Book Synopsis (from someone who hasn't read them)

For the Term of His Natural Life - Marcus Clarke

Published in 1874, For the Term of His Natural life chronicles one man's experiences as a British convict transported to Australia to serve a life sentence. Wrongfully accused of murder, a man under the pseudonym Rufus Dawes is transported to an Australian penal colony on Norfolk Island. While suffering under a sadistic commandant, Dawes endures intense punishment along with his fellow convicts. The other convicts tell of attempts at escape, where the harshness of the Australian wilderness results in both murder and cannibalism to survive.

This edition contains the original ending as first published.

True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey

Peter Carey's tale of the Kelly gang as told through Ned Kelly's autobiography shows a unique depiction of the Australian legend. The story shows the life behind the man and his iconic showdown at Glenrowan Station. Kelly talks of his family and early life being raised in rural Melbourne. Through various hard lessons and acts of petty crime Kelly is slowly driven away from living an honest life. This growing disdain for the law, as well as his relationships with those close to him, help to show the person behind the Australian legend.

And now some covers:

...and now, two more book covers

I'll spend a bit less time trying to make just one point with my other two book covers:

It's everyone's favourite airport thriller series. I'm not sure what to say about this cover. I think it's a bit misleading, considering what the book is about. I've found that all of these "Millennium Trilogy" books have very Oriental looking covers. I realise that the title character has a Chinese dragon tattoo (it's in the title after all), but still - it's not a particularly big stretch of the imagination using that as the cover image. This particular cover feels even more Asian than it should be due to all the flowing line shapes and muted colours. I'm not sure why the artist would go so far in this direction for a book about Swedish Nazi rapists (spoiler alert), but I find it a bit off topic.

Still, if we put that aside - having the title text all over the page causes you to slow down as you read it. Because of this there's a slightly more mysterious vibe to what you're reading. Having the dragon's tendril-things flowing through the text makes it feel more a part of the cover, and less like it was simply placed on top. The font is solid, which is good contrast to the curves of the image underneath.

However, I can't get over the fact that a book that has nothing to do with Asia looks so incredibly Asian. I'm sure someone would argue that the dragon represents the book's deeper concepts of predatory human nature or some crap, but I really think it gives the wrong impression.



Everyone knows Animal Farm as "that book I did at school" so it comes under that same iconic category that I talked about in the last post (which I hope made sense). It has a lot of red imagery (red, communism - get it?) so it appears very bold on the self. The design mimics a Russian propaganda poster, and hence all the typography and layout parodies the era.

Designing the cover this way seems the obvious choice, but even so, I enjoy the style. There are a lot of variations of these Animal Farm propaganda covers (there are even some good ones on Deviant Art), but I like this particular one as it's quite subtle (for propaganda). It also doesn't turn the animals into caricatures, which occasionally happens - making the book look too much like a comedy-satire.

I saw that 1984 got a similar design by the same artist. Both are very well done, for what was intented.

It's Cover Critique Time! - The Iconic

Time to look at some book covers...

I tried to pick books which I've read, or at least know the basic plot (I need to read more)...

Apparently this is a contemporary, take on the old Shakespeare play for the teenage audience (with teenage characters). Personally I'm not a big fan of modern takes on Shakespeare's stories, they always seem a bit tacked on. However, I've never read a John Marsden book, so I can't really say whether or not this is the exception.

Anyways, this critique isn't about that, it's about the book covers. I've started with this one because I wanted to make the point that I've found there seems to be two main variations of overall book covers (at least the less kitsch ones).

First there is the standard "unknown book" cover - the cover designed to draw you in to read a book that is relatively unknown. These are the majority of book covers and usually contain subtle and/or abstract images to give you some impression of the book's content.

The second is the book cover that assumes the average person already has familiarity with the book or story. A cover like this will use iconography that the audience will already know, in order to "re spark" whatever previous association the viewer has.

In this case the skull from the "alas poor Yorick" speech in Hamlet is used. The skull in Hamlet is well known, but I can only assume (although I can't say for sure) that it has less of a literal presence in this teen version. However, on seeing the skull on the book, the viewer will remember the connotations associated with both it and Hamlet. Hopefully they will be intrigued to pick up the book and when they glimpse the small text saying "a novel" it will be like a small nudge to get you to realise that this may be something more edgy and hip than Shakespeare's original play.

Both books an movies seem to like to do this, and it makes sense. If something already has an established reputation, you may as well use it. Although there are occasions when it really does not work.

-- plus the grey colour gives it a morbid look, as does the faded gradient and the non structured san-serif font. Big centred words grab attention etc etc.

There is even a circular relationship where a cover image will eventully become iconic unto itself - independant of the written story. Clockwork Orange fits this mold - this image is so iconic in popular culture it is guaranteed to be incorporated into any media relating to the story. Images like this allow for minimalist representations of well known stories. The audience can recognise the story because the icons are so familiar:

35mm from Pascal Monaco

I figure this is the natural evolution as a piece of media becomes popular.

What Can Be Drawn in a 1 Hour Lecture

Okay - technically one and a half. And I wasn't bludging - I just didn't need to take notes in this subject.

Monkey Girl

I was on a bit of a cutesy vibe after my anime picture, so I drew this picture of a little girl and her giant imaginary monkey friend.

I used the scanned pencil lines for this one (no ink). More sub-par colouring. Might come back and fix parts of it later. For now enjoy my dodge-ish clouds and specular effects.

My Attempt at Anime

A friend suggested I do an "anime" picture. Apparently that's what the kiddies are into these days. About 99% of internet art seems to be people attempting to draw manga, so I guess I've joined the masses. - Woot!



This was actually a caricature of someone, but seeing as all anime characters kind of look the same, doing a caricature mainly consists of just making hair roughly look like something like the original person's.

Originally I stuck in my rabbit mascots - but they were so badly drawn, my eyeballs kept bleeding all over my keyboard. So I changed them to cute tigers, cause, y'know, tigers.

At least anime caricatures look cuter than regular caricatures. Gave me some more colour practice too.

Colouring - first non Graphic Design post

I figure may as well put up some non Graphic Design posts on this blog (even though though there's only been about 2 visitors in it's entire history. If you're reading this, you're number 3)

I think it's fair to say that I'm pretty crap when it comes to colour. Therefore, I figure it's the area I should practise more. I coloured this image of Ott and Bird, trying to use a simple 3 colour lighting method.

It looks a bit clip-artish, and I don't really like the shape of the highlights on Bird's head (not to mention the cruddy background grass/flowers) - but I guess for a quick practise it kinda worked.

I should probably try and move away from using too many primary and secondary colours; I think that's what gives it that clip-art feel - especially the background.