Create an Illustration which will be used to promote a student project.
Details
I was approached by Dylan Marsh about producing a poster for his project 'PEROXIDE' - a theatrical performance at Leeds University. All together I worked on this project for about 5 hours and charged £30, in which I created an A5, A4 and A3 as well as a Facebook cover photo.
Mr Marsh asked me to produce a poster in 'my style', of a potted plant with an eyeball instead of a flower. It had to look veiny and gross. I send my client some very rough sketches to begin with, before starting to work on a final illustration. I produced the illustration as A3 on photoshop, complete with logo and text, before rendering out the images at different formats. To create the Facebook cover photo I looked up the format before re-positioning segments of the poster to sit into that format. The poster itself is going to be used as advertisement, physical form and digitally as well as leaflets for the performance.
Outcome
Project Board - PEROXIDE COMISSION
PEROXIDE illustration on a jumper
After meeting the deadline I was then asked to create several versions of the illustration with different sizings for posters, facebook photos, video placement and possible bags/jumpers.
Once again I'm entering LoopDeLoops monthly animation contest, this months theme is 'Breakfast'. As I woke up and found the new theme, at 4pm I then stayed in bed for another few hours with tea and cartoons playing off my laptop - that was my morning, this was my breakfast. And as I finally began working at 6pm, I began coming up with ideas. Each seemed unrealistic for me to animate, because my mornings weren't avocado on toast or hard boiled eggs. So I started animating the morning I'd just woken up to - a 1pm tea and cartoon marathon. I animated the 5 second loop on photoshop, then looped it together on after effects - the whole animation taking about 2 week of an hour every odd day.
Mollypukes page on Vimeo
I reached the deadline with a week to spare, but I did have a problem to begin with. After uploading the video to Vimeo, my account was flagged for spam. Because I hadn't confirmed my E-mail address, I was unable to send a report about being falsely flagged as spam, which is something the site recommended I did. So after a lot of fuss I confirmed a new E-mail address, send a completed and finally had my account unlocked again and my videos made public. Although the whole thing was sorted out within a weekend, I was worried I would have to remake a channel on Vimeo so I could enter LoopDeLoop - which would involve me deleting the original channel to start a fresh and losing all the links to the videos on there, from previous loopdeloops. But luckily, it was sorted out. You can find my LoopDeLoop animation 'Breakfast' Here!
Thought Bubble 2016 I volunteered on the Saturday of the weekend festival and between checking wrist bands, queue wrangling and helping people find the toilets - I had a few breaks to take a look around the festival.
I couldn't afford to get many comics but I did finally get to meet a few artists. I met Philippa Rice and finally got my hands on signed copy of SOPPY, I've been following her work online for a little while now but I've never managed to meet her in person before. I also met Sarah Graley and got a copy of her daily comic masterpiece 'Our Super Adventure' along with her boyfriend, who is heavy featured in her comics; it was so lovely to chat with the both of them. Sarah is also working on a series Rick and Morty comics that I'm looking forward to reading soon. Another artist I'm obsessed with at the moment is Andrew Maclean and his newest work HEAD LOPPER and was completely unaware he'd be designing the Thought Bubble shirts this year as well as having a stall at the festival. I nervously approached his table and at first didn't know what to say, after introducing myself I finally asked for his signature (on one of his post-it notes). Completely by surprise, on my way back to the coat room to dump my comic book haul I recognised an artist I'd be following for about 8 years online. It was wonderful finally meeting her and seeing that characters she'd drawing years ago had finally made their way into a published comic! It was so wonderful to see her work come so far and chatting with her almost felt like talking to an old friend - we're possibly planning on meeting up and having a drink together soon, which is hugely exciting! I also networked with a few other illustrators and I'm currently working out possible collaborations with those artists.
Mike Mignola is a lovely man
I also did the VIP queue wrangling for Mike Mignola, who is best known for the creation of Hell Boy. Mike Mignola also did a talk at Leeds College of Art that I couldn't attend because tickets sold out. My job controlling the queue for Mike Mignola was basically telling people that they could only request him to sign 6 things. At the end of the signings, me and another volunteer Billy nervously asked for the photo and we managed to get a quick selfie with him.
I also came away from his festival with connections to artists who had also volunteered at the festival working and who I'd got to know better as the day went on. This had led me into other freelance opportunities and other arts circles.
