Becky F

Becky loves pigeons so much, she's turned into one herself.

Refs:

Mike Tyson's got a thing for pigeons too haha

Work in progress:

Lauren

Likes: birds, buffy the vampire slayer and clumpy shoes.
Dislikes: plates scraping on top of plates, when people let their dogs kiss their faces after they've been washing their butts (or other butts) and never getting enough sleep.

Photo Refs:

(Not putting their pictures up, incase they don't want me to haha)

Initial Sketch:

As I will be producing 30+ paper cut illustrations, I am going to keep these portraits simple (also either bust or from waist up). I'm only going to be taking one or two aspects of their interests/hobbies for my portraits so to not clutter it too much (and also less time consuming).

Refined Sketch:

LCA Illustration '16 Yearbook

I'm not really sure what I was looking for when I came across the illustrated yearbook below, but it gave me an idea for a brief! Since I want to improve my character design skills, I thought it would be a good idea to make portraits of my course mates and compile them into a yearbook kind of thing at the end of it! its perfect since its our last year! - could give them out as graduation presents!.. maybe.

I'm going to get everyone to fill out a small 'character profile' thing so that I can get an idea of their interests and hobbies - so illustrations won't just be simple portraits, but something a little bit more interesting!

I had a talk with Fred in the progress tutorial about this and he suggested I combine it with the MEFCC brief (so I have one less brief, because I'm taking on too many briefs) - so instead of doing paper illustrations on already established characters, I would do it on my course mates - which Fred thinks (I do too) is more unique! I'm excited - just hope that they won't get offended if I portray them in a particular way ahaha. Also, hope that they wont mind it if I make multiple prints to sell at MEFCC! - I'll give them the original paper illustrations in exchange (if they want it).

As there are 31 (32 if hannah wasn't deferring a year) students in my year,  including myself, I will try to create 1 paper cut portrait a week starting from 1st November. This way I'll hopefully have everybody done, and a book printed before the module deadline.

Inspiration:

Follow Aghnia Mardiyah's board PaperCut Characters on Pinterest.

Progress Tutorial

I found the tutorial with Fred really helpful today! I basically wanted to use it to clarify my briefs, and that is exactly what I got out of it today! As well as my printed SOI and Briefs, I also came with questions to ask about each brief so that the session would be used more effectively and specific to what I want to know, which can be found below:

one of my main concerns was whether I was taking on too many briefs; Fred pointed out some of my briefs could be combined to create one, more solid brief. For example, the Damous Adventure Shop one could be combined with the illustrated kitchen and homeware - so instead of looking at another theme I could still look at the theme of adventure and apply that to the products. This way I would be able to really sink my teeth into the development of skills I want to improve on; the image making process and the print processes that I would like to explore more into.

Briefs like the plein air painting and the digital painting/environment studies (where its more about me just improving my skills without really having to produce any end product to it) is better to go into PPP than Extended Practice - so I wouldn't have to feel the burden of having to do it or feeling bad if I don't feel like I have the time to do it as Fred said that the 5 briefs I have is substantial enough - otherwise I would be putting too much work on myself. and briefs like this should be because I want to do it not because I have to do it, then I wouldn't enjoy it as much.

My briefs are now: 

1. The Visual Development Artist

2. Leeds Children's Hospital Liver Book

3. Damous Adventure Shop

4. LCA Illustration '16 Yearbook

5. YCN

I will rewrite my statement of intent in the next post, so that its clearer for me and my peers to see what it is I'm exactly doing.

Liver Book: Update

Brief: Illustrate Leeds Children's Hospital's second children's book about having a liver transplant

Rationale: To gain more experience in illustrating children's book - develop understanding of matching pictures to text. Improve layout skills, composition, character design - Develop my grasp of narrative, pacing and characterisation. Develop ability to paint/draw designs that strongly emphasise storytelling and personality in environments and characters.

Plan: I haven't started this brief yet as I am currently still waiting for the wording for the book. Hopefully it will be done by the end of this week so I can start gathering reference images and start thumb nailing! For the purpose of this module, I am going to aim to produce 4 double page spreads (more if I have the time) and cover.

