DeForge

So i wrote to Michael Deforge, it was really easy to get his contact information which makes me think that there is probably a team that reads these emails and not Michael himself. But i tried to make my email as fun as possible because my aim with this initial contact is to try and get my address out of the junk box and into his contacts. I included a silly mini comic on the email itself because i wanted to make it clear that i don't really want anything much from him. I'm hoping this will make me some one he would want to make contact with. 

The mini comic style i got from some one i follow on instagram. They make short four panelled comics, usually very lo-fi work with the joke or pun driving the whole piece. I think this fitted with what i was trying t express which was just undying love and amazement. So humour was a good route otherwise i probably would have sounded very stalker and creepy. 

I asked him about his first jobs when beginning illustration because i think it would be both interesting and reassuring to see what the first paid work he managed to get was. And hopefully he'll share a little information about the experience.

I idd this frog for him. I thought a rhyme would be relevant because poetry has become a large part of my practice in the last year. Because Michael Deforge has glorious line work in his drawings and just the perfect amount of texture, i really wanted to push my line work. So i decided to d my first image without a single black line. I coloured all the lines on their own layer which was really awkward to do but i like the finished effect. I wish i'd left most of the texture off though so i could just draw it on digitally afterwards, i think this would both save time and make the coloured line work much smoother.

I did one of my favourite things in illustrating, which is to have a big cut out section so i can draw lots of gross things inside. This trope that i continue throughout my practice originated form my first reading of Deforege's Very casual where it shows the inside of the deer and how its reproductive system works. So it seemed right to display this in an email to the inspiration for it.