I've been attending Thought Bubble since 2012 not as a seller or a volunteer but as a tourist. In previous years I queued, bought my weight in comic books and left. There was also a year where I attended a panel hosted by Natasha Allegri and the team working on Studio Frederators 'Bee and Puppycat' series, but besides that my attendance at the Festival involved me buying comics as quick as possible because I felt too awkward to start a conversation with anyone there however I was determined to change this. This year I wanted to be part of Thought Bubble, so I volunteered to help out at the festival any way I could. After applying to volunteer (and being approved) I was added to the Facebook volunteer group and got to know a few faces before the set up day.
Setting up started at 6am and the level of excitement I felt putting on the signature red shirt was because of 2 reasons; 1. The volunteer shirt was illustrated by Andrew Maclean, who is currently one of my all time favourite illustrators and 2. It was bloody freezing outside. After running around doing little jobs like putting up signs and setting up chairs I was then sent to my spot for the day - the massive marquee. Jobs volunteers did circulated so someone wasn't stuck outside in the cold the entire day, but mine rotated between checking Gold VIP wrist bands, checking weekend wristbands, keeping an eye on the MONDO queue and watching the doors pre-lunchtime and then focuses on the VIP queue for Mike Mignola. Rotating all these jobs, I got to know all the other volunteers working in the marquee who were all lovely people and chatted to a number of VIPs.
Layout of the MASSIVE MARQUEE
After the Saturday show was done I headed into town with a few volunteers I had gotten to know for a few drinks and later attended the after party. I only volunteered for the Saturday, but I loved working at Thought Bubble 2016! Sure it was freezing, my feet hurt and I don't know when I'll next have to get at taxi at 5:30am that isn't to go home - But it was more than worth it. I'm looking forward to being part of ThoughtBubble 2017 either as a volunteer once again or perhaps even a VIP (here's hoping).
Leeds Print Workshop is located on Vicar Lane in the centre of Leeds and provides a screen print studio space for artists of all levels and skills. The Print Workshop offers a range of short courses like bookbindings, mono printing, natural dyeing and lino printing. Each of these short courses and workshops can be booked online and generally are for a single day. Early October the PrintWorks had a re-opening and I attended, to check out what the Studio space had to offer. At the opening night there was a screen print demo as well as a small gallery exhibition of some of their printers works, one I recognised was created by Kristyna Baczynski (link to her instagram) who's an artist I've met previously at the Zine Festival back in August. The main reason why I attended was to get to know more about what the printing costs/workshops have on offer to use. As a member you can gain full access to their studio space in sessions for members - Which run from Friday to Sunday, 10:30am to 14:30pm. Membership costs £45 for the year or £3 per hour and before being given access to the print space, a personal introduction is given to new members/users.
As I want to develop my illustration work with zines, comics and prints I'm planning on purchasing a year long membership at the begining of 2017.
Note (May 17th 2017): I cannot afford it but hopefully one day I will.
Mouuth is a Leeds based music experience, containing the talents of Alex Podraza and James Grimshaw. You can find their FACEBOOK PAGE here.
I've been working with the pair creating illustrations over the past few months, such as an icon for their Social Media pages. Yesterday MOUUTH preformed at Headrow House in Leeds with animated visuals I'd created for the gig. The projected visuals was a 5 second looping animation of a mouth; the mouth made 4 different expressions, each expression lasting roughly 1 second each and each expression had a different identifying colour.
The Brief
Original MOUUTH animated GIF
MOUUTH asked me to create some visuals for their gig. I had already animated a little gif for their social media, of a mouth opening and closing and they both wanted something similar. We discussed the possibility of me triggering certain animated clips manually but because of time constraints and lack of software, I was asked to create a self-looping animation. I animated the first GIF using a 'rough' rotoscope technique. I first filmed someone opening and closing their mouth and then in photoshop, traced loosely over the lip moment. I added the teeth, tongue and shadows/highlighting myself. MOUUTH wanted the same 'feel' to the visuals and requested I produced something similar to the GIF they were already using. I had about a week to create the animation so began working from the first briefing.
Creation
I filmed my own mouth as reference footage for this brief, all together I filmed 15 expressions and then picked 5 of what I thought was the best (most disgusting). Using photoshop I created a set of different Video-Groups in the Timeline feature, in order to quicken the animation process. I animated different pieces of the mouth on separate layers, to produce a much cleaner animation and much faster animation process. Using separate layer groups also allowed me to shadow certain parts of the mouth little by little - like placing depth on the teeth and not the entire inner mouth, by shadowing the corners of the teeth animated layer. I rendered each 1 second animated mouth out in photoshop, as well as a 'base' posed mouth that was slightly animated to maintain movement within the animation.
