Part of what makes Ginny Designs its own identity is of my love for pop culture. I feel like I am able to connect all geek and nerd fandom with my peers and audience through my artworks. I muse at times at how at one stage of my life, I attach myself to what is considered for girls, "Barbie" dolls or teenybopper fads alike, to the next day after one watch of Michael Bay's "Transformers" film in 2007, jumping on to broader genres such as action, superhero, fantasy, sci-fi and horror. I gained more interest in learning the art of comics, as I feel this is the best way to show my ideas, and develop in my creative storytelling, inspired deeply from my keenness of films.
While I have yet to fully publish a comic-related project, I was given an opportunity by a family friend to develop two comic-esque cover illustrations of the Transformers, gifted for his two sons.
In the first cover, I was commissioned to draw his son along with his favourite Autobot, Bumblebee. While normally, a client presents their deliverables and I follow every instruction and have their vision come to fruition, I was allowed creative liberty and implement my personal ideas to the project. Before this commission, I was already sketching my own character designs on some of the "Transformers" characters, that renders faithful to the original "Generation 1" lore, whilst adding a bit of modern characteristics. Other than Bumblebee, I also included female Autobot, Arcee, to make the cover more dynamic in its colour contrast and composition. The way I used light and dark is I respectively used white/yellow/orange and then blue palettes to make the colours in unity, much more interesting and vibrantly appealing to the eye. I deliberately intended to make the tone as cinematic and visually exciting, as if a new film of them is about to be released. On top of Bumblebee, stands the son, posed almost in a heroic stance. Behind is the title, designed in the 80's form with the Autobot insignia to further associate the heroes.
When moving on to the second illustration, this time I have been asked to draw out the client's second son beside the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime. The next cover, I believed, served an interesting challenge, as this character is a pop culture icon, beloved by many fans, and be made almost difficult to draw in its many details, huge scale, and character features that makes him as well known to the general audience. Just like Bumblebee and Arcee, I carefully researched on all of his designs and different versions, and implemented as much as the G1 look to him with newer twists to make him look like he is present at this current time. The red and blue colour scheme should stand out the most in vivid saturation, while the negative spaces are more faded, in comparison. Optimus' textures are made smooth from its metallic elements, but have value in its light and shadows. To make Prime seem grand in size, I had the second son much smaller, yet still visible while he sits on Prime's shoulder. Though refraining from making the background a flat and monotonous space, I applied clouds and a couple of simple birds at the blue sky.
Outside of the process of illustrating these two covers, I strongly believe it is important to research on giving the right quotations on projects similar to these. I usually base my quotations on projects, depending on size and complexity. With the artworks given on the sons' birthdays, the client, most especially his children were surprised and extremely content at how the results turned out. In the end, I felt honoured to hear the family proudly displayed these covers in the sons' rooms.