David McMillan Illustration

3D Soft Pieces

2010-01-04T14:14:00.007Z

I haven't posted recent work in a while, so when I finally got round to collecting my 3D Soft pieces today I thought I'd photograph them and scan them in. You know, incase you're interested.

I handmade a series of test heads and bodies for a Scarecrow doll.

My aunt lent me her sewing machine, and I thought I'd make some practice pieces with it to get the hang of it. So I ended up making these two little sheep toys.

Molskine Sketchbook (Oct '09 - Jan '10)

2010-01-03T15:51:00.009Z

3D Hard Project

2009-11-24T22:40:00.000Z

I went into 3D Hard a little dubious, what with my hatred of clay from my years of GCSE and A-Level art in Down High where clay pieces are practically pushed down your throat, but after getting our introduction I realised how interesting and how much potential it had. It's not all just clay pots and pigs.

So to start the project we had to make a replica of any object we wished. Being a lazy bum who had a busy weekend I naturally didn't put much thought into it and grabbed a coffee cup on the Monday morning before heading into town. So here it is... just some cardboard, glue, paper and white paint.

Even tried to get a little coffee ring around the bottom of the cup.

We had to set them up to look like they were in real situations. So being an arty hipster I set mine up with another Starbucks cup and my moleskine. 'Cause you know how I'm always drinking hipster coffee in the 'Bucks and making notes on hipster things.

Hopefully from our model we could relate it in some way to the theme of the project which was 'Pattern'. I went with the idea of daily patterns and the consumption of coffee throughout the day. With that in mind, we had to start thinking about a possible final piece, and to help us come up with that we had to create small scale models which could possibly be developed. I messed about with using coffee cups as molds and filling them with plaster.

Even made a plaster mold of the coffee top, which came out in great detail.

Here's a couple of pages from my ideas book.

Those ideas eventually turned into this...

A barista in Starbucks was nice enough to give me a couple of cups as long as I said they were already used if I was asked about having them. I also picked up a free bag of old coffee grounds from Starbucks and that is what the cups are filled with.

The coffee grounds and beans in the plaster mold cups ended up making the models very unstable. My desk became covered in grounds and beans that had come loose. However, I still loved the look of them, especially the plaster 'whipped cream' tops. It's also fair to say I had the nicest smelling final piece in the class. Seriously! I stank up the room with these things.

Up next... Painting.

2D Design Project

2009-10-23T23:16:00.007+01:00

So, our first project (of four projects) was 2D Design. We were given the title of "Urban Environment". I decided to go with the idea of old buildings and new buildings. How the old is torn down to make way for the new. How lovely old buildings are destroyed by ugly new buildings.

I started by heading down to the vintage retro shop near uni and picking up these wicked old photos and postcards.

Also tried my hand at a couple of 'joiner' photographs in Photoshop. Really like how they turned out.

These are just a couple of my sketches from my ideas book.

All my work came together in a very Gilliam-esque cut out animation.

2D Design Project from Dave-tastic on Vimeo.

This project has really made me consider doing VisCom next year now.

There ya go. Haven't updated in a while so I thought I'd just give a wee glimpse at what I'm up to in Uni.

It's taken nearly a year but...

2009-10-10T19:03:00.005+01:00

My current sketchbook is finally done. Sure, I probably could've finished it up with some better drawings but all ideas can't be gold can they? Well, not with me anyway. It's a sketchbook, it's not all meant to be perfect. Stop complaining OK!?

Anyway, over 120 pages all full. Now to move onto one of those Moleskines I bought ages ago.

University Christmas Card

2009-10-08T01:24:00.014+01:00

Yes, it may only be October but this week in Uni we were given the task to create the University's Christmas Card that would be sent out to, you know, important people and whatnot. Oh, and the winner gets £250...

I did have other ideas for mine, but I stuck with this whole children's book/Charlie Brown Christmas inspired kinda thing so here is some of my sketchbook designs for the finished piece.

Some little tests I did on the cardboard before doing the real thing.

Design 1.

Design 2.