Deadline: Module Submission Deadline 19 / 05 / 2016. (aiming to have a fully finished illustrated book by summer)

The Visual Development Artist

My anxiety level increased about this brief (The Big Kahuna) after the peer review last week. The problem raised: I wouldn't know where to stop designing if I decide to interpret an existing story in the style of a feature animation because its such a massive task - it can literally go on forever. So I decided to give it some thought, because I do still want to do a brief where I put my vis dev skills to practice - and came up with a alternative idea (which I'd like to check with Fred first if its a good idea):

Brief: Collaborate with animation student(s) and take on the role of a Visual Development artist for their animation project.

Rationale: To improve my ability to paint/draw designs that strongly emphasise storytelling and personality in environment and characters. To gain more experience and develop a portfolio that will be relevant for what I want to be doing, career-wise, in a few years time (Vis Dev)

Plan: Firstly, I've made a poster to see if any animators would like to collaborate, which can be found here. I will also talk to Mike to see if he could send/email out the poster to animation students - so its more instant, because the earlier this is sorted the better so we can start planning something out!

Deadline: Module Submission Deadline 19 / 5 / 2016,

or the deadline that the animators have set,

or deadline of competition (if we decide to enter it into a competition like the INDIs 2016)

MEFCC

Brief: Create a series (as many as I can) of paper cut illustrations of comic book/movie/tv show characters for upcoming Middle East Film and Comic Con (April 7-9, 2016). I'd also like to produce banners and other display materials for my booth.

Rationale: Improve character designing skills (in my own visual style - focus on shape and colour). Develop paper cut illustration skill - which I have come to love (Pan Macmillan Alice). Develop professionalism and networking skills.

Plan: A finished paper cut illustration of a character every 2 weeks.

Deadline: Before April (as I'd like to have them photographed, printed and packaged ready to sell. Also thinking to have the originals framed to sell too.)

3D/Papercraft illustrators/artists:

Yulia Brodskaya

Mayuko Fujino

Stuart McLachlan

Helen MusselWhite

Hattie Newman

Jeff Nishinaka

Eiko Ojala

Ciara Phelan

Rob Ryan

Shotopop

Mandy Smith

Fideli Sundqvist

Zim & Zou

Brittney Lee

Chrissie Macdonald

The Makerie

Plein Air Paintings

Edit: 28/ 10 /16
This is no longer an Extended Practice brief, but will be continued on PPP instead.

Weekly (and whenever I feel like painting) Brief: 20 mins - 1hr Plein air paintings

Rationale: To study and improve understanding of colour and light. To improve drawing/painting backgrounds and environments. To improve traditional painting skills.

Plan: Paint every Saturday

Deadline: Module Submission Deadline 19 / 05 / 2016 (although I will keep painting even after this. It's all about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more I'm consistent the better!)

to see my ramblings on the 3 paintings below, click here.

Photo References

One of the main reasons I chose this brief is so that I could improve my ability to draw environments/backgrounds, landscapes, nature and lighting as it is one of the skills that you are required to have as a Vis Dev artist. I want to start studying from photographs, which I have collected from pinterest - can i just say, whilst collecting these images I got real goosebumps! The world we live in is actually SO beautiful! It's making me want to explore every inch and crevice of Earth! Yes, they might have been touched up on photoshop or something, but these are real places!



I don't know whether to make designs based on places in Indonesia, since the designs are for an Indonesian based business, its a possibility.. narrowing it down would make the project more focused. Adam, who manages the business is also a devoted mountain climber, So I've collected images of must climb mountains in Indonesia to suit his stuff better:



I've also collected some Scuba diving pics because I am in love with the underwater world, and thought I could also make some designs based on this:

Indonesia Inspiration

Edit: 28 / 10 /16
This brief has been changed and is now a part of Brief 3. Click here for explanations.

-----
I've started gathering reference images of fabric, patterns, costumes etc. from Indonesia. I think Indonesia is very well known for its range of batik patterns - I went to a fabric store whilst I was in Indonesia and I found out that there are specific styles of batik according to which region it was made, which was really interesting. I think creating my own batik pattern would be quite hard since there are absolutely loads already, so I was thinking maybe to look at Indonesian folktales and illustrating that in a batik kind of style and applying it to products that I've mentioned previously. But these batik stamps look like they would make pretty coasters! - maybe I should look at laser cutting on wood!

