Illustration Blog

USW Illustration blog/ year one.

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamental- Zine Presentation

In class everyone brought in the 5 copies of their zines and we displayed all the zines onto one table and went around and looked at what everyone else has made, this was a positive way of showcasing our work because we all get to see everyone’s creativity. After seeing different zines, I started to compare them to mine and it made me think of different ways I could have created mine, such as: using tracing paper to add different effects to the characters, adding a small paragraph of information about the characters or experimenting with different print options. If I experimented with any of these it could have added more creativity and different features to my zine. After we looked at all the zines, we then swapped them about, so we had a mixture of zines to take home. This brief was fun to make, if I had a chance to redo this brief again, I would defiantly add more features to my pages and add more detail to my illustrations like: detailed backgrounds, more font and variety of compositions. I would also try to create my own characters rather than referencing ones that already exist.

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals- Creating Zine (1st Year)

In this class we started to print and put together our zines. The process was a little hard to figure out because I had to put all the pages onto a word document so the printer was able to print the pages double sided but also the right way up, to do this we had to flip every other page horizontally, so when they are printed the pages will be facing the right way up. When I printed my first tester the pages were printed in the wrong order and the image was the wrong way round, after printing this tester that helped me realise that I needed to also flip every other page vertically too so the correct pages were folded in order and faced the right way. After a second tester was printed all the pages were facing the right way and the pages were in the right order. I then made 5 copies of my zine using thicker and shiny paper, I then folded them all and stapled them altogether and cut the sides so all the pages were lined up. Seeing all my zines printed and put together made me notice a few things I could improve on, like the cover background could be one colour all across the front and back so I didn’t have a white strip going down the middle. 

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals- Zine Brief (1st Year)

In class we were tasked to make a fully illustrated zine, which will be 12 pages (printed sides) , we get to make it based off of anything we were passionate about or something we were excited to make. My main idea was to make a leaflet for a live show. Some of my ideas were: a video gaming live show of a YouTube channel called Achievement Hunter, inside the leaflet could be an introduction to each person in the group. My other idea was a zombie musical leaflet and inside will be an introduction to each character. My final idea was a leaflet for a zombie drag show, I will base the zombies off contestants from a series called “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, inside will then have introduction to each zombie character. After thinking about each of these ideas I decided I wanted to go with the Zombie drag show, I picked this idea because it sounds colourful and sounds fun to design. I was scared to do this project because I haven’t done character design before, so I know I was going to have to experiment with methods on how to design my characters for my zine, but because I’m basing my zine off real people, I can have a good reference to look at while I’m designing them to be a zombie.

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals- Presentation of Sequential Narrative (1st year)

This week was based off presentations of the narrative zine, presenting the zine was important because it was a positive way of gathering feedback from the class and lecturer. I had helpful feedback, such as adding more details to the background of my illustrations and practice human anatomy a bit more. All of this feedback I completely agreed with and would love to work on these for my next lot of work. Thinking of ways to connect the two random images was fun and easy to do but when it came to creating my zine I struggled with how to create the characters, I struggled with this because I haven’t really experimented with character deigns before, but it is something I am trying to work on and improve. If I had a chance to redo this brief, I would definitely plan the sketches a lot better and experiment a lot more with the style and characters. 

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals- Individual Tutorial- Narrative Zine (1st year)

This week was to check up on our ideas for the narrative zine. For the zine brief we were given two random images. these two images will act as the beginning and the end of the story and we have to connect the two images in the middle of the story, this task was fun as I never done a series of narrative illustrations before and this was good practice. Having this tutorial with Liam was helpful because he helped me develop my idea, so the narrative made sense. I was exited to start this project but I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure on how it will look as I don't have my own style and process but I am excited to give it a go. 

[abbisuswblog]

Three Zine Research

Ouroboros Zine- Ben Newman

This zine was inspired by the mythical serpent Ouroboros, the zine has a tale of action and adventure. The zine has a theme of life and rebirth until the end twist, seeing life as more than one path but as something that goes back on itself and continuously loops. As described in the zine ‘(life) is that which is forever done, but which may not be undone, it is life and death intertwined. Both chicken and the egg…but also Sunday dinner’. The zine is brought to life with a bold style which is visually pleasing, the use of colour sets the atmosphere and mood within each scene. The zine was made digitally and printed on white card. The different sized boxes show the pace of the story and with the bigger boxes it shows what scenes are most important or intense. Each character is designed with great personality and is easy to spot the good people from the bad.

Love and Hats- Andy Rementer

This zine has a romantic storyline, the two young lovers brought together by a chance autumnal breeze. The zine is made up of delicate ink drawings depict the couple's entangled web of love, doubt and regret. Through the characters' wandering limbs and hefty curls Rementer tries to convey such concepts as the passage of time, internal struggles and fear of commitment.

The zine is made up of ink drawings and the photocopied onto blue paper, there isn’t any colour within the zine, but the blue paper shows the cold weather and the black add to the boldness of the illustration.