Reference Footage
Using Multiple Layers
Post-Production
Finished mouth (mouth 1)
In post I used After Effects at university to bring together all of the rendered clips. I had also created a 3-framed (24FPS) texture animation that would give the animation a slight sinister disturbing tone, that would work with MOUUTH and their music perfectly. To do this I changed the opacity of the textured animation to 20% in order for the animation beneath to be seen and still carry across the texture. After adding the texture I rendered out the looping animation to check for mistakes...
I planned to have each mouth change its own colours with each expression, so within After Effects I took the rendered animation and applied a HUE over the top of each of the different mouth segments. I moved though the colour wheel in the hue opinion to change the over all colour theme from purple to red to yellow to blue. Finally, I rendered the finished animation out. I also rendered out a slightly more 'faded' animation, to give MOUUTH the opinion of a more faded grungy visuals if they wanted; but they fell in love with the neons.
Live
That my Mouth and MOUUTHs Mouth
At the Headrow House venue the gig space seemed massive, light up with netted fairy lights and spotlights that could maybe blind. The venue space was already fitted with the projection screen and a projector, which was build into the ceiling above the stage. My laptop was plugging into the over-head projected and pushed up into the ceiling whilst MOUUTH preformed. Before MOUUTH began I started the loop and left my laptop up on the vents. Although I wasn't controlling the animation manually, the rhythm to the visuals worked well with the live music. MOUUTHs set lasted about 30 minutes and after the gig I was approached by other artists that played that night about my visuals. I really enjoyed working with MOUUTH and can't wait to work with them more.
The Brief:
''Propose 3 visual concepts for a set series or sequence of 1 minute animated projections based on the
theme of Independent Creativity at Xmas.
Your visual concepts will need to communicate a contemporary, creative and ‘cool’ representation of a
xmas or winter theme. Think - Harvey Nichols meets the independent music scene in Leeds or John Lewis
meets the Brudnell Social Club. Your response will need to appeal to a wide audience of 18 to 50 year olds
who look beyond the traditional but still want to feel festive.
The client is not looking for traditional representations of Santa in a sleigh or cheesy looking elves dancing
around. They are not asking for a critical or moral discourse on the validity of xmas. They want cool, festive
and creative.
The moving image based projections will be mapped onto the Lifting Tower building on Wellington Street
(see attached images) and should aim to interact with the features of the surface. The scale of the
projection will be approximately 10m x 10m and so you will need to work to a square format. You will also
need to consider the use of simple high contrast imagery on a dark background in order to maximize the
effectiveness of the projection media and surface.'' ''The client is not looking for traditional representations of Santa in a sleigh or cheesy looking elves dancing
around. They are not asking for a critical or moral discourse on the validity of xmas. They want cool, festive
and creative.''
The Brief (Project Aims):
''Leeds Bid is a private sector driven initiative to enhance the perception of Leeds as a vibrant, culturally
significant and economically viable centre in the north. During the build up to the xmas period, a number of
projects, events and initiatives are being planned to enhance the retail experience of visitors to Leeds city
centre and the surrounding work-based/residential developments. The projects will be funded by some of
the leading retail organisations in Leeds and will aim to showcase the breadth of creative talent that Leeds
has to offer.'' Important Things To Focus On:
- 10 x 10 Animation Format
- 3 different animations within a 1 minute set
- Aimed ages 18-50
- Only able to work in these colours:Black, White, Red, Green and Blue
Rough Idea: - Two 'families' (Perhaps Students and a settled family) approaching christmas in different creative ways but still coming together to celebrate the se thing at the end
- One set with one, one set with the other and then the final set with both celebrating
- Set one (20seconds) Set two (20seconds) Set three (20seconds)
Final Idea:
The animation I'm planning on developing will document the different family/family-like units in Leeds approaching the christmas holidays creativity and then coming together at the end to celebrate. The first sequence will show students, which in my experience has been a family like setting, celebrating Christmas in their own way creatively - The second sequence will show a family doing the same thing - And finally the last sequence will involve both 'Families' interacting with the same experience in Leeds (The Christmas Market). Visually I want the characters (animated in white) to begin creating their Christmas together, by drawing it. The drawings will be represented with Green, Red and Yellow. This represents the creativity this holiday holds for families.
Character Design:
Student Family: 4 students, representing the diversity within the student population in Leeds.
