Assignment three

Assignment three

A graphic short story


The story of Paul and Gawel written by Alexander Fredro is my choice for this assignment. The main plot treats about two neighbours and their small misunderstandings caused mainly by their opposite personalities. 

Creating spider diagram should help with me clear up my mind and put all good ideas on the blank paper.  

spider diagram

Research


Judy Brown

I picked only examples of two pictures done by Judy Brown just to show how the character can show different emotions.  I like the illustrations of the crazy witch in black and white.  I really shows nicely the character of the witch where her nose is really sharp and pointy, she is very tall and skinny and that perfectly suits her.  Her outfit is as dark as the dark background and she nearly disappears into it.  Although she is a witch we can easily see that she is a friendly witch.

Paul and Gawel books research

There are a few book covers on the Polish market.  Most of them reflect the old look of these two main characters.  They refer to the classic look of clothes and other item like guns or furniture.  I wish to keep something from that style; however I will try to update it a bit.  I am planning to keep it fresh and I would like to make it stand out from the others.  I am still not sure which direction I will follow.  My favourite style of the book cover from presented under is the one dominated by red, where Pawl is above and Gawel is below.  I like the fact that the illustrator kept the location of the characters in a way that we can clearly see that one is on top and the other below.  The font of the letters looks really fun and interesting, so faces look well though through.

The main colour makes this cover really striking.

I absolutely dislike this idea. This one is defiantly not going to represent on of my characters. However I am happy to used and work with the water resistance colour ink so far.

I can see  my second attempt was more successful. I think I will use them form my assignment. They need more work but overall there is something about them I like.

After working on the character in my sketchbook I started to draw more precise parts of the illustrations to be able to scan them later and work with them on Photoshop.  It is good to use that fine black in pen, it really makes a difference.  I did not have to think very hard, each time I drew a line, to create a good shape.  I thought I would need some speech clouds of different meaning and use, therefore I placed all of them on one page to be able to scan them later.  These are the ones I will use later.

This next page contains most of the small parts and elements for my next illustration.  I looked on the internet for pictures of hunting guns, running dogs and rabbits and an old chest of drawers.  After that I was drawing and sketching them on my A4 white paper with black ink. 

This third black sketch is also for the later work on the computer.  I managed to produce the basic shape of a cloud, the sun, the moon and a question mark, also the scene of Pawel and Gawel talking to each other, and Pawel fishing in his room.  I do not know how they are going to look like as a finished product but so far I am pleased with the overall look. 

Today I started choosing the colours for my black and white illustrations. The waterproof ink I am using is very good for covering small parts of the illustrations. I have limited choice as the pack I bought contains 8 colours; however I can still mix one with another to achieve the one I want but this time I  think I will stick to the ones I already have. I like the bright colours as they are totally different from the one I normally would use. I usually go for the pastels.  

I have picked the red colour for Gawel's hair to make him bit more wild and crazy comparing with Paul's brown calm colour. Paul's green shirt and his blue trousers are an equivalent of calm personality. Gawel's clothes are full of temper and unsteady personality.   

My next few pictures show the work I have done with the feeling the white spaces of the characters. Mainly the colours are the same is just the combination may very. 

I really like this house. The shape looks simple quit and funny. I did it as an open plan so we could see what is going in side. I wish to keep each floor with colours that describe personalities of my two characters. Will I achieve the best result? I hope I will. 

I changed the concept while I was working with the illustration. I picked more vibrant colours to make the house stand out bit more. I think my decision was good for this illustration. Another comment I would like to place on my blog is the fact I found some similarities in the style of the house from my illustration and the Cloud Tower from CBBies "Sarah and Duck". I did not intend to; however I am very pleased with the look of it.  

I am working on the front cover at the moment. Nice bold colours make this cover stand out on the shelf I hope. I still have to cut unnecessary white paper.

I am looking now at my first attempt of the book cover and I am not sure if the colours I chose are good enough.  Yellow and blue looks to me like it is some sort of book to take to the beach.  It does not match with the red house.  I have to think again and try to pick better colours next time.  Am I happy with the font and size of the title?  Yes I am happy with the font, however the size could be a bit bigger I suppose.

