Drawing on your doodles

Drawing is something I've always wanted to be better at. My whole life I have been doodling throughout lessons and lectures, long hours at work and evenings infront of my computer, aimlessly sketching things that come to mind. No purpose. I've never considered myself, and probably never will,  artistically good with a pen.

 "Squee" by Jhonen Vasquez

It's only been in the last few years that I have started to try to hone any possible pencil and ink based skills that I had glued together over the years. It began in my gap year, as one tends to have a fair amount of free time on their hands if they have a year out without having planned anything. And as one tends to do, I watched a lot japanese and american animations, films and series. I really started to appreciate animation and the whole process a lot more than I ever had before. Thanks to YouTube, back in the days where copyrighted content wasn't as likely to get pulled so quickly as it sometimes does today, I discovered Invader Zim, which led me onto the comic book work of creator Jhonen Vasquez, whose visual style totally fitted my late-teens persona of an angsty teenage girl. Lots of thick
black lines, lots of tiny shading details and often pretty grotesque images, it still is probably the style that influences me the most when I do ever take to drawing anything. And it complimented the other drawing styles I had been interested in since I was a lot younger, being that of Akira and Domu creator Katsuhiro Otomo and Metal Gear Solid designer Yoji Shinkawa.

"Domu: A Child's Dream" by Katsuhiro Otomo

Black, black, black, black, black, lots of black. As I mentioned when writing about tattoos, I like the simplicity yet sheer complexity that black and white can offer. For some reason I just seem to associate colour more with photographs, and monochrome with drawings. Brainfail. So here's a little bit of colour work from Yoji Shinkawa.

"Foxhound" by Yoji Shinkawa

So now to finish of yet another relatively smallish post by spamming it with stuff that I have made. Soon I will post about something on a grander scale that isn't so self-centered. But HEY, I called this blog "Hello My Name Is Bob" so I imagine you'd be disappointed if it wasn't all about me. Right? RIGHT?

Right.

My most recent attempt at anything. If you don't know that this is from The Never Ending Story and think it is actually E.T then I pity your childhood. Done by hand apart from the coloured texture and text. Creepy birthday cards FTW.

Inspired by the documentary "Room 237", an in depth study of numerous conspiracy theories behind the meaning of The Shining. The text reads "Bob Prosser's graphic novel version of Stanley Kubrick's motion picture adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel The Shining".

A drawing I did for my tumblr blog "Monster of The Week", where my aim was to draw something new each week, inspired by things I love that I had the urge to put a twist on. Now I kind of just use it to occasionally upload any graphic or illustration stuff that I do, though I haven't been putting much on there recently. Text and colour added in photoshop. This would take place halfway through the game, where Layton gets infected by Zombitis and Luke has to solve 15000 puzzles to create a cup of tea that will restore him to normality.

Another birthday card I recently made, with the glorious Ninetails on it. Started an argument about who would be which Pokemon in real life. Job done.

These two were drawn a looooooooooong time ago but I still really like them, probably because they're really specific to events that happened at the time. On a train, I asked what I should draw. She said "that coffee cup". It was a happy day in 2008. In 2010, I hated Valentines day, so a few of us lonely souls watched Disney films. It was a happy day.

Creepy-ass frog thing.

This was also probably taken in about 2009 on my old webcam. That side of my face doesn't even look like that anymore.

So that's an array of things I've done. I find drawing totally one of the most relaxing things in the world. Focussing on the tiny details of just one thing until you're happy with it is one of the most satisfying feelings.

This is the end of me talking now. One day I'll figure out a decent way to sign off these posts.

- END -

Ghostaroids

Something tells me that ghostaroids is not a word that would catch on. Ever.

If you ever said you'd seen Brighton looking so ethereal, you'd be a liar.

So a few months ago, an ol' buddy of mine, Elisha, brought me back some wonderfully dodgy Impossible Project polaroid film from her trip to New York. I've only shot one half of one of the packs so far, black and white film - PX600 Silver Shade - and have had some strangely satisfying results. The cause of this I guess could be anything, but that doesn't even matter. Have a look at some ghostly polaroids.

And one day, the Duke's at Komedia materialised infront of me, as if from nowhere

Karli

Dendy

It's like Memento meets The Shining

There'll be more to come, including some colour shots hopefully! The flash on my Polaroid camera is very much not working so I'm restricted to daylight at the moment...

And then this post was finished. The end.

Designosaur Yeah!

Here is a little post about Designosaur (probably the first little post of many about them.) 

Designosaur are a two-part jewellery and accessory making team machine, comprised of girl (Karli) and boy (Jacques). As the name might suggest, they deal in dinosaurs, but the extinct covers only a small portion of their selection. They have a blog and an etsy and a twitter and everything you'd want from your jewellery designers.

I've been lending myself to them in terms of photography ever since they really started branding and selling their items. I was, and am, still learning about these sort of processes, and I feel that, now, over time, we have both used our talents to compliment each other. They get photos to show off their products, I get photos of pretty things and people to add to my portfolio.

So last week, roughly nearly nine months since our first shoot with the wonderful Heather and Elaine,  Karli, her lovely sister Amelia and myself took to the studio once more with some brand new Designosaur products, and here are some of the results.

