EP: Beyond La La Land #3

Recently CoP3 has been taking up a lot of my time, so it was nice to spend some time working on Beyond La La Land #3. Although I've only worked on a few pages, it was nice to remind myself of this world for a short time.

EP: Group Crit 17/11/15

Today I had group crit. The people that viewed my work commented on the large amount I had produced in preparation for Thought Bubble, with my Tory Chums and La La Land work garnering the most praise.

I feel that these two projects are definitely worth pushing forward with post CoP. However I am reluctant to make too much work concerning them for two reasons; firstly my Tory Chums at this moment is CoP based work and I don't want to include it in this module just yet. Secondly due to my dissertation work needing so much attention, I just don't have to time at the moment to progress with La La Land.

(Inc Scans of Crit Sheets)

EP: Studio Brief 1 - Thought Bubble Reflection

Thought Bubble is now over and it was a mixed experience. On the positive side, my Star-Lord piece sold well, as did my Tory Chums zine, stickers and notebooks. Surprisingly my Doctor Who print didn't sell as well as I thought it would, despite constant praise from people who saw it.


I also found that my Clone Idle and Beyond La La Land zines didn't sell. I discussed this with Matt and Adam at Thought Bubble and they both suggested this is due to the fast paced nature of the event. People don't feel as though they have the time to stand and read a good portion of the zine like they would in a comic book store for example, where as prints are a quick visual fix that instantly grabs you attention. With this in mind I'm going to take my zines to Travelling Man over the next week, where I will hopefully be able to find an audience there.



Overall I am happy with the body of work I produced and the experience of creating work for an event, but will be happy to begin work on things beyond this now.

EP: Doctor Who Print

Recently I have been collaborating with Joe to create a Doctor Who print for Thought Bubble later in the month. Our collaboration was based on a simple premise - he draws the main feature (the Doctor) and I do the colours/ background design.

I chose to place the doctor in the time vortex as this would be a great visual to create. Doing this however meant that logically the Doctor's Tardis would need to be included in the image so I asked Joe add this also.

Once I had received the completed line work I created the time vortex using ink textures that have so far been well received. Following this I coloured the piece. When it was finished I consulted with Joe who was happy with the outcome suggesting that a bit of additional shading was needed. We showed the piece to several of our peers who liked it and surprisingly had little or no critical comments about the work.

I feel that the collaboration has worked well and would be interested in working with Joe again in the future.

Here is the finished product;

EP: Victo Ngai - Visiting Professional

Today we had an inspiring talk from Victo Ngai an Illustrator who I previously knew little about, but judging by the tutors enthusiasm, was a big deal. After a quick look at her work this morning I have to say, I can see why people like her work, but it isn't my cup of tea. However what stood out to me was her professional demeanour.

When asked whether she had ever handed a brief in late she lately replied, "no". This struck a chord with me due to my recent slip up with the Guardian Brief submission, that I feel terrible about.

Victo's energy and enthusiasm for work was another highlight and it got me rather pumped for Thought Bubble tomorrow!

EP: Evan 'Doc' Shaner

Today I came across the comic book artist Evan 'Doc' Shaner whilst reading DC Comic's Green Lantern. His work has a quality that is reminiscent to that of 1960's cartoons made by Hanna Barbara, so I was not surprised to find out after a bit of research that he is soon to be drawing a comic book series called Future Quest starring an array of Hanna Barbara characters.

Shaner works digitally and incorporates Kyle Webster brushes into his work. I added touches of texture to La La Land issue #2 using these brushes and felt they worked quite well, so may return to them in the future. Shane's work makes me feel that whilst my efforts into using analogue processes more are needed, a digital only illustrative route is in fact possible.

EP: Stickers and Notebooks

To fill out my table at Thought Bubble I created three quick illustrations relating to the new Star Wars film, being that of Rey, Captain Phasma and BB8 (a sure fire fan favourite). I then thought about an achievable range of products that can be created using these images before Though Bubble next week. The easiest to create I my opinion were stickers and notebooks.

So after a short time in Digital Print and hour in front of the guillotine I now have these;



Whilst they were quick to produce they have a strong audience and predict they will be well received at Thought Bubble.

EP: Beyond La La Land Print

Today I printed off copies of my Beyond La La Land zine. I pulled both issues together to make a zine of 64 pages (excluding cover page) to sell at Thought Bubble. The down side to this is that due to the size of the zine, printing in colour would have cost me a large amount of money. So I printed the pages on typical A4 paper stock in black and white. However I felt that some colour was needed so printed the cover pages in colour on a thicker matte stock of 200gsm.