I started working with the layout of my page one and I spent quite a lot of time erasing and pasting different parts of my illustrations. This is the best part of this process where I can think about my next move while erasing some unnecessary elements of illustration. This is the part of my work where I talk to myself the most asking what to do next and thinking what to leave and what to add. Just because I work in this way sometimes is difficult for me to remember what I wanted to do or what I was aiming to leave or add. That is why my blog sometimes lacking my comments.  

If you look closer there are small changes in their faces and small differences in clothes as well. This the page which I am pretty pleased with.  It looks clean and nearly finished. 

I managed to translate the original text and copy it to my page and pasted in the appropriate places on the page. I am hope that the font is visible enough to read.

Today I am planning to work in the same way on page 2 as I worked while I was creating previous page.  I will make sure that I am happy with the layout and the overlook of the page and the characters. I will spend a couple of hours on this process. 

I placed my characters one next to another just to show how they changed a bit after a few small changes. I think they are visible enough as for me. This is my biggest progress, knowing that the small changes will make a difference. I learned that through the exercise about animal farm where I have been asked to work on developing the animal characters.   

These illustrations show the range of emotions I managed to develop in this process. These are the one they were showing or expressing in the short story from being surprised to being angry and frustrated. 

Working on the book cover...

As I mentioned earlier, I was not happy with my book cover. There was something not working therefore I decided to star thinking about it again.

I am happy with my new idea however I am not convinced with this bright pink colour. Yes, it will stand out on the shelf however it looks too similar in terms of bright colour  to this book cover. I do not want to copy anyone idea. 

I managed finished the book cover. This is my last attempt of making any changes. As we can see there is basically nothing that is left from my first idea. The house is gone as I did not need it at the end. I have used the scanned wallpaper to use as a background for this cover as an equivalent of the wall. I hope this is clear enough to see. Another change is the fact I have two heads and Gawel's head is upside down to show where he lives. He takes bottom floor in the story; therefore I placed him underneath Paul. Another changed I have made is the title of the book which appears above the trumpet like is just jumping out from it. 

Assignment 3 - Being self-reflective


I started this assignment with researching on the internet some British short stories that are easy and moreover make a good work for this task.  There were a few I liked, for example:
However there was a Polish story which came to my mind instantly: "Pawel i Gawel" by A Fredry.  This short story was good enough for me to be confident to not try any other story.  It was funny enough and short therefore I knew I could not make it to complicated for the reader.
After researching on the internet for illustrations of Pawel (Paul) and Gawel I started with a spider diagram which helped me to clarify my ideas and thoughts.  After making the spider diagram I did an ideas board.  I usually don't make an ideas board but this time I thought it may be helpful, which is was in this case.
The Learning Log was more helpful than my sketchbook as I recorded most of my thinking on there, however I did fewer sketches than I expected and needed.  Did the research help me with the development of ideas? Definitely, as I was able to draw some parts of the illustration based on pictures collected on the internet like a running dog or a rabbit.  I was drawing partly from secondary and partly from primary resources.
This is the list of skills and media I have used throughout this assignment:
- black waterproof ink
- extra fine pen for ink
- waterproof colour ink
- fine brush
- pencil for the sketches
- Photoshop
It is very difficult for me to judge if I used all media and my skills successfully; I hope I did quite well.  I think that the line, shape and colour are integral to my work this time.

If we are talking about my work in context with other artists, I tried not to be influenced by any other illustrator.  I did take some inspiration from Judy Brown when I was looking at how to develop my characters, but that is about it.  I could not stop laughing when I discovered that somehow one of my characters looks like Kulfon , a character from a children programme I watched when I was younger.  There were some visible similarities, however I was not consciously trying to use any of his features while I was creating Gawel


  

My ideas developed gradually while I was working with Photoshop.  It was easier to do it this way.  Having established the basic look of my characters I could make some subtle changes in their look.  As I already had an idea in my head for the general look and feel of the character in my work, I did not have any need to consider various possible solutions.  I did not want to experiment so much during this assignment with colours as I wanted to keep it simple and very transparent so it would be clear to read.  Although I did make some small changes while I was working in Photoshop especially with the faces to give them a more professional look.  I hope I managed to make my final work tidy and neat.
As I was using a completely new medium for me, in pen and ink, I was absolutely impressed how different the illustrations can look only by using fine lines.  I simply loved this medium as it created a totally new look of my work.  I was looking for such an effect for a long time, and I have never been 100% satisfied with the work I did using Photoshop and a Bamboo Graphics Pen.

