Do judge a book by its cover: Robo-Outcome

Here we have it, the finale.

So, i can say that i am proud of this outcome, especially considering it is my first attempt at paper cutting, ever. The palette experimentation has most definitely paid off with the contrasting tones, having an outcome that jumps at you, and looks good in the process. Also having just the necessary elements of the cover, it super easy to read the image and what it actually is, straight to the point. Speaking of my first time using paper craft, i am most certainly glad that i took the risk in this case, giving for a much stronger outcome than the digital print i had in mind would have given me, and just gave me the opportunity to, yet again, broaden my horizons.

But, there are lessons to be learned, mainly, don't be lazy on a saturday, wake up when the bloody alarm goes off. Im sorry that was pretty out of nowhere, buy you see the reverse of the book isn't quite to the quality that i wanted it to be, reason being that i didn't get up early enough on the saturday to get in to Uni, and really concentrate on the section, and properly spray mount it, rather than terrible Sellotape double sided (god its bad) offering bumpiness and sadness. If i were to do this again, i would wake up when i need to, simple as.

End of module self evaluation

Leeds college of art: BA (Hons) Illustration OUIL403 Visual Skills Level 04 Credits 20 1. Which practical skills and methodologies have you developed within this module and how effectively do you think you are employing them within your own practice?

Ive tried quite a lot of new things for this project, or at least brought back some oldies that i'd had some bad experiences with. New additions being paper craft and coloured ink, bad pasts with crayon and watercolour, all working out and giving strong outcomes. The paper craft was certainly interesting, having had that experience, i know for sure i will dabble in the medium again, and am eager to do so. Im also proud to say that every single one of my outcomes was created with a different medium, whereas in the past i usually stuck to black ink line drawings and digital outcomes. 2. Which principles/ theories of image making have you found most valuable during this module and how effectively do you think you are employing these within your own practice? I really tried to spread my wings within the constraints of each brief, having valuable lessons gained from each. With the first brief, i'd never really had to plan out how to use a space of 'canvas' without the aid of photoshop, where i would have the ability to just re position and re scale everything. Having just the analogue mediums to work with was surprisingly alien to me and its comforting to know that i don't just crumble without digital support. For the second brief, it was great to create images of two tones, allowing me to experiment with contrasts, and again, thanks to the multiple results needed, it was great to have the opportunity to mix it up with mediums. Having the safety that if i mess up one of the images, at least the others will probably be a success. With this its incredibly surprising that the image i'm least happy with was created with the medium i was most comfortable using, digital. I guess this speaks volumes, as digital can be difficult to pull off without looking, well crap. My previous experience has taught me as much, and i guess this was just not one of my days when i created this work. That being said i am still happy with the outcome and glad i have it as a reminder to the lesson learnt. With the final brief, i was sure to take full advantage of the lack of restraints, fully utilising the necessary roughs to pinpoint what it was in my cover that i wanted, whilst also going completely alien with medium. 3. What strengths can you identify within your submission and how have you capitalised on these?  Im super happy with my use of medium, the range is ever growing, and i hope it only continues, Advancing on this though would be to mix the mediums more often, creating stronger outcomes because of it. My generation of ideas seems to be back in shape, finding it difficult to create works i was happy with starting the course.  4. What areas for further development can you identify within your submission and how will you address these in the future? Well, having little knowledge of a lot of the mediums i implemented, there is still a lot of work that can be done on improving them. This will come with practice though, so they will improve if i keep working at them. I believe i addressed all other issues within the other section, so ill save us both some time and move on.   5. In what way has this module introduced you to the Ba (Hons) Illustration programme Although i haven't mentioned it very often, I'm glad that the course is encouraging me to consider both composition and conveyance within my work, rather than just creating pretty pictures, these are key elements to a successful outcome, and can be scarily easy to overlook. Without waffling on, what i'm trying to say is that i know that i'm in safe hands, the course has been created in a way which means that i will leave a better creative, with a broader knowledge and strong method to work with, this has been shown within this unit and is quite reassuring.  Ratings 1 2 3 4 5 Attendance x Punctuality x Motivation x Commitment x Quantity of work produced x Quality of work produced x Contribution to the group x

Do judge a book by its cover: Robots!

New Brief time! This one concerning the creation of a sleeve for a book from a specific selection at the Uni's library.  This time there were no restrictions on media and colour, just have at it. The only other expectation outside the blog posts and actual outcome, was to have five roughs to the scale of the book, so what was the book i found for my project?

Robots, by Daniel Ichbiah

To summarise, its a book, about robots.

Idea draughtsmanship

Starting off in a rather daft manner, i committed to my outcomes far too early with two detailed drawings (the robotic forearm and heart), that I was pretty certain wouldn't be used in the actual outcome, silly stuff. Whilst this was a poor use of time, at least they made for decent Instagram posts, so theres that i guess.

