Tag: SWOT

evaluation

Year Evaluation

Chalon Joy

It’s that time!~

I’m so close to handing everything in, and before I do so I need to reflect upon the year as a whole- the good, the bad and everything in between!

 

Semester 1

I hit the ground running for Semester 1 after a disappointing year repeating the second year of my degree at CCAD (now the Northern School of Art). I had big plans for the year, outlining some pretty ambitious projects for the coming months, including a fully fledged animation project and a few familiar competition briefs from the past, e.g. the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, which has always had a very engaging theme year on year.

Risograph Printmaking: The first project I decided to work on was the Riso project- I’d heard about the new printing facilities and was eager to try them out as part of the initial Semester 1 term, which was highly focused on skills development and experimentation with new techniques.

This proved to be a very steep learning curve, but I did enough research to somewhat know what I was doing. At this stage, we only had 3 ink colours and a plain black ink drum, which made my options somewhat limited. However, these colours produced a very ‘traditional’ riso print with the strong pink and blue inks, which was outside my comfort zone yet felt very fitting for my first go with the medium.

I was pleased that I’d given it a try, despite being a bit iffy with my final image- it felt quite far away from the rest of my body of work. At the time I wanted to revisit the process, but my current plans didn’t leave much room for negotiation.

Penguin Student Award: The next two projects were worked on simultaneously- the Penguin Student Award and my personal project, Narrative Animation Development.

I chose Wonder by R.J. Palacio as the subject for the Penguin Award, as I was already familiar with the story and thought there’d be some really nice visuals to experiment with. I actually really enjoyed working on this, as it was a valuable experience that had clear industry links, which felt very worthwhile. I also loved getting back into typography and layout, as I hadn’t had a chance to work with these elements since my disastrous Pavilion Books brief while at CCAD (…maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it definitely felt that way). My final image was successful, even though I could have spent a little more time on the imagery rendering and overall finish.

This project was completed in the space of around 2 weeks, which was a feat for me since I tend to spend way too much time mulling things over in the research and development stages- which unfortunately impacted my work for the latter Narrative Animation project. :c

Narrative Animation Development: I was super excited to start work on this particular project as a finale for Semester 1, as it was based around an idea that had been mulling around in my head since the end of my FdA (summer 2017). I had planned for this to be my FMP at CCAD, which never happened since I moved back to Newcastle College after a tumultuous year. Therefore, I was determined to make it happen and started out with a concept project that would lead onto the animation realisation in Semester 2.

As I worked, I was easily able to map out my characters since they’d been fully formed for quite some time. There were negligible changes in appearance, but this was mostly practical so they were simplified enough to animate. However, time started to become very short and I ended up scrapping some of the more interesting elements of the project, including the background/environment designs which I was very eager to work on. My final project consisted of two character boards and accompanying development, some environment mood boards and a set of storyboards for the narrative.

At this point, I was well and truly knacked and vowed to never overstuff my proposal again.

Semester 2

Semester 2 was a bit of a disorganised monster, as I was so tired and stressed after the self-imposed heavy workload of Semester 1. I was very mindful when mapping out my proposal for this term- which led to the sad decision to remove the Animation Realisation project from my work plan. Ultimately, it felt too disconnected from the rest of my work planned for the year. Perhaps this is because the original inception of this project was quite a while ago, and I’ve grown as a person and an artist since then. Coupled with the immense amount of work it would take, I decided to postpone this project to be realised in my own time after my degree.

This left me with a bit of a gap in my schedule, so I decided to fill this in with a second Riso project after my pleasant experience in Semester 1. I had planned for the last commercial project to be the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, which felt was achievable, as well as being a good opportunity to create a stand out portfolio piece for the year. The final personal project was my Portfolio project my default.

Risograph Realisation: This time around I felt much more comfortable with the process and its capabilities, so I was able to utilise the full potential of the risograph printer. We also had some new ink colours which was a very welcome addition- the teal and purple inks created some really nice effects on my final artwork, and I was happy to be able to create artwork with these specific colours in mind.

