Evaluation: Reflections on zines

Now having finished my second zine waxing lyrical, I feel I should just summarise and reflect on both projects together.

Pros:

- A variety of visually different imagery exploring style, whilst maintaining a thematic consistency, telling a narrative
- Unlike working to briefs, I now have imagery to put in to my portfolio, tailored to my interests and ambitions as an illustrator
- Although the project is finished, there is always the opportunity to create more zines and explore/ refine my interests as an illustrator.
- Positive feedback from peers when viewing the work, noting an improvement from my previous output as can be seen in this feedback sheet from the final crit.

- Future possibilities to advance upon the existing pages, such as animations, or 3D printing the designs, which was accomplished thanks to collaboration with a professional.
- The work could also be sent to agencies as a package
- Encouraged me to try new methods and learn new software to improve standards of work
- Honed skill of timekeeping, having to organise efficiently duration to work on pages
- Exploration of the interaction of type and environment should result in more visually engaging comic book layouts.


Shortcomings:

- Although the scenes from sketch up look good, especially compared to any previous attempts to illustrate a scene there is still room for improvement and exploration with the method.
- Despite being zines, they proved to be somewhat expensive to produce, meaning that physical versions will have to either be of a smaller scale when sent out, or have a price tag attached to them.
- Focusing mostly on scenery, my skill for character design fell a little behind, more work needs to be done to match in quality

It is fitting that the zines are my final outcomes, being quite possibly my favourite outcomes, and showcasing all the little things that have shaped my work over the course of my time in uni. Following these briefs has strengthened my output, but also instilled a need to continue improving, I know now not to settle on the same bag of tricks.