Module Evaluation

EVALUATION OF THE MODULE 

During my first module in first year we had to complete 5 units, these units were, Reportage, Animals and Creatures, People and Characters, Digital manipulation and Book of Drawings, in each one of these units I experienced and gained knowledge that you need to be in the illustration community, from Reportage I learned how to create accurate proportions and scenery illustrations, in Animals and Creatures I learned how to create different textures for the skin or fur of the creatures while also learning how to create odd shaped features that animals have, People and Characters taught me how to work in a group and how to split work loads in to even piles for each member of the group and how to trust the other members, Digital manipulation wasn't one of my most favourite of the units but I learned the basics of editing software's and how to create a simple hand rendered design into a detailed and clean illustration, but from this unit I learned more from getting inspiration from fellow students then I did from actual illustrators and finally the Book of Drawings, this unit was the most difficult one for me because not only did you have to research artists you had to research how to build the book whether it was a hardback, paper back or a zine, but for me the most difficult part was how to create a book that was original, appealing but also met the criteria of the Book of Drawings, so what I learned from this unit is how to figure out ways to solve a problem or how to work with a problem that is presented to you.

In the unit Reportage we had to complete 10 sketch books with illustrations using reportage and I think the hole course thought doing 10 sketch books in 2 weeks seemed difficult because most of us never had to do that, but when we managed to get the hang of things and then thought of ways to solve the problem such as creating our own books with lesser pages in the unit became easy and much more enjoyable knowing it was hard to fall behind in.

Animals and Creatures was personally one of my favourites because not only did we have a pleasure of meeting some lovely creatures at the university we also got to visit a zoo and improve our proportions and textures for illustration, what made this unit really fun though was how we had a large amount of freedom on what we had to create for the finals, the 5 sketches books that needed to be done was a bit difficult because we had to have a mixture of secondary source animals and illustrations of the creatures we seen in real life and on top of that we needed a mixture of rough sketches of the animals and detailed pieces of them.

People and Creatures was one of the more stressy units out of the 5 because of being put into a group of people, the reason I found this to be a slight problem is because if I make a mistake in my work it only effects me but if I make a mistake in a group piece it will effect the over all group and that put quite a bit of stress on me, also you feel like you  are in a competition to see who does the better work and if you feel like your work isn't as good as the other members it can really be a hard hit to your confidence, but either way I enjoyed and I liked how when we were designing what we wanted to put up on the wall we all give in our ideas and we all met at an agreement that would include at least 1 idea from the each of us, also how we split the work up into even sections helped us complete the piece much faster then if we gave one person more then other members.

Out of all of the units Digital Manipulation was my least favourite because for me the hole idea of digital illustration makes me think of digital painting and I don't find that sort of illustration to appealing, mainly because the illustration seems flat and loses all of its natural textures, but I understand people who use it to enhance the detail and colouring in hand rendered pieces of work, like for this unit I scanned in everyone one of my illustrations and then made them digital from either making them look smoother or creating a duplicated pattern out of the original image. I am not going to lie, but in this unit I didn't try as hard as I should have and I that is because, one the computers were taken most of the time, 2 you had to learn how to use the software which isn't very me because I learn better from being hands on then actually reading up on something, but never the less I will learn my way around editing software's and I will use them to help enhance my hand rendered images to make them more appealing and professional.

The Book of Drawings was a bit of a weird unit because it was the one that gave you the most freedom and I found out early on in this unit that the research I was doing was helpful but it wasn't as helpful as the other units, because I didn't want to create just a regular old hardback that you can see hundreds of videos on online, I wanted to make something that I personally thought of and the idea completely belongs to me, but by me thinking like this I also had to think of using a style that was also original to me so that consisted of me doing a lot of messing around illustrations trying to find the technique that I wanted to use, at the beginning of this unit all I new was that I wanted to include reportage some how, but after I figured what I wanted the book to look like and what the style of illustration I wanted it to be in creating the book became the easy bit. Over all I enjoyed this unit because it is the one that needed me to use the most imagination and it taught me how to think of ways to either solve a problem I was having or how to work with a problem.

In this module I have learned how to manage my time much better and I am slowly starting to feel comfortable with my own designs then something I tried to recreate of off the internet like I did when I was at school and partially in college, the main thing out of the module that I can think of to improve for the next module is completing the blogs as early as possible so you don't need to back track and waste more valuable time you could be spending on other work. In my conclusion I have enjoyed this module and I am more then looking forward to my second module to start.

Book of Drawings - ( Illustrations being used in the book )

The illustrations I will be putting into the book are of me drawing the sections of the scenery I can see from looking through the window while I also include the window its self part of the illustration. I will be creating these illustrations through the technique known as reportage and the reason I am doing this is because I think reportage will always give you an original image and you arnt restricted to what you want to do. To create these illustrations I will be using a line of cool gray markers, but I wont be using them for shading I will be using them to create big bold out of proportion lines to simplify the scenery and give it a hole new look to the human eye.