We handed in our ideas this morning and were told that they were all too samey and predictable and I wasn't too happy being told that since, you know, I like the children's illustration route I took, even if It's maybe 'predictable' cause it's something I find interesting and may want to try as part of my artistic career. So in retaliation I went all Ralph Steadman on my sketchbook and created this.

Face Cake!

2009-10-08T01:06:00.005+01:00

I am loving university at the minute. The past couple of weeks there have given me more of a desire to just pick up my sketchbook and just fill it with anything that comes into my mind. I had the revelation when in the Personal Sketchbook workshop that I wasn't 'experimental' and 'loose' enough in my sketchbook, so recently I've been trying to correct that.

This may not be the best 'experimentation', but I started by just messing about with type then ended up with the words 'face cake' on my page, which naturally conjured up this image in my head... Well not this one exactly, but the pipe sure does add something doesn't it?

Continuous Line Drawings of Sami

2009-10-04T14:45:00.000+01:00

Some of them look stupid, but these are actually so much fun to do, and they have a certain quality to them which makes you end up liking them all no matter how strange they look. You just sit there not staring at the page and just let the line flow.

I then tried my best to make the green one in the top corner out of wire.

Life Drawing (Or: Random Scribbles of the Human Body)

2009-10-02T22:58:00.017+01:00

So, Monday and Tuesday of this week was our Life Drawing workshop. You don't really know what to think when you go into the room, especially if you've never done a life drawing session before. However, I really enjoyed it. It's not really about the fact that you are sitting very close to a naked person drawing them, instead it's all about getting as much visual information down on the page as quick as possible. Besides, the way we were just thrown into the session didn't leave any time for awkwardness or childish giggling.

At the end of the Tuesday we got out our A5 Sketchbooks and ended up almost filling them with different drawing exercises all to make us approach drawing in different ways and let us see that out of what seems like random scribbling can come form and art. Here's some examples...

- Draw the pose as if you were really angry. Notice I added a scribbled 'fuck' in the corner to add even more anger.

- Draw the pose using stabbing motions

- Draw the pose while walking around the model

- Start drawing then hand your sketchbook to someone else when told. It really shows all the different styles in my class.

- Draw the pose using only circles

If I'm correct this was drawn using my right hand instead of my left. Switching hands was used a lot as a technique for trying to develop our drawing skills. We also had to draw in continuous line while not looking at the page, while the sketchbook was above our head and also behind our back and, of course, when our eyes were closed.

I may post up some of my larger pencil and charcoal drawings, but I'll have to photograph them to be able to put them up.

Plant Watercolours (With Added Toronto)

2009-09-27T21:49:00.008+01:00

I had bought a Watercolour Moleskine a while ago thinking I'd use it all the time because I love using watercolours in my normal sketchbook. Sadly I neglected it, but after my trip to the Botanic Gardens Hothouse on Monday and Tuesday I thought that now may be the best time to try and start filling it up.

Our time at Botanic was spent doing A2 & A3 Charcoal and Pencil studies but I brought along my camera and took plenty of photos around the whole building for future reference (like these watercolours). Now, the tutors don't usually like you drawing from photos but when I got home I had nothing else I could use but the photos.

I took plenty more photos so I'll probably do a few more studies and post them up.

Also while going through my iPhoto library I found this photo of Toronto that Kris had taken. I think it may have been taken around Osgoode. I wish I was more Toronto savvy and able to recognise the street. Yeah, I wanna be that big a loser.

Botanic Garden Sketches

2009-09-13T19:40:00.004+01:00

On Friday Matt, Chris, Laura, Sami and I walked around Belfast. Firstly, the Black Box for some cheap coffee (£1 Americanos before 12pm) and comfy seats, then off to the Ormeau Bath Gallery to have a look-see, then finally we ventured round to Botanic Gardens for a nice wee sit on the grass in the lovely weather. Being art students we naturally got out our sketchbooks and got to work creeping out and staring at everyone sitting near us.

First Post

2009-09-12T19:34:00.001+01:00

What with just starting my Foundation Art course at University, and with wanting a place just for my own work (no matter how crappy) I have decided to copy my friend Matt and start my own personal art blog.

I plan to put up my own personal sketchbook, comic and animation work as well as some of the work I produce during my course.

Enjoy