The outcome has a strong visual quality, despite the interiors being in shades of grey. Whilst it is disappointing not to have the whole zine in colour, it will suffice enough to help build my audience at Thought Bubble.

EP: Clone Idle Zine

Recently we were tasked with creating a zine for Leeds College of Art's illustration stand at Thought Bubble. I've held off doing so for some time as I chose to challenge myself and needed a full day of availability. I'm taking on the challenge of a 12 pages in 12 Hours, similar - but with a shorter time/page count to the 24 Hour comic challenge by Scott McCloud which can be read about here.

The rules were as follows, I had 12 hours to create a comic/zine from scratch. I had to think of a script, plan it out, draw the pages and add dialogue within that time frame. If I had a break that didn't mean the timer was frozen, it meant it ate into my work time.

Here is the outcome;



I must admit, I did fail - the work ended up taking 14 hours, however despite this - there is much to be proud of here. I created a story from scratch, illustrated it and formatted it in less than a day. If I could do this every day for a week for a week I'd become an illustrative machine. There are admittedly flaws with the work, such as having to use a digital font for dialogue, however I am very happy with the end product.

EP: Beyond La La Land #2 Complete

I have now completed the 2nd issue of Beyond La La Land. I found that as I went on with this issue my characters still looked quite static. To resolve this issue I began tracing over images of myself in poses that I needed the characters to be in specifically, rather than working the panels to suit images from the internet. I also gave some thought to how my panels sit against opposite pages. Doing so allowed for my later pages, where there was a fight scene, to look more energetic and exciting.

Despite the positives I still feel there is room for improvement with body language. This could possibly happen if I draw the pages in pencil first rather than relying on the restrictive digital drawing process that I currently use.

Here is an Issuu document of the 2nd issue;

EP: Statement of Intent

Here is my Statement of Intent for OUIL603 in which I discuss some of the briefs I am going to take on. It must be noted that these briefs are likely to change should different projects arise.

EP: Star-Lord Prints

Today I printed my Star-Lord pieces both in A3 for Thought Bubble and A2 for Travelling Man. I made the piece A3 and hadn't really thought about the visual quality of a scaled up version. Luckily, James told me there would be minimal loss of quality between the two sizes - however this is something for me to bare in mind in the future.

EP: Travelling Man Poster

Recently I took on a brief in which a group of level 6 students will each produce a poster for the Travelling Man Comic Store in conjunction with Thought Bubble 2015. I accepted this as it is a great opportunity for a wide range of people to see my work, and because I love comics.

Initially I decided to create a piece about a girl who falls in love with comics, this would be a poster but would have a small narrative to it. Evidence of this piece can be seen below;

However upon talking to the others in the group I realised a more commercial subject would be needed, with people making work about, My Neighbour Totoro, Futurama and The Dollars Trilogy. With this in mind I decided to put to use my Star Lord piece, which would now act as an A2 print for Travelling Man and separate A3 prints for Thought Bubble.

One rule of the poster design was that could only use these colours;

This helped resolve the earlier issue I had with my Star-Lord piece and its moody tones, which would now be brightened up with these colours. I spent a day playing around with these colours until I ended up with a variation I was happy with. Here is an example below, with the final outcome below that;

EP: Guardian Brief - Reflection

Whilst the end of this brief was a complete failure in terms of professionalism, overall I enjoyed working on this short project.

I found it interesting working in a different format (being 105mmx63mm) rather than the A format that I typically do. I may use different formats in later briefs, and possibly my CoP work. Additionally, I really enjoyed using texture again in my work and feel that my skill with it is definitely improving.

 I feel the exclusion of line work was an interesting choice as it is something that I rarely do. However, while certain editorial work does benefit from this visual quality, I can't see it becoming a permanent part of practice yet.

To summarise, I'd love to create work for the Guardian, and it is still one of my dreams, however by missing the submission, I feel that I have made that dream a bit harder for myself.

EP: Guardian Brief - Submission

Today was the submission deadline for the Guardian pieces and I forgot to submit on time! I could say this is due to a lack of sleep over the past few days, or because my girlfriend has been quiet ill recently, but ultimately I have only myself to blame for such monumental mistake.

I remembered the submission roughly an hour after the deadline and many of my peers suggested submitting anyway, however I feel that this would have been hugely unprofessional. This sort of mistake has never happened before and I feel foolish for it. However, I must live with my mistake.

