Final Outcomes 504:

Printed Pictures:

Moving Pictures:

Pratchett Animation FINAL from Rowena Sharp on Vimeo.

Visual Journal:

OUIL504 Evaluation

My biggest issue in this project was my time planning, I got way behind and I was struggling to estimate how long it would take me to do things. At the end of the project I managed to get my time together and get my stuff finished but it was a close call. I've found that having a checklist helps me because I can see the amount of work going down and also it spurs you on to stay that bit longer to finish up your check point. So something to keep in mind for the rest of my modules is that time planning is key. I will use checklists and try to always have an up to date list of the things that I need to do.
This was a project I did well with ideas though, I got lots of them this module which was helpful as I decided to redesign both projects in the last fortnight. I think the late redesign was down to a mixture of time planning and over reaching with my aims. At first I wanted to have a minute long animation but I just don't think I understood how long it was going to take. Animation was definitely a shock to the system and my timing, drawing every frame takes time and then putting it all together digitally can take just as long. Although I learnt that if you want to get your hand drawn frames onto the mac you can use dragon frame to take pictures of your frames but thats only if you want to retain just the line work. Unfortunately taking photo's meant that I lost the paper texture I wanted to keep, but with the poor time planning I didn't have any time to do them by scanning which takes a lot longer.
With these processes I found that they were both very demanding and time consuming, I've never felt so stressed for such a prolonged time before but thats the challenges of these processes. My big issue with print I think was actually mainly due to my patience or lack there of. My first screens I coated too thickly because I didn't spend enough time scraping it to a thin layer, the second time I did it one was thick because I didn't want to have to clean a second trough for my smaller screen so I just used an over sized one. Then my prints didn't expose very well because I had scanned them in and printed them, losing some of the quality. I needed them on one piece of paper each layer so they lined up and I could do the whole set of prints in 3 layers. But I think I should have just re drawn them all onto one big piece of tracing paper and then I could have kept the line and texture in the scribbling.
There were a lot of shortcuts I had to take these last couple of days due to the looming deadline but it showed me that I can do some of this work a lot faster than I thought I could, and although thats necessary at this point its nice to know for future that I can save myself time with these things.
I think something that was strong in this module was context, with each one there was a reason for it, I kept trying to think where my work would lie in the real world. I think that pushed my project on quite a lot, especially animation because I made the decision for an advert and a song straight away and then the rest of my animation grew off of that idea. I've been trying to push an element of professionalism because something I always took away from a project last year was that my work still looked like a student work and I didn't feel like it was up to standard. By packaging it, it made me think that since it could physically be sold in a shop or shown on tv then its a possibility and that was good enough for me. I really enjoyed packaging my prints the most and tried to make it as realistic as possible. It also gave me a chance to try out the sticker paper which I haven't before, although in retrospect I feel I should have gone with the opaque stickers rather than the transparent ones because they lose some of their colour and vibrancy if they're not on a white background.

Things to take forward form this module:
Time planning: Do it! Use checklists if you must but some form of planning is necessary. If I don't know how long something is going to take then work for a little while and see how far you get in the time and plan accordingly.
Patience: I've sworn at a lot of macs, while using photoshop,dragon frame and especially after effects, but most of the time the problem is simple to fix. Stop panicking go ask for help if you need it but first take a deep breath and just look at what I've done in case it's an obvious mistake.
Screen Prepping: Thin layers of emulsion only! and make positives to scale and in position to save time later.
Reference: In animation good reference is golden and the frames where I used reference turned out really good. (The panning view in the last scene I really enjoyed)
Blog: Blog regularly. Don't forget it. Just blog a little each day. I think thats a do able thing seen as I ended up blogging while I was battling photoshop trying to edit my frames.
Self evaluation: I had two late points of redesign in this module and it worked out great but it would have been less of a stressful nightmare if i'd had evaluated earlier and figured out the issue then.
Spontaneous peer review: If I need to evaluate but i'm too 'into' the project to even see anymore then just ask someone to peer review it! Getting others opinions through out can help me catch problems that start to occur before they reach nuclear.

