chapters 33 to 34.

Pinocchio, having turned into a full donkey, is sold to the director of a company of buffoons and is taught to dance, and to jump through hoops. One night he lames himself, and is then sold to a man, who plans to make a drum skin out of him. The man ties a rock to Pinocchio and throws him in the water to drown him, but the a swell of fish turn up, and eat him, going down the 'bone' but it's the wood of his body, and swims back up to the surface. While swimming away from the man, Pinocchio is swallowed by the whale.