Extended Practice: Potential Briefs

Here are a few additional brief's I could take on this year in the places of Studio Brief 2 or 3;

OffLife

I enjoyed the Offline competition in last years Responsive module and felt that it was the first time I engaged with narrative in a way that I wanted. Although I didn’t win last year - I am eager to give it another shot. I feel that my narrative and illustrative skills have come a long way since January and I feel that I have a much greater chance of getting work published in their magazine. The only downside to this brief is that I don’t think my work has the quirkiness that the magazine usually produces.

House of Illustration

I was saddened to have not taken on a House of Illustration brief last year and feel that this would be a great chance to produce some work with a few tweaks to my current processes. House of illustration is well known public charity and gallery with ties to the folio society so the level of work quality must be of an incredibly high standard. Their book competition is open until January 2016 so this will allow for a bit of time after Thought Bubble to complete.

EP: Guardian Brief - Colouring

Having planned out the line work for my Guardian brief submission, I began the next step of adding colour. I've also noticed that the Guardian has a knack for including work with interesting textures so began adding it to my pieces also.

Here are some examples of previous Guardian illustrations;



By Eva Bee



By Sebastian Thibault

Here are my Portfolio and Analogue pieces coloured with texture;





I intended to produce my Career piece in exactly the same way, however I ended up playing around the piece ended up as such;



I felt lack of line work to be a nice visual, so applied the same method to my initial two pieces also;





I much preferred this outcome as it gave a visual aesthetic more akin to that seen in the Guardian pieces I exampled. I could easily spend another few days working on  these, however with a very busy schedule at the moment I feel that it is time to draw a line through these pieces.

EP: Guardian Brief

Recently we were invited to create three images involving portfolio creation and career opportunities for the Guardian newspaper. I have chosen this to be Studio Brief 6 as I already have my initial 5 briefs in mind.

I initially struggled for ideas, eventually deciding on having them movie based scenes altered to include the topic of the pieces.

For the perfect portfolio I created an illustration of John Travolta's Vincent Vega looking into the mysterious briefcase seen throughout the film. However in this instance I changed the briefcase to a portfolio.




Following this I used the scene from American Beauty when Kevin Spacey's character fantasises about Mena Suvari's Angela Hayes. I replaced the famous rose petal's with CV's as a way of suggesting career opportunities.



Finally, I made a piece to comment on the argument of Analogue v Digital and used a shot of Harrison Ford's Han Solo from Star Wars: A New Hope. Here Solo famously shoots a bounty hunter looking for him, instead I replaced the hunter with an iMac to suggest Solo's preference to using analogue to digital.



I feel there is much more to be done on these pieces, but am happy so far with my chosen images for the brief.

EP: Studio Brief 1 - Brief Sheet

Here is the brief sheet for Studio Brief 1;

EP: Studio Brief 6 - Brief Sheet

Here is the brief sheet for Studio Brief 6;

EP: Potential Briefs

I've been giving some thought to what briefs I will take on this year. It's important to me that I focus my practice on briefs that'll interest me, unlike last years responsive when I found I hadn't enjoyed certain briefs, but had taken them on because I had to.

With this in mind here are my preliminary ideas for briefs over the next academic year;

Studio Brief 1;
Thought Bubble
In which I'll build a body of work to take to the comic festival.

Studio Brief 2;
Macmillan Children's Book Prize (or similar competition).
I've always wanted to create work for a children's book, with it being the focus of my Final Major Project during my foundation year. However I am unsure of my skill in this area, and feel my abilities may dictate me taking me on a different brief in the future.

Studio Brief 3;
YCN (or D&AD)
Although I don't like the idea of taking on another YCN or D&AD brief, I shall hold my breath, there may be something that comes out which peaks my interest.

Studio Brief 4;
Tory Chums
Although I will be focusing my CoP work around this I feel that my Tory Chums idea could gain traction as a marketable thing. However I will have to wait until after my CoP work is handed in before I can build on this to prevent confusion between modules.

Studio Brief 5;
Beyond La La Land
I've thoroughly enjoyed working on Beyond La La Land over the past few months and feel that I want it to become the final major piece that I work on for OUIL603. How I will adapt it to suit the module is something to think about, however.

EP: Summer Work - Peer Review

And we're back! After a day or two of paperwork related things, my final year has now begun. To start off we had a peer review consisting of all three levels of BA Illustration.

I had with me black and white printouts of 'Beyond La La Land' #1 and the first half of #2, and my Star-Lord piece. Additionally, I had a printout of my CoP3 work 'David Cameron and his Tory Chums' zine; a series of strips that may potentially lead into a Extended Practise brief also. Ideally I would have like to have presented my work in colour however until my student loan clears black and white is the only option.

