Just Three More Sleeps to London!!!

After having posted my contact with Godmachine to the wrong blog I see I also haven't quite kept things up to date. So here we go...

To look at my CD Cover I already had Eric van de Boom who I visited together with some other co-students earlier this school year. Although he has a lot of experience with illustrating for cd-covers it has been in a very different genre. Because of this I decided to look for an illustrator with more experience in the fantasy genre, not necessarily in cd-covers. The Clannad CD Cover Legend is also the soundtrack for The Robin of Sherwood TV-programme and I really want to focus on the characters in the programme in the booklet as they are what most of the songs are about. I contacted Brian Froud and Caitlin Hackett, an American Artist who I discovered while doing research for my stage. Although I got no reply from Brian Froud, Caitlin was more than happy to help. You can take a look at her absolutely amazing and inspiring work here: http://caitlinhackett.carbonmade.com/

Next I still had no one to look at my Shakespeare in London project. There have been two developments in this area. The Marketing Manager from Shakespeare's Globe never replied to my email and the more and more I thought about the project the less I thought it was appropriate for Theatre promotion. As I already have contact with the Globe to look at my t-shirt design. (Meghan has been great and given me loads of tips on writing the brief for the t-shirt design and sent be an old t-shirt design brief of the shop's. I'm really looking forward to meeting her in a week's time, although a little bit nervous.) I could have thought of something else to promote the Globe but I really wanted to carry on with my Shakespeare's London project. At first I thought it would be good for the London Tourist Board. But then.... while researching Shakespearean sites in London I made a breakthrough. I discovered London Walks, a company which organised a large number of guided walks through the city including the very well known Jack the Ripper walk. More importantly though I found a Shakespeare and Dickens walk. I now plan to base my project on that particular walk. It could be a illustrated impression that they could hand out at the tour, or if too costly you could perchase from the tour guide as a momento. I'll be going on it on Wednesday and I'll speak to the guide afterwards who I can speak to about looking at my project and even see if there is any interest in it.

The second development is the artist who will be looking at it. At first I searched for artists who had worked on maps or city impressions which left me rather lost as I found most of the work dull and lacking any sense of atmosphere. I carried on by searching for Shakespeare related art, most of which left me in the same mood as the previous search until I discovered Elizabeth E. Schuch's website via a blog. She had done a large series of Shakespearean illustrations which were the first to really stand out for the atmospheres they created and as she states herself a large amount of her inspiration is from the theatre and architecture. Perfect! I sent her an email and she said she'd be happy to help, was interested in my project and looked forward to seeing what I came up with. Brilliant!!! You can view her work here http://elizabethschuch.com/home.html

And last but most definitely not least... in fact absolutely bloody amazing is the last illustrator I got to look at my Hellblazer cover. I already had the help Godmachine, which blew my mind but I continued to email some people with Graphic Novel experience to help me. As a stab in the dark and not expecting a reply I emailed one of my absolute heroes, Ben Templesmith, an Australian internationally known and awarding illustrator, who coincidentally has also worked on the Doctor Who Graphic Novels. Well within a few days a received a very laid back email saying he'd be happy to help and give his opinion, a nice wee email with B marked at the end. It was such an amazing feeling and that real point of remembrance that you can be as famous as anything but still only human. Speechless I still say to my parents at home I just can't believe that Ben Templesmith said yes. You can take a look at his work here http://www.templesmith.com/

I would imagine that I'll be illustrating the very first issue of Hellblazer, but if there is some development in this I'll say so before I start, shich will be when I return from LONDON :DDDDD

I know we are supposed to post weekly in the stage period but I will not be posting during my 9 day trip to London from the 26th of March to the 3rd of April. I do not want to waste my time there as I can easily give an all in one go update on my return. You can expect a full review including photo's of my London trip either on the 4rth or 5th of April.

So signing off...