My final pair of prints was based on my travels last year, with an emphasis on the cross-cultural aesthetics of Chinese and Japanese design and symbolism. I was much happier with my outcomes compared to Semester 1, but I value both of the projects in my wider progression as an artist- I really want to continue to utilise this printing technique in my career and further work.

Cheltenham Illustration Awards: This project was nicely familiar to me, so there wasn’t really any struggle with the process or research elements. The theme this year was ‘Tales of Unity’, which was perhaps a little more niche and specific than in the past. Nevertheless, after a bit of initial struggle drafting out a suitable concept, I was able to use my new digital skills to effectively create a final piece that will serve as a centrepiece for the year (and final show).

Although I was used to the process, this project caused the most stress as it was completed in a short space of time right before the deadline (as the Risograph Realisation project overran by an alarming amount of time). I regret not leaving more time for the final realisation as this could have potentially made it even better- however, a deadline is a deadline and I’m not about to lose even more sleep over something out of my hands now~

 

Portfolio Project: This was a mandatory update on my existing portfolio- since lots of the work was still relevant, this made the workload much lighter than I’d anticipated. It also included making an updated portfolio book, which was good fun last year and was nice to revisit again. I also gave my creative CV and business cards a bit of a facelift, and also launched a new website! chalonjoy.com ~

 

Outcomes

…and here’s the final products! Most have been dotted around my blog already, but these are also on my ~new~ portfolio website… just a sly bit of self promotion there. c:

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Anthropomorphic Deer Final Designs (Collingwood, 2018)

 

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Young Female Character Final Designs (Collingwood, 2018)

 

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Penguin Student Award: ‘Wonder’ Final Cover Art (Collingwood, 2018)

 

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Terrariums Risograph Print (Collingwood, 2018)

 

 

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Koi Fish Risograph Print (Collingwood, 2019)
Dragon_Final
Chinese Dragon Risograph Print (Collingwood, 2019)
FINAL_FILE_-3
Cheltenham Illustration Awards: Modernisation (Collingwood, 2019)

 

 

I’m now looking forward to final show, where I’ll hopefully be exhibiting my ‘best’ work from my degree, as well as selling some prints and other little bits of merchandise. I’ll blog about this afterwards too, even though my work will have (hopefully) been marked long before then!

 

Future Learning Plan/Progression

Targets and hopes for the future include:

  • Continuing to improve and enhance my skillset, particularly within commercial settings, and especially in pattern design and figural illustration- these are the two areas I enjoy working with most~
  • I also want to actively seek out opportunities for exposure, like open competitions and job openings that would suit my skillset. I’ll also look to improve my online presence, and look forward to fully launching my website and online store very soon!
  • Lastly, I want to endeavour to take life drawing classes, as I want to improve the figural elements in my work. They are my favourite thing to draw, but I still need to rely heavily on references to get something that looks remotely like a human. ^^” Hopefully having more free time will allow me to get stuck in at a weekly class, and I’m hoping to be able to draw more dynamic poses and better anatomy as a result. Especially hands. I hate hands.

 

As I jump over the last few hurdles before my deadline, I’ve found it to be quite cathartic to reflect upon the final year of my time as a student. I hope I manage to snag a First, but even if not I can safely say that I’ve tried my absolute best despite the drawbacks and issues I’ve faced in my life since returning to college.

I’m glad it’s all over after 4 years of deadlines and stress, but I’ll miss having a routine to stick to and a solid support network- I’ll have to build my own now ❀

 

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Anthropomorphic Deer: Final Character Board [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards: Modernisation [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Chinese Dragon Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Koi Fish Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2018). Penguin Student Award: ‘Wonder’ Final Cover Art [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2018). Terrariums Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Young Female Character: Final Character Board [Digital].

evaluation, portfolio, SWOT/Target Setting

Cheltenham Awards Final Piece Production

Chalon Joy

It’s been a busy week indeed!

In between running around like a headless chicken and trying to maintain a ‘healthy’ work/job/life balance, I’ve finally finished up my final project of the year ♥

It was quite an arduous process, but I think I actually really benefited from the super short time frame I’d been left with- not only was I working towards my deadline, I was also racing to get my art book submitted for publishing in time! I wanted this piece to be included, so that was another self imposed time limitation.