Statement of Intent Peer Feedback 2

Comment on the clarity of the rationale
Strengths:

• Have thought critically and know what you want and what to improve this year.

Comment on the clarity and appropriateness of the Themes/Subjects

Strengths:

• Have stated a lot of themes/subject

Suggestions:

• Try to put in more details e.g atmosphere - then what kind of atmosphere? scary? happy?

Comment on the appropriateness of Products and Methods of Distribution

Strengths:

• Know exactly what products that you want to do which is good.

Suggestions:

• Put more detail - what kind of product that you want to try out?

Comment on the appropriateness of Skills/Media/ and formats identified

Strengths:

• Stated quite a big amount of bullet points and stated reasons which made the reader know your reasons.

Suggestions:

• Do you think you'll have enough time to improve all this in less than a year?

General Comment:

Action plan - Add deadlines so it won't confuse you.

Briefs:

Brief1

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

Very detailed brief 

Considerations/Suggestions:

Decide which story/play that you want to illustrate.

Brief2

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

Good brief, hopefully you'll get paid

Considerations/Suggestions:

make sure you investigate about liver transplant before you start illustrating.

Brief3

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

An amazing brief that could add your name in Indonesia

Considerations/Suggestions:

Make sure that your tone of voice is suitable with Adam's adventure products. Maybe use more duller colours than what you usually use.

Brief4

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

Very detailed. I like how you have already decided themes for this brief

Considerations/Suggestions:

Are you going to add typography? Think about colour scheme? be more specific on your themes.

Brief5

Considerations/Suggestions:

Keep looking at YCN so you won't miss the deadline.

Likewise, I think I need to make it more clear on what I will physically produce and what I will be proposing. I also talked to Fred for a bit after this peer review session and asked him some questions about other briefs that I have not stated in my SOI or blog because I was just informed about them recently. I'd like to discuss my briefs a bit more with Fred next week in the individual tutorials and hopefully I will come out of it with a more detailed and more absolute plan on what it is my briefs are! because at the moment I keep thinking about other briefs back and forth because I have so much that I want to do and it is really distracting me!

What I need to do:
make deadlines for stages of each briefs
summarise brief before explaining why you’ve chosen it in rationale
sort bibliography
link your reasonings for things in rationale, etc
prioritise briefs
be more specific
look at proposals vs actual product
think about time scale snd what is achievable 

Statement of Intent Peer Feedback 1

Comment on the clarity of the rationale
Strengths:

• Very clear and planned out
• Decisive - this will keep you focused

Suggestions:

• What other projects/areas of interest will you be looking at?

Comment on the clarity and appropriateness of the Themes/Subjects

Strengths:

• All the themes can link to one another in some way which will provide a continuity within your work.

Suggestions:

• What do you mean by 'atmosphere'?
• Some of these could be further delved into to give more of a reason for each choice?

Comment on the appropriateness of Products and Methods of Distribution

Strengths:

• Very precise - it's good that you know how you want your work to be seen

Suggestions:

• 'Animation' is a very broad and such a massive area to cover. Is there a way to narrow it down? Maybe types/purpose of animation?

Comment on the appropriateness of Skills/Media/ and formats identified

Strengths:

• Really specific areas to develop

Suggestions:

• These are all massive tasks and could go on forever. Think how you can link some together (this will probably happen organically though)

General Comment:

You are superwoman, sticking to the SOI and your motivation in general will get you far, its very admirable.

Briefs:

Brief1

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

Very purposed - clarity as reasons for doing it

Considerations/Suggestions:

Will you be producing the whole animation? with all the briefs, will this be too much? is it achievable?

Brief2

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

Good that you have considered time frame

Considerations/Suggestions:

How will this benefit your practice in the long run?

Brief3

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

Very purposed

Considerations/Suggestions:

How many of each design will be produced? it's not clear if you will be doing so. Could this be a 1 a week brief?

Brief4

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

A good opportunity to explore range.

Clear and personal rationale which is lovely to see.

Considerations/Suggestions:

Think about what you are proposing and what you will produce.

