Every good project starts with some solid research, so i want to look at some artist’s works (more specifically artist books) as well as exploring and citing other influences before i start to plan my own. I’m hoping i’ll be influenced aesthetically from this research, and that it will help me to generate some ideas.

Artist 1- little thunder

Little thunder is a famous comic artist from Hong Kong, born on April 17th 1984. She has been illustrating and working on comics since 2002, and has also expanded into commercial illustration and video game art. She was able to get her comic strips published in newspapers in Hong Kong as a teenager, and has worked for big companies such as Nike and Dior.

Thunder sites one of her childhood influences as Japanese anime. She says that drawings make her happy, and she also loves storytelling, which makes comics a perfect middle ground between the two. Her comics range in themes from a bit surreal to relatable, with one of her comics being titled ‘me’ because of how many people tell her they relate to her work. She generally communicates her ideas on topics and phases of her life through her comics, allowing her readers to look into her mind a little and see things from her point of view. In her own words, she says that comics allow her to express herself without words.

Thunder’s work for me is characterized by her illustration style, which is somewhere between slightly more realistic and anime, and her use of colour; her work has a consistent aesthetic because of her colour usage, coming across as soft looking. Her colour palettes seem to generally use a lot of pastel colours, and a lot of her works include soft pinks. My guess on the materials she uses for her work are watercolors, and maybe some markers too.

In my opinion, Thunder’s art is successful not only because it’s beautiful to look at, but also because she puts some of herself into whatever she creates. Everyone’s point of view and experiences are unique, so her using her own thought processes as themes in her work is interesting as it allows us to see things from her perspective. There is also a sense of familiarity to her work, offering the readers/viewers of her pieces some relatability which keeps you engaged and somewhat comforted.

I’ll take some influence from Thunder’s thought process above all else; she creates her work from a personal point of view, but it’s not so abstract that the reader is left confused or disengaged by the end of reading one of her comics. She seems to work from her heart, using styles influenced by things she was fond of in her childhood to work in, and speaking truthfully to the reader. I think this makes for refreshing art pieces as they aren’t too formal or far fetched (art tends to be a little bit too abstract for non artist’s tastes sometimes), making her pieces suitable for almost all audiences. They’re deep enough without having too much of a profound message. I’ll try to incorporate things like these into my own work.

Artist 2- Julie Chen

Julie Chen is a book artist from California, born in 1963. She underwent a print making course at the university of California in 1984, before going on to become interested in book arts. She went on to get a degree in book arts at mill’s college in 1989, and has since created a variety of artist’s books and worked at her former university.

Chen’s art books are created using a range of traditional book making techniques, such as binding, laser cutting and letterpress printing. Similarly to little thunder, Chen’s books are made with some of her personality put into them; they often have themes of her own ideas and opinions, as well as her personal opinions and interests.

Of all of Chen’s works, there’s one that caught my eye in particular; ‘The first seven days, my very first artist book’. I like the aesthetic of the book and the colours she used, but i’m also interested by the structure of the book. It isn’t shaped like a traditional book, which begs the question; what is a book? what criteria does something have to meet to be considered a book? Although i don’t think i’ll go down the path of crafting a more artistic and abstract book, i found her way of thinking interesting. She thought outside the box to create something different, something that would stand out in a crowd of other books.

Chen says herself that the physical structure of her books is a crucial part in their perception. She plans the shapes of the books based on their content. In the accordion-esque book above, the themes are of her identity; as a woman, as an Asian american, all things that make up who she is. Through my interpretation, the book’s structure contributes to this; all of the pages are connected and flow into each other, much like how every aspect of a person connects to form their identity and who they are. I like this approach of making books as it’s very imaginative; i want to challenge my imagination and come up with something that communicates who i am well enough to my reader.

My own influences

This is one book i like and own; Scott pilgrim vs the world (specifically volume 2) by Brian lee o’malley. There are a lot of things i like about this book; firstly, although i can see that the author is influenced by Japanese manga through the general set up and aesthetic of these pages, he has a unique style that can’t be mistaken for anyone else’s. I aim to achieve this somewhat through my book; i want it to be recognizable as something that i, jahiem, created, as it’s meant to reflect some of my own identity.

Another thing i like about Scott pilgrim is the dialogue and fonts. Sometimes, things are boring to read when they’re just long walls of formal text in an ordinary font (yes, this is a self call out), But the font in Scott pilgrim looks a little self written, which ads a personal and unique element to the book; it adds character even to the writing. Dialogue wise, i like how every character has their own way of speaking; they all have their own tone. I want to do something like this in my book; i want it to be something where anyone who knows me and recognizes my speaking pattern would definitely know i wrote it. I want to use my own way of communicating, letting go of any formalities, as i think this also will add a personal touch to the book.

This is another book i like and own; volume 4 of the dragon ball manga by Toriyama Akira. In my opinion, Toriyama is very successful at setting tones and communicating ideas visually alone; in comics you cant be as descriptive with language as you can in books, so you have to show more than you tell. Toriyama draws each character with a lot of personality, so even without reading the words, you get a sense of how the character is feeling or what they’re doing in each panel of the manga.

I think this would be a useful element to adopt for an artist book. Truthfully, nobody will be able to read the text in the book because of how fast the video has to be (30 seconds), but i’d like every image to be eye catching and give a sense of what i’m writing about to the reader. I have a tendency to write a lot, but i’ll have to challenge myself to communicate more through my drawings for this project, drawing pictures that are interesting and clear.

Now that i have done some research into themes and processes behind creating books, i’m ready to start planning my own. There are a few ideas I’ve already come up with based on my research, but i’ll save them for the next blog post. i look forward to seeing what i can come up with.