The New Ghost- Robert Hunter

This zine is an adventure of a flock of ghosts that travel through the night, there’s one ghost that struggles to keep up and as a new recruit the spirit has a difficult time getting used to the rules. The zine has a poetic but haunting tale within. The zine is made digitally with bold colours and illustration style. The zine is made up of different styles of layout which keeps the zine interesting. The colour scheme in this zine is mainly cold colours which shows the time of day but also the mood and atmosphere. The illustrations are done professionally, and the character designs and backgrounds are done with great detail.

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals- Practice Zines (1st Year)

In this week of fundamentals, we had a practice task of making a Zine, this was to help us build up a skill of using illustration to tell a story without words, this is also good practice of next week’s brief. The task was based off of two different lists of words the first list was adjectives and the other list was random objects. This was a good way of creating ideas for the Zines because it was random and also a good way of connecting two different words and making a narrative out of them. With this task there was a 1-hour limit to create it, this was a good time frame because it makes us come up with a quick story rather than thinking about it for ages and not getting the illustrations done on time. This brief was interesting to do because I’ve never created a narrative with illustrations so this task was a good way for getting into it, for my narrative I decided to pick A Nauseous Pair of Shoes, I have no clue why I picked these two words but I stuck with them because I wanted to challenge myself. For my story I decided to choose a pair of hiking boots that were being worn up a mountain but they where afraid of heights so they ended up throwing up on top of the mountain. Overall, I liked my story but the illustrations could have been better, if I had more time to recreate this story I would defiantly think more about the style of the illustrations rather than making it up as I go along.

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals- self-directed study (1st Year)

Jason Chan- Concept artist

What is it about? Jason Chan is a concept artist, he currently works for Riot Games, they are best known for League of Legends, a multiplayer online battle arena game and the company's flagship product. Jason has created various characters for this company, he’s created characters such as: Caitlyn, Blitzcrank, Akali, Riven, ect. These characters are completely different to each other and all have their own personality and style, they really make the game look professional and keeps the game interesting. Chan also worked on The Sims 4 game, his job was to establish a style foe the game that moved away from the old style of the game which was doll-like style in Sims 3, he made the characters look expressive and original. The style had to be able to allow the player to customise the characters in the games character creator. This shows the different type of character deigns because ones more of a set design and the other is limitless because the characters can be customised.

Why does It exist? This type of work is important because it creates characters for players to play and learn to enjoy and love in the game. Showing character personality through poses and facial expressions is important even in these early stages. An important part of the character designer's job is to bring something more than just visual design to the character in the game these designs are extremely important in video games because it’s not just the gameplay the audience cares about its also based off the quality of the game such as backgrounds, character designs, animation ect. This is why artists like Jason Chan create this kind of work for video games.

Where can you see it? Concept art like this is mainly found in video games where you can play as these characters, there’s also other places like ArtStation where you can find artists portfolios/blogs and view their work and even their sketches for characters. There’s also game merchandise or fan art that is made from these characters deigns.

How is it made? Concept art can be created using any art materials but the main process of concept art for video games is sketches and final designs all on a digital programme using a tablet to draw them, this method is the most efficient way of working because all the work can be saved and always be edited or changed if needed. When creating the characters there’s plenty of things to include and think about when designing, such as, height, weight, skin colour, anatomy, clothes, weapons, personality, job role, ect. These things altogether can make the character original and also tell a story about the character just by the way its designed, this is what makes concept art so important in character design because it has so much meaning and can bring so much to the game with the right characters.

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals- Idiom (1st Year)

In this second week of the Fundamental module we had a practice task where we got given a random idiom on a strip of paper and we had to create the idiom out of coloured paper in a short amount of time. The idiom wasn't allowed words, so when they were completed the class had to look at it and guess the idiom but we also had to make sure the meaning of the idiom was also visible, the idiom I got given was “The ball is in your court” so I decided to stick with the main idea of basket ball because it was an easy sport to recognise and it involved a ball and a court so it was easy to spot the idiom but the harder part was making sure the meaning was visible so to do this I added two symbols on each hoop backboard to show two different options which showed “its up to you to make the next decision or step” which was the meaning of the idiom. The next task was to choose an idiom of our choice and create a final illustration of it with no words and try to show what the idiom is and the meaning of it. 

[abbisuswblog]

Fundamentals-Scavenger hunt (1st Year)

For the first week of this module we were put into groups and were given a sheet that had a list of different locations, objects and tasks that were scored individually, to gain the points we had to draw what was on the list quickly. Our goal as a group were to gain as many points and complete as many tasks as possible in a time limit. This task was a good way of getting to know people in the class, getting to know Cardiff and finding out what opportunities the city held for drawing, it was also a great warm up for the day and an exciting way to start off the first year of Illustration. During this task I was a bit worried because I don’t normally draw on paper and I personally noticed that quick sketching was one of my weaknesses and its definitely something I want to improve so I will practice and try to improve on my drawing skills.