Roger Hargrieves Illustrations & My Mr Men

May 05, 2020

Roger Hargrieves Illustrations & My Mr Men

Hargreaves Illustration

This blog entry will consist of illustration of my own Mr Men I have created inspired the ultimate Mr Man himself-Roger Hargreaves, where I will design my own Mr Man inspired by my brainstorm. it will also consist of illustrations I have put together for my animations. Which I will be explaining where my ideas came from, feedback, explaining what I did with my work and how I have responded to feedback also.
I had the idea to look at this artist, because when I was younger, I loved the Mr Men, and I felt nostalgic after researching different artists earlier on the project, where I found Roger Hargreaves who made the Mr Man.
These illustrations were based on and developed from my brainstorm...

Mr Men Brain Storm

This was stage one, the idea... coming up with the idea of creating my own Mr Men came from looking at examples of Mr men that already exist, the original Mr Men which I then after seeking insertion, I drew some mr men of my own. Here are my illustrations below...

My Illustrations

Mr Blurt

This piece here, is my first ever Mr Man. Mr Blurt, I came up with this design in my brain storm, which I came up with to be fair partly in the top of my head, but I do have logic behind it being that I found ideas for this design, inspired by some of my logo designs, where I used paint splats for a couple of my design ideas, despite them not winning the round of influencing my logo for blurt, I loved this concept of the paint splats, I didn't want to throw the idea away as not only did I like this design, but I remember this design being fairly popular in feedback, so you could even say I am listening to feedback too some extent. Anyway, as I was saying, the idea for Mr Blurt, pretty much came from my logo designs... and I basically developed them from designs to characters, and it reminded me a little of the Mr Men, I also like the idea of this design also because the idea of this was basically the same distinctive idea as my logo designs, BLURT, is supposed to be about a new art programme, educating the new generations and generations to come of the great artists and designers and seeing as its to do with unleashing new generations I would like to see my trailer to be aimed to a varied audience, because I want to see the older generation watch this programme, to encourage their children & grandchildren to watch for educational purposes to improve general knowledge, I would also suggest this audience, to be aimed for teens and children also, for educational purposes, despite Channel 4 target audience is aimed for 16-34 year olds, which this programme would be good for, for wannabe artists and designers and students, I also want it to be aimed for younger children also so they can learn about the art world, which is why I wanted to incorporate the Mr men into this because it brings nostalgia for people like me, for those who and watched the series and read books growing up when it was first released, the older generation will enjoy this trailer, for the nostalgia and may want to watch the programme and may also sway children as Hargreaves was famously known for the Mr men which were illustrations for children so really, it could be based upon any target audience to be fair. The thing I wanted to address with this design is, art, with the paint splats being the character's format, to represent the art side of the programme and then with the Blurt aspect as another meaning for blurt is to shout something out aimlessly, loudly and suddenly, which I also wanted to include in this design by getting the character to walk around aimlessly with a Megaphone blurting. I personally think it works well with the concept for blurt and may attract varied audiences which can be good for promoting not only the programme itself but the population and audiences for channel 4.

So this was the story behind this illustration and design. You ask, how did I create this design- like I said it started from the sketch book, to then develop further- (as in develop digitally) to then use Illustrator to draw my illustrations, using my sketch book illustration as a guide to help me draw my illustration, which I used the shape tool to begin with t get the right shape for my character and then coloured each component accordingly to how in wanted it, why pink, blue and yellow? because that colour scheme I found inspiring from my logo designs and people seemed to like the concept of those colours put together including me and what I like Is how each colour correspond together and make the image stand out without one colour looking more out there and intimidating than the other, as well as the fact one colour doesn't jump out more than the others, where they light but bright colours they work well together I feel.