After this i got straight to thinking of a design layout, a little robot fella jumping. The priority for this idea was to both create a character of my own, and also have the robot jumping from the constraint of wiring, to show how far we have come within the technological genre. Feeling the first rendition of the character was a bit stiff (the blue and orange sketch), i experimented with poses to achieve a better fluidity. These can be seen dotted around the page. The final pose, which was a tweak of the original was later used in the full scale draught.

Again, continuing to play with different layouts, it took a while for anything to stick. I was feeling particularly inspired after looking through the '47th publication design annual: the best magazine design photography illustration infographics & digital' by the 'Society of Publication Designers'. 

   This image is titled 'Fast Company' by Alice Alves  

Whilst this didn't exactly pay off, as you can see the floaty robot text idea didn't go very far. This isn't a reason to stop my self from looking at other sources of inspiration though, as my productivity did increase when i finished with my library books, finding the scope and range of the work on show to be incredibly inspirational. The next idea, showing hands working on the well known 'Asimo' robot over complicated the cover for me, too many elements. Having used an existing real robot for an idea, i decided to have a little doodle with my favourite existing fictional robot, 'The Iron Giant', and must admit, for a small bit of fun, i like how the idea was shaping up.

Moving on, i drew a 'transformer' that was within the book, just a fun little exercise. Returning to original character/ robot design on the right hand page, i had an idea for a layout that would showcase three differing aspects of robotics, these being fictional, toy and industrial. Fictional was super fun, having one of the newer model CCTV cameras that are concealed with a dome, and can point in any direction, as my starting point for the head, the rest of the body fell in place being generated from my imagination. The other two were pretty easy, considering that a wind up robot looks like a wind up robot, and an industrial arm looks like an industrial arm. 

To explain the colour choice, i simply wanted to see how the contrasting tones work when paired with one another as line work, its nice, but probably wouldn't work out for a final outcome, i guess its a nice way to keep things interesting whilst generating concepts.

Draughting

Having a few ideas under my belt, i was eager to jump in to the larger draughts that would fit the book itself. To start things off i utilised the designs just covered. Happy with the drawing itself, but there were a lot of problems , being lazy, i used felt pens for colour, even though i knew they wouldnt give me the colour tones i wanted. This resulted in garish colours, but, i wasnt too cut up about it as having each element a different colour made the image more crowded than necessary. On top of this, seeing a somewhat finished version of this idea, i know i don't want to use it , it simply wasn't doing it for me

Next i returned to the previous designs, but wanted to present them in a more streamlined manner. Removing the production arm, and having the other two designs bundled/ interacting to make the one image, this made for a much easier image to take in. The text also drowned in the previous draught (most likely because of the harsh blue felt pen) so i re sized it giving it a more prominent position, and mentioning the felts, i decided to keep them at a minimum, sticking to the orange fine liner for the characters, and using the blue felt to create a border. Im happy with the image, it solves all the issues of the previous idea, buuuut, i still don't see it as an outcome.

Working on what i considered a throwaway thumbnail at its time of creation, i fancied drawing the iron giant, and had a ton of fun with it too. Im surprised by how much i like the result, but was uncomfortable with using a design that wasn't of my own creation. On a side note, i guess i bothered my arse to whip out the pencil crayons, giving a better idea of how i would like the colour to look in the outcome, so note to self, don't be lazy.

Saying that is quite ironic though considering this outcome is pretty much nothing.. But, there is a reason for its inclusion, being that it made me consider the spread of the cover as a whole which i used within the next draught.

Here it is, the design i knew i had to continue, and my earliest concept, the jumping robot, using the re positioned version from the posing tests, giving for a more dynamic outcome. Id hoped that changing the pose would make the image completely click for me, but i knew there was more to be done.

Finalising the final for a final outcome

I started with a bit of colour play, and yes, you probably noticed that i did this on the old, original design. This was a bit of a mistake, i think i just had that file open at the time i decided to experiment, so more the fool lazy me, regardless, i decided that i would rather have CCTV robot be the star of the show, and that these colours were not the right option.

Damn thats better, the posing is more energetic, the wires flexing all over the place are more dynamic and are far better at drawing the eye. Now i was ready to really get stuck in with colour.

Here as a handy dandy slice of the new age, i present the better results of my play in a gif. All results are shown individually below if you happen to be allergic to cool things.

I found it incredibly hard to determine which outcome i favoured, so i condensed what was really grabbing me into the top line, and, despite all the research, it seemed that the orange and blue was still what i wanted, so i nipped to the shop and got some coloured paper.