I created the piece on Procreate, using a variety of my own photos from my 2018 China trip to inform the architecture and layout. I clocked in just over 30 hours across 4 days according to the app, so here’s a wee time lapse video of my process to make a very long story short! (This is the 30 second quick cut- the longer time lapse video is about 12 mins long, and unfortunately I couldn’t quite get it to load up on Vimeo!)

 

So it was quite a linear, reassured workflow, but also had some new techniques being used since Procreate is a completely new tool to me since my last Cheltenham project in 2017. I’m really pleased with how far I’ve come, as my line art, layers and detailing/texture management has come leaps and bounds. While I still appreciate the flat, pastel-y appeal of my old Cheltenham piece, this newer one boasts a lot more depth, as well as a more experimental colour palette that really is quite ‘far out’ for me as an artist- up until now I really have been stuck in my ways with pastels and monotone, but the subject matter fully supported a warm, deep toned palette and I think it ties in quite well.

Here’s the finished piece- there’s loads wrong with it of course, but I’m content for now ♥

FINAL_FILE_-3
Modernisation (Collingwood, 2019)

 

Although I feel I’ve had a lot of success with this project, there were still some weak areas here and there- artwork wise, I think there’s still something amiss with the anatomy… but I have the time to fix this before final show, where I’ll hopefully be exhibiting this art as a centrepiece. If I’d have an ample amount of time prior to hand in this could have been fixed, but my workflow left me with a bit of a difficult situation- the way in which I’d blended the layers and applied tone and shading meant the line art and skin tones were across multiple layers, so it won’t be an easy task to correct this.

Working on this Cheltenham project has opened up lots more opportunities for me- I’m considering making a series of similar pieces based on my travels around the world. Also, when I submit this piece to the Awards I could potentially be featured in a catalogue showcasing selected entries from the year. Very exciting~

 

And with that, this wraps up my project work for Semester 2! Left to do is to finish off this blog, as well as some promo type stuff, like business cards, a creative CV and other artist-specific things like potential merchandise for final show. So, targets for the following week include tying up all the loose ends and making sure everything is ready and prepped for hand in, and also starting to think about final show- what I want to exhibit, sources for merchandise, and technicalities like layouts, exhibit space organisation, and marketing.

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation [digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Time Lapse .

portfolio, research, SWOT/Target Setting

Cheltenham Illustration Awards Progress

Chalon Joy

Its been a little while, but I’ve made some good progress since last checking in!

This week, I’ve been working constantly on concepts for my Cheltenham Awards piece- I want this to be culmination of my progression throughout my degree, so I want to make sure it’s suited to the brief, artistically and technically sound, and also something I’m proud of and can connect with.

When mapping out ideas for ‘Unity’ (the theme of the Awards this year), I thought back to my trip to China last year. The contrast between old and new Shanghai architecture, as well as the exceedingly blurred divide was reflected in the community around the city. It was a wild and dizzying blend of temples and traditional teahouses that were hundreds of years old, stood literally metres away from futuristic skyscrapers and the latest architectural marvels. It was so stunning, and unlike anything I’d ever seen! This really felt like the perfect thing to base my ideas on, so I set out making some concepts:

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‘Modernisation’ Concept 1 (Collingwood, 2019)
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‘Modernisation’ Concept 2 (Collingwood, 2019)
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‘Modernisation’ Concept 3 (Collingwood, 2019)

 

I’ve experimented with different background layouts, figural poses and blends of traditional and modern imagery. I chose the Pudong skyline as the background (very recognisable and iconic), with a selection of traditional architectural motifs based on the places I visited for the foreground surrounding the figure~

The idea fell into place quite quickly, as I was able to envision a rough layout after looking into my initial artist research, particularly the work of Sarah Joncas, as well as taking inspiration from my own past work:

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Left: Night Life (Joncas, n.d.). Right Haru ‘Springtime’ (Collingwood, 2017)

The combination of figural elements and landscapes is something I’m already familiar with, and I was eager to work on something that is both beautiful and detailed, with architectural elements that were new territory to me.