In this illustration I have used a light blue marker for the outer rim of the window frame and then used a dark blue for the inner rim of the frame, I have then illustrated 2 small sections of the church clock that I can see from the position I was sitting in at the moment. What I like about this style of drawing is how you have to take your time to understand what the picture actually is so you can really appreciate the illustration.

This is my most detailed illustration that I will be putting inside the book of drawings, what makes this drawing so detailed is how I was sat in a position where I was looking up to the church so I could see most of the building and include more detail into the overall piece.

Here I have illustrated a road that I could see through one of the many windows I was drawing from but what makes this one stand out the most from all my other ones is how it has a small section of a unusual shaped lamppost and the section that I could see through the window just managed to keep the unusual shape in my line of sight, I also like how ive illustrated it so you can defiantly tell that the lamppost is closer to the window then the Ballard in the background.

Here I have illustrated the section of the church tower that has the clock in. This isnt my most favourite of the illustrations but how I have used darker shades of each colour I have used helps add the element of shadowing to the bricks used in the wall.

In this illustration the only thing that I like about it is how I have used a brown marker to create a tree and branches that are over laying the wall of the building.

I have more illustration in my book of drawings but this is the last one I will be including into the blog because I didnt want to ramble on about the illustrations and spoil them for people who wanted to see the book in person. Here I have illustrated a section of the churchs tower and the tiles used on the roof and how I have used a simple scale like effect to them really brings out the roof and doesn't make it hard to guess what it is.

Digital manipulation - Development ( Final 4 )

For this digital illustration I have used one of my final pieces from my animal and creatures unit and I did that because I would like to a digital element to the creatures body and help the creature gain colour and texture.

Here is the illustration that I will be using in my digital illustration unit, what I will be doing to this illustration is adding a different colour to the skull and main while also adding colour and textures to the rest of the illustration.

First I have went over the scanned image with a thick oval shaped brush to give the body of the creature a unique shape I couldn't of got using a fine liner.

Here I have added a light blue colour to the body of the creature and the reason I have done this is because I wanted the creature to have the look of a rotting corpse because it adds to the element of fear, I then went onto using a light gray on the skull, hands and under belly to help bring out the blue from the plain background. I used purple on the main of the creature because purple represents poison and that works with the effect of death I wanted the creature to have.

For this image I searched for a texture on the internet that was free and I will be using it to add texture to the creature to help add depth and make the overall image pop up off of the page.

Here is the final piece that I have created and I think that how I have used the texture on image that only consisted of block colour no shading helps add depth and a element of reality to the piece. Out of all of my final digital pieces I am most proud of this one because the movement of the original illustration works well with the digital aspects that I put into the piece. From this unit I have found out that a simple image can become a detailed interesting image from the help of taking it digitally, I may not of found this out from most of my digital pieces but from getting inspiration from my fellow students I would like to learn more to help advance my illustrations with this technique.

Digital manipulation - Development ( Final 3 )

Within this blog post i will be showing the development of one of my final pieces for a digital piece that i have created.

Here I have scanned in a illustration I did in my spare time of a orc. I will be aiming to make add colour to the lip of the orc and also make the orcs skin smoother to hide the brush strokes that i left on the image.

Here I lowered the opacity of the image and then used the blur tool to blur all the colour around the image, the reason I lowered the opacity is because it helps the darker sections stand out more so it will point out to me what section need to be smoothed down the most.

In this picture of the orc I have put the opacity back to normal and this is how the skin of the orc looks now. I have added a light pink to the lip of the orc and used the smudge tool to give it a slight movement to resemble teeth roots inside of the gums.

For this piece I have just added a dark overlay to make the overall image darker because I personally think using a darker tone on a arc adds more of a element of fear to the illustration.

Book of Drawings - ( Development of the final piece )

In this blog I will be talking about how I created the book I will be placing my illustrations within.

At the beginning of making the book of drawings i got a unfolded shoe box and then measured out the length and width i wanted the book to be, so in my case a few centimetres bigger then a A5 book. After i had the measurements marked out onto the card board i then used a scalpel to cut away all the excess cardboard.

I then used the scalpel to cut out 1 large rectangle and 4 little squares that are all above the rectangle and i have done this to represent the look of a window. I used blue paint to cover the cardboard and i used blue because i think a light blue is a very welcoming colour.