Regardless of this, the response I received was great, with many people loving the world I have created in Beyond La La Land, wanted to read more. From a illustrative point, people appeared to really like my use of textures within the presented work. This is something I intend to develop across my career, so I'm glad it was well received.

Looking forward, I feel that Beyond La La Land has the potential to work as a big brief within EP. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes beyond Thought Bubble.

Here is my feedback sheet with some of the responses to my work;

EP Prep: Star-Lord

With just a week to go before returning to college I decided to relax somewhat by drawing for fun. Having recently watched Guardians of the Galaxy I decided to draw a Star-Lord piece, as I finished the line work, I realised that the piece could work well as a print to sell at Thought Bubble in November. The process for the completed piece can be seen here:



I can see a marked improvement in my line work in comparison to my 'Beyond La La Land' work. I will say that the weighting of some lines are perhaps a bit too heavy in some areas.

Additionally, whilst I really like the use of textures within this piece, I feel that the use of colour is definitely an area that needs to be worked on if it is to be sold. This is largely due to the over use of dark colours that bring the mood of the piece down and make it less visually appealing.

EP Prep: Beyond La La Land #2 - Part 1

Over the past few weeks I have had a short holiday (which was desperately needed) and finished the first half of the 2nd issue of 'Beyond La La Land'. Due to the small amount of time remaining before college begins again, I won't be able to complete a full second issue. I decided that rather than breaking the issue into 3 parts again, I would instead break it into 2.

During the creation of this work I tried to resolve the issue of static looking figures that held back parts of the first issue. To do this I scoured the internet looking for shots of people in more relaxed poses. This allowed for more fluid character movements, but I don't think this has yet been fully remedied yet.

Again this work has been posted to Gumroad for people to buy.

Here is the first part of the second issue;

EP Prep: Beyond La La Land #1 Complete

The first issue of Beyond La La Land has been completed. I found that the final pages were produced with ease largely due to my familiarity with the process at this point. The full story has been uploaded to Gumroad with several people having already bought it. My work now has an active audience!















However I must remain critical of my work if it is to improve. I felt that whilst the process become more refined over the course of the issue there is still remove for improvement. The largest problem with the issue is how static some of the characters look due to the process of tracing the collage. I'm hoping to tackle this in some way in the second issue, the biggest question being, how?

The complete issue is available to view here:

EP Prep: Beyond La La Land Part 2

The second part of Beyond La La Land has been completed and uploaded to Gumroad. This part of the story introduced Red and helped expand the world within the story.

The process of production has really begun to work well, with a few tweaks allowing for a quick output that retains a strong level of quality. For example, with the first 8 pages I drew, inked, coloured and textured each page individually, whereas this time I drew all 8 pages in one go, then inked all 8 pages etc. This allowed me to stay in a specific frame of mind for each task, rather than flipping to a different process every few hours. Additionally, I feel that the line work and texture use has become more refined in these latest eight pages.

Here are the pages discussed:

EP Prep: Beyond La La Land on Gumroad

The first eight pages of my story are now on Gumroad. Upon seeing a tweet by Jack Teagle about his products on Gumroad I decided to give it a shot myself. It is doubtful that anyone will it at this point buy my product, but it's out there and can potentially start building an audience now. Once all three parts are ready I'll upload a complete version onto the platform.

Concerning the title of the piece I decided on calling it 'Beyond La La Land'. The phrase La La Land refers to someone with their head in clouds, who doesn't quite think about things as they should. I felt this phrase represents the character of Alison well, as she has left the safety of her home (La La Land), and is now having to understand the world beyond it.

EP Prep: Initial Pages Development

The first 8 pages of my story are now complete. I have decided to complete the story in three sections of eight pages to help keep a tighter hold on the somewhat large project. The first pages were produced with just a brief idea in mind, however with the introduction of the 'Red' character in the next section felt that an actual script should be created before any more drawing was done.

I used the same tools as comic book illustrator Chris Samnee, whose work for Marvel is inspiring. He displays a great understanding of line weighting which is something I want to develop in my own practise. Examples of Samnee's work can be seen below.





There is clearly a lot of time investment needed if I am to match his quality of drawing, however I now have a starting point with the work created thus far.

I found that the time it took to create the pages shrunk as I went on, with my knowledge of the process allowing me to make work quickly and efficiently. I'm hoping that this trend will continue as I move onto the next section.

Here are the pages I have created thus far:

EP Prep: Reference Imagery

The "Red" story is set in a desert wasteland as already evidenced, but there re more areas that will be seen within the tale. With that in mind there was a need to research different environments. For this I used the internet, specifically Pinterest.