Just to be sure i liked how the colours looked with each other, i scanned the sheets in and was relieved to see that they looked good. This effort was also quite convenient as it meant i could work upon it when testing type.

Type

Unlike the colour variations, it was obvious to me what the strongest outcome was, being the outcome with the o surrounding the robots head, but also believed the final attempt with the title resting on the robots shoulder to also be quite strong.

Bit of an overthought, but i realised that i hadn't actually tried the shades of blue the other way around, and thankfully, after doing so, found the result to be far better than the original, so clearly the way to go.

This was also very advantageous for the title of the book, with the black text being easier to distinguish atop the darker shade of blue.

With that i still hadn't decided for sure what my text placement would be, so i thought it best to see the designs laid out within an actual book sleeve draught, adding the authors name too.This helped for sure, as i came to the conclusion that the second design was the way to go, but also that the placement for the authors name on the first image would be better suited. With that being said, it was time to bring this thing in to the real world.

Almost done!

So, cutting time, the process was simple enough, i had no issues with the draught illustration, so i decided to continue using it. Transferring the line work by tracing paper, and cutting out. I continued to do so with the rest of the elements of the design, being the wires and reverse (which will be seen in the final outcome when the design was decided upon at the last minute... just being honest with you.) This isnt the case for the text though, as i knew it would be inpossible to cut the perfect O's of the title, so i decided to ink them.

A day in the life: Outcome

Here are the three outcomes of the brief.

Chugger

My first, and what i feel to be the weakest outcome, the image is just far too crowded and can also give completely the wrong message, sure when paired with the article you can tell what is being said, but without that, you would probably thing the image would be about war and oil and stuff of that nature. Now, that being said, the image does have its strengths, i feel that the image is the best response to the article in terms of tone of voice. The article is serious stuff, and doesn't want you to take the idea seriously. Now whilst i do prefer the other results, they do play with the idea in a jokey way, rather than straight up try to show and represent the article entirely, like i tried to with this image. I also quite like the colour, its dreary and aids the serious tone. If i were to create the image again, i would probably have experimented more with the gas effect, feeling that the line work in the outcome is just far too crowded.

The Inflated Issue

This second image, showing David Cameron showing off his inflated issue of ISIS, is an outcome i am pleased with. Every person that i shown the image to seem to have immediately understood the message, and also appreciated the aesthetics of the piece. I personally, an quite happy with the application of watercolour, giving myself a bit of a confidence boost with the medium. Sure, its no masterful use, but its a step in the right direction. There are issues though, as i am unhappy with the white space, feeling that maybe a lighter wash of blue would have benefitted the space, regardless, a good outcome in my books.

Danger Mouse

My favourite outcome, the piece that plays with the title of the article. I am super happy with this outcome because it is both crowded and easy to read at the same time, feeling like a result of the trials, successes and mistakes of the two prior outcomes, also i got to draw a nintendo 64, everything's coming up Mi... Moore. I only really have one minor issue, the inclusion of the David Cameron making sweet love to a pig scandal. A trivial, pretty much non existent issue that was spread through social media this year, its not really a noteworthy issue, and i should have found a better problem to include, like something to do with war, yes, thats it, if i were to create the outcome again, id include war rather than piggate.

A day in the life: Process

So, new brief time, for this one the class were split in to groups and given separate news articles. With this we would have to create three different outcomes, pertaining to the specific dimensions of:

• 200mm x 200mm (Square)
• 105mm x 200mm (Portrait) 
• 290mm x 105mm (Landscape) 

The article that i was given, had the title "Danger Mouse" and deals with the writers opinion that David Cameron (current prime minister) is spending too much time concentrating on and combating Terrorism (the group ISIS), when other issues more directly affect Britain, such as climate change, debt, issues with the National Health Service etc.

Upon reading the article, i admittedly did disagree with the message, but thats the how the cookie crumbles, gotta do what is asked if you want to get paid. So, upon understanding what the writer was trying to say, i made some draughts, lets take a look shall we:

So for this first image, the idea was to have a T.V. showing a news report on isis, but in order to run is secreting oils and unhealthy gasses, destroying the environment. This is highlighting the irony of the situation, whilst one element is the killing of inhabitants of the world, the other is killing the world itself.

Admittedly not a great idea, i put hitler in an outline ski mask, to say that we are trying to portray ISIS as a threat equal to the Nazi's. This is a subject proposed within the article, and whilst i like how the biro looks against the pencil. Im ashamed that i even entertained this ideology as a subject matter, evil is evil, both parties caused civilian casualties.

This time i played with the idea of ISIS possibly being put on a pedestal because they are making the most noise at the moment, nocking both the NHS and global warming off of their respective positions. I like this one and feel it portrays the theme of the article rather effectively.

