Screenprint

This was my first time screen printing ever and I didn't expect it to be quite a long process. The preparation of the screen, cleaning, drying, exposing took a little too long for my liking - maybe I'm just a little too impatient, but I guess this is what its all about and what makes screen prints quite special. I used the drawing I created with a ball point pen which I scanned in and adjusted in photoshop to give me a stronger contrast in the lines. Of course, this took away some of the original line quality but I thought it would still look okay once screen printed. Only when I actually exposed my screen did I realise that some more of the lines got removed, due to the fineness and lightness of the lines. As a result, my prints did not turn out how I intended it to.

Next time I will make sure that the contrast of my lines are more distinct and clear. I will also make sure that my positives are pure black to prevent quality loss of my drawing when exposed. The number of colours is also something to take into consideration as it will affect the production time.

Drawn Animation

Study task progress:

Dragon Frame Workshop Animation

Here is the result of the Dragon Frame and After Effects workshops. As it was my first time using these programmes, I feel it was quite a time consuming process as it required a lot of work and frames (which I feel mine is lacking as it is quite short) but for my very first try, I am rather pleased with the outcome and I feel that I am getting the hang of using After Effects more, which is a very good thing. Here, the background texture was scanned in separately which I then imported into my composition. In the peer crit, people thought that it looks like an intro to a story, a good base for something more developed/bigger. The textures were also said to be one of the strong points of my animation. However, I feel that the images could have been a little clearer. So next time, to further enhance the quality of the animation, I would ensure that the camera is properly focused before I start.

OUIL 503 Responsive

Things I would like to get out of this module:

1. Idea of what it feels like to work with real clients/on live briefs.

2. Increase my understanding of working as an illustrator/professionally.

3. Increase my confidence in my way of working.

4. To get an idea of the sort of thing that I might be interested in doing in the future/to confirm if what I think I'm interested in doing now is what I really want to do - pinpoint interests in commercial work.

5. Time management - Learn how to manage multiple live briefs/deadlines etc. at once.

6. To see how it feels like to work under 'real' pressure.

7. To gain a better understanding of the type of work/quality that is wanted/expected by clients/the market.
8. Gaining more professional skills.
9. Building work for portfolio.

10 key things we want to get out of the module (identified as a group):

1. Broaden our approaches

2. To win stuff

3. Professional feedback

4. Networking opportunity

5. Confidence 

6. Workload management 

7. Working to deadlines

8. Working with clients

9. Experience

10. Locating our practice

How this module will allow us to achieve these things:

1. Will help us to animate/draw, think and work faster.

2. Competition/live briefs will give us the opportunity to win

3. Doing live briefs and giving something they don't like, we will get feedback 

4/5. Will get to go to an award ceremony if you win and will meet a lot of important people within the business and gain confidence.

6/7. Deadlines are absolute and fitting in between other work will force us to be organised in our own time.

8. Live briefs: have to converse with clients etc.

9. Will gain experience by doing the briefs

10. Whether you enjoy a project will inform your practice - confirm where your interest lies.

Competitions

http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/multiple-disciplines/wildlife-artist-of-the-year-competition-2015
http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/jump.php?contest=fairy-tales-2015-architecture-competition
http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/jump.php?contest=international-illustrated-silent-book-contest-2015
http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/jump.php?contest=creative-conscience-awards-2015
http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/childrens_cover_brief.php
http://www.ycn.org/awards/ycn-student-awards/2014-15-ycn-student-awards/briefs/pan-macmillan
http://competitions.houseofillustration.org.uk/book-illustration-competition-2015/

http://www.theaoi.com/awards/

SB2 Workshop 1

1. slow

2. fast

3. off-screen

4. metamorphosis 

The intangible

The task was to create 12 images that evoke the atmosphere/feelings of our themes. I took some books out from the library for inspiration on the sort of colours, textures etc. that would be appropriate for my work:

In previous crit, my peers thought that the red, black and white colour combination of my collage and line pieces worked well to evoke the atmosphere of my theme. I decided to challenge myself and keep to these limited colours. I tried to include more than one of my motifs in one piece and vary the composition as much as possible but I think the most effective ones are the ones that only have 1 or 2 motifs in them. I feel some of the motifs just don't fit in the composition and I feel it clutters the piece, obstructing the message/feeling from getting through if more than 2 is used. 

I'm not too sure about the weapon motif anymore as it may suggest that Gaiman's work is something crime/murder related, which it isn't really; it's more part magical, ethereal and somewhat scary. Overall though, I feel the house images turned out the best, which I think is due to the simple, straight forward composition:

Peer feedback of all the work I've done so far for this brief:

Themes and Motifs

Task: Bring in visual reference - Identify 1 theme and 3 motifs that relate to the theme. Bring in 10 versions of each of the motifs. I didn't know which theme to do so I started jotting some of the themes from 'Coraline' down along with their motifs.

I decided to pick the theme of fear in the end as Gaiman's work is known to carry darker overtones than the average children books. I decided to pick old, abandoned houses, spiders and weapons as my 3 motifs. Though these might not be actual motifs in his books, I think they are best to represent Fear in general.

more abandoned houses here.