SB1: designing with pixar book

I recently discovered a book from PIXAR called 'Designing with Pixar: 45 Activities to Create Your Own Characters, Worlds, and Stories'. 

It has a lot of nice insight about the world of PIXAR and animation, but more importantly to me all about character design and the world that they live in. This is something that I am really interested in so reading this book brought a lot of things to light.

This book is mostly an activity book, with different things to help the audience interact. For example, colouring in the characters in different colours to see different outcomes. I think it's a really interesting way of getting the audience involved and helps you to see how different the characters would be if they were different colours.

SB1: adam brockbank

I recently discovered Adam Brockbank's work. The work of his that I'm most interested in is his storyboards. They are so detailed and in depth it's almost like I'm watching the movie through his storyboards. I'm interested to find out how long his storyboards take or if they are time consuming because most of the storyboards that i have seen before this are very rough and not as beautiful looking.

Even though his storyboards are the first thing that interested me, I'm also really interested in the illustrations for movies that he has done. Especially the animated ones where the outcome of the character can be up to interpretation until the final.

his compositions and layouts are really interesting and amazing. He seems to really think about how he wants the pieces to look and where things should go he doesn't just make it simple and boring and I really admire this.

mega task

so today was kind of a crazy day. especially for someone like me who is a big ball of anxious crap, lol. and at the start the person who had my other number had to leave the room so i was kind of stood there like....helllloooo. then i was stood at the front of the class like in primary school the kid that didn't get picked haha.

after that horrible beginning the day actually did turn out to be fun. stressful, but fun. working as one massive team actually made me feel like i was part of something, and i did get pretty competitive. 

we had a good idea, a good team and we did so much to try and win. we had people working on a website, the look of the app, the advert, the logo, the characters. everything was so sorted out and it all looked so cool. here's a few of the things we did:

 
after having a really good day and feeling pretty great about talking to a lot of new people and mingling. (i actually did that!) we lost, to dog latex. and to be honest, im not a sore loser, but i felt pretty cheated after all the effort we had put in for something thrown together to win. it was a pretty crap ending to a good day, but hey, we tried. 

first task

5 things i've learned

• what the next stage of stress feels like
• i really love copic markers
• how to rough my ideas to make something better
• do what i want to do
• i might actually not mind being an illustrator

5 things that you want to know more about

• lino-printing
• how to make products to sell - pins, cards, phone cases
• how to get a table at thought bubble
• how to not fall behind
• making zines

5 skils that you think are your strengths

• story-telling? i think
• making things look cute even if its not supposed to be
• telling really bad jokes
• drawing girls
• watching a whole tv show in a short time period

5 things that you want to improve

• using different materials (print, collage)
• my japanese
• stop comparing my work to others
• using ink (im so messy)
• staying in uni more and utilising the studio

5 practitioners that demonstrate your interest in illustration

• mall licudine
• charlotte mei
• hayao miyazaki
• makoto shinkai
• hel covell

5 websites or online resources that demonstrate your areas of interest in illustration

• http://conceptartworld.com/
• http://fuckyeahconceptart.tumblr.com/
• http://www.manga.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli
• http://en.shinkaiworks.com/

working with a photographer

(tried to use issuu but couldnt get to work)

a photography student approached me and asked me for some help with their project. they wanted me to create some sort of creature and gave me some descriptive words. at first i was a bit of a loss on what to do because normally i draw quite cutesy and i really wanted to branch out. you can see with these pictures the journey that i went through in trying to find a balance of creepy. at first they looked cute i can see that, but i think i really got it at the end. she was very happy with the results and so was i because i think i really did something different and im glad that i pushed myself to do that instead of just being cutesy.

evaluation

1.  What learning have you inherited through this module and how has it impacted on your own understanding of professional practice? Consider yourself as a student at University as much as an illustrator
Who I am as an illustrator and person has really changed since coming to university and doing this module. I think before learning about the open world of illustration I had a very clouded view of what I thought illustration was. ‘what makes a good drawing’ has become a question that I ask myself daily and my view of this has changed so much than from the beginning of the year. This prospect is so exciting to me because looking back at my work from the beginning of the year I feel like I have changed so much as a person and an illustrator. Being independent and being around a whole new group of people has given me new found confidence.
2. What approaches/ types of research have you found most valuable over this module? Why did they have such an impact?
Using Pinterest has been really fun for my throughout this module. As someone who had an account but never used it, it has been fun trying to get back into it again. I have found many things on there that have really inspired me. I also think the Big Head talks have been really useful for me this term because learning and listening to real Illustrators who are out there in the world is really eye-opening and inspiring. It’s nice to learn that they are down to earth and humans just like us, they have bad days and good days too. I think this has been the most valuable to me as I have found looking at other practitioners and listening to them has really helped me to grow my practice and to try out different things.
3. In what way has PPP informed the way your work in other modules and your illustration practice as a whole?
PPP has become the module where I discover myself and who I am as an illustrator. Drawing and being myself and finding artists who inspire me has really informed the way that I work in other modules and in general. Doing this module has given me the grounds to experiment more, and learn new things, for example using clay. Before this was completely alien to me and I hated the word 3D. However, when I actually decided to give it a go and try it after some gentle pushing from Matt I discovered that I actually really enjoyed it. It was so fun watching my illustrations come to life in my hand. I ended up using the clay for a little figure that was for COP and I think it turned out really well and fit the module perfectly.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your PPP submission and how will you address this in the future? I think that one of the weaknesses I have had throughout PPP is not blogging about every artist that I have come across that inspired me. I have found a lot of artists that I have really enjoyed looking at, on pinterest, Instagram and through presentations and other classmate’s. I have regretted not writing about each one of these as I have forgot some names and forgot inspiration and I think its really good to document things like this. I think in the future I need to be more organised with my blog and make sure that I actually blog everything that is inspiring to me.
5. What communities of practice and professional contexts do you intend to investigate further as you approach level 5? Why do they appeal to you? I want to investigate more into the idea of selling my work on Etsy and as a brand, as inspiration from Charlotte Mei and Studio Mama Wolf who both utilise this feature. I really want to start getting my work out there and making a name for myself and after being inspired by Charlotte Mei, I really want to do some things out of the ordinary. I want to look into doing possibly clothing items and different things like plates, mugs, stickers etc. But I do also want to make some really lovely prints that I will be really proud of. It’s been a dream of mine for a while to actually get my work out there to be sold so I would really like to make this dream an actual reality at some point.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	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
­­­The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

presentation round two

i have decided to revamp my presentation a bit. i feel like it didn't have any of 'me' in it and felt really robotic and boring. i also presented it in front of ben and he said that there wasn't enough imagery or pictures to keep him interested. so i went through and decided to add more imagery into the mix. i also added little funny comments here and there because i thought this would give the personality that i wanted to come across.