Below are collections of different environments that would appear in the tale:


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Desert on Pinterest.


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Lake on Pinterest.


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Woodland on Pinterest.


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Lagoon on Pinterest.


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Neda Waterfall on Pinterest.

Following this I decided to give some thought to the two main characters in the story, Alison and Red. Alison, I had already based on Ellen Page but felt that more research into her appearance would be beneficial to my work. Red however, needed to be a physically strong female, and I didn't really know of many strong females in that regard. However following a bit of investigation I discovered Christmas Abbott, an Olympic Athlete and CrossFit enthusiast, who largely fit the requirements for Red's character.

Here are the Pinterest boards I made for the two:

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Juno on Pinterest.


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Christmas Abbott on Pinterest.

With this visual research in mind, I can now move forward developing my story.

EP Prep: Initial Summer Idea

With Level 5 now over, I have some time to play around with ideas that have been floating around in my head for the last year. The most promising of these being the "Red" story that I began developing last summer and attempted to push forward with in OUIL505 before being advised that it wouldn't suit the module.

The story, influenced by Hester Pryne - the heroine of the Scarlett Letter, is about a girl, exiled from her home into a desert wasteland, where she must find a way to survive. There she meets the character of Red who is a suitably strong female role model for the girl.

Over the past few days I've been working on the initial pages. It's important here to discuss a point from my Level 5 Presentation in regards to the digital work I have been creating recently. Whilst I am happy with the process, I feel that there is room for more analogue work to take place. To succeed in moving away from digital I made a choice to play with inks and create a few textures for my story beforehand. 

After this I used a process of collaging images sourced from the internet in Photoshop. These images were then traced over to create a narrative story and printed out to ink over with fine liner.

The line work, along with the textures I had created were then scanned in and put together before being coloured digitally. I am happy with the outcome, however there is clearly room for improvement, which hopefully will come from more experience with this process.

Here is the process of development and the final outcomes:

I feel that there is a future in this story and it could potentially be sold at Thought Bubble in November.

Applied Illustration: Project Report

Here is my project report for OUIL505:

Applied Illustration: Studio Brief 3: Presentation Boards

Here are my final presentation boards for studio brief 3:

Applied Illustration: Studio Brief 2 - Final Outcomes

Here are the final outcomes for studio brief 2:

Applied Illustration: Studio Brief 1 - Visual Journal

He are a selection of the stronger pages within my Visual Journals:

Applied Illustration: Printing Session 2

Today I finally got my work printed off. Finally.

I spent a good few hours in the print room today (luckily I dealt with James this time). He is much more efficient, although he did mishear me a few times (see A2 Matte leaflet and 150gsm glossy bookmarks for examples). Regardless - I now have all of my studio brief 2 work ready for hand in on Thursday.

On a side note, after much deliberation and recommendation from my peer review, I decided to print my pink Scarlett Letter Poster as the final version for hand in.

I feel that my forward planning in securing an additional print slot several months back really paid off. I had no idea it would play such an important role in this module, but I am glad it was there. Going into Level 6 I'm going to make several bookings around the deadline dates so I am prepared for such emergencies as encountered within this brief.

Applied Illustration: Final Peer Review

This morning I took part in a final peer review for OUIL505. My feedback was quite positive with only small issues arising.

Here are the boards that I presented:



Firstly, Becca and Rosie both informed me that they liked the pink Scarlett Letter One Sheet poster - luckily I have another print session booked before the final hand in so will be able to amend this issue.

Secondly, my blog needs a small bit of work. I'm aware that my blog has fallen behind in the last few days due to how busy I've been, but overall I am very happy current my blogging has been throughout this module.

Becca also pointed out that my presentation boards would look better if the descriptive text was below the imagery.

Additionally, they failed to see how ITV ties into the Cineworld and Waterstones aspects of my project. It turns out that this was due to them not reading my boards or blog correctly so I won't consider this an issue any longer.

So this evening I spent my time making alterations to my boards (see below), prepping my pink Scarlett Letter Poster for print and getting the remaining few days of my blog up to date. Overall I am very happy with how today went. I feel that with no outstanding issues apparent the next week should go quite smoothly.

Applied Illustration: Leaflet Completion

My leaflet is finally completed! Designed as a prologue to the Scarlett Letter (both book and TV Event) in a way to whet the visual appetites for the viewer. I am quite pleased with the outcome. However I decided to go back to the pink Scarlett Letter imagery as this looks more visually interesting than the oil coloured one I made. The downside to this is that the colouring between the front imagery and the narrative inside is somewhat at odds. Given more time I would have liked to have recoloured the front to match the quality inside.