Amelia w/Dodo

Amelia sans Dodo, replaced with Lichtenstein inspired goodness

Amelia was awesome to work with because she's very good at pulling poses that just seem to work perfectly, and compliment the lighting set up that we had going on. Especially on that top photo, the way the soft pink light is reflecting onto one side of her face is just lovely.

Smiley Dendy

And of course, the obligatory image of Karli being a massive goon to round everything off

Sister Sister

A pretty darn successful trip to the studio, if you ask me. Which you didn't, but I'm telling you it was.

Brighton Tattoo Convention 2013

I've been toying with the idea of keeping some sort of online record of what I'm doing for a while - I had an account on DeviantArt when I was about 15 and have had a Flickr profile since about 16 or 17, and Flickr has done a bloody fantastic job of being a place where I can upload my images and share my small thoughts. But sometimes I have big thoughts, internet. And Flickr, to me, doesn't seem to be just right for my big long thoughts.

WELL THEN, I thought, what would be an acceptable first real post for this new platform? Where I can not only share my photography, but also where I can write things down and people can read them?

Tattoo Convention!!

Just to clarify, I really like tattoos. I love the variety in reasons, meanings, styles and subjects, which is what makes going to a tattoo convention so much fun. As soon as you get through the door, you can hear the dull hum of a hundred tattoo guns at work, each creating something special for someone.

It was a perfect opportunity to take a huge load of photos to kick off my new site....

...so I obviously ignored what I wanted to do, took a small handfull of photos and have instead decided to write a little bit about a few of the artists there that I really enjoyed looking at. Oh, and I didn't even take any photos of the ones I'm going to include. I don't know what you were expecting, really.

An unrelated picture of an arm. Just an arm, nothing more.

TOP PRIZE NO.1 goes to The King's Cross Tattoo Parlour, in particular Otto D'ambra, whose gallery you can see HERE. It's very much just a style I can get on board with, simple black line drawings but with plenty of detail and shading. A lot of the tattoos that are on show in that gallery remind me of things that I would draw - or rather, would like to be able to draw.

above images © www.kingscrosstattooparlour.com/

Just...awesome. It looks like the other artists that work there are equally as talented, it's just something about the monochrome tattoos that gets me.

above images © http://www.mpatshi.be/

Second mention goes to the artist Mpatshi (http://www.mpatshi.be/). She has a  really interesting style that seems to be mix graphic novel-esque design (which sometimes boarders on the more cartoony style) with some really interesting concepts and ideas. Now I don't know much about tattoos, but I know what I like, and I like these. According to her website, she works at Beautiful Freak Tattoos in Belgium (http://www.beautifulfreaktattoo.com/), who have this bloody amazing way of showing off their sleeve designs that just makes me think of 80's horror films.

 I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is

  above images © http://www.beautiful-freak.be/

The final artist I'm going to mention is Brighton tattooer Gary Burns (http://garyburnstattoo.com/). More monochrome goodness

 above images © http://garyburnstattoo.com/

Simple, elegant, strong. Even just these two images speak for themselves.

 I don't think I really need to point out that there were hundreds of amazing artists and studios there. These were just a few I picked out because they stuck in my mind while going through the stack of business cards you inevitably collect while walking around.


That just leaves me to fill up the remainder of this post with pictures that I did actually take, rather than ones I should have taken.

Life cycle of a tattoo
(I've unfortunately forgotten which stall this was...)

And finally, some of my convention companions, taken outside when we were forced into the cold and into the pub by a fire alarm.

 

I felt sorry for the people who were mid-tattoo.

Myself.

Hello World. This is an obligatory disclaimer to point out that this is my first post on my new website. I will endeavour not to mention it again.

So now that's out of the way, I wanted to kick off my new website with...

Oh.

Oh no.

I mentioned it again.

Well, as it seems inevitable to focus this first post on the fact that this is the first post...

WELCOME

I'm not sure what you're doing here, or how you got here, but seeing as you made it all this way, let me introduce myself.

Hello, my name is Bob. I'm a 24 year old photographer living in Brighton (who isn't, right?) Portraits, products, places. I like to shoot things that capture my imagination. Besides this, I dabble in graphic design and illustration, and, on some rare occasions, work with moving images.

For those of you who are already starting to lose interest, I have created a diagram of what you would see if you saw me in the street. We've had the verbal introduction, now for some imagery! 

Verdict? - MARRY ME

If you're still reading after that, great. Nice one!

For a while now I've been using various sites as hosts for my creative outputs. Flickr for my photography (flickr.com/photos/b-love), Tumblr for my graphics work (weeklymonster.tumblr.com). I just figured it was about time I had a central hub with galleries for both, where I can keep anyone that is interested in one, or both, regularly updated.

And with a grand flourish, here it is, the brand new HELLOMYNAMEISBOB.CO.UK !

Fuckin' yeah, woo, alright!!

I'm going to pretty much guess that if you're still reading, you actually might be slightly interested in my work OR you're a relative or friend. If you'd just like more of me in your life, add me on these websites

flickr

twitter

You can also see a gallery of my various pieces of work by clicking the link at the bar at the top of this page OR just clicking here and going to check it out

Well, there we are. I appreciate your patience. Posts to come will cover work I've done, work I will do, work I might do, work that other people have done that I am jealous of and maybe, just maybe, some work with YOU.

Speak to you soon.