This is a womans shirt and i can safely say with out a doubt ive never been so griefed by old people in my life for buying a piece of clothing. The reason i bought this piece of clothing is because i was going to use a floral pattern to create the curtains i will be using to cover up sections of the window and bind the book together. When i was cutting out the sections of the material that i will be using in the book i didnt give my self a set measurement i just went off of how comfortable i was of the length of the section of materiel i was going to use.

I then proceeded to fold up the jagged edges of the fabric that i used for curtains and used UHU glue to stick the edges down, i also used the glue to stick half of the fabric on the left down to the front cover and i will leave the rest of the fabric on the left to bined the back and front cover together.

Here is the centre of the book that i took a picture of to show how i have connected the back and front of the book together using the curtains fabric. When i was doing this i had to make sure i didnt get any of the fabric over the centre of the window because i wanted to have one of my illustrations showing through the window.

At this point i used a hole punch on my A5 illustrations and then used a frilly piece of red string to hold all of the illustrations together.

After i had tied the knot in the string holding the pages together i then used UHU glue to stick the back page to the back cover, but i was placing the stack of illustrations onto the back i had to make sure that the image at the front was able to show enough of the illustration through the window in the front cover.

And here is the final piece of the Book of drawings and the book its self isnt perfectly done but i like the fact it has a hand crafted element to it and it feels much more welcoming to look at then a book that was just made by machines. I think out of all of the other units this is by far the most difficult because i personally found out how to make a book more by actually creating it then by researching into it and the fact i did that is because i wanted it to be more original then just something anyone can copy from the internet, I also think that from this unit my imagination really became more advanced then what it was in the other units because i had more freedom and less rules to follow and if i made a mistake while making the book i learned how to work with a mistake and make it a positive aspect of the book.

Animals and Creatures - ( Final Piece 4 )

In this blog i will be showing you the development of my final piece of my 4th animal and creatures design.
Before i talk about this development blog i will tell you that i didnt create much development because i created the outline of the image first in pencil on a A3 piece of paper so before i inked it in i did some quick development pieces to see if their was anything i needed to change.

Here i have created 5 sketches of a frogs face and for each of the sketches i was trying to see the better places for the eye socket of the frog and the position of his ear.

In this picture i have done two illustrations of different bone structures i could use in my final piece and i have also tested the best way to have the feathers flow and over lap so it works well with the image of the wing being folded up. I chose the bottom picture because the i like how i havent used as much feathers and this helps the image of most of the feathers being folded under the wing.

In the original out line i put on the A3 paper i wasn't happy with the muscle size i was using in the spine and front legs so i created this rough sketch to help the proportions of the front leg and the bend in the spine in how it connects to the shoulder blades.

Here is my final piece that i have created, in this illustration i have used a gray marker to create the grass, i have also used a quill to create the outline of the creature and the reason i have done this is because i like how the quill has to change the lines shape when ever it needs to turn and how it is so easy to make a thick line into a thin line, i have then used a 0.05 fine liner to do cross hatching for the shading in the creatures dark spots and i did this because i think it brings out the darker sections of the image and help the illustration have more texture. Over all i am happy with most of the illustration, my only flaw is that i wish i didnt use thick lines to create the movement of muscle in the front leg.

Animal and Creatures - ( Final Piece 3 )

In this blog I will show you how I developed my illustrations into the final piece.

Earlyer on in one of my blogs for animals and creatures i spoke about the illustrations above saying how i wanted to develop this creature into one of my final pieces, i will be improving how the creatures proportions dont go away with how it is stud up and i will also be adding a better technique that i have recently started to use.

Here i have done a quick sketch of a different pose of the first design that i created and i have also given the creature better proportions. In this sketch i had the idea of giving the wings but i then thought that it would seem to boring and unrealistic of it having wings to small to carry the creatures head.

Here is the sketch i designed and this is also the one that i chose to use in my final piece. For this design i have given the creature less of a over exaggerated mouth and instead of the creature having 2 birds legs and wings i have given it one big foot so it can hold its body weight much better and also make it look more original.

In this picture I have started my final piece and what i have changed here is the size of the eye, added more detail into the ear and instead of the mouth showing teeth i have made the mouth closed. In this picture i have also started to add cream coloured marker to add to the skin and i will add it to all parts of the creature sept for the toe nails, eye and mouth.

Here I have finished adding the colour to my creature and i have then added a darker cream to the sections that i think needed to have more depth and shadow to, I am thinking of using lines as a shading technique to help pop out certain parts of the darker colour.

For this image i have started to add colour and detail within the eye, the detail that i have added is from using a mixture of greens, i have used a light green to go around the rim of the eye ball and then i have used a dark grim for the larger section of the eye and then added dark triangles to represent the detail inside the eyeball.

In this image of the creature i have used a paint pen to add a thicker out line to the illustration so it pops out of the page more and it lets me have the ability to use smaller pens much more easier for the line shading that i will be using later on. I have added a pink marker to the lips and i will be also adding a darker marker to sections of to the bottom lip that will be slightly over lapped by the top lip.