Applied Illustration: Printing Session 1

Due to my detour into acrylic paints etc, I unfortunately didn't have much work to print today (specifically my leaflet). I put this down to poor time management - I should have realised I didn't have time for such experimentation as a late stage of my project. On the flip side of this, I wouldn't have found the Kyle T. Baker brushes that I have quickly taken into my illustrative heart.

Concerning the prints I did have -
My bookmarks were sized incorrectly due to my own idiocy preventing me to print them today. I will have to rectify these at some point. In the future I will have to double check all of my document sizes to prevent this issue from happening.

My A1 poster printed very well. I settled on printing my redesigned cinema one sheet as feedback suggested this was the better of the two. I personally felt that the older one would actually look better printed at such a size.

Finally I attempted to print my stickers and well, it didn't happen - sort of. The new digital print guy is a bit of a tool in my opinion. When I booked the print slot James informed me that whoever was on at the time would be able to walk me through the technical side of sticker printing so I could prepare them myself in the future (in turn making the process much easier for the staff). However, when it came to making them, the chap seemed annoyed that I asked to make stickers and instead of walking me through it, grumbled (obscenities) to himself and quickly prepped them. I still have no idea how to do this process. Hilariously they, after printing, failed to cut so he informed me I would have to wait roughly two hours to get them done as he had a back log of other print bookings. I am more than annoyed and have decided to instead cut the stickers myself. I don't look forward to using digital print again next week.

Applied Illustration: Scarlett Letter Refinement

This morning I printed off my digitally drawn pages in cyan with the intention of drawing over the work to give it a hand made feel. This process resulted in great looking line work that feels like it was hand crafted rather than the cold digital line work of before. These images were then scanned in and the cyan removed. Following this I felt a bit lost, I had no idea how to colour my work with a tool that would be quick to use and give an aesthetically appropriate quality. I spoke to Joe S. and he recommended I download a digital brush pack from Kyle T. Wester. This brush pack has a variety of paint like brushes including acrylic and oils. I intended to use the acrylic brushes but found that one of the oil brushes worked so much better! So I decided to use these regardless as it added the aesthetic quality I was looking for.

Using these brushes I also coloured in an additional Scarlett Letter One Sheet. It is common for films and events to have a range of posters before their release so I have acknowledged that here. Additionally, I have made a small range of items that could use this design.

Applied Illustration: Acrylic Experimentation

Following on from my research into different Acrylic artists I spent the day playing with textures for pages that I drew digitally over the past few days. I felt that these textures looked really good and would add an interesting aesthetic to the pages I have drawn.


I added these textures and ones that I found on the internet. Admittedly they did look visually intriguing and added a bit of soul to my work, however this process took a large amount of time to produce and put into the drawn pages. With my print deadline on Wednesday (two days away), I fear that this process will take too long to make, I need to find a quicker, yet affective process to help get my work made.

Applied Illustration: Artist Research

In response to yesterday's tutorial I began searching for illustrators who use acrylic paint before research specifically the artists that I chose to research yesterday. I found that while some of their work was used quite realistically there were those that used their skills for a somewhat abstract illustrative aesthetic. I don't feel that this is the way to go with my work despite the inspiration I found from looking at these artists.


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Marianna Sztyma on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Hope Gangloff on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Laura Carlin on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Coles Phillips on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Penelope Dullughan on Pinterest.

Applied Illustration: Tutorial

I had another tutorial today with Eleanor which I found very usefully as I've felt somewhat cold towards my work since jumping back onto it post Responsive and CoP hand in; needing a bit of guidance.

We came to the conclusion that I have the 'Applied' aspect of this module fully realised but I'm lacking in the 'Illustration' side of things. I told her that I've been working digitally a lot lately as I find I can sit at a computer to work longer than I can sit in front of a sheet of paper with a pencil. She recommended that I sit down and have a play with acrylic paints as this would add to an aesthetic that would compliment the timeframe of my work. This would also help what I have produced earlier in Studio Brief 1 tie into what I am doing in Studio Brief 2. At this point in time I feel that there is a disconnect between the two so appreciate that they need to inform each other more.

After the tutorial I went to the library to find contemporary artists that use acrylic paint to work with and withdrew several books.

Before Tuesday I will have experimented and played with acrylics to the point where I have something useful to develop further.