I came up with the idea originally on the logos where I thought about using the 3 primary colours, blue, yellow and red, but the red I used against the yellow and blue I felt ruined the dynamic of the colour scheme but dint work well for what. was creating I felt the red was too overpowering and quite dominant over the yellow and blue so its why I went for pink, which seems to correlate with the blue and yellow, well- so I went with that colour scheme. So that Is the story of my design. I continued with this design by experimenting further using different variety of mediums to create Mr Blurt to see what it would come out like, so I had an experiment with creating Mr Burt with spray paints and aerosols... yes yes, back to that old chestnut! you'd be confused as to why, but after getting into spray paint over the last couple months and when creating typography with the last project, I really loved the effect of stencil art on varied mediums, so that's what I did, I used blue spray paint as that was one of the colours and there was no gold or red to be seen, and wanted to see what that would look like on a brick and slate, here is imagery of my experiment with a video accompanying it below.

Video 1 of 2

This here is video one, where I filmed myself using the Time-lapse mode to show the process of me spray painting this illustration underneath of Mr Blurt, the reason for doing this is to show my journey, I wanted to take you guys on the journey with me, so you can see exactly what I did, step by step, showing my progression, but to also say this is what I did, without having to retrace my steps on paper too much, the video does the talking and the video tells an explicit story for how I created4 the imagery you'll see below. As well as the fact I figure I show you that before showing you the big reveal, not that it matters too much, because you can see it underneath anyway, but I thought a video footage of me recording tis, would be good showing my development, my skills and my journey for experimenting with this process which I have enjoyed experimenting with, one of the amazing things I love about this process, call me a nutter, but I love how simple it is! once you cut the stencil out, a miracle happens, MAGIC, I never used to believe in magic, I thought it was a big yeah and a bit of a cheeky hoax because it didn't work! But spray painting is on another level this is true magic, its magic everyone can do, from a blank canvas to art within seconds after creating your stencil, its a beautiful process in my opinion, it is a brilliant medium and process to look into if you like to create work that is simplistic but tells a story, making you and others move (metaphorically) move with the image, almost like you move into the story when you get hooked into a book or find something engaging and can't take your eyes off of.

An artist, named Banksy is a fantastic example of someone whose work is phenomenal with the spray can I have mentioned him before, but. I wouldn't of done if I didn't think it was true, for those who won't know I have mentioned this, Banksy, he is the man with the magic with an aerosol- his work is absolutely phenomenal and looking at his work I get absolutely stargazed into it and its inspired me to experiment with this process, (but I loved this process back in the last project where I used this process quite a bit, some may say I do a little too much).... but it was worth it as... look at the result of my piece below! any who, the artist Banksy his work is very symbolic and has a lot of meaning, you'll find his more known work is the young girl with the red balloon and the man with the bunch of flowers, his work has quite a lot to do with war, going out to battle, fighting, or trying to let the past go or simply trying to grab hold of your own treasures sort of thing in the sense of saying don't let anyone get in the way doing so.

When I look at his work, weather its a good idea or even relevant or not but sometimes I plan stories in my head with Banksy's work as his work does a lot of visual communication which as graphic designers we crave for and we like to dig the holes out of the mystery and create the ambiguous so people can tell a story through visual communication- we are kind of Sherlocks and the John Whatsons in the making, we like the mystery, sometimes we like to leave it blank- for the audiences to plan and reincarnate or we like to simply leave it as a cliff hanger- keep it ambiguous, let the imagination run wild, or we dig for clues and plan a story out of that, which is something I would love to represent in my work, with spray paint and well any work I create for instance like with Banksy work, as in, I am trying to say, what happens if that girl let go of the balloon? would she let go of the past and turn a new leaf, does it take you to another chapter? Like there's no explicit answer no right or wrong, but sometimes fun to image and Crete a story from, or is this girl sending the balloon up in the air as a sign of power or as a bereavement process, could she of lost loved ones? you know there's a lot you could take from it. which This piece of mine has some meaning to it but, not sure if it has the same effect, in all fairness I can't lie but, I was just desperate to experiment with this process to be fair using a cartoon image, I tried spray painting typography before and imagery of... Morgan Freeman (God is in the Kerning) well no more, god is now in the BLURT! because I have taken this process on a mild adventure, Banksy had the magic and looking at his work made me want to experiment with this process much more. Anyway here is a link for google images of his work: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Banksy&client=safari&channel=mac_bm&sxsrf=ALeKk00exFRS5F_AWlxVc8k1bBx1xvxv8w:1588728100727&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYmdqwiZ7pAhXRtXEKHcv-A1UQ_AUoAnoECCYQBA&biw=803&bih=858&dpr=2 you'll see what I mean, his work has a lot of meaning, its very symbolic and it tells a story within the piece, which in a sense I think after explaining my process with creating and manufacturing mr blurt I think this piece almost tells a story on its own. Anyway, here is the spray paint experiments I created, with a video at the end, showing my image as a shot animation. I would like to try to tell a story using spray paint on a single image whether or not I have achieved it this time, I hope to develop this soon some other time perhaps.

