Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

I had the chance to interview OneHandClapping’s Christian DeVita, the lead storyboard artist for Wes Anderson’s stop motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Here is the interview, along with several of Christian’s storyboards, sketches, and even some of director Wes Anderson’s thumbnails.

Drawn!: Tell me a little about your involvement in the production of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Christian DeVita: I was the lead storyboard artist on the movie. I was drafted in early in the production (Sep 2007) along with other 6 artists.

We went through a few passes of the scenes, based on some thumbnails that Wes drew, before he decided he wanted to work closely with one of us in Paris. The animation studio and sets were in East London’s Three Mills studios.

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Make Do & Mend recently featured an interview with illustrator Silja Goetz, who answered questions about her inspirations and techniques. I saw this piece and knew I had to share it here. Interview with Silja Goetz.

Canadian magazine The Walrus has posted a two-part interview with cartoonist, author and creativity maven Lynda Barry (Part One | Part Two).

The conversation covers Lynda’s new book, What It Is, which is part journal comic and part workbook for blocked creative types. The article and book are recommended reading.

Previously:
Lynda Barry: What It Is
Lynda Barry on the Power of the Paintbrush

Design Sponge is kicking off a new video web-series – Design by the Book. Kind of a Project Runway but with a bunch of Williamsburg designers. And instead of the Parsons School of Fashion, it’s set in (drum roll) the NY Public Library.

The first episode is up and it’s got interviews with a bunch of interesting people. Notably:

Mike Perry (5:00) – an illustrator/font-designer and author of Hand Job: A Catalog of Type.

Julia Rothman (6:40) – a designer of beautiful patterns

Also of interest:
Hand Job: A Catalog of Hand-Drawn Type

Grain Edit has posted an interview with illustrator Adrian Johnson. Adrian is the creator of one of my favourite stylish modern kids’ books, That’s Not Funny.

Previously:
Adrian Johnson
Adrian Johnson Strikes Back.

Watch this recent GRNY interview with felt artist Snaggs.
(Thanks Jeaux)

Every now and then an illustration comes along that becomes a cultural phenomenon. The “Fail Whale” has become one of those images.

The whale appears on the microblogging / social network, Twitter, every time their servers slow down – which in recent months, has been very often. As frustration with the service grew, Fail Whale sightings increased. The cute pastel image became a lightning rod for Twitter-users’ frustrations.

Pretty soon, people were wearing Fail Whale Tshirts and joining Fail Whale fan clubs.

Yiying Lu is the artist behind the Fail Whale. I was surprised to learn that Yiying was not paid directly for the image – she originally posted the image to iStockPhoto.com where the Twitter people picked it up.

Last week, I asked Yiying a few questions about her experience. Here are her responses:

1) What was the inspiration for the whale and birds illustration?

It was initially created as a birthday e-card for an overseas friend of mine when I was in my last year study at University – expressing my: Sorry I am failed to be there across the ocean, but here is a little console from my heart. The whale is a self metaphor. Hence the original name I had for that artwork was “lifting a dreamer”.

2) Are you surprised by all the attention the ‘Fail Whale’ is receiving?

Actually, both Yes and No:

“Yes” because it was surprising how perfect my whale illustration fits twitter’s brand, and even more perfectly how the whale and the birds fit their “over capacity, too many tweets” usage – the huge whale being carried by the little birdies. Once it was in use, I guess it was not surprising that people would fall in love with the whale – he is really cute. That little image has been the most effective piece of damage control that company could have hoped for: turning a service interruption into a loveable thing! I am surprised how Biz Stone managed to find the image on iStockphoto among 3 million other images, but then that is how the universe works.

“No” because I’m confident with my artwork, as they are made from heart so it wasn’t surprising to see they bring the attention.

3) Will you continue to use stock photo web sites in the future? Would you recommend it to other artists?

I will reserve my comment about this for now. I am currently having a variety of discussions about the licensing of my works.

4) Which artists do you look to for inspiration?
Lots – René Magritte, Alan Fletcher, Saul Steinberg, Bruno Munari, Salvador Dalí, Shel Silverstein, Feng Zikai, Yoshida Sensya, Ito Junji and many more. Music Artists like Röyksopp, Air, the Buggles, Daft Punk and so on..

5) What projects are you working on now?

I’m working on the entire branding & packaging design for PetPhilosophy; starting to re-design the identity of infowi.se; some design projects on Lancôme and Shu Uemura. I’m also planning to work on some children’s books, CD cover arts and some personal design / illustration projects. And of course, taking care of my whale. He has made the biggest splash so far.

Yiying Lu is a full-time artist. She runs her own illustration / graphic design studio and is also a design lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Also of interest:
Read the full story of the Fail Whale on Read/Write Web
Fail Whale Tshirts and stuff on Zazzle
Follow Drawn! on Twitter
Twitter Down Art

There’s a great interview with Invisible Creatures designer, Don Clark, including an awesome little tutorial about layering brush textures, over at the grain edit blog.

Invisible Creatures are known for their great retro design work including album covers for Foo Fighters, Starflyer 59, Chris Cornell and Search the City.

There’s an interesting interview with renowned Canadian illustrator Anita Kunz over at Illoz. In the Interview, Kunz talks candidly about the business of editorial illustration, and the difference between working with art directors and working with editors:

So what happens is that when editors who are not visually trained are in charge, the art tends to be very literal. Think about it…we as illustrators can do almost anything visually. We’re really only limited by our imaginations. So it’s frustrating to be limited to doing very literal pictures.

This month, the amazing illustrator, Jillian Tamaki releases Skim, her first full-length graphic novel.

The story (written by Jillian’s cousin, Mariko) follows an angst-ridden teenager through a particularly turbulent semester of highschool; in a year marked by suicide of a classmate and a romance with an English teacher.

You can check out a six-page preview here.

I asked Jillian what she listens to while she’s working in the studio. I’ve already become hooked on some of her great audio suggestions. Here’s what she said (*I added the boldface to help you scan the essay):

I have a confession.

I listen to public radio. Lots and lots of public radio. Enough radio to hear the programming loop once or even twice in a day. Sam bought me a satellite radio for Christmas two years ago and it only fueled my addiction: I’ve gone through two radios in two years. How do you WEAR OUT a radio?! Virtually all my work is created to a soundtrack of streamed National Public Radio (NPR) and The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) programming. For this list I will highlight some of my favourite shows available on podcasts. All are available via iTunes.

This American Life
This American Life is pretty much everyone’s favourite public radio show and is a good place to start for the uninitiated. Each week’s show has a theme and contains several stories related to that theme in some way. Most stories involve some sort of acute observation on modern minutiae that makes you feel good and/or thought-provoked. This show is pure comfort food and the gold standard for comics-making (especially if you consider Chris Ware was, for a long time, provided the graphics for their printed and online material).

More images and audio suggestions after the jump.

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This week on the Sound of Young America, Jesse Thorn interviews Tony Millionaire about his artistic family, his career, and his comics. There’s a new Maakies book out now, and the Drinky Crow Show is set to premiere on Adult Swim later this year. They also talk about cross-hatching, stippling, and selling artistic services door-to-door. Give a listen here.

The Words Without Borders website is turning its attention to comics and graphic novels this month, and they have a handful of international comics available online for free (and translated to English). Shown here is a page from a piece by French creator Philippe Dupuy. Be sure, also, to read their interview with Italian cartoonist Gipi, author of the highly-recommended Notes for a War Story and Garage Band.