Finally I'm Finished

I got in at 8:15 today which was later than I planned but someone in our flat was having a loud party and it kept me awake for ages and then it was still happening as I left this morning. On a tuesday evening of all times to party. But luckily it took less time than I thought. Although thats not to say it came without issue. I had to re-save a couple of my image sequences because I'd saved them as Jpegs when I wanted them to have transparent parts for layering. So i had to go back in and one by one save the layers as photoshop documents. Then I had a lot of issues with after effects where as it turns out even if you set the composition to 12 frames per second, each time you import an image sequence it sets them to 30 fps for no apparent reason. So the problems I faced were all easily solved and primarily down to my lack of experience with the programme.
On the video the wool and hat part was the hardest because the hat, the wool, Terry falling and then him floating are all separate layers that I had to over lay. I was in a rush when I got to the point of editing images last night and I was just trying to get it done as fast as I could since I had no idea how long it would take to put together on aftereffects. So the transparent frames are all quite terribly erased around as I just tried using magic wand and the quick selection tool and got annoyed that those buttons don't have separate shortcuts because I needed to use both.
There was a short scene I cut because I would have to go back into photoshop, erase the background, and save as photoshop files. Its the scene right after Pratchett appears in space and its just 2 seconds of him floating. I just don't have enough time to do that , or maybe I would but I'm not willing to let it get so close to the deadline, my brain just can't take anymore stress like that, i'm burnt out. Because I didn't use that scene it cut out the panning background of space I was going to do. But I'm kind of glad because the background I drew wasn't up to the standard I wanted it to be but again lack of time made me rush.
The text at the end is also not on for long enough. I had planned for it to pan over 8-10 seconds to allow sufficient reading time but then the writing was too small once photographed to be able to erase the back ground and still have neat writing. So I couldn't overlay it onto the final scene. Also the song clip I prepared was 30 seconds long so if I went over the sound would look like it cut out abruptly and early. And honestly I just couldn't work on after effects any longer, my video is at an acceptable standard and I'm short on time so I have neither the want or patience to do more editing in photoshop or after effects.

But after all the headaches, tears and sweat; here it is:



Pratchett Animation FINAL from Rowena Sharp on Vimeo.

Waiting is wasting

Photoshop kept freezing on me and I was freaking out because time is ticking. Turns out you just can't have over 200 visible layers on photoshop or else it plays up.
I've just finished editing all my frames and now i'm just saving them one by one into separate folders of image sequences. I figure this is the best way to prepare myself for putting it into after effects. Because some of the frames need to be layered in certain parts.

A big issue I'm seeing now is that because I took all my frames photo in dragon frame I've lost the paper texture I liked so much; which was the reason I chose to do hand drawn. Some of my frames that are just to be repeated and the first second (which I did the other day) have been scanned in so their bright white and textured while the other ones are a dull cream.

The panic continues:

I vow to never let myself get behind like this again.

Minor Mental break

I got in early this morning at 8:30 and started my scanning while finishing off the last second of frames at the same time. I got half way through my frames and then we had our peer review. When I came back from that I found that someone had logged me out of my mac and since i'd cleverly thought to save all my scans to userwork they were all gone. I could have slept in. For that I am very grumpy at whoever did this.
So freaking out and panicking about how to get the scanning done in time I realised that maybe it would be easier to just take pictures of my frames in dragon frame. That way I could line all the frames up by hand which is way quicker. Thanks to the technician Matt my head didn't explode with stress as after spending nearly 2 hours getting all the pictures ready the programme started using the camera on the laptop and taking pictures of my face instead of the frames. It was a stressful moment and the lights on the rostrum are really hot and heat makes my stressing reach nuclear levels. Luckily Matt managed to fix it and I only had to retake my last 6 frames.
Currently I'm waiting for the image sequence to load into photoshop. I trawled the internet for a way to import all the pictures at once and instantly into separate frames. Since I put my first frame in and realised because of the dpi of the photos I would have to re-size them all and consequently just end up spending time re-alligning them all. Thats something I just don't have time for at this point. so this way I can get them all in knowing that they already line up and then resize them all together so they match up.

The emotion of the day

I wish I had a time machine

If I had a time machine then my time wouldn't be so crazy full of things to do.

So the deadline is in a day and a half and i'm still drawing my frames. We have a peer review tomorrow and unfortunatley since I won't have got mine put together on screen so my peers are going to have to use their imagination.

I plan to go in early tomorrow though at around 8-8:30 so that I can get myself set up at a mac with a tablet and a scanner. Hopefully be able to get some of my scanning out of the way then when the studio is less populated and therefore the noise is irritating less people.

I was doing the frames where Pratchett looks in to space awed and a shadow goes over his face then it cuts to a giant turtle in the sky. Originally I was going to do it as a silhouette because for the next clip the screen starts black and zooms out to show a hat. But I forgot and started drawing the turtle as I normally would, I like it though because with more detail I think there's more perspective on the size of it. 