Anyway, here is my piece below...

Mr Blurt Spray Painted

This piece is the result, of the magic spray paint with a simplistic stencil of my simplistic design of Mr Blurt that I printed out from illustrator and created and then let the spray paint do the talking, experimenting on Brick and Slate, as that's what I had laying around in the garden, which on brick it actually Cretes a nice effect and the paint is waterproof against brick, it soaks water in, which is why its good for spray paint, brick or wall can absorb liquid/aerosols I found this was a good substance to experiment and spray with, I love the fact I managed to captivate every detail dynamically, simply but effectively, from the hands, to my character holding themegaphdine, to the structure and shape of my imagery, the only problem I have with this piece os the fact the Type saying Mr Blurt, isn't the most legible... the U looks like an O and the R looks a little like an lowercase I, but without the tittle, call me picky, but this course has grown me into a born perfectionist... anyway, besides that, this piece is very strong, dynamic and effective- I can't completely blame the paint as I should have perhaps increased the side and the thickness of my type so A- it would be easier to cut with the scalpel and B so the text is legible... I will also say create my stencil on a thicker paper... using normal paper because there was no cad around at the time... was effective for a couple stencils but doesn't last long, the paper is quicker to tear resulting the type being more of a struggle to comprehend.

MR BLURT SPLAT!

Splat, being the literal word for this piece, that's right! SPLAT! I used the favourite outside of the computer medium besides photography, spray paint and street art approach, this really was just an experiment I was dying to try, so I had no choice but to apply this medium to this project too, it was under my human rights, it stopped me from Blurting and cursing for half hour because of quarantine... anyway, this experiment as you can see surprisingly worked well considering the weather outside was super windy that day, basically standard whenever I go to do spray paint its either raining or stupidly windy... any who, I like this approach because it looks hand drawn where the stencil has taken effect and the Mr men are very simplistic and a lot of them wither have one or two colours on them, this one only having one colour but kept simple, like the characters Hargreaves creates, I think this worked well as the image itself is simple and subtle and the simplicity of using one colour on simple image can work well, it creates it's own dynamic, it isn't intimidating to look at, the shapes that I cut out on the stencil itself is very strong and powerful against the spray can and has created. a very strong illustration, using mediums outside of the computer scree, plus as they rightfully say less is more! goodness sakes, I can see you getting fed up with me using this phrase, but so far with all the experiments where I have tried to be simple but effective so far has worked well in my favour. Anyway, I can see these still being used as components of animation footage, whether or not it is a photo, I hope to put a moving image over the top so the photo looks like its going to move. So yes, I still forever love and respect this medium and I will defiantly use this again, I look forward to experimenting further!

Video 2 of 2

This video here, is basically just a short animation of my spray painting coming to life, I wanted it simple but I wanted to show a bit of a miracle magic finish kind of thing, this piece was also to record my journey with this process, from actually doing the activity to film the ending result and for a plus side make a short animation out of it. Which I thought may amuse you to some degree. I wanted to share the ride with you, as I enjoyed creating this I enjoyed making the video, actually doing the activity itself was enjoyable I wanted to take you on the journey also, through video footage.

Original MR. BLURT
Believe it or not Mr Blurt did not originally look like this design below, this image above was the original!

It was in fact like this design above to begin with, Spot the difference! yes you might be mildly confused with the difference here but if you don't see it, hold on to your hats, as all will be revealed on the next paragraph!

