Research
Is there a clear distinction between digital and non digital illustration? This might be in terms of style, production or the use of interactivity. What is the future of digital illustration?
First of all we need to think about the quote from Steven Heller:-
“Can we really say with confidence that the computer will only be a silent partner? Can’t some visionary artist create an illustration form that is unprecedented? Or is Illustration an antiquated art that defies change and so will vanish?
Film is an integral storytelling medium that bears no relationship to painting. Can the computer be an integral medium that changes the way we perceive and practise illustration?”
Steven Heller an American art director, journalist, critic, author and editor who specialises in topics related to graphic design.
Steven’s quote was made in the year 2000, so was maybe from a thought he was having about his own work and future with illustration. Obviously this was when the digital age had just begun, the World Wide Web had caught on, social media was on the rise and illustration and graphic design was turning a corner into newness, and revolution.
I would say over the last 10 years art and illustration has become more popular and new with the younger generation, and I think that is because of the digital side of illustration. That is not to say that the traditional side is going anywhere, in fact I think having that newness with the digital software, this has helped to bring back traditional art through the younger generation.
I know myself that I used watercolours when I was young and in my teens and twenties, but only in the last 10 years have I got back into art, especially illustration because of the digital and modern software and animation developments. This has now filtered me back into traditional painting, and looking at new art practises like Gouache, which I had never heard of when I was young.
With Procreate and Adobe software you can use traditional brushes that make oil, acrylic and gouache paint come to life for digital use too, so it’s become a mixture of the two. It gives the digital art a traditional look, flip that and you can create traditional work, then scan it into a digital package and re-work or clean up the traditional piece, it’s all linked.
The whole Disney and Pixar motion pictures have also bought digital to the very young generation, toddlers are being brought up with these animations, and art forms, creating whole new worlds. These toddlers can be the illustrators and animators of the future.
I would say for me though I love painting in a traditional way because of the relaxing health qualities that it brings to my busy life, it’s great for mental health, healing and inspiration.
I find digital art quite contained, it can effect the eyes and looking at a digital screen all day I find is not good for me. Now-days though having an iPad that you can take around with you, is helpful so you can travel light, but I prefer the freedom that traditional art gives the artist.
I think some art work these days is hard to ascertain how it was created, was it done digitally or traditionally!?
Are digital artists less creative than traditional artists? I think traditional art comes from within the person, whereas digital is more surface level, but in saying that some of the fantasy worlds that digital illustrators and animators create are fantastic and must come from some mazing imagination.
For me traditional art will always win out, but I am enjoying working with digital art, and I think the two can be used together in harmony to create the art that you want. I find traditional art will always be my preferred way of working, just because I find it good for my health and well being. I’m happy to work with both going forward, and I think most of my friends and fellow illustrators think that’s the way forward too.
Exercise 4 Pixelated images
Using a grid format of pixels, create a series of illustrations that explores your relationship to digital technologies. This might be a love or hate relationship, a document of all the forms of technology you engage with, the games you’ve played or pixel portraits of your friends on Facebook. Be imaginative with how you approach this.
You may want to work on graph paper or create your own grid on the computer or by hand. The size of your pixels is up to you. For example the animation DEADLINE uses post it notes as pixels. But stick to the rule of only using one colour per square.
Research
So I started this exercise by thinking back to when I was a child growing up in the 80’s, my brother and I had a Antari computer consol, which was amazing to us!
Or favourite game was Pac Man, we also liked space invaders, both were influential games in the industry and where the whole gaming sphere came from. The designs were simple, colourful and aimed at younger kids, it was fun and easy to play.
A few years later a new craze came out which was the Tamagotchi pet portable egg shaped keyring game. A digital pet care simulation game from Japan, were you had to feed, care, and keep happy your digital pet, again an easy game aimed at the younger gaming market.
A good few years later my brother got a Game Boy for his birthday, it was from Japan again and from Nintendo, another hand held game that used cartridges, it had a 8 bit matrix screen, we had Super Mario Land as our first game, then we had Tetris, which is the ultimate pixel game, of building a wall of floating, falling bricks.
A year or two later I got the Sega game gear as a present, this time the hand held game was in full colour, again a 8 bit screen, portable, more ergo dynamic, My favourite game was columns.
Mind Mapping
Pinterest board
Art work
I was trying to think about how to start this exercise after completing the research, I thought I might try the post it note idea from the brief, but then A fellow student told me about Pixilart.com/draw, which is a great tool and perfect for this exercise.
It gives you a pixel art board, colours and lots of other elements to work with, to create pixel art. It also has an animation frame tab at the bottom to help you create animations with your pixel art.
My idea for my piece of pixel art was to create a character for a Tamagotchi style game, a pet.
I started by making a bear type creature, but he turned into a funny bee like insect, it was more difficult to draw in a pixelated way than I thought it would be, you couldn’t get much detail, and the drawing was in block shapes which was hard.
But this is the character I came up with:-
I then chose to use the frame/ animation section to see if I could get my character to move, like it would on a Tamagotchi style device.
I then thought about making some other characters to see if I could get better at the style of art. Although pixel art is very simple and has limited colours, so my character above does fit this style, it’s always best to try other designs.
I tried this lady character next, again the squareness of the pencil made it difficult to get a more detailed looking design, but I tried it in an animation again, to get the lady to wave with both hands. It looks like she’s dancing more than waving, or even skipping!
Conclusion
What went well
I enjoyed this exercise as I could reminisce about what my brother and I played when we were young, I enjoyed the little bit of research and looking back on the computer games we had, and how the graphics and pixel art has changed since then.
I think finding the Pixilart.com guide really helped with this exercise, and I’m grateful to my fellow student who told me about it, it made it a whole lot easier.
I enjoyed making the little bee character and having the chance to do an animation again, it’s definitely something I would like to experiment more with going forward.
What would you do different next time
I was surprised at how difficult pixel art is, it looks so simple, yet its very difficult as the pencil you use is very square and blocky, it’s hard to get any definition, or detail or refinement to the art work. It feels very clumsy and innocent, but I guess that’s what the pixel art is, it’s very simple, aimed at the younger kids market, and would be cute and innocent.
I guess as I like to work in a detailed way, so this is out of my comfort zone, but I wouldn’t change anything about what I have done, I would just practise more to get that neater, more precise look, that the more experienced hands have.
After another day had passed I went back into the Pixilart.com, and I had watched a tutorial on how to make pixel art, and I found it was better to do it in layers, the first drawing, and I also turned down the size of the pixels from 4 to 2. This gave me more control over the way the pencil worked, and they were smaller squares so easier to handle. Using the layers helped me to add some different tones to the outfit, although the app didn’t have many different colours than primary colours!
This is how this attempt turned out, again still not great but I think with time and practise this could improve more.
I will be making an animation for my You Tube channel in the next few weeks, obviously not with pixel art but ordinary on Procreate, but I will add some more info once it’s complete.
Bibliography
Ware, B. (2013) Available at: http://www.pixilart.com/draw (Accessed 30/06/2022).
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