Modern Family: A gay couple and their daughter. (Designs are featured on the 2nd A3 sheet below) Setting up A3 Sheets:
Tonight I uploaded my 1second contribution to the group folder my class was putting together for LightNight 2016.
Using trusty photoshop I digitally created textures using brushes that replicated tough bristled paint brushes to give feeling to this quick 1 second clip. Originally I was going to keep to 4 basic colours, but in the end I ended up using far more shades that first drafted as shadows to create dimension to the character I was animating.
I animated three frames at 24FPS to give the character 'life', I avoided animating anything moving because thinking about it being projected up onto a building personally I'd rather have texture and lighting moving instead of that and the character. After animating the three frames I duplicated them to reach the 1 second mark line. Atop the animated shadow, lighting and the character; I animated the light from the flame as well as the texture over the entire animation at a slightly slower speed than 24FPS. For instance, the white light of the flame is 24FPS but the light it gives off is animated at 12FPS.
Here's a link to the animation up on youtube:
After looking back at my submission I rethought my approach to the brief. I didn't feel like the animation responded well to the brief set, so I went back to animating - keeping to the theme of flames, but also focusing on the word 'universe'. I animated a woman, representing the sun in our solar system. Here's another link to the 'replacement' animation:
For this brief I was asked to produce a 1 second animation featuring one of these 5 themes; Earth, Wind, Fire, Air and Astronomical. The animation I would produce would be combined with other artists animations, looped and projected onto our university building down in the city centre at Leeds Light Night show.
GIF taken from the sequence
I began by working out which word I'd like to represent my theme and I ended up selecting Fire, because I was really 'drawn' to the element. I'd animated fire before in my first year of study, for a test animation and my first animated film ' putting out' - which featured a woman made of fire. I've always been drawn to animating fire, ever since I saw the animated fire sequence in Disneys 'Hunchback of notre dame'. The sequence featured the villains sexual desires for a character represented within the flames of a fireplace, the character he fantasies about is dancer herself so the movement of flame worked perfectly to represent her characteristic movements.
In the brief it mentioned making the animation as contrasting as possible, so I decided to select a colour pallet first. I had in mind to make the colours 'flame like' to begin with, but thinking about having them projected up onto buildings and guessing the colours would most likely be muted (possibly) by the buildings texture or the projectors lighting; I settled on colours I'm naturally attracted to... Here's a quick colour swatch I did below, baring in mind I wasn't sure what I planning on animating.
I want to play around with the idea of fire and whilst researching flame reference videos and photos I saw a certain heat of fire is a purple blueish shade. I'm planning on playing around with the fire of purple/pink flame.
I've always been attracted to the idea of animating a character as fluid as flame, so I'm leaning towards animating a figure: I want this animation to feel warm and comforting, because that was the idea of a flame is to me. I don't want to approach the element as dangerous or risky or even sexual, I want this animation to be charming and only perhaps a TINY BIT uncomfortable.
Today I attended the Leeds Zine Fair, hosted at Left Bank leeds (which I found out was practically next door to my house). I shared a table with my lovely friend Ella Heeling, who was selling her own Zine. 'Voices' is a collection of creatives work published in issues, in the first issue I had one of my comics featured. At this fair I brought along with me 5 zines, 10 copies of each; Bonk dog, 5 reasons to love Pigeon, Lady Glare, How to be a man and How to be a woman.
I set up the table with the sign I'd drawn up last night with zine prices and social media names, I would of brought along business cards but couldn't get them printed off in time to keep to my budget. I also brought along a bowl of Bon Bons because I'm nice.
I labeled each zine with a very basic description, For example bonk dog was described with 'A zine about anxiety'. Because just reading the title, doesn't tell anyone that it's really about anxiety.
I also socialised with other freelance illustrators and gained a few networking contacts and even by the end of the day, I traded my remaining zines for other artists work. Several artists I spoke to I'm now in contact with in social media. I also bumped into a few illustration students from LCA and it was lovely to catch up before third year starts.
Now, did I make a profit?
Table price: -£5.00
Printing cost: -£15 (free printing credit at uni, so I'm not counting this loss)
Money made: £64
Final Profit: £59
Yes, Yes I made a HUGE profit! I really enjoyed attending this fair, It's given me so much confidence as a cartoonist to keep creating. From networking at this fair I've also been invited to other Zine festivals around the country for this year, which I'll most likely do!
I really loved my day at Left Bank and it feels wonderful to make money from my own art in such a DIY way.