When I bought the sealable cello bags for my print I only needed one but I had to order 50. So I've been using them to organise all of my paper for this module, which is a lot. The wallet holding my animation finals is almost full to bursting.

Finished the turtle and figured for it to make sense in the scene then it would need the space background with it to show that it and Pratchett are in the same space.

My slowly growing number of seconds in my wallet. I like keeping check of it because it feels like an achievement each time I get to change it to a new number.

Same with my checklist which is slowly being all checked off.

I drew this for one of the introductory seconds where it pans up to show Pratchett stood proudly with book in hand. I thought that if I drew it I could trace the amount I needed into each frame and move it up bit by bit and then all together it would pan up his body. After the 5th frame I realised that if I just drew the whole thing out a couple times I could repeat them over and then use after effects to make it pan upwards.

Lesson of the day: Look for every shortcut. Really look. Don't waste your time.

While I was drawing the 4 frames to make this scene with I purposefully made each drawing slightly different so that when t's put together the lines jutter about and you can tell that it's drawn frame by frame. I got this idea from watching Roobarb and Custard, the lines all changing and wobbling would probably be considered sloppy and to a lesser standard of animation in todays full blown pixar love affair. But I thnk this style of animation has a certain sense of charm about it and it's not to be underestimated. The playful and almost nervous juddering lines give a reminiscent feel because its so childlike and imperfect. And with this piece I want to draw in pre-existing Pratchett fans and make them reminisce about the stories that exploded off the pages and into their imagination.

On the bright side though while I was drawing Pratchett I was leaning on the stickers I drew for print and it left a faint rainbow Pratchett.

I got onto my final clip of animation today, excluding the bit that just says Alzheimers UK, and I got 3 out of 4 seconds done. I would have got more but I had work 4:30-10 tonight and it took a big chunk out of my prime productive time. But I decided upon exactly what I wanted to do with it. The original idea was to have Pratchett sat in a chair and then deaths hand sneak out of the daarkness and unwind the wool from his head. But I did some thumbnailing because I just wasn't feeling the idea anymore and I had one instead of death and Pratchett sat together and death reaching up from behind and unravelling. I decided I wanted the view to be from behind to show exactly what death is doing, I think since its already a visual metaphor it doesn't need clouding up any more. But I wanted to have a bit more movement in there, this is my penultimate scene and it needed some 'pazazz'. Then I thought of it; you know in movies the director will have a camera that can run on little tracks like a tiny train and they film while circling the actor. It makes things look more monumental and really its just a bit of showing off when its done in hand drawn animation. But I want to be that person, problem is my animating skills aren't that good yet. Reference is always key when I get stuck illustrating so assumably the same trick will work in animation.

My erasers at the minute are little monkeys, while i'm uncomfortable with the way they smile at me while I sand their head down, they proved their use today. I took 12 pictures going around them so that the first second of my clip could be a spinning view around the pair. The only side affect of using the monkeys was that they have a very specific 'cute' shape so in hand the final clip of Pratchett with Death is a little bit adorable. They're small and squishy but I think the seriousness is still in there. It contrasts with the innocent looking characters and then death is unravelling his mind sneakily. Kind of reflects how Alzheimers works anyway.

Majestic calm auquatic beasts

Elbow - Forget myself

The Lovin' Spoonful - Daydream

Fleetwood Mac - Albatross

In my tutorial with Fred he suggested that I do the 3-6 stings and then if I don't finish them all I can just have three. But I decided to go for 30 seconds straight because I feel like the structure suites me better. And the way I was working last time was that the actual animation were lots of short clips that all related in a theme, then the music linked them together. So I decided I should go with the same structure as last time because it was a lot less complicated to think about once I split it into the shorter animation and the song lyrics helped with the visuals.

I tried to find songs first by googling songs about forgetting but all that brought up was people forgetting about their ex  lovers. I wasn't really sure what to be looking for, I wanted a song that was apt to the message I wanted to convey. In the end it was between the three songs linked above. I chose Elbow in the end because the lyrics could be made to sound like its talking about the dementia with the influence of moving pictures alongside it. Albatross I decided was too slow and calm to fit the message and the style of animation i'm doing doesn't seem to hand itself to that kind of melody. The daydream song I cut as well because it was too happy and had a 'springy' pace, this tone would just be too 'up' to convey the serious side of it.

