William Marchant

LOOKS GREAT! is the New William Marchant Illustration & Design

It became apparent to me that this site, WilliamMarchant.com, may seem a bit jumbled.  There's a lot that I do so there is a lot going on on my website.

In an effort to make things simple, straight forward, and clean, I am launching a re-branding of myself under the model www.LooksGreat.biz!  Looks Great (LLC pending) will serve as my main portfolio/resume website and WilliamMarchant.com will be converted to my blog.  While I do like this site, I really beleive that in the long run, Looks Great will be easier for new visitors to understand and navigate.

A link to my blog will be added to the new site soon, but I am still figuring out the best way to link the two sites...so I am just keeping them separate for the time being.

So go check out my new site and let me know what you think by voting for your favorite on Facebook!

MARCH 2011 St. Louis Illustrators Meeting A New Mobile Art Form

I specifically remember seeing the New Yorker cover to the left by David Hockney last Fall and saying to my girlfriend, "What the hell is that doing on the cover of the New Yorker!"  I then read that it was done on an iPhone and sent directly to the A.D. from the phone...to which I responded, "Who gives a crap?  It looks like shit."

Well, last night's meeting of the St. Louis Artists' Guild Illustrators Section gave me a whole new perspective on the medium.  Michael Anderson, architectural illustrator and Plein Air landscape painter, gave a presentation on his iPad about such "mobile drawings."  Anderson presented two programs/applications that he uses: Brushes and Sketchbook Pro.  (His iPhone, iPad, and Tablet creations are seen below)

I came to respect this medium, first, because of its Impressionist qualities.  Yes, the illustration for the New Yorker cover isn't the coolest illustration I've ever seen, nor is it a style that is particularly striking to me.  But it gets across an idea.  It is a picture of a spoon in a bowl on a table with a chair pulled in.  That's that...you have a picture of something that was created by a person drawing on a digital device.  While this may not seem too ground breaking, consider the alternative: A picture of a spoon in a bowl on a table that was drawn loosely with a pencil.  That's not too special either...it's been done.  But I beg a mainstream viewer to point to the last time they saw/heard of someone drawing the cover of a major publication on a freakin' smartphone.  To me, the method makes the picture become something special.

Free Coloring Page & Caption Printout

I'm trying something a little different here...below, you can download the full-sized image you see at the left and either print it out to color it in, or do your magic in Photoshop (or MS Paint or whatever program you prefer).  Also, add a funny caption to the characters...but PLEASE keep it G or PG rated as my hopes are for your kids to contribute to this also.

Then just post either your new image (or a photo of your hand colored work) on my Facebook Fan Page for the world to see!

If I get enough responses...the next one will involve a prize for my favorite!

Click Here to DOWNLOAD COLORING PAGE!

(After the image appears, just right-click and select "Save Image As...")

The WG Introductory Image

This goes along with the "Auf Wiedersehen Schneider!" work I did recently ("Schneider" seen at the top of this page).  I have yet to decide whether this story and set of characters would work best as a picture book, graphic novel, or simply a weekly "web comic" series.  Whatever I choose to make "The WG" into, this illustration I've just come up with will work as the introductory image...or in the case of a picture book, the first couple pages.

The entire premise is based on a restaurant I used to work at called the St. Charles Vintage House Restaurant & Wine Garden....everybody just called it the Wine Garden though.

Below are a few sketches I did to come up with the finished product.  The image on the far right is exactly what the physical finished illustration looks like...but I felt that the green was too bright, so I made it a duller/deeper green in Photoshop.

FROM THE SKETCHBOOK: "Meet the Mechanoid"

I've been developing a set of characters (since about 3rd grade actually) for an idea called "Secret Agent Man"
...the hero being Secret Agent Man (aka "Sam") of course.  I have never decided whether the idea would work
best as a comic book, animated cartoon series, graphic novel, or something else...but I've been drawing
these characters forever in whatever medium comes to mind at the time.

For the latest drawings I did, I wanted to portray the characters known as the Mechanoids.  These little guys are basically the little henchmen of Secret Agent Bad-guy (aka "Mason").  I chose to go with an "underground comic" sort of feel...the bottom image being the final result.  You may have already seen this work when I talked about submitting it to the Foundry Art Centre's "BAM! POW! ZAP!" show (which I find out if I got in or not next Tuesday).  But, I wanted to kind of show the process that I worked through to come to the finished work.