Tonight I got ready for the Zine fair at Left Bank for tomorrow morning!
Earlier today I printed off copies of the zines I've been working on at the university, in full colour using printer paper. After folding up the pages and stapling them, I was left with 50 Zines (10 copies of 5 vines). I took some photos of the set of two zines 'how to be a man/woman' and 'lady glare' which are below.
'How to be...' Zine Set
'Lady Glare' Zine
I also drew up a prices sign for my table at the fair, I decided to include my online social media pages because I hadn't got my business cards printed in time.
I originally wanted to sell each zine for £1. But decided to make a 'deal' for 2 for £2 and have a single zine at £1.50; to make slightly more of a 'profit' from each zine then I originally wanted.
Lady glare is the latest zine I've been working on in order to sell it at the 'Zine fair' on the 10th. Lady glare is a short feminist zine approching cat calling, but focuing on the victims reaction. In a sperate project for COP focusing on street harrashment, I was inspiered to create this zine. This short illustrative booklet focuses on a response I've seen personally and done myself, in response to sexism and harrashment; which is a certain look. A look that tells the attacker without words, just what the victim thinks of them. This zine also further inspiered a project within the COP research titled 'just tell them to fuck off' which also deals with the different levels of street harrasment.
Like the previous two zines, I hand drew the A4 page of the zine first on layout paper and then with pen and paper using my lightbox. Later scanning it in I balanced out the quality of the scan and then added addisional colour to the print.
Inked hand drawn version - Final version with digital colour
On the 10th of September I'm attending a 'Zine fair' where I'll be selling a number of small handmade illustrated booklets and comics. I've been working on a two zines so far to take to the fair;
Bonk Dog, a short zine about Anxiety
5 Reasons to love pigeon, a short zine about why we should respect and love pigeons
WIP workng on inking the zines
For each zine I've been roughly sketching out the layout for each on layout paper using my lightbox and then going in over the top on a separate piece of paper with ink. Each zine had its concept composed with a single silly drawing. Each zine is 8 'pages' long (including front and back covers). I scanned the finished ink pages of the zines into photoshop and then balanced out the colours, before adding colour beneath on a seperate layer. After finishing the zines I'm planning on heading into university to print off in mass about 20 copies of each, so later I can fold them up and staple them together.
Here's the finished animation I'm submitting to this mouths Loop De Loop theme 'neighbours'!
For this theme I wanted to animate something simplistic, not to say 'easy' but something not too over the top so I could stretch my 'animation wings' a little before entering back into university. I wanted to work more with layers in photoshop within the animation timeline feature, which I've shown in a WIP screenshot I took of the animation in an early stage. I also used the layers to give a 'window effect' and 'lighting' effect to the animation.
I've decided to enter this months loopdeloop because I really enjoyed participating last year 'Sisters'. I've formed a basic idea in my head of the animation I want to complete for this months theme, which I want to keep rather simple and possibly in a GIF format. Two women living across the road from each other, flash one another with their breasts from their bedroom windows, in a playful manner. Below is a doodle sheet containing concept sketches:
Earlier this month my work was shown along side several other artists in a sort of tribute exhibition hosted in NORTHBAR for Tony Tomlin. Tony Tomlin himself is a commonly known face within the Bar, as well as Leeds DIY art scene. For this Exhibition I was approached by another illustrator, about taking part in the exhibition. I was given an original Tony artwork to recreate in my own image, I choice this one (shown below):
I began by doodling in my sketchbook a basic idea, trying to take influence from the phrasing within Tonys original cartoon visually in my own. My process of creating this piece began with me wanting to use and develop my skills using Copic marker pens, I was also inspired by Rene Gruau illustrations. Although the work of Rene Gruau that I found inspired this illustration weren't produced within the 70's I personally found the style and fashion within those illustrations, quite relevant to 70's women. Wanting to produce lineart as bold and clean as possible, I sketched out a very rough sketch on layout paper and using the LightBox (That I had made in first year) I then traced the sketch onto marker-paper with Ink.
First concept - Final Illustration (3rd attempt)
It took me a few attempts (three) to produce an illustration I was happy submitting to the exhibition. I choice the final illustration over the first because of the clear motion and movement of the character depicted in the illustration. I also thought adding cartoon-like speech bubbles, including the text from Tonys original piece, would improve the over all piece.
Work Shown on Social Media
The NorthBAR twitter tweeted a sneak peek of the exhibition featuring my illustration, although my twitter wasn't linked it was nice seeing my work within a businesses social media post!
