EP: Self Defence Guide - Reference Images

Today, I finally took a large step towards resolving this brief, having been distracted recently by the PPP hand in. My girlfriend and I took many, many reference images for a self defence leaflet I'm going to create. Seen here;



After looking at the outcomes I have to say, I'm quite happy with my girlfriend filling in the role of 'Red' from La La Land. Part of me is upset to effectively leave the last remnant of my La La Land idea behind, but I'm happy with the direction of where this is going, with many of the themes of the project still present, just in a different capacity.

EP: Peer Review 29/04/16

Today I took part in a peer review with the rest of the Level 6 students which was somewhat reassuring, however, not entirely informative. The aspects of my work that need to be improved upon are things I am already aware of. My ability to reflect upon these areas and improve on them was also noted, with my blog providing evidence of such. Additionally, my decision to move my big project from La La Land to Tory Chums was well received, being the more logical choice of the two. The water colouring visual quality in my Tory Chums was better received than the digital colouring, if I can combine this method with my recent improvement in line work, I feel I may be onto something big here. Finally my line work and understanding of character form was discussed, with both noticeably improving through Studio Brief's 3 and 5.

To prepare for todays session and best inform whoever was looking at my work, I created a presentation board for each brief I have taken on. I feel this added an extra level of professionalism to my work and helped make my it easier to understand.

EP: Studio Brief 3 - Reflection

Studio Brief 3 was an interesting brief for me in that the end product was less important to me than the visual investigation throughout. I know this should technically be the case for all of my work, but I feel as thought I really took that philosophy to heart within this brief.

Whilst I initially started out using a dip pen I ended up using a digital brush pen by Kyle Webster that created crisp line work with great variance in weighting. Additionally I feel that my understand of colour has improved with a smaller colour palette. These slightly muted colours allow an extra vibrancy to my work whilst not making the pieces look garish. 

However the brief wasn't a complete success for me, I don't think I delved deep enough into texture investigation. Pieces such as the Mad Max poster and Deadpool show the beginnings of halftone understanding but this really wasn't capitalised upon.

Overall, I am happy with the work produced through this brief, and now have several pieces that, with a bit of tweaking, could work a posters for events such as Thought Bubble and Birmingham ICE.

EP: Boris Sketchbook Work

Whilst I have David Cameron's visual identity pretty much nailed due to my investigations in CoP, there is much worked needed to be done with Boris, the second primary character of my story.

Whilst other characters will play smaller roles, I expect Boris to be as prevalent as David. He has a very interestingly shaped face, something that I initially struggled to comprehend at first, however after a bit of repetition, I feel that I am a step closer to understanding his face and form.

EP: Wolverine - Complete

Over the past few days I've been refining and colouring my Wolverine piece. Looking at the final piece I feel that my line work has vastly improved over the course of this module and is becoming more evident in my other briefs also. Here is the final version;

I made a number of small changes aesthetically to the rough version, such as the inclusion of a boarder, which I thought worked well with my Mad Max and Deadpool illustrations. Additionally, my understanding of colour and shading has greatly improved as evidenced in this piece however, I feel that the biggest hinderance is that I didn't take advantage of texture play throughout this brief. Some it is evident in the experimentations I made below though;

EP: When Boris Met David

I have become recently become aware that my knowledge of David Cameron's time at University is pretty limited, so to resolve this I spent my day researching 

Here is the College's website where I began my investigation;

https://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk 

This lead me to the College's Wikipedia page;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasenose_College,_Oxford

Which, in turn lead me a satirical documentary by Channel 4 about the period of time at Oxford when David met Boris and they joined the Bullingdon Club. I initially couldn't find the program via the channel's digital services, however due to the wonders of the internet found it on Vimeo;

https://vimeo.com/74365223

Thought the documentary I learnt much about Cameron and Johnson, with accounts from people that knew them, but very little was actually mentioned about the time leading up to David's acceptance into the Bullingdon Club. I feel that this would be a fantastic period to set my short story, with David's initiation into the Club and the subtle beginnings of his strained relationship with Boris. And of course I can include the tale of the Pigs head, or Piggate, as it is known in the media;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate

EP: Bullingdon Club Poster

Whilst watching When Boris Met Dave today I sketched out an idea for a Bullingdon Club poster. It was inspired by this comic book cover by Tyler Kirkham.



I altered the image to have the David Cameron reaching out for a five pound note, suggesting the importance of money to these people. This is somewhat contradictory to the nature of the Bullingdon Club however, as one of the ideologies of this group is to show the money has little to no meaning to them.



With this in mind I've decided to shelve this poster. It was enjoyable to draw whilst watching When Boris Met Dave, but is defeated by it's mixed message.