At the top left is the first sketch I did for it.  Just a single Mechanoid with a pool cue and cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.  I developed this character a bit more and then put him on my "canvas" (which was actually just cardboard).  Then, I knew I wanted to throw in an homage to "The Color of Money" somewhere, so I drew a Mechanoid to resemble Paul Newman's character Fast Eddie Felson along with his famous quote, "Kid's gotta sledgehammer break!"

Everything else sort of fell into place from there.  I just started adding little things here and there and filling it all in with the text I had worked out.  The last part that I filled in was the waitress.  I originally wanted to show her stepping over a recently decapitated Mechanoid to show a bar fight....but that instead changed to the Mechanoids harassing her.

I hope that sheds a little light on the process I work through to come up with my stuff.  I basically just do a couple drawings and then finalize them...then fill in stuff until I get sick of working on it.

"George the Painter"

This is a saying my grandpa, George Petzel, used to say.  I got the idea to illustrate this while reading Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith's Squids will be Squids (Fresh Morals/Beastly Fables).  I don't know if it's "child-appropriate"...I still have to run it by my usual "test group".  But I can use it for something.  There are just 2 pages...click the button at the bottom to go to the next one (the button doesn't work on all internet browsers...so let me know if you are having trouble with it).

GEORGE THE PAINTER
Page 1 Page 2

Comic Art: "Mechanoid Illustration"

This is something I did specifically for that upcoming Foundry show "BAM! POW! ZAP!: Comic Art and Storyboarding".  It is part of the Secret Agent Man idea that I've had since I was a little kid.  This ink and gouache illustration would be a page in a comic book or zine that explains the Mechanoid (the Bad-guy's henchmen, basically). 

The overall design of this illustration is largely influenced by my recent introduction to Dan Zettwoch's poster work.  I got the idea to do this on a piece of cardboard (actually the backing of a cheap frame I had) from Zettwoch's "Angouleme Travelogue Drawings" ...but also, I didn't really have any other "canvas" big enough to work on.

I think it turned out pretty good for my first venture into this style.  I am very happy with the colors...just black, white, light green, and two shades of brown.  The lettering was definitely the hardest and most time-consuming part.  I absolutely detest lettering and always try to either avoid it or do it on the computer.  But this illustration demanded a lot of text and that it be handwritten.  I knew starting this that reproduction would be a problem...and sure enough, I'm finding it difficult to photograph or scan.  I have to get at least one really good photo in order to submit it to the show...so that'll take a bit more trial-and-error.

CHECK BACK SOON FOR OTHER NEW STUFF!

FROM THE SKETCHBOOK

A new section I am adding to this blog is "From the Sketchbook"...where I'll be posting some stuff in the rawest of forms...the pencil sketch.  As I've talked about in the past, it's important to look back through sketchbooks, if not only to remember ideas that you forgot you once had.  But it is also important to see your process...how you came to the final image.

So to kick this section off...I figured it was good to talk about my most recent venture, my picture book, Fishing for THAT ONE BIG ONE (My own way).  Looking through my sketchbook, I remembered how tough it was to come up with the father in the story.  I definitely wanted this character to resemble my own dad, Bob Marchant (whom the story is dedicated to), but I wanted to make sure that kids nowadays would respond to him in a positive light.

The image at top-left is the first preliminary sketch I did of this character.  It closely resembles my dad, but I made him a bit "geekier."  I was going for a Bob meets Ned Flanders type look...a total middle-aged product of the 70s & 80s.  But, after some discussion and rethinking, I decided that the kids that this story was targeted to didn't have dads from the 70s & 80s like I did...they had dads that came of age in the 90s.

I reworked the character into what you see in the sketch at right of this page.  I dropped the glasses, lowered his "hiked up" socks, and traded in the mustache for a goatee...giving him a younger, fresher persona.  I feel that it still sort of resembled my dad, but it was a version of my dad that had been born 20 years after he was.

After a bit of more character development, I came up with the final image that you see at bottom-left.  This is the first time you see this character in the book...so I went for a "hero's pose" with him...the way the son in the story would see his dad. 

Overall, I think this character turned out great...I'm very pleased with the direction I took him in.  I believe I gave proper tribute to my own father, while being able to relate to today's youth and their own fathers. 

Check Back Soon For More "FROM THE SKETCHBOOK"...