Recently I've worked on a 2 second animation test to 'warm' myself back up to animating again. Since my second year of university ended I haven't animating anything, so I felt like I should work on something so my skills in motion don't become too rusty to the point of rookie-ness. In this video I've put together each stage I went through in order to complete the animation. This animation isn't part of any current project, although the test animation HAS begin to give me ideas of a short animation project which for now I'm calling 'Cat Nap'. This character is a character I've been working on for about a year, who is oddly un-named, but is from a comic idea I had about this time last year called 'Lovely Faces'. Although I did find the process of animation enjoyable and I am keen to being this character to life further, I don't have the time currently as I'm working on other projects.
I also wanted to do a light 'test' on using photoshop, because I plan to develop my film for this year as part of my course work digitally on photoshop - and would like to know the software a little better. Also you can never know too much about photoshop.
Here are (maybe) final character designs I've created for the two main characters in the DEERICK project animation I've been meaning to work on. Recently I've been struggling to work on animation because I've had to move houses and I'm currently looking for employment to pay the rent for the new location. On top of that I have a Zine Fair to attend next month, so it's unlikely I'll be able to work on the project in the near future.
Although it's looking unlikely that I'll continue this project, or even finish it before my term deadline. I hope to keep this character in mind for any future projects. Perhaps he'll even be in his own comic one day.
A friend of mine Ella Healing recently asked me to contribute some of my illustrations to her first Zine, which was all about our friends creative works. After hearing she was taking the Zine to a Zine Fair in September and that the rent on the tables weren't expensive at all I decided to take part in the Fair myself. And Now I'm Making ZINES.
The festival takes place on the 10th of September, so I currently have a good month to get stuff finished before September even starts - before September is ideally the deadline I want for myself, to finish off these Zines. I'm planning on taking 4 Zines, 3 small and 1 larger, to the Fair as well as a few Illustrated prints. In my previous year of study I wanted to begin to focus more on comics as a means of visual communication, so this Fair if a perfect opportunity to throw myself into the Zine comic making trend.
For Ella Healings Zine I'm planning on producing a two page comic, which consists of a 'cover' and a 'comic page'. I'm titling the project as 'cute as fuck' which is about female sexual liberation, but focusing more on self love and self sexual liberation then sexual liberation with others. As far as the 4 other Zines I'll be creating, I'm focusing on feminist, Queer and Body Positive themes; as those themes are things I'm very passionate and want to express and explore further as a creative.
After exchanging a few Emails with the runners of the Zine Fair, I've been officially put up on their website! (which is nothing I've had before as a creative and I really do find it exciting)
Over this summer I want to work on more personal work and projects outside of my university studies that contribute to my development as a cartoonist and animator but still give me full creative freedom. As well as developing comics, such as DIY zines and cartoons - I want to enter Manchester Animation Festivals Student Film awards. My goal for this summer is to develop an animation concept, produce characters and a story, as well as begin animating the final project. I'm planning on getting the final animatic done by late August/early September with 3months left to animate. I'm also going to limit myself to roughly 1 minute 30 seconds.
My concept for this animation is something personal,
a while ago I worked in a restaurant as a chief and waiter, despite the fact I'd had no training before hand. I found the whole experience also degrading, because I'm an educated artist. Why was I working here? What's the point? But, as I thought more about it. The money I'd be getting from this job would fuel my art, helping me pay for materials, events and even the rent so I had a house to call a studio! It was fine to work part time, if it meant I could still do what I love. It didn't change me into anything besides an artist, just because I had a part time job that wasn't creative - I want to represent this idea.
I've been partly inspired by a number of animators I've discovered recently to create characters that aren't people, like animals. I've been interested in improving my deer drawings and awhile ago began drawing a deer skater guy character I nicknamed 'Deerick', to annoy myself because I dislike puns. I want to develop this character further and I'm planning on having his character design finished by the end of June.
As of right now, my rough idea for the animation is:
Character works in a supermarket, dislikes it
Character receives his pay check and spends the cash on art supplies
Character is over joyed because he can go back home and draw
Character wakes up the next day, seeing he's used up all his supplies
Character is happy about going back to the supermarket to work, because then he can afford more supplies
Above is the slideshow I presented to my tutor that I've uploaded onto my ISSUU account. In this slideshow I talk about how I've taken a far more professional approach to my work as a creative this year, the inspiration I've discovered and the projects I've worked on. I also talk about the methods I've developed this year and my hopes for summer.