If you didn't see the difference, the difference was the megaphone... this one above is very squwiff and doesn't look right, so I had to redesign it... doing so I had to look ay imagery on google ofMegaphones go help me get the correct shape for a megaphone.

MR BLURT Multiplied!

Yes, you'll wonder why there is a large amount of imagery of Mr Blurt on one consecutive page, is because I was creating Mr Blurt, with different leg movements, so when I film these using IMotion, I will of captivated my character walking, by doing so I was trying to create each Mr Blurt as a frame. with his legs at a slightly different angle each time, to show he's walking and I then filmed on my app using the manual setting, as I was trying to experiment with my approach for creating stop motion footage, Any way, here is a couple of examples below:

By the way, These videos aren't repeats, though they may look like there are, there is a slight difference in the leg movements, the 2nd video has captivated the walking motion slightly better than the first video in my opinion, but they are doing the same action in both clips, point is.. don't be fooled into thinking these are duplicates.

Video 1: Mr Blurt Walking 1

Video 2 : Mr Blurt Walking 2

(More TBC on the next entry, when I will be showing my tests and 10 second Bumper)

Extra Mr Men

After creating Mr Blurt, I looked back at my brainstorm and I recall myself mentioning about creating extra Mr Men of my own, basically of tutors, Paul & Keith, and I will apologise in advance, I am sorry to make you suffer and another of friend and partner in crime, Noah, im sorry to make you suffer too I too created these three Mr men characters using illustrator, basically in the exactly the same way as I created Mr Blurt, simply but in a effective way, using shapes and the pen tool to create different features of the body, the thing I like about drawing imagery on illustrator is it creates a more sophisticated line to my imagery and is more fluent as in it is neater and simpler and there is no pixelation when you draw the image..

Paul and Kieth as Mr Men

An extra Mr Man

In short, this Mr man here, is of my classmate and partner in crime... Noah- with a fag. I came up with the idea to recreate my friends as a mr man on my brain storm to begin with, so and that's basically what I did. I again created this image on illustrator, using the shape and pen tool and the colour in option for colouring the area if each shape.

So yes in short, that is basically how I created these illustrations, exactly the same way as I created the blurt sign and the idea for all three of these characters I based them of the poor people I know from the uni, plus it was in the braun storm, reason being is I hope to use these characters for my 10 second bumper and maybe 30 second animation even, when it comes to creating it,

Peer Feedback

Mr Blurt

You maybe confused as to why I have put this image up again on this entry, this time it is because I have asked a couple of friends and peers for feedback on my imagery, as a friend and classmate, had mentioned some constructive point is can make to edit this image, by giving me feedback and an idea I thought was brilliant, I actually gave this idea a go. Anyway, here is the feedback I was given: its quite long... but it had helped me drastically improve my imagery.

The first thing mentioned was the Hyphen...

"Noah"- Friend & Classmate

I haven't got the best grasp on my grammar, as you may of stumbled out through my previous entries, so I am glad this was pointed out to me, but, I genuinely thought a - was supposed to be between Mr and men... or the word Mr and the character's name, but turns out it was in fact a full stop, but I have learnt something new.

Next I was advised with ALL of type for the Mr Man's name to be in caps, which I can agree with after seeing the book covers myself. I can agree with this because having the text being all in caps also, because it is consistency without intimidation to the reader and has much more clarity and has more legible qualities about it and it is the arrangement Roger Hargreaves had for his books, if I am to create work inspired by someone like him, I got to do it properly. Alongside that, their Next was a legendary idea, I wish I dreamt up.

Now that is the lightbulb idea.

"Give each character their own cover designs like the original" -Noah

(This is in fact the best idea I have heard all week!)