Applied Illustration: Sticker Stock

With the intention of printing stickers alongside the rest of my work on the 6th of May I thought it best to visit James in Digital Print to make sure he'd have stock for such a task. James said that whoever is working Wednesday will run me through the process of preparing stickers in Illustrator, a simple process if you know how. Unfortunately he told me that he has been out of the paper sticker stock for some time now and all of his suppliers are out too. However he does have a fair amount of acetate like sticker stock.

I remember Adam had used this previously for his Thought Bubble stickers and was pleased with the result. Now, for distribution, I would have them printed on paper stock, but for the purpose of this module I suppose I'll have to settle for the acetate stock.

Here is an example of Adam's acetate stickers:

Applied Illustration: Character Study

Today I've been drawing images of Anne Hathaway and Mia Wasikawa's interpretation of Jane Eyre set roughly in the same time frame as The Scarlett Letter. This will help my understanding of what the characters within my leaflet will look like. I've decided that due to time constraints 8 pages is a bit ambitious so instead of creating a small zine for the event, I will instead create a leaflet that will be given away at the release of the film/tv event instead. It will follow two women as they head to release of Hester Pryne from prison (where the tale begins). I felt that this would work as it would whet the viewers appetite before the film - they would already have an interest when the film begins.

This leaflet will have four narrative pages within, and have the necessary logos etc on the exterior. I imagine a good size will be around A5 with glossy Digigreen stock that weighs 150gsm per sheet.

I also set about drawing some environments using digital tracing. These environments look somewhat static, ordered and straight. I'll have to find a way to resolve this issue.

Here is my process from today:

Applied Illustration: 'A' Stickers

In regards to product and range I've already established that I have these aspects pretty much covered now. However I couldn't help but think of the poor people that go to the cinema to watch The Scarlett Letter and don't receive a free gift. So I've decided to produce stickers with the letter 'A' on them also.  They will be purchased from Camaloon, a personalising sticker service. 74mm stickers seems like a reasonable size and if I order over 10,000 I get a 79% discount - this means that each of the 82 Cineworld branches would receive over 100 stickers for customers. These would be handed out with tickets once the t-shirts have all been given away. The cost for these stickers is £779.83 after VAT, there is currently no shipping cost given.

I went about designing the stickers and decided that to make the 'A' stand out on whatever colour clothing the customer is wearing the background needed to be white.

Applied Illustration: Peer Review

Today I had another peer review. It went rather well and I received some positive feedback. In the way of range and distribution I pretty much have sorted by the sounds of it. The only really negative point that I received was that there was still a lack of work for the zine aspect. The zine is the main draw of my project in my opinion and its a shame that I haven't had chance to work on it yet.

Applied Illustration: 'A' T-shirt

Today I spoke to Adam and we discussed how we'd faired over the easter period with our workloads. We'd both agreed that due to our CoP and Responsive modules being in soon, we hadn't had much time to concentrate on Applied Illustration, unfortunately.

Anyway, I informed Adam of my idea to create the cut out letter 'A' for customers visiting Cineworld and he suggested that it could be much simpler to produce t-shirts for customers. I agree, this was a good idea, however the costing of producing so many shirts would be high, so I would limit the free shirts to the first 20 or so customers. This shirts could be brought on mass from Jones T-shirts, a U.S. company. With 5, small, 10 medium, and 5 large shirts the cost would come to $35.80 with $10.95 delivery charge. That is $46.75 in total. With 82 Cineworld cinemas within the UK that would come to $3833.50.

I set about designing the shirt. Initially I placed the associated company logos at the bottom with the Scarlett Letter title below the 'A' but felt that this didn't work well, so moved the title lower, to just above the logos. This felt much more aesthetically pleasing.

Responsive: Evaluation

My approach to Responsive was a bit of a mixed bag. Whilst I struggled somewhat with developing my work to a degree I was happy with and juggling briefs around my other modules I did however develop several skills such as how to effectively create boards for briefs, improve my presentational skills and collaborating with others. I feel I have particularly improved in regards to presentational skills due to the high number of peer reviews we had. I found the group sessions quite useful in Responsive, specifically the early sessions where we broke down the YCN briefs. This allowed me to understand that the big scary companies weren’t big and scary at all, they were actually somewhat in need of me.