Assignment notes - evaluation p. 2


Describe your final outcome:
To describe my final outcome I may say that I am very happy.  Thinking about this assignment I am very pleased that I managed to achieve something different to my previous assignments.  Comparing these two works there is a difference between the number of lines and colours I have used.  This time I created illustrations that are simpler with fewer details.  This time was about showing some expressions and emotions up-close, which is something I learnt from the feedback from the previous assignment.  I feel that this work was successful for the fact of creating different art work in a new style.
I don't think I would do anything differently while working on this assignment.  Overall I find this work quite successful as a final product which made me grow as an artist.  I developed another skill of working with fine lines and some basic colours without the risk of mixing them.  I was planning to produce a nice simple illustration that is easy to be read and understood by the audience.  I am pleased as in my opinion I achieved my goal, however I am happy to take any constructive feedback about my work.

My future aims with my artwork now are working more on developing character.  I am starting to understand the process of creating the character no matter if it is for a children audience or for a more mature one.  I would like to throw myself into the creative process of the next projects I will be given.

Exercise: Animal farm

Exercise: Animal farm



 I am surrounded with children book at the moment as my 2year old boy loves them much especially about the animals and dinosaurs, I decided not to look at any of these to not to copy any of the characters. I needed to develop as an illustrator and fo

llow my own ideas. I know it is not easy especially when some of these illustrations are already in my memory and some specific styles written in my head.  I think I have to start from the basic. My decision about the books I needed to look was totally based what I already said above. No other children book illustrators were allowed for my first research. These are the titles of the books I am going to use at the moment:

"Facial Expression" to look for the face references and to create different and moods.  

"Animator's Survival Kit" to look for the best character body movements and positions.

"Snow White" by Walt Disney to seek some tips how to develop a character

"Dog Days" by David Hockney to help me look at the animals from a painter point of view

"The Vatican" where I could study different expressions and moods from the best artists in the world who are not children book illustrators.

I have started working on the characters for this exercise. Although through drawing them again and again I am not really happy with the way hot they look at the moment.


I have started working on the characters for this exercise. Although through drawing them again and again I am not really happy with the look of them. I decided to pick hamster to start with just because I have one at home. I thought it will be easy to draw different face expressions and gestures as they are so nice and furry but after a while of studding my own pet I got to the conclusion I was mistaken.

My next animal is the rabbit but after a couple of sketches I decided not to go further with this character. I am absolutely not happy with the look of this animal. I will drop it as it is and go for something different.  

 
As I felt like I was stuck a bit at that point of this exercise. I opened a You Tube and I found great tutorial how to draw a cartoon animal character. And that was massive help for me.


How to Draw Cartoon Animals which I found on You Tube :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYpz5qwY3HU

So I started another animal but this time I picked the cat.



So I started another animal but this time I picked the cat. The biggest difference was the way how I started to look on the character. I totally forgot about the body structure and this was missing all the time in my previous characters as I suppose. When I finally draw a head of the animal just as a simple round shape but not flat at all with the line in the middle of the head as a reference point I have to say that everything was much easier. I finally felt like I was in control of development of the character. Suddenly the animal is not floating any more and I could focus on the actual face expression just because I had created basic shape of head.   

Just as I was working on the cat and the dog I just thought maybe I could comeback to the hamster. I managed to draw it again but I was not really happy with the look again. It is ok and defiantly more developed as a character but it is just missing something again; however I am not sure what else.  

Lynn Chapman 



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKlME1rGoy4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3J_jKTLxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5DQXg86luA






Judy Brown

Animal Farm

Self-reflections:

I started this exercise from research and looking into books I already had at home.  The most useful book I found was "The Facial Expressions" that helped me to develop the facial expressions and emotions while I was working on developing the animal characters.