I think I’ll be able to realise this piece fairly ‘easily’ compared to my other projects, where half of the battle was technique and workflow. I’m confident in my ability to produce this piece on Procreate, even thought that in itself will be a slight learning curve. However, that just means this is a good opportunity to fully immerse myself in the software- I plan to do final tidy up and processing on Photoshop, but Procreate boasts most of the same functions, so I want to make sure I’m widening my skills as much as possible.

I’ll have to keep a close eye on my time restraints and other projects (e.g. this blog!), as not keeping up with any one of these will negatively impact my progress. This has been a major weakness throughout my degree, and it’s never been so critically important to keep this in check!

Targets for the next few days include working on this piece (probably constantly), while also finding time to start collating my portfolio work and prepping for hand-in~

 

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Haru ‘Springtime’ [mixed media].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Concept 1 [digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Concept 2 [digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Concept 3 [digital].

Joncas, S. (n.d.) Night Life [oil, acrylic].

research, SWOT/Target Setting

Semester 2 – Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2019

Chalon Joy

While I’m still working on finalising my risograph prints for Commercial Project 2 (hoping to have these printed in the next week or so), I’m going to start looking into the brief for the Cheltenham Illustration Awards (CIA) which was recently announced at the beginning of the month.

CIa 2019 Poster v2 900 web banner 2
Cheltenham Illustration Awards: Call for Entries 2019 (University of Gloucestershire, Sanfellipo, 2019)

 

In previous years the theme has been ‘Tangled Tales’ and ‘Tales Through Other’s Eyes’, so this year’s theme of ‘All Together Now: Tales of Unity’ is quite different. My first thoughts are that this theme is a bit less varied and not open to interpretation as much as the previous themes of 2017 and 2018. I worked on a piece for the competition in 2017 and was admittedly able to shoehorn it into the theme (‘Tales Through Other’s Eyes’) without too much bother; my design was only loosely based on the given brief.

This year, I plan to work much more closely with the given theme to produce something that is tailored to this concept, rather than trying to twist an existing idea into meeting the needs of the brief. Based on a mind map by my entire class that I photographed (Collingwood, 2019), I’ve taken some of the most appealing ideas and made my own mind map that expands upon these concepts:

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Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ (BA Hons Illustration) (Collingwood, 2019)

 

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Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ (Collingwood, 2019)

 

My piece from 2017 was done digitally, and I daresay this is the best way of creating artwork intended for online entry/print- I will most likely adapt a similar workflow of digitally collaging both traditional and digital motifs/imagery to create a piece that successfully showcases my skillset.

The competition is open to student, emerging and established illustrators, with a deadline of 1st June 2019 (a bit over two months away at the time of writing this post), so I’ll have right up until our degree deadline of the 13th May to create something really special.

 

On another note, there’s been another recently announced competition that is new for this year and based in the North East. Northern School of Art (formerly CCAD) is running The Northern Illustration Prize in association with AOI, with this year’s theme being Monkey, based on the bizarre legend of the Hartlepool Monkey.

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Northern Illustration Prize 2019 Banner (Northern School of Art, 2019)

 

I can’t say that theme has massively grabbed my attention, but with it being a new competition based in the North East it would be nice to enter. Since our degree course is brand new for this year, as a class we’re hoping to pull together some really good entries to put us on the map.

Like the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, it’s open to both emerging and established illustrators, with the prize being a fully funded studio in Hartlepool for one year. The prize is to mark the start of the Northern Festival of Illustration, a biennial event held in Hartlepool.

 

During these coming months I’ll have to be aware of my SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) more than ever, since I don’t want to let my grades slip at this crucial time. These are more of the same according to past projects- I’m good at realisation and research, but poor at timekeeping. This is both a weakness and a threat, but as this is the last project I’ll have to be acutely aware of how long is left before hand in- there’s no room for error here! Opportunity wise, I’m looking forward to be able to realise something and have full control over the outcome- most of my other projects have had a certain element of serendipity to them, where I’ve had to battle other elements in order to produce something I’m happy with.