I listened to the song a couple times and picked out  a 30 second clip to put my animation to, I broke it down into 5 second sections and started getting my ideas down. An idea I had from the previous animation was to have Pratchett running at a line in the centre and as he hits it wool streams out the other side; done with dragon frame and hand drawn put together on photoshop. One of the lyrics in the song says something about finding a plot to bury his heart into and I liked the idea of having him literally bury his heart into the plot line of a book. I mean it's what he already does in his writing, he puts his heart and soul into it and he's always working. I read a quote where he said as soon as he has finished writing a book he has to start the next one even if its just putting some ideas down on paper; he can't stand to not have a book on the go. 

Some advice that Fred gave me was to know exactly what I'm going to produce before I make it. So I planned out my animation in 5 second blocks and decided exactly how long each clip would be. 

I wrote down all the short cuts I could take so that I could save time because time is what I'm short on now.

Then I did a check list of all the things I have to draw and how many frames. I think it's easier to keep going and get on with things when I can see my progress ad seeing things getting done. A check list is great because I can see the list of what I have to do going down as I work instead of just feeling lost in the sea of work I have to do and getting hopeless and want to give up.

So the first thing I did was draw out a turtle a couple times to get the feel of it. I wasn't sure where, on a scale of realistic to full cartoon, I wanted it to be. 

I was getting annoyed at turtles because I didn't like how any of them were turning out, so I took a mini break and drew a little falling Pratchett. I  really liked how it turned out, isn't it weird how you always like the ones you're not trying with. 

I tried to draw it big and I just couldn't get it the same so I left it un-inked. This is an issue I will deal with when it comes to those frames.

 I really like the elephant eating a plum. It's mouth is so wide and ridiculous, but elephants are ridiculous anyway; their trunk is like an arm. They have an arm in the middle of their face. Weird. But fun to draw. Thinking of doing it spraying water out of its trunk because I like animating wobbly things. Like when I did Pratchett's head pulled apart and it snaps like jelly. You can be really crazy with the lines and just play with the whole process of animating.

Went back to the turtles and decided to finally just go and get some reference. So this is my revised turtle, you'll notice some new features such as; actually looking like a turtle, owning a body and regular sized eyes. 

Halfway into drawing my frames I felt like the turtle was a bit too complicated to redraw so much. Then I compared the  first frame with the one I was currently drawing and I'd creating the magical shrinking turtle instead of the majestic, calm, aquatic beast I was aiming for. What went wrong I think is that I just didn't take enough care with redrawing it, also since it was a complicated shape I probably should have used a stencil because that worked when I did the feet kicking the water.

I decided to just simplify it because I'd rather it was simple and well made rather than complicated and badly put together. I did it front on because that way I'd only have to move the fins and the body and face would stay in the same place so I can repeatedly draw them and there's less chance of a shrinking repeat.

I finished my frames for the elephant. Its pretty simple and not a lot moves but I think it's good to go with simple for these first seconds because they're acting as a kind of introductory scene. So if there's too much going on in such short clips it won't be recognisable and that'd the purpose of these clips.

Finally some movement

Even though I've decided not to include these in my new animation I decided to put them together to see if I got the timing right or not. The feet one went pretty well, which I think is down to me using stencils so that the shape was consistent. The pier one I don't like as much; it's jumpy and there's not enough happening in the sky. I think I should have done more frames for each movement. 

But i'm glad they both at least work and look like movement, this bodes well for my other unscanned frames.

Slap a Bow on it

So during my tutorial with Fred he mentioned packaging and how it could make my work look more professional. Usually a problem I find with my work is that at the end of it I just don't like it. It looks like just another one of my drawings and I can't really see it as a 'real' thing.

First I ordered some cello seal-y bags off amazon. Then I designed stickers to go on the front. I wanted one promoting that it's a hand made product and one with the quote I cut from the prints because it's the quote that kind of explains what the whole product is about. 

To make them tie in with the design I made the quote a turtle and used yellow and purple in the colour scheme. And I decided the hand made would tie in by being a skeleton hand.

I decided to make one of  those little card bits that hold a package together and they hand on the rail at the shop. I put another quote on that I found in an article Pratchett wrote. I chose this one because I feel it makes it specific to the audience. Like it makes it relevant to them. Baby Boomers are considered to be people born between 1946 and 1964, Pratchett's first novel came out 1983 so a lot of existing fans are baby boomers.

I called it the 'From creche to death mobile' as a play on the quote I used in the second print but also because the prints in order are the story of his life.