Brief5

Clarity/appropriateness of the brief:

Haven't been announced yet, so I can't say much.. but, do what you did last year, you were incredible!

Suggested References:

There isn't really much I can suggest as our practices are SO different!

I found this really useful actually, and I totally agree with Lauren here that some of my briefs 'are all massive tasks and could go on forever'. So I really need to make myself clearer in what it is actually want to produce, and what I will propose.

Inspiration

I am thinking of creating a set of screen prints based on landscapes/explorer's hotspots and adventure activities which I will then use to print on t-shirts, tote bags and also as art prints. Below are some images I found that kind of summarises the type of designs that I'd like to try producing. This will also help develop my skill in drawing/illustrating backgrounds and environments which is one of the required and desired skill to have to become a Visual Development artist.

Statement of Intent: First Draft

Types of briefs

Daily/weekly - quick turn arounds
Authorial/process - Interest driven
Responsive - client set briefs
The big kahuna - big projects, interest driven, defines practice

After the workshop on Tuesday, I feel like all of the briefs I picked are too big to be achievable in such a short amount of time. So I've decided to do a little bit of a rethink and take away some of the additional stuff I initially came up with to do with each briefs. I hadn't thought about doing daily/weekly briefs which I think is a good idea to do in semester 1 since we will be focusing more on cop - I've decided then to scratch some of my initial briefs and replace them with these types of quick turnaround briefs. Chosen briefs thus far (but might expand/find more if time permits):

Big Kahuna (stays the same): The Visual Development Artist

Responsive: 

• Leeds Children's Hospital: Liver Book
• Deliverables: Front and back covers, interior illustrations

• DamousAdventureShop
• Deliverables: 5 'adventure' themed t-shirt designs

• YCN

Authorial/Process:

• Illustrated Home and Kitchenware

Daily/Weekly:

• 20 mins - 1 hr Plein Air Paintings
• 20 mins - 1 hr Digital Paintings from ref images (landscapes)
• 20 mins - 1 hr Digital Paintings from ref images (film stills)
• 20 mins - 1 hr Gesture drawings from ref images
• 20 mins - 1 hr Gesture drawings from life
• 20 mins - 1 hr Still life studies

Workshop 1

5 things I want to get out of this year:

1. An amazing portfolio that summarises what I'm all about.
2. Professional contacts
3. Improve verbal communication and presentation skills
4. More experience and knowledge of working within the illustration/animation industry
5. Publishing - how to approach? who to contact?

5 words that describes my practice:

1. Narrative
2. Character
3. Animation
4. Digital
5. Colour

5 things I want my work/portfolio to demonstrate:

1. Character design
2. Storytelling
3. Adaptability - ability to work with different medias, and different types of design work.
4. Environments
5. Good eye for colour, composition, layout.

5 Practical skills I want to develop:

1. Traditional print processes
2. Animation
3. Analogue image making (painting)
4. Colour, lighting, character design, backgrounds
5. Digital

5 non-practical skills I want to develop:

1. Confidence
2. Verbal communication skills
3. Networking/contacting professionals
4. Problem solving
5. Collabiration

5 things I want to produce:

1. Books
2. Visual development for animation
3. Animation
4. Things I could potentially sell
5. Prints

What do I want to do?

1. I want to illustrate children's books
2. I want to produce printed products
3. I want to collaborate with animator and writers
4. I want to educate children in a fun way

Why do I want to do it?

1. I want to place myself/my practice within the kids industry
2. I want to start earning money from what I produce
3. I am interested in working within the animation industry
4. I think its important for more fun educational materials in the kids industry

What do you want to get out of it?

1. Increased knowledge and experience 
2. Develop skills in print processes
3. Develop communication and collaboration skills
4. Recognisability

Why will that benefit you?

1. Diversity my portfolio
2. Becoming more professional
3. Hireable

Liver Transplant book update

After the module briefing on friday, I decided that it would be best to contact Lisa (play specialist at Leeds Children's Hospital) about the new words for Liver book that they are planning to make. Although its been suggested that we focus on the CoP module until January, I thought it'd be best to get all that I need now so that I can estimate how much time I need/plan my time in advance - responsive module last year taught me that time management is key! so must keep on top of things.