The thing I love about this idea of Noah's Is the fact that to give my characters a book cover, like Hargreaves in the same arrangement and genre, I think would make my imagery come to life, it'll make the characters on the image stronger and the giving my imagery depth and meaning, as in we can see I've drawn a Mr Man, but experimenting further by butting them onto a front cover, is mindblowingly genius as I can experiment and get to know how book covers can be arranged more so I will have found a better understanding, anyway- I also love this idea, because creating my Mr Men in the same genre as Roger, because I can see it as a sense of a tribute to the man to the guy who invented these iconic cbaracters most children would know still to this day, its amazing, how something like Mr Men is still loved and appreciated by us all even to this day in age, considering the backbone of the Mr men book series started in the early 70's and still living and breathing its day to this day, and after Roger passed away his son took on the task to take over and make more Mr Men come to life after the year 1988. Which this idea Noah came up with is Beautiful, why not make a tribute to the great man, whose books have taught many infants to read, these were just some of the examples of the books I was reading when I was an infant myself... it gave me nostalgia to create the characters so ,point is why not have a bash with this idea, I am basically a big kid anyway, so why not, the nostalgia will only grow and expand- therefore I accept the challenge, to create all of my Mr Men characters as if they were actually a Real Mr Man on a book cover. AMAZING IDEA! Noah mate, Genius!

(Talking about the way the lines on underneath the feet work well, just by being there)

I can elaborate on that point slightly further because I absolutely love the idea of the lines underneath the feet, it enhances the character more and looks like the character is alive and moving, in short, means I agree with Noah's point about the fact the lines grounds the characters in a. novelty like way was apposed to just be in thin-air.

I looked back on this idea for feedback from Noah and I have responded to it, and thanks to this feedback, it has enhanced and improved my Mr Men Imagery, here is the newly improved imagery.

My Mr Men as Book covers

For this section of my blog, I have listened and responded to peer feedback, which was very helpful and really liked and engaged with this idea, to transform my imagery from just Mr Men designs to take it up a notch and turn the into book covers as a tribute to Mr Roger Hargreaves and to his son Adam Hargreaves (who took over from Roger in 1988) of these Iconic books they created, I liked this idea and decided to recreate my Mr Men as book cover representatives, this idea I thought has worked very well with my imagery and I now hope to see these featured somewhere in my animation work, most likely in the 30 second animation,. because these images below are recent... as they were created literally a few hours ago today, whilst the imagery above was created a month or two ago. Anyway, here is what I have managed to put together, I can't lie, I am humbly impressed with these turnouts and have worked well in my favour and surprisingly come out well, the imagery is strong, there is the same aesthetic as Roger Hargreaves and I feel not only is this work good for me to use for my work and I am pleased with my original twist I have put into the names of the characters and to my character design but it is also a good way to make a tribute to the good man, as I can say these illustrations are more contemporary as these are the 2020 Mr Men... you could say they're like a pastiche version of Roger's classic Children's novels but of my own characters and design, which have like I say have come out better than I anticipated them to, I hope to use these illustrations in my 30 second animation.

Roger Hargreaves Book Cover: MR. BUMP

In order for me to make my imagery in this style, the style of the book cover, I have to take note on, the qualities of this book cover, you know like what makes this book cover so good, why is the book cover how it is, why is the arrangement the way it is? etc

I can answer and expand that question, I can say, I that the arrangement of the Mr Men books, is simple, but effective. the simplicity is there, reason being- to attract the younger audiences, in order for them to do that, they beginning to learn words by doing so the type for the heading, has to be simplistic- sport 1- that it is LEGIBLE and Readable... something most people would go on about with my writing... yawn yawn.. anyway another reason is to keep the text simple to correspond with the image, so the constancy is there, meaning that you see the picture, you wonder what the picture is... you look at the test whilst figuring the meaning of the image on the front cover before reading it/ judging it, you don't realise you do it but when you look at information or a title on a book, I think book covers have to be simple... so when you look at the front cover, you're not sitting there forever trying to establish what is being said and conveyed, whilst scrutinising the image. Point is, its like if you went to a shop, you have a book like this above verses a book like a dictionary, if you wanted a children's book- you'd know to go for the Mr Bump, because of the simplicity by having the arrangement of the type and the character centred the consistency is there and shows continewity in the book as when I look at that id look at the image and the title at the same time, you have to know what a book or a poster is telling you within 5 seconds, if you have to guess or still figuring it out after 10 seconds, whether you're a child or not, people don't actually have the greatest attention span unless its something, Striking, simple, consists and easy to comprehend within a short period of time to occupy and grab the audience's attention- because you're not going to be interested in something with a complex arrangement, unless its something like Swiss style arrangement, which is different to grab your attention because it gets you curious, if something does that within seconds but in an interesting and indulging way, then you've made ambiguous to a T I would say, but simple and sweet, keeps the eyes awake.