EP: Self Defence Guide - Research

With my visual investigation into self defence imagery underway it made sense to research actually self defence techniques. After a quick peruse on the internet I found a site with a list of techniques, poorly illustrated by random images. See here for example.

Whilst I feel the information is quite sound, these techniques could be better illustrated with a collection of illustrations of the same visual quality.

EP: Tory Chums - Bullingdon Research

After Tuesday's peer review with Patrick, Becky F and Rosie W, I decided that if I am to complete a Tory Chums comic set in the Bullingdon Club Days I'm going to need to research past events rather than responding to topical news stories as The Tory Chums strips currently do.



I found this picture of David Cameron during his Bullingdon Club days, however I only recognised Cameron and Boris Johnson so had to research further who the others were. Luckily I found a news article that explained who each member was.

Bullingdon Club Class of '87

The additional people, whilst having roles within the narrative I'm forming, won't have more than a secondary role behind David and Boris, two people that are very relevant to modern politics.

With CoP and PPP now resolved, I'm happy that I will now be able to devote all of my working time to my remaining Extended Practice briefs.

EP: Wolverine

With the end of this module fast approaching, I thought it best to wrap up Studio Brief 3, having spent plenty of time investigating line work, colour and some texture in the form of bitmap half tones.  So I set to work on a piece focusing on Laura Linney, the current (female) Wolverine from Marvel Comics.

I began the piece by finding a suitable pose for her character from livemodelbooks.com, a model website Zarah introduced me to recently. I then added two men that would act as criminals for the piece.

Here is the image;

After this, with the characters poses set out I began drawing my own image over the top in a rough. This took a surprising amount of time but I am happy with the outcome, and am ready to refine it over the next few days.

EP: Progress Surgery

This morning I had a progress surgery with  Patrick, Becky F and Rosie W. In it we discussed each others projects and how they have been moving along since CoP and PPP  finished. Unfortunately mine has progressed that well recently which has warranted a change to focusing on my Tory Chums work.

Everyone was really helpful with feedback and gave me a clear direction on where I should go, whilst reminding me that that is little time left to make a huge project. Becky suggested I could make a piece set with David and Boris at University, whilst Patrick suggested I make work about background politicians akin to the BBC's 'The Thick of It'. Whilst I like both ideas, I feel that combining them to differing degrees would be more effective. My initial idea was for a short comic set around the boys time in the Bullingdon Club, seen through the eyes of a random student. This comic would include references to modern issues such as Tax Havens, The EU and Piggate.

Whilst I am flowing with ideas at the moment, I am also very aware that there is an extremely little amount of time to create this work.

EP: Final Project Brief

Having recently changed my mind about my final project for OUIL603, I was happy for Fred to provide us with blank brief sheets to fill in today. Since becoming my final project I haven't had the chance to review the brief and make sure it is appropriate for a final piece of work. Additionally, with the advice Fred and Patrick provided us, I feel that this brief has an immediately larger range of possibilities than my La La Land work. See the brief below:

EP: Presentation Feedback

Yesterday I presented my Creative Strategy for PPP. There were numerous positives and negatives to the presentation that have little purpose here, however one thing stood out, my commission of Tory Chums.

I completely forgot about this work and didn't mention it in my presentation, and numerous people, including several tutors, have since informed me that they were disappointed by its non-presence. However, no one has mentioned my big brief concerning my Beyond La La Land work. This has cemented for me the decision to reign in that work and instead focus on my Tory Chums pieces. Whilst this may seem like a drastic shift, I am confident in my ability with this brief, having focused on it in CoP and continued making work for it since then.

However if I am to do so, I will need to go back into my sketchbook and visually research more to make Tory Chums a truly visual experience to accompany the work.

EP: Studio Brief 2 - Reflection

I found the Crispin Orthotics brief to be a mixed bag. Whilst I enjoyed creating a piece of work that had a purpose beyond making a profit or looking visually appeaing like my Thought Bubble or Poster work, I don't feel it was necessarily the right brief for me. The brief from my point of view is best suited for a fashion student, of which I am not.

Additionally, I think my design could have done with a more in-depth visual investigation. With this brief I went from research to final design in one sitting and I feel it is apparent. The final outcome, whilst well presented, is somewhat boring and uninspired.

I doubt I will win this competition, but I don't mind as it would feel undeserved. However as stated, I am happy to have had the chance to create a piece of work with a purpose and hope to carry this attitude forward into my remaining briefs.

EP: Crispin Orthotics - Submission

Today I submitted my Crispin Orthotics work. Me being the fool that I am, completely forgot to send the accompanying competition entry form with my work. Luckily Sharon (who is dealing with the contest on the College's side of things) picked up on this and informed me.

I put my designs onto a project board similar to that which we did in Responsive last year (see here). I felt that this added a level of professionalism to my work, which I feel is highly important to my practice.