However creating work for such companies, and these kinds of briefs in general didn’t and still doesn’t appeal to me. The idea of helping to reinvent a company just left me feeling cold and I feel that this attitude ultimately resulted in me not asserting myself as much as I could for the Propercorn brief and to a degree the Yorkshire Tea brief also. However briefs such as Filmdoo and Hyde Park Picture house where I was creating posters, or Off Life and Thought Bubble where I was creating narrative stories were quite different in many regards. Largely because this is the area of Illustration I see myself working towards post graduation. These were the briefs where I feel that most of my better work took place and where my approach to image making developed most. I pinpointed that collage, a technique I have dabbled in before, and watercolour use were areas where my work looked most interesting. Whilst I don’t think the work I produced using these methods was of a particularly exceptional standard, I feel that I have developed enough as a professional to notice that there is something to these methods that deserves my attention. Beyond water colouring and collage I can see that there is a marked improvement with my digital skills, especially over the past few months. When I compare my Offlife narrative to that of my final Propercorn outcomes the skill is drastically improved in my opinion.

However despite the positive points of Responsive there are still negative points to address such as my time management. I felt that I failed largely in this aspect of Responsive. This is both partially due to my busy schedule and other modules I was working on, but it is largely due to my lack of self-management. There were multiply occasions where I’ll openly admit I put off Responsive work in favour of another module, this had a detrimental effect on my ability to research and develop concept ideas to a degree that I know I’m capable of. For example, whilst I am happy with my ability to create presentation boards, I am aware that there is room for improvement. Maybe this improvement could have occurred during the Responsive module had I managed my time better. The same could be said for my research skills. Research was an area that I tripped up on several times, without a strong research based work is never as informed as it could be and this is quite apparent in several briefs that I took on, specifically the Propercorn and Yorkshire Tea briefs. Had more research been done early on, I believe I could have produced much strong ideas and developed worked that I could be truly proud of.

If I could go back again this is one area I would definitely improve upon. I would also spend more time to recognise what illustrative technique is needed for a specific brief. For example; I could easily have used collage for my Filmdoo and Guardian briefs to wield much more interesting responses in a much shorter amount of time. Finally I would have embraced my work in the collaborative brief more. I allowed Hollie to do most of illustrative side of things within this brief as my lack of confidence in my own skill won out. Had I been more assertive we could have produced a response that may have been a better amalgamation of our separate styles.

Going forward, I plan to make use of the acknowledgement that my time management and research abilities have been a bit lax. It is integral to my professional practise that these areas improve as they are effectively what can make or break an illustrator. That and whether my work is winning material.

Applied Illustration: 'A' Cutout

With other modules taking up much of my time I've had little change to work on OUIL505 for a while now unfortunately. So, today I designed a cut out of the Scarlett Letter 'A' with the intention that this could be handed out to customers at Cineworld when they buy a ticket to the Scarlett Letter. They will then be able to pin the letter to their chests mimicking Hester Pryne.

The piece is relatively simple in design as I can't imagine Hester wearing an ultra elaborate, and nice to look at, marking of her sin. So why would the customers have that either?

Responsive: Project Report

Here is my Project Report for Responsive in which I discuss the briefs that I took on throughout the module.

Responsive: Studio Brief 2 - Yorkshire Tea Individual Boards

Here are the boards for the Yorkshire Tea brief I took on with Hollie. These boards focus on my role within the collaboration, collected together within and Issuu document:

Responsive: Studio Brief 1 - Propercorn Presentation Boards

Here are my presentation boards for the Propercorn brief I took on in Studio Brief 1:

Responsive: Studio Brief 1 - Presentation Boards

Here are my presentation boards for the briefs I took on throughout Studio Brief 1, collected together within an Issuu document:

Guardian Political Poster

Over the last few days I've been working on a political poster for a Guardian competition aimed at art students. It was a relatively simply brief that was quite open in the respect that all was asked was for an election poster to be made that was in the same vein as the anti-Labour posters of the past.


I initially went with an idea of highlighting several of the Tory elite (Cameron, Osbourne and Boris Johnson) from their Bullingdon Club days, however I thought that was too silly and wouldn't work very well as an election poster. I created these images using watercolour and found that I quite enjoyed doing so.



I chose to use watercolour again for my second attempt at a poster. This time I decided to go darker, much darker by likening David Cameron to Hitler. Hitler believed that he needed to find a 'final solution to the Jewish problem'. Using this phrase I spun it around to reflect the working classes instead.

I am rather happy with the final outcome for this but feel that perhaps I could have found a way to merge the digital and hand made aspects of the poster more effectively.

On a side note, I didn't receive an email notification for this entry just a thanks from the website which was a bit odd.

Filmdoo Poster Competition: Submission

After some minor adjustments to my poster I felt that it was finally ready for submission.

I have probably spent more focused time on this one piece than I have anything else in a while and I am very happy with the outcome. It probably won't win but I don't care at this point. I found joy in creating a piece of work and thats all that matters to me.