For this summer I want to begin to develop an external animation that I'll hopefully be entering into Manchester Animation Festival later this year in November. I want to begin animating the project in early September and I don't want the project to last over 1 minute 30 seconds. I also want to refine my drawing style, because I believe personally that practicing animation isn't as important as practicing drawing. Because each frame is a drawing, if you're not confident in your drawing, then how good is the animation going to look? That's my personal opinion however. So I'm planning on finishing a sketchbook a month over summer, which is something I've done before and found it greatly helped build my confident with drawing.
This part of my year of study has greatly helped me as a creative. I now have begun to develop an online presence both on social media and the digital art market place and I also now have business cards, CVs and Information Sheets to hand out at networking advents. I've discovered so many talented artists that have encouraged me more than I already was, to continue to draw and to continue to animate. I'm looking forward to starting my 3rd and final year at Leeds College Of Art and hopefully I'll have more opportunities to work on my own projects within the university.
My current sketchbook may only be a few pages in,
but as the deadline approaches for this personal professional progress I've decided to post the pages of my sketchbook now, prematurely before I reach page end. Here's a link to a video of my sketchbook pages that I've uploaded;
I wanted to have a sketchbook as a sketchbook. Which, sounds a little weird right? But I'm being honest here. I've always treated my sketchbook like final versions of my illustrations, like the only output I had of showing my work to people. But as I've been updating my online portfolio social media pages with (near) daily uploads of drawings I'm proud of, I can afford to just draw, draw, draw, draw, DRAW in my sketchbook. To scribble down life drawings, to focus on things I've never drawn before and have a page of studying that thing, to test out colours and materials and even thumb nail drawings I'll later do! It's just a sketchbook. These are just drawings. It's important not to be precious about your work, because you're always improving - just as long as you keep drawing.
Recently I've perched a number of good brushes as well as copic marker pens, which I've been using non stop on another personal project 'daily comics'. I also managed to get my hands on some lovely soft pencils, fine liners and a dip pen (WITH INK)! On a few of the pages in the video, I've tried to use the ink. I'm not as talented with brushes and drip pens as I used to be, but that's because I haven't practised with them for a few years and it's something I want to work on to improve over the summer.
Here's what I want to improve on over the summer in my sketchbook(s):
Shoes, learn to draw SHOES - boots, heals, flats, creepers, it doesn't matter - draw them shoes!
Natural Poses, because t-poses are fine but not all the time. Come on, let's put some life on these drawings!
Animals, If I'm only creating characters that are human where's the fun in that? I'm a cartoonist, I can create whatever I want! Let's get drawing some cats and dogs!
Backgrounds. Backgrounds. Backgrounds... I will love you, Backgrounds.
Clothes and hairs, because everyone (should) have at least one of those things.
And here are some materails I want to refine further:
Giraffe Soup from Anatola Howard on Vimeo.
Anatola Howard is an 18 year old first year animation study, currently studying at CalArts in America in the Character Animation department. Above is her first animation whilst studying at the school, titled 'Giraffe Soup'. I discovered this film whilst looking at the CalARTS page on youtube and found they'd uploaded her work onto their public page for the course. The look to this animation is adorable, told from the perspective of a child and their interpretation of the food in front of them. The whole film is quite magical in a way, although my Vegan friend claimed to feel physically insulted by the fact I described a giraffe melting and then being drunk as 'cute'. I'd highly recommend following his artists progress online!
David Davis Animation Reel 2016 from david davis on Vimeo.
David Davis is an animation who previously studied at CalArts in America, above is his animation reel for 2016 from the previous three years of study he did at the school. I discovered Davis's work on LoopDeLoop where one of his entires really caught my eye (seen at 00:14 in the video). His animations are lovely, the movement he manages to capture whilst keeping such a solid form to his characters is wonderful and I can't wait to see more of this stuff in the future!
Clara Horst is currently studying on her 2nd year at CalArts.
I discovered her end of year film on Tumblr a few weeks ago and I've been following her updates ever since. Her film titled 'Erika & Anju' focuses on a new developing relationship between two women, who of which sufferers from anxiety. The visuals for the animation are lovely, very character conscious and stylised in a way that blends each character together seamlessly with their surroundings. It's clear Horst is talented with visual storytelling, as the animation moves smoothly and each shot looks like it's own illustration. The only negative thing I have to say about this animation, is that in parts the narrative is a little too muffled. Other than that, I love this piece! I can't wait to see her 2017 film next year!
THE LINE studio is a team of animation directors based in London.
