Evie's Illustrations

I am an Illustration and Visual Communication student at the University of Westminster. In this blog I will explore different briefs throughout my degree using a range of techniques and media.

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Reflection

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FINAL SHOTS of the props and flats we designed and made during the show!

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Grease flats! We didnt get a lot of freedom with what we could do with these as the director has quite a clear idea of what she wanted. However i really enjoyed it and i think they look really good and we pulled it out of the bag.

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Project Outline

Project Title: University of Westminster’s Grease the Musical Set Design

Brief in Summary: To work alongside the director, choreographer and another set designer to design, build and paint 3 double sided flats and a fake ‘grease lightning’ car front.

Motivating Basis: I love the theatre and Grease the musical. I also want to get into set design when I finish university and this is a great way to gain experience whilst working with new people.

Conceptual Basis: The director already has quite a clear vision for what she wants so this will act as the basis along with the fact it needs to look early 60s America. From here we will draw out designs and discuss them.

Creative Basis: We don’t have a lot of time to create these flats so I want the flats to be relatively simple but effective. To gain more information on what will need to be included I will read the script, watch the film and look at what other companies have done for some inspiration.

Brief Schedule: W/B 2nd April: Build Car and flats in 3D workshop W/B 16th April: Paint flats and car Deadline: 19th at the latest so they can rehearse with flats and car. Show date: 20th and 21st April

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where is your final work?

I don’t want to post my final drawings on here just incase i do manage to finish it and turn it into a real life book!

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Front and Back cover designs

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My pattern page. Obviously when i would make this i would add colour and get rid of lots of the shading but as an example!

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Once i had finally decided on what i wanted each page to look like i drew it out asif i was creating a mini version. I also added one some colour to demonstrate what would go where if i were to paint all pages. This helped me make a few changes on size, colour, text placing and if the page needed changing completely. Here are some examples of pages in my book.

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I had a go at drawing out and painting one of my final sketches using the colour scheme. This demonstrated how wrong a colour scheme can go and how carefully i need to think about it. It made me realise that i need to limit my colours even more especially when painting people. From here I decided to paint all of my humans using the same blue tones with maybe an odd hint of pink or green. This helps reinforce the distance between green zeep and the blue humans. It also allows the book to not discriminate between races.

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An attempt of one of my designs with no colour scheme, as much as i liked where this was going i think it started to look to busy and as an already busy page this sat next to another page one of even more colours i thought best to stop. I think an open colour palette could work if the book didn’t include as many complex illustrations but as mine did i would rather have more interesting illustrations than more colours. A limited colour palette also helps Zepp stand out against the blue tones of earth and helps the viewer imagine why he would feel left out.

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Colour scheme attempts on coolors.com i know i needed some vibrant tones, darker tones and some lighter tones and i know i wanted to focus mainly on blues and greens. I started quite broad including any colour. Then remembering I needed to include green and i had a lot of plants and buildings to draw i looked at browns and greens. this looked a bit dull so i turned my search into the blues, reminding me of the night sky. I added some hot pink to add an extra terrestrial  feel.

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Alien sketches with paint - pre colour scheme, although i did love the learning colour theory aspect of this i think it will be too busy! would everything have to carry this concept? I think a colour scheme is needed and I dont know if i want one that includes yellow, blue green and purple!

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Final designs for Zeep and his family!

This is my chosen colour scheme

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Story Board Design ideas

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ALIENS

designing Zeep and his family

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SPACE SHIPS! 

messing around with what Zeeps spaceship might look like

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Colour scheme

The final image shows the colours I have chosen to use as my colour scheme.

I struggled with choosing the colours for this story as I didn’t want it to come across too masculine or too feminine, I wanted no one to feel left out like Zeep does int he story. I also wanted the darkness of space to be prominent on the pages which are relevant and the colour green was needed as part of the story mentions Zeep being green. I decided to use a colour scheme after i painted an original watercolour for the book and the never ending choice left an already busy page looking overly crowded with too much to look at. Another bonus of having a limited colour palette is that it should be easier to paint the illustrations as the choice is limited. However this is not always the case and has left me with using mainly shades of blue to demonstrate life on earth, contrasting Zeep against the humans and the human world, exaggerating the differences, as the story comes closer to an end green and pink will appear more and more, showing how Zeep is becoming more familiar with his surroundings and more comfortable with himself.