 

My main target for the coming weeks will be to finish off the bulk of the work for the riso project- Once I get the images printed I can embellish the resulting prints at my leisure… or more likely, as an escape from what is most likely going to be hardcore planning and execution of this CIA 2019 project for the next few weeks!

References

Association of Illustrators (2019). The Northern Illustration Prize 2019 [online]. Available at: https://theaoi.com/northern-illustration-prize-2019/?fbclid=IwAR0SpwQXMjmh9nyb018JgubtDWu4bPB4FTi_RsSzLtgr2-e24vFmcGEoEz4   [Accessed 18 Mar 2019].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ (BA Hons Illustration) [photograph].

Northern School of Art (2019). Northern Illustration Prize 2019 Terms [online]. Available at: https://theaoi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/northern-illustration-prize-t-and-cs.pdf  [Accessed 18 Mar 2019].

Sanfellipo, A. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2019 – Call For Entries: All Together Now! Tales of Unity [online]. Available at:  http://www.cheltenham-illustration-awards.com/p/about.html [Accessed 8 Mar 2019]

Smith, R. (2019). ‘The Northern School of Art launches major international art prize ‘The Northern Illustration Prize’ [online]. NorthernArt.ac.uk. Available at:  https://northernart.ac.uk/the-northern-school-of-art-launches-major-international-art-prize-the-northern-illustration-prize/ [Accessed 18 Mar 2019].

 

evaluation, SWOT/Target Setting

March 2019 – Progress and Reflection

Chalon Joy

It’s been a week or so since my visit to the museum, and I feel that despite always feeling that I’ve never done enough work (this is probably part *actual* truth and part self belief issues haha), I’m happy that I’ve managed to nail down my final concept after a series of initial and developed designs.

I think this riso project dragged a bit for the first couple of weeks- I suspect this is due to the fact that I spent a lot of time researching into the imagery that I wanted to use. I’m very aware of this subject matter potentially walking a fine line between appreciation and appropriation, so I wanted to take the extra steps to ensure I was representing each culture accurately. I also made use of my current knowledge as I do have a strong general interest in this topic, but I’ve learned so much more through thorough research. It’s always better to be safe than sorry, and I’m pleased that I was also able to expand my research file with this~

Drawing out the initials is really tedious for me- I much prefer sketching out the development, since this is building on an idea I really want to do (rather than drawing out ‘filler’ ideas). I fully admit I usually have a somewhat fully formed initial idea in my head when I start a project, so it can be hard to stray from this or try to show enthusiasm for the other initial ideas ^^”

Another thing I really wished I’d done was to do all of my initials and development digitally- as well as aiding in the general layout, working digitally is much neater and less messy than scribbly pencil drawings (which my sketchbooks are notorious for). I tried to remedy this by doing a few little ‘key icons’ research pages in watercolour in my sketchbook- the phrase “you can’t polish a turd” comes to mind, but I had fun doing them anyway!

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Japan Icon Sheet (Collingwood, 2019)

 

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China Icon Sheet (Collingwood, 2019)

 

It was really strange drawing and colouring something refined traditionally- I never thought it would come to this but I actually really prefer digital now! Especially since I’ve started working on Procreate with my iPad, since the technicality and effects both mimic tradition workflows very well. Throwback to the iPad review I wrote- read it here ♥

Targets for the coming weeks include finishing off my digitised concepts, taking these into the final design stages, and looking further into colour choices with the riso.

I’ll have to be mindful of any threats to my progress such as time restraints and poor planning, as these things have hindered me in the past- however, I’m determined to keep better time this semester, as one of my targets from a few weeks ago was to manage time better.

More to come soon!

References 

Collingwood, C. (2019). China Icon Sheet [ink, watercolour].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Japan Icon Sheet [ink, watercolour].

research, SWOT/Target Setting

Risograph Realisation – Design Development

Chalon Joy

In my initial ideas, I’ve played with concepts such as traditional Asian-inspired pattern work (which I’m quite familiar with from past projects), basic floral motif work, and my favourite concept so far: prints based on national imagery associated with Japan and China.

