Fumio Obata's Blog, page 3

Illustration Exercises - The Junk Head, My next Key Date,The Imagination is

Illustration Exercise - Reclining

'Just So Happens' US version

A happy new year 2015- Year of the sheep ! 謹賀新年

Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF)2014

Between 16th  till 17th October 2014 I was invited and participated 24 hour comic strip marathon as a part of this year’s LakesInternational Comic Art Festival (LICAF) in Kendal, Cumbria.


It was led and organaised by ever more magnificent Dan Berryand other notable names who joined in were Kristyna Baczynski ,Sarah McIntyre,  Jack Teagle, Joe Decie, and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell. I was very thrilled and honoured to get involved in this, being recoganised among the establishment.

Here is me with Warwick and Joe working away, 
Borrowed from Sara's twitter feed.Probably my only chance standing next to the famous author of Understanding comics and the 24hour comic marathon creator Scott Mccloud
The support by the festival organizer and the castle green hotel where we stayed and worked were absolutely amazing and it is worth pointing out that comparing to the most famous lot such as the one by Angouleme 24h BD session every January, The LICAF tried to make a difference by giving us sufficient time to prepare ourselves in favour of good quality story-lines. The result was a spectacular bunch of differences in styles and stories.
Here is my tale: Anywhere Road

What I underachieved and achieved
I have to say, when I compare myself among all those lots, I did many things wrong and a little wasted the opportunity to create a beautiful little book. I was also the very last one to finish the work too…stressing Dan and making the printers wait for my pages.Very embarrassed at the end.
However this was a tale which takes place in the UK rather than my usual setting in Japan. Although I’ve lived in the UK for 22 years in total I still feel at ease talking about the issues and themes based in Japan but I find it very limiting creatively.In short I don’t like to be regarded as an author who only talks about his country of origin and never shows an interest in the country he has adapted.
I need to start something different.
I’m always interested in various social issues in the UK, and it was my first attempt to talk about it. Of course I’ve failed many things in here including story, but I’m happy with this challenge and I feel the result here shows me the future direction I could take on.
To boost my confidence, certain people bought copies and my peers didn’t see the story too strange or too incorrect. I thought ‘huh! Maybe I could do this?’

Great?

2 Illusration excercises - Bed ridden and Tokyo Duck

 Bed ridden


Tokyo Duck

Two illustrations since I got back in Tokyo.

Illustration Exercise - Lizard troop

Illustration Exercise- East London Hackney 8pm

 When I was students at art schools I was terrible at backgrounds and hated it and always doing characters with blank backgrounds.Now I love doing scenery, though I'm still really crap at it.

For Andrzej Kilimowski, my illustration tutor at the Royal Colleg of Art

During 2001-2003 I was taught by Andrzej Klimowski, the professor of Illustration at Royal College of Art.He is a London born Polish artist who established himself with surrealistic but very mesmerising poster designs and book cover illustrations for Harold Pinter and Milan Kundera's works. Andrzej is retiring from his post at the Royal College this summer so I have done a quick strips in respect to his contribution.

Illustration Exercise - the Beach

A bit weak...It is basically the original drawing wasn't suited for the art direction. It was a wrong choice of characters and composition.I must get rid of the idea of perspective.