The research brief we got right at the beginning, the take a seat project, was a new and interesting way to come up with ideas. Basically just letting your mind wader while you sat was helping me to come up with ideas. I think the questions worked best for me because they could be answered as ridiculously as I wanted and that gave a lot of room for play. Also in the beginning research stages of this project I found that the drawings I did where I was playing with the different kinds of people I saw walking around the town at clubbing hours. This showed me that it was a subject that I could have fun drawing which is one of the reasons I chose to go along the line of alcohol and clubbing for my further research.
Unfortunately I only did two take a seats instead of three, looking back I should have organised my time better so that I could fit in a third one. When I presented my further research into my chosen subject I feel that I researched a good amount but I didn't stop to consider what of the research would be relevant to my project. So I ended up with a lot of facts that I didn't use at all, I should have done more observational research; looking at the way people move when they've drank, look at the posters used to advertise club nights and more research into that area. I tried to do a broad range of research so that I had a lot of options to choose from to base my book on. But I ended up with a lot of written fact based things that I didn't find as interesting.
I feel the research into the layout of clubs was the most influential on my concept. Its what made me think that clubs were set out to herd people through which is what I got the idea for my plot from. I feel that I didn't build enough on my concept, that there was room for more elements of the club herding like the money and the sexualisation. I could have included the different kind of cocktails I founds or had them up as posters on the walls. I think I picked a concept to use too quickly as I didn't leave time to think of multiple ideas so that I would have a choice to develop from. At the beginning my initial message that I wanted convey was that happiness rather than alcohol was addictive, but this was quite a complicated message to communicate so I decided to just make it so that it mocked the way clubs work and how we still go to them. But that left me without a strong message, because it is a light hearted story it doesn't really stand for or against clubs, rather just showing an aspect of them in an entertaining light. Therefore I wasn't really satisfied with my book as I think it just didn't have a clear view of what it was trying to convey. An aim for my next project would be to try to simplify the ideas I come up with so that I can get my head around visually communicating more effectively, and so that I don't end up rushing to finish and sacrificing quality.
When I was changing my character I spent time looking at other work to get some ideas on what I wanted, I came across the little hero character by Patrick Q (http://patrick-q.deviantart.com/art/Little-hero-Boy-124692451). For the page where the pile of drunk people are asleep I got the idea for using block colour over the entire person from some of Kelsey Heinrich's work, she uses block bright colour to fill in entire characters and its a simple way to make them stand out from each other in a crowd and to avoid using too much colour it gives it a much calmer tone. In my next project I am going to look into more contemporary illustration as I'm in the designing and developmental stages because I always end up feeling disappointed in my final piece and don't really like the style but I haven't put enough effort into looking at different styles and learning new techniques.
In my image making process I tried to develop my character for the best visual results. My first hurdle was the decision to change my character as I just didn't like the design of the other one and found it awkward to work with. Since I hadn't drawn the new character much and wasn't used to it, I set myself the task to play with the character and get to know how to draw it fluently. The book Facial expressions: A visual guide for artists by Mark Simon was a great help in making the characters emotions more believable and to get a wider range of facial expressions in so that the character didn't seem flat. The thumbnail plan of my book gave me rough guides to the panels on a page and what kind of images I wanted to show. This made my first drafts easier because I knew roughly what they were meant to look like, giving me more time to work on the visual aesthetic of it. My aims, in light of my book, for my next character work is to try playing with full body poses as I still struggle to draw a consistent body form. Also to try and draw characters from more dynamic angles as I mostly drew from a front on view and with less of these simple and boring images it will give the characters depth and a 3d form.
Admittedly I didn't do enough work for this project over the Christmas break but I feel that I planned my time enough to complete my book to a good standard. I think that I was reasonably critical of my work while I evaluated it at certain points but nearer the end of the project I changed stuff less because I didn't want to cause a sudden larger amount of work to do. My aim for my next project will be to have more evaluative moments, especially near the beginning of the project in the design and development stages, I'll try to question as much as I can to demand the best form my work. Again my blogging has come afterwards, I always forget to set time aside to blog what I've done and since I don't always have access to a camera it can be difficult to document so for my next project I am going to keep a notepad that I will write down all my thoughts regarding the project and all the critical decisions I make. This way when I blog I'll be able to include my thought process at the time instead of blogging retrospectively.
With my book I was trying to mock the way clubs are made to herd people through in an entertaining way. I'm not sure I got across a specific opinion on clubs and instead just gave an amusing story about how they work but one of my aims was to entertain so that went well. One of my challenges for this project was not using speech in my comic, I found this difficult and that's why I relied a lot upon facial expression to convey what was happening. I tried lots of different panelling compositions because I wasn't really sure of how to structure it visually. So for my next comic/book structured project I will look into the design of comics and how they tell a story. Looking at panelling, expressions, poses, angles and how the plot flows.
ACTION PLAN:
1: Plan time from the very beginning of a project.
2: Consider what is relevant.
3: Simpler concepts.
4: More initial ideas/concepts.
5: Look at more contemporary illustration and learn from it.
6: Dynamic angles.
7: Blog notepad.
8: Learn more about the structure of a comic.
No comments:
Post a Comment