I visited China last year and -for lack of a less cliché term- fell in love with how cultural significance is interwoven throughout every aspect of their design and aesthetic. The concept of a pair of prints representing China and Japan came from the idea of ‘where I’ve travelled to, and where I plan to go next’, combined with a deep appreciation of Asian culture and design. Since the two cultures influenced each other so much throughout history, a pair of prints encapsulating each country’s defining aesthetics works really well (both as an entity and as separate pieces of design).

After working on this idea, I was enjoying some down time in front of the telly and caught an episode of Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens (BBC Two, 2019)- obviously this appealed to me massively! The pair of episodes focused on the distinct seasons of spring and autumn in Japan, and how the foliage and flora changes accordingly. Of course, this inspired an alternative to my front-running design idea based on this aspect of Japanese culture and aesthetic design- nothing is by chance in Japanese design, not even nature!

Additionally, since the risograph printer is originally from Japan I thought it would be really interesting to combine traditional Japanese imagery with the newer technique of riso printing to create something that bridges the gap between traditional and modern technique.

I also really want to explore colour in this project, since we have some lovely new inks to use in this process (these being Purple, Teal and Green). I see lots of opportunity to incorporate these shades into my work to create something more refined and less blocky and loud compared to the terrarium project, which was printed in garish tones of blue and pink. I still like those prints, but I’m hoping to capture a totally different and more refined aesthetic with this project that’s also more visually in-line with other projects I’ve worked on.

To help me with colour matching, I’ve ordered a riso swatch pack from Risotto (a print studio based in Scotland that I’ve included in my research)- since it’s not very cost effective to make a test sheet of colour overlays and combinations myself, I thought I’d order a pack from a riso studio to use as a guide when fiddling with the opacities of my final image. I didn’t really make use of this design mechanic in Semester 1, so that’s a personal goal of mine for this project c:

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Risotto Studio Risograph ink swatches (Collingwood, 2019)

 

Here’s a pic of the contents of the pack- looking at these, I really wish we had a gold ink available at the college! It looks especially nice on black ♥ I’m still planning to embellish my final prints in ‘post-production’ using a variety of techniques- maybe even making some of them specific to a particular print. This will include metallic leaf work, so I can make a similar effect myself for now.

In terms of SWOT analysis for this week, I can work with my previous analysis from Semester 1’s PP1 (Printmaking), when I was also working on a riso project. Despite having more strengths with the riso medium than weaknesses due to valuable past experience, I still need to be aware of my biggest threat: timekeeping. However, the best opportunity for this semester will be to *actually* keep better time throughout, which is very doable since I’m still pretty early on in the term.

More next week when I nail down my final idea (I’m still a bit undecided!) and start refining this digitally~

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Risotto Studio Swatch Pack. [Photograph].

Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens. (2019). BBC Two Television, 15 February.

Risotto Studio. (n.d.) Risotto Riso Room. [online]. RisottoStudio.com. Available at: https://www.risottostudio.com/print [Accessed 3 Feb 2019].

 

evaluation, SWOT/Target Setting

Semester 1 – Evaluation and Reflection

Chalon Joy

I’m so pleased all of my Semester 1 work is done and dusted!!

Just to tie all the loose ends up, I’ll be summarising The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (read: strengths, weaknesses and threats), as well as upcoming goals and opportunities for the future c:

 

Strengths

For me, the most successful part of Semester 1 was my experience with Procreate, and the steep yet successful learning curve that went along with it- I found using the iPad Pro/Apple Pencil combo to draw directly onto the screen to be really refreshing and user friendly, rather than using a traditional ‘screenless’ tablet (e.g. Wacom Intuos) and Photoshop on a laptop, which wasn’t very intuitive at all.