I got home and used red wool tie the mount board shapes together because it linked with the unravelling concept. Then I stuck the prints on top  after this to cover the holes and knots up.

I stuck the smaller stickers to the package then made a hard board top part and stuck the stickers on each side. I used a hole punch so that I could make that little hole so it can go on a rack at a shop, just to complete the  picture.

I stapled it to the top of the package and made sure it wasn't  the sticky down side so that the  package could still be opened neatly.

Unfortunately I chose to print the stickers on clear sticker paper not realising that the colours would then  slightly transparent. So they're harder to read and not as eye catching as I wanted but overall the packaging really made it for me.

Now that it's packaged and technically/physically could  be sold in a shop, it makes me feel like maybe it is moderately decent work. There are improvements that could be made obviously but for now I'm really pleased with my final product.

Stress and swearing

So my print  experience was a rollercoaster of emotions.

Day 1: Thursday

Go to print to clean three screens and coat them. B-solve the screens and wait ten minutes before scrubbing down three times and it was still blocked in places. By the end print was closing and my screens were still wet and there was still emulsion at the edges.

Day 2: Friday

Come in to coat my screens. Can't find a paint trough the right size for my frames, decided bigger was better. I was wrong. It was thick in the middle, I tried to scrape some off to thin it. I put it in the drying cupboard and went to the studio. I went back to check my screen every hour for the rest of the day and it wasn't dry; at 4pm I realised its because the cupboard wasn't turned on.

Day 3: Monday

Exposed my screens and washed them. As I washed them the emulsion, which was thick and a bit tacky, just started to fall off. I decided to cut my losses, ditch the screens and get new ones. Found three completely clean screens to use, coated without issue and made sure the drying cupboard was on. Things were looking good.

came down later and exposed, one of the screens was slightly tacky and the positive stuck to the screen. When I pulled it off it ripped little bits of emulsion off all over the screen. It wasn't too bad so I washed them but the tacky one I didn't use the sponge in case I loosened anything. 

Day 4: Tuesday

Went to print and mixed my colours. I decided to go with yellow and a purple; like aubergine but slightly more pink. I picked them because I decided that I shouldn't have just picked greens for the turtle and red for the brains because it was too obvious and traditional. Pratchett did everything n his own way and it made him stand out so I figured why not have the prints stand out too. Purple and yellow are opposite sides of the colour wheel so they contrast yet compliment each other.

The yellow and purple layer went without an issue and I was getting confident. Then I Put my black screen on; I set up, put my ink out, clamped down my frame, flooded the screen, pulled the ink through for the acetate print, the squeegee couldn't reach the bottom of the print because the clamps stuck out and blocked it. then to top it off I put the squeegee at the back and it fell into all the ink. 

I undd it all and put the screen the other way around. The ink bled a lot and the squeegee fell in  the ink again. So at that point I gave up for the day.

Day 5: Wednesday

Black layer time. I feel ready. Then it bleeds, on all of my paper layer and some of the ink at the edge doesn't even go through. I did loads of newspaper prints to try and sort t because I was down to my two water colour paper prints. I finally got it to an acceptable stage on the newsprint and moved on to the paper confidently. It bled. On both.

Things I learned in print:

Always use a trough that's smaller than your screen.

Use screens that are the next A size up from the positives so that there's room for the squeegee.

Use thick lines on positives, only fat fine liners or something bigger.

If you want to do hand drawn do them all on one page and match them up.

Put only a THIN layer of emulsion on the screen.

When making ink its 2 spoons of ink to 100g of medium but in my experience its kind of better to have it slightly thicker.

Make as many test prints as the ink allows so that there's more room for mistakes.

Some of the  ink was just missing and on some of the worse ones the words were so blurred with bleed they were unreadable.

I found a cheating solution to the missing  ink. I don't have time to print again so short cuts had to be taken.

Since so many of my prints went wrong I decided to just go through each set and pick out the best one of each. Since some of the prints were messy on both of my good paper ones and I wanted consistency I chose to only use the cartridge prints. Except for Death's hand, which I thought looked more effective in the watercolour stock. 

I cut them out, originally I was going to have a border of white around them but since there was bleed which would break the solid line of contrast I decided it would be better just cut without.

I chose the watercolour paper because it was thick stock and Would hold its shape which I needed for the mobile to work. But since I had to choose cartridge prints I needed something to make them more sturdy. 

Mount board! cut out the prints then stencilled them onto the mount board and cut out those.