Another unsuccessful outcome, this is the issues of NHS and global warming hiding in the shadows, whilst ISIS shoots at the police, not a clear to read image, especially in terms of the character for global warming/ pollution, it caused a lot of confusion.

So before creating the next batch, i knew i would most likely be using David Camerons likeness, so here is a bunch of me drawing him.

Moving on, this is a terrible sketch of nothing, so lets move on a bit more.

On to the good stuff, probably my favourite draught, this little ballon toting cameron symbolises the prime minister proudly presenting his inflated issue.

This image had potential, but possibly if it was created by someone who can draw like a tiny child, or an actual tiny child being given the proper direction. It is supposed to be a child like drawing created by and signed by Cameron, depicting danger mouse (i decided to actually include the smart title in to the theme) fighting a member of ISIS, whilst the backdrop depicts smog and industrial chimneys killing the planet.

Again working with Danger Mouse, i decided to incorporate themes of the show, that of Danger Mouse approaching the most heroic looking issue when other bigger things are at hand. Danger mouse points at a screen showing ISIS, whilst other issues surround it.

So ending with a bang, we have an absolute banger, in a bad way, just to clarify if you ever are confused by current youth terminologies. So i simply wanted to put down the idea of having a propaganda poster of David Cameron, poking fun at the idea of him gunning for glory, but the rough isa mess and the idea wasn't that great to begin with, so moving on to the outcomes!

A to Z of cocks poster

And here we have it, the finale, an A2 portrait poster, created using tones of orange, and the medium of ink, pure ink. Super happy with the result and cant wait to get it stuck on my wall!

Im specifically pleased with the use of tone, having never used coloured ink, i was unsure as of wether or not i would be able to do the medium justice, but thankfully the wash is clean and the differing tones are clear. I also am fond of how the sticker effect has payed off, i do get the sense that the characters could be collectibles bought in packets or given with a toy. The element i was most pleased with was the time at which it took me to complete the outcome, having days of freedom afterward to really tamper with and decide if i was happy with the outcome.

With that in mind, there are things that i would experiment with if i were to develop the project further. Firstly would be to actually generate the outcomes as stickers, for a genuine result. Also i would probably create a version with a touch more rendering, with the use of orange pencil to build tone within the work, giving the characters that extra dimension. One of my biggest regrets with the project is only thinking of backgrounds for some of the cocks, meaning that the remainder look rather plain in their presentation. 

Poster progression

Knowing what my path would be, it was time to brush up some of the characters that just weren't sitting right with me, be it boring poses that didn't live up to their potential, compositional changes, switching around letters and in one case even a complete replacement of one character thanks to input from a peer (thanks guy!)

My first change was to re draw one of the keeper characters ( the anarchist cock) but with just that bit more detail, i was happy with the look but messed up by adding the highlight, so that element was dropped.

Clown cock needed energy, clowns are fun and goofy, they don't stand around, the kids would get bored. So some much needed fun was injected to the fella, putting a spring in his step and a nice comic effect water shooting flower, because they are always funny...

Goth cock also needed more of his character to shine through, so i gave him the element of mellow drama, and a sweet vampire-sheek, trench coat. And for added effect a grave stone was added, because thats were all goths commune, obviously!

Extra terrestrial cock needed changing because he could easily be given a better angle, which would in turn pay off for the final outcome when i present him in outer space.

Heroic cock who? Hitch cock is the in thing right now, the idea suggested by my peer that was a drastic improvement on the original idea and character

Muscular cock just wasn't besotted enough with himself, dudes worked hard on his killer bod, and wants to show it off to the local hens.

Veiny cock, hoo buddy, i think i literally re drew him for the sake of making him grosser.

Xray just wasn't interesting enough, and the joke of having bones in the 'hair' bit was better than having testicles for internal organs (the character is either a dressed up cockerel, or penis, depending on your level of maturity). So for this i simply zoomed the image to the head and neck region.

With upside down cock, there was a clear opportunity to make the character way more fun, opting for the character failing to pull off a hand stand, but clearly still having a ton of fun. A very playful outcome.

Nerdy cock is probably my proudest improvement, the original got the idea across, but the re creation has more character and was just a cutesier creation, with his chubby cheeks and big eyes.

 Having a cast of improved characters, it was time to consider the other aesthetic touches of the poster, starting with the title.

Next came how each cock should be presented on the poster, following an idea inspired by my early childhood, where children's movies would have stickers depicting key scenes released, and a thematically consistent book to put them in. I wanted to present the cocks as though they were collectible stickers, meaning that i would include creases and rips for their surrounding box's. As for colour, it was a simple choice of orange, because that is the colour most prominently featured on cockerels. The medium was also just as quick to decide, applying ink and feeling right at home, giving a clean, and as my peers stated, professional looking outcome.