Through creating art with this new workflow, I’ve been able to gain back some of my confidence when it comes to drafting and artwork in general- I’m not the most confident person by any means, but I’ve had lots of further difficulty in the past year or so that has really affected my ability to produce something I’m pleased with. I’m trying to become a more optimistic and outgoing person, so this is a small victory for me that I’m really proud of ♥

 

Weaknesses

While I feel the semester went well overall, there were definitely areas which I was really unhappy about and couldn’t wait to finish off and leave behind. Timekeeping has always been an issue for me, and I wish I’d spent a bit more time learning the ins and outs of the riso process before jumping in with my solid colour choices and largely single opacity layers.

My final grade will speak for itself, I just hope I can do enough in these subsequent modules to achieve a good class of degree. I’ve previously been able to scrape a First during my FdA, but I’ll be pleased (albeit it slightly less so) with a 2:1… anything else is a bit out of the question for me ^^”

 

Threats

Threats for the future include lack of time management and my own self-belief, as I know this can really hold me back if I let it get to me too much. I also don’t want to become too reliant on digital processes, as I feel I really need to retain my sound knowledge of traditional art. I’d love to include some nice originals in my portfolio, so this is something I’d like to work towards even if it doesn’t form the bulk of an actual personal or commercial project (I can work on this independently as part of my portfolio project, too).

 

Goals and Opportunities

My goals for Semester 2 include continuing to work with a variety of processes and techniques, while also coming back to my roots and creating some high quality portfolio centrepieces that I’ll be pleased to display during final show. Convincing myself is the biggest struggle of all, so I’ll also be actively working on favouring my work a little bit more to help me find peace with myself.

Onwards and upwards!

portfolio, SWOT/Target Setting

Concept Development – Character Designs

Chalon Joy

I have some new character designs to share! c: I’ve been working constantly on these since my last update- I feel I’ve made good progress even though there’s still so much to do!

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Young Female Character: Initial Concepts (Collingwood, 2019). 
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Young Female Character: Face Revisals/Development (Collingwood, 2019). 
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Young Female Character: Palette/Colour Application Experimentation (Collingwood, 2019). 

 

Meet our heroine of the story- she doesn’t have a name on purpose, because I want the audience to be able to relate to her and put themselves in her shoes. Since she’s youthful, naïve and curious, I wanted these traits to shine through in her character design. I went through loads of concepts (some of which were really awful, haha) but settled on a final design for her that best described her personality to the viewer. I’m sure it shows, but I was really inspired by the ‘chibi’ characters of Studio Ghibli, as well as the loose, simplistic art style of Heikala (info on both of these here from my artist research for this project).

I’m pleased with her design- she went through quite a few refinements as I progressed through my workflow! Final character board below:

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Young Female Character: Final Character Board (Collingwood, 2019). 

 

To be honest my favourite aspect of her is her ‘paper bag’ trousers- I didn’t want to put her in a skirt lest that undermine her childish adventurous nature, so I decided to go with these oversized paper bag pantaloons (which also matched her boots and cape much better… too many ‘loose hems’ otherwise!)

I really love them ^^”

 

Next up, we have our anthropomorphic deer character:

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Anthropomorphic Deer: Initial Head Concepts (Collingwood, 2019). 
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Anthropomorphic Deer: Anatomy/Front View Development (Collingwood, 2019). 
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Anthropomorphic Deer: Palette/Colour Application Experimentation (Collingwood, 2019). 

 

I designed him to both contrast and complement the young girl character, since the contrast of their environments and designs is central to the narrative journey. The palette is still natural while being different to the bright, fresh toned greens I used on the female character’s designs.

He’s very scholarly and loves a good cup of tea, I hope you can tell~

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Anthropomorphic Deer: Final Character Board (Collingwood, 2019). 

 

It was a real challenge to simplify the characters enough so that there wouldn’t be any issues when drawing them repeatedly for the animation- I think I’ve nailed this down enough, but as always there’s always the chance I’ll refine these some more in the follow-up Semester 2 project.

I’m pleased with the outcomes- targets for the next few weeks include finalising and collating all of my projects for hand in, and starting to think about the beginning of Semester 2 and how I’m going to tackle the next few months. Using my previous SWOT analysis’ will help me circumvent any problems I anticipate I’ll have, while also playing towards my strengths to produce a strong semester of portfolio work.