The studio specializes in 2D animation and has released a number of commissioned animations for companies and musicians. The studio has worked for E4, FreeView, TALKTALk and many other companies, with advertisment animations. The studio has also worked with two musicians to produce music videos. I've checked their studio on LinkedIN and apparently there are only 10 members of staff working permanently in the studio.
I was introduced to the studio when someone in my class did a presentation about how she wanted to work for them, as she was interested with the compositing the studio did with stop-motion on their commission animation film for FreeVeiw. This film is apparently the studios largest project, with over 44 artists involved. On their website they've created pre-production pages with their films; showing storyboards, animatics and character designs for most films they've made. The concept art and character designs for this animation in particular and wonderful, they've really caught my attention. I've looked into a possible internship placement, but for 2016 it's fully booked. I'd love to gain some experience from the studio, I may apply for an internship in 2017.
Over my second year of studying animation at LCA I've become more and more aware of the differences between engaging within the industry and self employment when working as an artist. I've also become more aware of the 'business sides' of being an artist and how these artists manage to keep their creative heads above the water of self employment. Although I'm leading towards getting employment within some form of creative study in the future, right now, I'm still open minded to the idea of self publishing my own work online and advertising myself online for possible freelance work. As a freelance artist, I'd have to maintain self advertisment online on social media and attend a number of advents to promote myself and my work; all this can be ricky, as I'll most likely have a month to earn enough to pay rent. However, selling my work online and advertising online for commissions seems rather simple to 'set up'.
Starting this summer I'm planning on developing developing several prints and posters, to then post on sites such as RedBubble (which is an online store where artists upload their illustrations/art and consumers can purchase in a number of forms, such as posters and cups) . I'm also planning on entering the 2016 November Manchester Animation Festival student film contest, with an animation I'm currently developing. Although this idea is very vague and hasn't appeared on my blog yet, I'm planning on finishing the storyboard for the animation before the start of 3rd year in September. I'm planning on making the animation roughly 1-2 minutes long.
I noticed I'd entered one of my social networking links wrong, after I changed the theme on my tumblr blog place. 'Tumblr.com/mollypukes' should of been 'mollypukes.tumblr.com'. I've made the changes, luckily before printing any versions!
I put together an A4 sheet visually documenting all the work I've developed as part of the personal promotion brief 'BRAND ME'. In this sheet I've put together elements of my attempts to brand myself such as:
Creative CV
Informational promotion (Illustrations)
Letter Head
DVD cover (Animations)
Business card (back and front)
Logo
I've very happy with the final results for all of the elements I've made in response to the brief set, I'm planning on getting the business cards in particular printed soon for my own benefit as a current freelancer whilst studying.
To finish off my 'promotional pack' for advertising myself as a creative, I've designed a cover for a promotional DVD to give to possible clients which contains animated works and an A4 sheet that promotes my illustrations, which includes character designs and concept works.
As well as redesigning my personal indent I also redesigned my concept for business cards. Here are PNG images of both the back and fronts of my business cards. The cards include my icon, my artist name as well as birth name, my Email and my Instagram (most active social media page) and a definition of what sort of creative I am (animation - illustration).
Back
I'm interested about getting these cards printed, after consulting my tutor about their layouts, at Leeds Printing Company however I most likely won't be able to get that done before the deadline because I can't afford their (cheap) costs.
After finishing my personal Indent, I decided to use the illustration from that indent in my business cards as well as on my creative CV.
I want to focus my creative CV on a soft balanced colour scheme so decided on green, orange and yellow; these colours are eye catching. To help balance out the yellow I softened all the shades in photoshop with the layer option 'soft light' and outlined the text with white, so it was still readable. I included my social media links and email, as well as a little bit of silly information about me and the skills I have. Because I haven't graduated from leeds college of art I left out my education as well as work experience, as I have non related to the creative arts.
In my first year of studying at LCA I used my youtube channel as a sort of bucket - a way of pouring WIP animations and clips and keeping them together, in order to later upload them onto my Blogger. However, this year as youtube is another frontier I'll be presenting my work for possible clients, I've cleaned up my act on youtube. Although I've been less active on youtube as I have Tumble and Instagram, I've cleaned up my home page. Veiwers will be welcomed by a few of my videos I've selected as examples, in hopes of earning an subscription. Although it hasn't worked so far, as I've only gained 9 subscribers this year (the shame, SHAME). Hopefully my youtube channel will pick up as much popularity as my other social media pages.