Here is the final piece of my 3rd creature for my animal and creatures unit. The changes i have made in this illustration are by adding simple line shading to the darker sections of the illustration and around the eye, the reason i have done this is because i think it adds more texture to the over all image and it adds more detail then any marker shading could in my personal opinion. I personally dont think i could of done a better job of this illustration because i like how original the design is and how i felt comfortable using this style of work.

Animals and Creatures - ( final animal 2 )

In this blog i will be showing the development process of my second animal / creature that i have created.

Here i have done a quick rough sketch of the shape of the serpent like body i want my creature to have and i have also used the crocodile skull that i used in my earlier illustrations in my design sketches in this final piece.

In this sketch i have added a more bone like finger structure to the dragons hand, i have also added a quick sketch of where i  wanted the main to go and how i wanted the flicks to be, the reason i havent done to many development sketches for this animal piece is because of the simple shape that the creature has.

Here i started to draw the simple form of one of my hands being clenched, the reason i have done this is to learn how to get rough proportions, the reason i dont want precise proportions is because i wanted the creatures hand to be a bit deformed so by having precise proportions i wont achieve this.

In this sketch I tried to illustrate the shape of my hand that i wanted the creature to have, i will make the next sketch much thinner and give it long pointed nails to resemble the the wildness of the creature and fear that it represents.

In this sketch i havent improved much other then making the fingers more proportioned with the thinness of the over all arm and also giving it much longer pointed nails.

Here is the start of my final piece, so far with this illustration I have given the creature a much thicker body which is wider then the creatures face. I have given the creature a slim crocodile head so it goes with the proportions of a thin snakes body and how I have given it a skinny deformed hand helps the overall image. The reason I have only coloured in the main and skull of this illustration is because I wanted the 2 most detailed sections of the illustration to stand out the most and also to leave me a section to add a digital technique to this image.

In this image of the development of my second final creature i am creating for animals and creatures i have added line shading to the darker aspects of the body and also added a scale like texture to the body.

Here is my final design of the creature and I can safely say I am pleased with the outcome because not only does the proportion of the body work well with the main and skull, I like how the skull is over lapping his body while the body is twisted, it really helps the image jump off of the page.

Animal and creatures - Illustrations - Development ( Final piece 1 )

Here i will be showing the development process i have taken for creating my first made up animal final piece.

At first i illustrated the creature i had in my head onto the piece of paper, the reason i have done this is to see what i needed to improve through development and from this illustration i realised i need to make it look more like its about to pounce then what it is, i also needed to change how the wings size and positioning work along with the rest of the image not work against it.

Here i have improved the positioning of the creatures hands but im still not happy with how the skull and wings are, i will work into more depth on how the wings should fold over and how the skull manages to be bold but still looks smooth and crisp.

Here i have started to develop and perfect the bird wing that i want to incorporate into my final image. I have chose to develop a birds wing that is curved inwards like how a bird is when it is about to land.

Here is my second page of developments for my bird wing on the creature that i will be creating, as you can see i have started to create the size and positioning of the feathers that are used in the wing, so far with the development i am happy with the positioning.

Here is my final design for my bird wing and what i like about this illustration is how the feathers go with the flow of the entire wing, i also like how the wing looks like it could easily be placed onto the shoulder blades of my creature.

Here is my first illustration that i will be putting into my final illustration and the reason i havent developed this design is because i achieved the wing within my first attempt in my opinion. I like how the horns used on the edges of the wing doesn't contradict the shape of the wing and neither do the bones to hold the wing in place.

Here i have started to illustrate and improve the skull i wall be using in my final piece, as you can see i have given up the square like shape my other skull designs used and i have given it more of a smooth bold brow design with carnivorous teeth.

Here i have the final design that i will be using in my final piece. What makes me settle on this final design is because the teeth look very carnivorous and how the shape of the skull represents a humans but the fact its so stretched out makes it look like some sort of humanoids skull.

Here i have started my final piece, at first i will use a pencil to line out the outline of the creature and add sections of where i will add more detail.

In this stage of the final piece i have finished the outline and have started to add black fine liner over the pencilled outline, i have also started to add small pieces of detail such as the grass and eye balls.

This is the second from last part of the final development, as you can see i have started to add thin lines into the feathers to give them their texture and in the skull while ive also added a gray pen to the grass and eye sockets to help them stand out.

Here is the final result and i am beyond pleased with the final outcome, because of the textures i have used top create the fur and the thickness of lines i have used for the shading in the overall image. The thing i think is most impressive that i have accomplished is how all the proportions are exactly how i imagined and i personally dont think i could of done a better job to this final out come.