 

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Anthropomorphic Deer: Anatomy/Front View Development [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Anthropomorphic Deer: Final Character Board [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Anthropomorphic Deer: Initial Head Concepts [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Anthropomorphic Deer: Palette/Colour Application Experimentation [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Young Female Character: Face Revisals/Development [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Young Female Character: Final Character Board [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Young Female Character: Initial Concepts [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Young Female Character: Palette/Colour Application Experimentation [Digital].

Heikala (n.d.). Instagram – @heikala (online). Available at: https://www.instagram.com/heikala/?hl=en [Accessed 2 Jan 2019].

 

evaluation, portfolio, SWOT/Target Setting

Printing Session and Week Reflection 19.10.18

Chalon Joy

Over the past week, I’ve worked on a simple design that can translate into a screen print. Basing my concept on the idea of planets and digital fills (as inspired by the tutorial Dave showed us on Friday), I worked in Procreate to design both a gold layer, and a black and white screenprinted layer. Final designs below (left to right: Base/screenprinted layer, gold leaf layer, mock up of ‘final’ image with both layers):

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Left to right: Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3

Using Procreate is a whole new learning curve for me, as up until now I’ve worked mostly in Photoshop. My previous digital work has been done using a Wacom Intuos tablet, which I often found a bit hard to use (e.g. not being able to rotate it to draw, having to reference back to the screen when drawing, small size and lagging software).

Overall I was happy with my workflow, but earlier this year I invested in an iPad Pro as an additional tool. Ultimately I’ll still finalise my work in Photoshop as Procreate isn’t as extensive, but it’s invaluable having a drawing device with a screen- it feels much more natural, and it’s easier to draft out artwork compared to using a conventional drawing tablet.

One of the most useful tools I discovered actually came from a calligraphy brush kit- a variable line brush that smooths jagged edges and creates nicely curved lines (almost in a similar style to Illustrator, but without all the fiddling). There’s a plethora of times that I could have used this brush in the past, so I’ll definitely keep this in mind for the future!

Come Friday morning, it became quite clear that I was a bit ambitious with the black layer- Dave suggested that I instead print the gold layer as a complete image, so I decided to go with this (possibly going back and editing the black layer to be more screen print friendly at a later date). I’m glad I discovered this early on in the year, as it’ll inform any future imagery that I produce for screen printing.

I experienced some issues with the screen machine- my design wasn’t burned to the screen properly; the black background border was fuzzy on one corner. I’m putting this down to a technical issue that will hopefully be fixed in the future, as I think having a border on a screen print sets it off nicely, especially for trimming and framing. I’ll probably mask the corner border off and correct this by painting on the acrylic in ‘post-production’.

In the afternoon we were shown a quick recap of how to gold foil using the heat press- this was really useful because although I’ve worked with this process before, it was quite a few years ago now and I definitely benefitted from the refresh. There’s a much wider variety of foils now (e.g. iridescent foil, clear foil, and an array of different coloured metallic foils), all of which will be nice to experiment with ♥

Friday was full of trial and error- in addition to the corner not being complete on any of my prints (which was expected), I had lots of issues with the amount of ink I was using (usually not enough ink). My 6th print (out of 8 total) was the most successful- I was surprised how well the fine lines came out, despite the pre-emptive warning that 12px was the finest line weight that would translate optimally. Below is my most successful print (I could have used slightly less ink):

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Figure 4

I really love the process of screenprinting, so I’ll definitely be revisiting this in the future, hopefully with better results.

In the next week, I plan to finally start on my riso project- I’m a bit stressed out about this as I haven’t stuck to my timetable thus far (which is an awful start to the year). However, the past week hasn’t gone to waste as the development for this screen print can be linked into my Printmaking project as development and technique exploration, which is the purpose of the first Semester anyway~

 

References

Figure 1: Collingwood, C. (2018). Planets (Base Layer) [Digital].

Figure 2: Collingwood, C. (2018). Planets (Gold Layer) [Digital].

Figure 3: Collingwood, C. (2018). Planets [Digital].

Figure 4: Collingwood, C. (2018). Planets Test #6 [Ink].