I drew from primary sources using my hamster as a reference at the beginning of this exercise.  I have also used secondary sources from books and the internet.  The research I did at the beginning definitely helped me a lot to develop my later ideas.

I would consider this exercise as a breakthrough in my carer as an illustrator/artist, as I used different art materials to build up my skills.  The materials I have used are pencil, black and colour water-proof ink, ink pen (very thin nib) and a brush.

Did I use the media successfully?  I hope I did, nevertheless I am pleased with this new experience as it really helped me to stat thinking in a different way about illustration.

The line, shape and colour are certainly integral to the work in this exercise.

I tried not to look at the work of other artists at the beginning to not follow other styles.  However the only reason why I took some inspiration from a tutorial on YouTube was to find some clues and guidance on how to make animal characters better.It inspired me to work on the character in a different way.  I am now able to build the character based on the note I make on each individual part of the face/body.

I am also making other small changes in the creative process to the look of the character.  I always thought that I have to add character details by changing nearly every part of the face or shape of the body for the viewer to see a different character, or a different expression.  This illustrator proved to me that I was mistaken.  When I put bigger eyebrows instead of smaller ones, believe me or not, the face changed a lot.  Now I know that developing a character does not have to mean transforming every part of it.

Did I look at work from other times?  I did, just a bit, look very closely at the work of the most recent Thomas the Tank Engine animation film.  I have not seen that particular character before, however I made an observation when I went to the cinema with my little son one day.  I noticed that for the audience like my two-year old son, the character needs to have big eyes and defining eyebrows to show the emotions so audience can understand quickly.  This character was originally created in 1946 when the audience did not have a choice and it was so important to find a character they could relate to, at the same time as being efficient with the character details (especially in a time before massive flat-screen TVs which make images much larger than they used to be).  I have also looked at a Disney book based on the film Ratatouille to see how the team developed the character stage by stage although I tried not to follow exactly the same style. 

I cannot tell how many times I have seen the 'behind the scenes' extras on the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit DVDs, which was where I was introduced to artists Alan Lee and John Howe and seeing how they worked to develop and create characters.

My ideas were able to develop during the process because of a YouTube tutorial about how to create a cartoon character, where I have been reminded to look at the character as a shape.  Only through this way can I create a head and a body that is not flat.  I cannot believe how I could forget about this especially having a good few years of studying the human body and drawing life models in High School, and this is such a basic skill.

Did I consider various possible solutions?  I developed the characters at the beginning changing the ideas.   Later I decided to stock to one shape of the character working and changing only small parts of the face to express the emotions.

I strongly feel that my final character looks very different to the one from the beginning.  It looks consistent in the form and the style as well as the colour.  See the pictures below  The light box was a big help to me in this exercise, while I was sketching the characters then developing them stage by stage.

To describe my final outcome I can make a strong statement of how happy I am to finally mark the big changes in the style and the medium I used.  Consistency in the character is very crucial for an artist's style.  The hedgehog looks the most professional piece I feel I could create at this stage of my creative work.

Finally I have managed to change the way I think about sketching.  I have followed my tutor's advice and have bought a smaller sized sketch pad.  I changed the size from A4 to A5.  At first it was not easy to draw on the smaller size paper; I have always used A4 as this was the size I felt comfortable with for the last 15 years.  This time after my second assignment, I managed to break my 'fear' and work on A5.
I admit that I found it challenging at the beginning, however I started to be more comfortable with after a time - people say practice makes perfect!  
 I do not have to worry if I have too many subject 
 A5 size is perfect for recording your observations.  It is easier to carry around as it does not take up as much space in my bag.

My tutor also suggested changing the medium I use, so I bought drawing ink, a sketching pen with different nibs.  I had wanted to try waterproof black ink for a long time and now I have the opportunity to experiment with it.  It is a massive difference how much I can change my style only by using different nibs.  I am able to draw very detailed illustrations as the pen has very fine nibs to work with.  When I am happy with the drawing, I can use coloured ink to give the object another dimension as the coloured ink is very clear and vibrant.  It looks more professional than my previous work.  I have not been able to reach my full potential creating work in the past as I could not work computer software as relaxed as I could with traditional media like pen or pencil.  I simply changed my creative life from that moment