Thought Bubble

My haul from thought bubble. I've been going for 5 years now but I felt that this trip was the most valuable for me as an illustrator.

It was the first time I went to panels and found that the Bee & Puppycat one, which was a quick glimpse into the production and art direction of creating an animated series was very insightful in showing how integrated and integral illustrators are for animation.

The second panel looked more at illustrators drawing process which helped me understand how different illustrators use different techniques, from sketches to ink line, straight pencil or straight ink line. It was also very comforting to learn about other professional illustrators personal struggles becoming an illustrators and coping with work loads. 

I felt a lot more confident talking to illustrators at there stalls this time around and I was able to talk more freely with people like Donya Todd. What this also taught me was that I need to get a business card and website/online portfolio sorted because while talking to other illustrators I found that most would ask for a website or business card to see my work and it feel very unprofessional having to tell them that I had none of these things.

I have admired Elliot Alfredius's series called Three Blades for over a year now and talking to him about the work as well as finding out that the characters where non-binary instead of how I thought they where female was something that proved a really crucial point to me. Understanding an artist intentions is just as crucial to forming an opinion of the work as having your own interoperation of those intentions are. 

I bought Brogan Carols zine of selected pages from her sketchbook because I feel knowing the different way illustrators do their drawing process is important to know as a way of maybe experimenting or pushing the way you use your sketch book. 

I loved the collaborative drawings in stroke where Dilraj Mann sent a single character to another artist and asked them to fill it in with another character. It allowed people to create senses no matter how amusing or dramatic and showcased how a 'generic' collaborative piece like this can go in so many different directions

The concept for this one amused me and works really well as a way of taking a hard topic like feminism and turning it into an amusing comic.

Overall my experience of Thought Bubble was very insightful and had made me think more about the way I network with other illustrators, and how important it is to not only prepare yourself verbally when speaking to illustrators but how having this such as business card with a website on them makes you seem more professioanl and a viable candidate for collabaorations.