This new week means the start of a new project- quite the relief! As much as I enjoyed the riso project, it was very overwhelming learning literally an ENTIRELY new process, from the design basics to the niggly little details surrounding printing and technical issues. I’m not completely done with riso printing, however- I still hope to use it more actively in the new year, especially for print editions to sell at final show.
Onto the new project- Character and Narrative Development! As much as this represents its own set of experimental challenges, I’m hoping it’ll be a little more of a gradual learning curve, rather than the ‘throw myself in the deep end’ approach of the riso printing process ^^”
Thus far, I’m deep into the research portion of my workflow- since this project has been on my mind for a very long time (read: years), I already had quite a good vision of what the aesthetics of the environments and characters will look like. As such, my list of existing artist inspiration is long! To name a few, Nicole Gustafsson, Taryn Knight and Heikala are some of the most influential people I’ve looked at (examples of their work below.)
More on this in my artist research file, but I especially love Gustafsson’s work with anthropomorphic characters- this will be a big source of inspiration for my deer-man character. A similar simplified art style like Heikala’s work would work well for the animation, as I must always be mindful of the level of detail in the imagery- while I’ve timetabled quite a few weeks to realise the project, I don’t want to overwhelm myself with detail in the work.
I want the piece to have a warm, familiar feel with a woodsy colour palette for the most part- with warmer, organic tones for the deer-man and more youthful, fresh colours for the centric female character. More details on character, aesthetic and the more technical side of my project are documented in my initial mind map:
For the rest of the week, I’m aiming to make some mood boards that can portray my intentions for aesthetic, colour and character design in a very strong way- I often struggle to find faith in my initial ideas, especially when pitching them to other people, so I’m hoping a few mood boards that are well put together will aid me from the outset. (…did I also mention that mood boards are an excellent prop to hide behind during formal presentations…?)
In addition, I often like to fully flesh out my characters with MBTI personalities and trait lists… all part of my process to feel more connected to my characters. This will be the main focus of next week.
More soon ♥
References
Collingwood, C. (2018). Personal Project 2: Initial Mind Map.
Gustafsson, N. (2018). Shiba Spellcaster [Acrylic].
Heikkala, L. (2018). Astrochemist [Ink].
Knight, T. (2018). Untitled [Watercolour].
chalon joy collingwood 