Good evening ladies and gentlemen!
Ahh.. What’s that I hear? That’s the sweet sound of completed projects, essays, assignments and briefs.. The sound of stress-headaches slowly dissipating and being replaced with long-nights sleep and lessened under-eye bags (well….. here’s hoping). Although it’s not time to completely breathe a sigh of relief just yet, I’m now completely on top of my workload and ahead of the curve for remaining deadlines! It’s a smug and content feeling, I must admit.
One area that I’m happy to have completed is the Machines project, which launched as a part of a University based exhibition last Thursday. Us second year students were handed this brief at the beginning of the term, all we were given was the word ‘machines’, and we could interpret it in any way we envisioned. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I chose to incorporate a back-story narrative with the hope of possibly turning the idea into a comic one day. I’m not entirely sure I’ll take it any further, but it was fun to try out narrative in a different way! Below are some images of the exhibition in it’s finished stages, including some work from my fellow students.
01/03/2026
Two years ago, the Kepler 2 Telescope caught sight of an exo-planet displaying similar characteristics to our own planet Earth. Following this discovery, a curiosity rover had been to this new planet, newly named by NASA as the planet ‘Spyryt’. Sent through an open worm-hole, the Spyryt Curiosity Rover shuttle accelerated through time and recently landed on the barren wasteland. Nobody could have expected what images started to be sent back.
The following pictures have been sent from the Spyryt Curiosity Rover, and additionally the use of 3D printing has allowed samples to be sent back digitally, though testing is still incomplete. Spyryt’s desolate, dystopian landscape is being kept quiet from the public for now, but questions are being asked. And we don’t know how to answer them…
I had some interesting feedback from my peers and lecturer, general consensus seems to be that I should have increased the size of the newspaper articles, or made more – which is understandable. It’s hard to envision an exhibition in a space before it goes in, so looking at it on the wall it may have been better to have more/larger satirical articles. On the whole the feedback seemed to be positive (I think??), I knew what I wanted to do and I executed it to a good standard, and I can’t pick fault with any particular part, but I’m definitely feeling the void of having no particular character/protagonist. I approached the brief with a comic in mind, but due to the time constraints involved I couldn’t really focus on any of the story from back on Earth with engaging characters and things like that. But hey, I take is all as valuable experience. We had to incorporate a 3D element into our pieces, so that’s what the interesting pile of dirt, rocks, computer parts and medical supplies is! That was definitely fun, and apparently it counts as ‘art’. Maybe I should smuggle it into the Tate and see if I can sell it for some obscene amount of money to fund my next comic?
Talking of comics, after seeing the lunar eclipse on Friday I thought of my characters from The Red Road, and how I kind of miss drawing them. Is that weird? I like to think that it’s an understandable sufferance; as comics people spend so many ridiculous hours drawing the same characters over and over again, they kind of feel like dear friends at the end of it all. Maybe I’m just a romantic, but I thought of Bear and Coyote as I accidentally-tried-not-to-blind-myself from the beautiful, surreal sight of an eclipse mid-morning, and felt compelled to catch up with my old friends in this quick drawing/painting;
I didn’t have much time to draw and paint this one, but I’m thinking of maybe doing some limited prints for the festival season (if I’m successful.. I hope you’re all still keeping your fingers, toes and eyes crossed?) if people are interested. We shall see! As the University deadlines fade into history I remember that burning passion for drawing and that I have the whole summer to draw to my little hearts content! Yippee!
Now, as referenced with my excitement last week, the zine I’ve been working on with two fellow students is almost ready to be printed. We came up with a name, just final touches and printing to be done! Now, I’m probably biased, but this zine is going to be really interesting, and you should definitely be excited to see some previews next week before I put some up for sale on my Etsy store. Also, I’ve had to make another small zine in the past week for an assignment that’s being printed tomorrow. AND I have been plotting out a small one-pager comic for another zine I was asked to contribute on from the lovely Keara Stewart, which will be going on sale at zine fairs and selected stores in the coming months.. So lots of zine business bridging the gap before I can get working on the next story!
Anywho, I believe that’s it for now! I can’t relax too much – best get back to some Uni work before I forget something critically important. Keep your eyes peeled for next week, there will be ZINES EVERYWHERE! Peace out! x