It took a suprisingly ong time to cut them out. You have to push on the knife pretty hard and I caught my finger. This is my war wound.

Redesign cont.

Issuu won't let me type underneath its document so new post:

After a tutorial with Fred he commented on how they don't really fit as a set, contrasting compositions draw them apart. So I made some time to sit and redesign my prints.

First off I did some thumbnailing. I wanted the image to be centred. I liked the design on the right but half way through inking it I realised that I hadn't left room for the text. So I used the same parts from the original but putting the egg at the top so that the eyes opening is sequential and makes more sense. I think it was unclear in the prints what the closed eyes were. I put the wool in the back though because it gave the other parts something to strongly centre them. The other designs all seemed to have a central part and without the wool this one was just floating.

 With the brain one the original was really simple and the others were more complicated so it didn't really fit into the set. I first tried making the brain the big main part but after tracing out the outline of a brain that I could draw wool into I realised that it took too long. So I decided to draw it smaller; I tried to fill the extra space by having deaths arm twist around, but I don't think it works visually.

I was thinking of this print in the design so I wanted to keep the unravelling brain in because I think it was a simple and effective visual metaphor. In the end I decided to draw all of death in it and have terry pratchett in the picture. This is the serious one because it represents the Alzheimers and I felt like the face I draw for him is a little too silly for this one so I made him a silhouette. Atleast that wasy I could show the wool inside of his head, I tried to make it look like the wool from the first print in the set, to link them. Also I cut the original quote I used because t was too text heavy and instead just used the last line 'it makes you feel quite alone'. That part pretty much sums the whole quote.

For the Officer of the British empire thing I wasn't really sure how to represent it at all. The last image I made for this one was literally a medal around his neck. Since the other ones are all visual metaphors and non literal it didn't fit in the set. I got the idea from a seperate idea I had for animation where a series of short clips of the hats of discworld being put on. I decided to use the post master hat from going postal, I used the tv movie version because it is more widely recognisable  than the book cover illustration one. It represents an honour so it's fitting to use for Pratchett's knighthood.
At first I just had the hat with the feet and it looked like it was wrong but I couldn't figure out why. After asking around the studio it came down to it being a little to empty and the other prints were busier. So I decided to have books splayed out to show that he was knighted for his work in literature.

For this one the original was over busy. I tried at first to keep the child reading under the covers because I liked the innocence and I felt it was something that everyone could relate to. But after a lot of attempts I found that its really hard to draw someone under the covers. Also compositionally it was an awkward shape to place. So I decided to have the scene coming out of his head. Because when you're reading and you get really into it you get to a point where your not aware that you're reading because you're experiencing it in your imagination.

Finally I kept the elephant one almost the same but I put the text at the top because before I think the text was too small and 'shy', it needs to be loud. Also I took out the little Pratchett writing because I realise that since my audience are pre existing Pratchett fans there was no need to have anything representing that it was his book writing because the turtle and elephants made it clear that it represented discworld. Having it there made it a little patronising to my audience.

I'd been playing around in my head with the idea of having the prints displayed like a mobile. In my tutorial with Fred I told him that and he asked me some questions about it; including what will hold them together? safe to say I hadn't thought it through properly and had no idea.
Then Fred highlighted to me: 1 I have 5 prints. 2 What has five things? Hands. 3 Where do I have hands in my work? Deaths hand unravelling Pratchetts brain. DEATH one of Pratchett's famous characters. of course.
So with this new revelation I decided to draw the hand. In honesty I'm terrible at drawing hands, they are one of my biggest foes. So you can imagine my struggle with skeleton hands. So  I got a picture printed out and traced the basic bone outlines. Then in the pink I drew each bone in my own way, I did this because I wanted the hand to be realistic and kind of scary because I also want to show a serious message concerning his Alzheimers. 

Inked up. I then drew in lght and shadow. At this point hadn't decided my colours so I was just labelling the light ones which I was thinking of going with yellow.

In the positives I decided to use the black to outline the bones; so it matched the set but also to make it look severe and angular. For the colour positives I decided to use the scribble texture I used in the  other prints so it was all linked as a set. Also because I think block colour would make it look to 'cartoon' and that would ruin all my work to make it severe and scary.

Now my positives are all ready I  scan them and arange them on A2 so that they are all in position and I can do them all for each colour in one go. I'm dong this because I need to save time where I can seen as it's so near to the deadline and i'm behind. Bad tme planning, but onwards and upwards.