This is what I have taken just by scrutinising and studying the book cover myself, I like the idea off the character only having 3 colours, to keep the simplicity, so there again there is consistency in the colour arrangement, the character itself is simple... so make the type simple, by picking Futura, they have succeeded in that sense for me personally and it is a legible and simple font. I also love the fact that Roger Hargreaves has written his name/signature on the book forsaking whose the by and how that is written with a capital letter for the 1st letter of the name and lowercase for the other characters. I like how they have put that subtly underneath the title because it is legible and it isn't intimidating for it's audience to read, in this case is infants and young children so whatever cover you create or arrange for someone, for a child's book cover you'd have to keep it SIMPLE and consistent. This here is what I hope to of captivated in my book cover imagery I have created for my characters in the similar way to this classic iconic book, Mr Bump.

To put these book covers together, I redrew and recreated my imagery so they had a cleaner aesthetic and looked sharper using illustrator and the exact same process and then used the Futura typeface with Hargreaves's signature underneath the title whilst including the black lines so the characters aren't clouting on midair. Basically making each one as similar in the arrangement as the MR.BUMP book.

MR. BLURT

Mr Blurt as a Mr Man Book cover, this was the first I turned to a book cover and I can't lie it went successfully the arrangement is simple but effective, children can understand and read it, so if they can understand it then practically anyone can

(not trying to sound condescending by the way) anyway, I was quite pleased with how this book cover went for a first Mr Men book cover I think it went well, I think I have kept it simple and consistent, the colour scheme of my character is simple too, I have added the lines on the feet so Mr Blurt isn't walking in the air... the MR.BLURT has the same consistency as does the MR. BUMP book cover, so I'd say this one did go well alongside Roger's signature, to really send out the positive tribute to the great Mr Man. MR.BLURT's character is very arty, very energetic, lively and very load, and likes to shout things out ainlessley no matter where he is or what he says, he will just Blurt it out.

MR. SMOKEY

Noah's Mr man has also developed into a book cover and has now got the name of MR.SMOKEY, for the reasons of smoking fags with ? because his character is quite mysterious and a bit of a detective, Mr Smokey likes to ask a lot of questions about a lot of things. But yes I would also say this book cover follows the consistency and the Hargreaves arrangement, it is simplistic but effective, so therefore- Mr Smokey was too a successful character, I feel.

MR. CRAWLEY & MR. SARGENT

MR.CRAWLEY and MR. SARGENT, the names of these mr men came from the lucky but maybe not quite so lucky tutors Paul and Keith, with their characteristics basically being lively, enthusiastic, entertaining and works well as a dynamic duo, having one without the other is like having bread, without the butter, or a house without a door. They are partners in crime that cannot be separated. Again these two characters, follow the character simplicity on the actual arrangement of the book layerings itself, using 3/4 colours only, the text still being Futura, simplistic and still featuring the Roger Hargreaves signature underneath, so yes, I think these are too successful Mr Men book covers.

THE ADVENTURES OF KAPAUL

Here we have a spinoff special of the dynamic duo in action, who I like to call Kapaul, it has a catchy ring to the name, Again featuring MR.CRAWLEY & MR. SARGENT- like I said, one without the other is like bread without the butter- which this is a cover special, as Roger Hargreaves did also create special additions to the Mr Men book series, so I did the same as a book cover- I couldn't resist the tennis ball, I couldn't of possibly of left that one out! This I think is my favourite book cover, because the cover is simple, but effective, it is dynamic even with two characters as apposed to one and the whole arrangement with this one works well and for me is spot on! You can't possibly go wrong with this one, the simplicity is definitely there, the clarity is there, the same font is still being used and the black lines are also still there- it all connects nicely as a book cover.