Pictoplasma Festival - Berlin 2014

This year, we flew out to Berlin from Edinburgh in order to attend the 2014 Pictoplasma Conference in Berlin! which was held at the Babylon Theatre just outside the centre of the city. Although I was utterly terrified of flying/being outside/away from home/around strange people I hardly knew, I was determined to be optimistic!


One of the first talks I went to was "Buff Monster"'s. Buff Monster is a well known American Painter and Street Artist, whose main influences come from the oxymoron-esque combination of bright colours, the "cute" Japanese culture and heavy metal. And he has used this style of work to create huge pieces of street art, murals, painting and merchandise including prints, stickers, vinyl toys and plushes. I really enjoyed listening to Buff Monster's workflow and some of the reasoning behind his work, which is relatively simple with no main reasoning other than it's what he likes, and emphasises on the colour pink to show confidence, individuality and happiness which is consistent throughout his works. His work has definitely inspired me to start emphasising on the more grotesque and obscene elements which rarely show up in my work, and use inspiration from darker sources to get a variety of different outcomes.

Another Artist I enjoyed viewing was Tim Biskup, his work was very experimental and had a rather edgy visual effects on anyone who viewed it, which made it stand out vastly against the rest of the artists, as well as bring in a whole load of detail that could keep us looking at it for hours. I think the reason that Biskup's work is so successful is to do with the fact that he works with playful and vibrant psychedelic imagery. He creates this work by using a rather diverse selection of media such as silk-screening, textile production and rotocast vinyl. I think looking at Biskup's work has definitely influenced me to experiment with materials more, as well as style, as I think using mixed media in pieces and working with methods that are foreign to me, will help enhance my current style and even create a new one.

On the next day of talks, I got to see an artist that I'd never heard of before. Kimiaki Yaegashi is a well known Illustrator based in Tokyo, Japan. His work is rather simplistic with thick lines and bold colours and shapes. Admittedly I wasn't sure on whether or not I would find his work as appealing as some of the other artists, but I appreciated it none the less. However, once Kimiaki began going through his pieces it was clear that his work was greatly inspired by his heratige, as it included representations of well know Japanese spirits and that is what I appreciated most about his work. He also included his love of western productions, such as pizza, which, as we discovered later at his art show, was very much a part of his shows and gallery work.

The last artist that I went to see, was Austrian street artist, Nychos. I had already been aware of Nychos' work through Instagram and was rather excited about seeing him explain in some detail about his work and why he does it. His work is heavily detailed and focuses, typically, on forms of bodies, and them being almost dissected in order to show all aspects of the figure. In this particular image, it shows a cartoon styled wolf getting his skin ripped off, then his bones split in two as well to show his insides. The images are always quite segmented and orderly which fits in well with the places they are usually sprayed upon, such as office or industrial buildings  and I think his work has inspired me to start trying out this style of art. Where I should concentrate on content and how I can make images such as this blend in well with their background.

Whilst in Berlin I also came across the work of Jeff Soto, who I had researched previously in my two years doing the Foundation Degree and for me it was rather surreal to see one of his pieces in real life. Although the image isn't really clear, you can see the amount of detail and effort that have gone into this piece, especially in the face and eyes where a huge amount of shading and highlights have been used, and it made me fully appreciate the time and effort it must take for street artists to create such heavily detailed work, in a short space of time and with the canvas being such a strange platform to work on.

Over all, the 6 day trip to Berlin was probably something I'm never going to get, and definitely worth the two hours of sweaty anxious hell that I endured on the plane there. I literally cannot wait for next year and I think with more confidence and research into a number of the artists, I'll be able to communicate to them better and possibly engage them in some sort of conversation. I also had so much fun exploring the city as well, because not only is it a rather easy city to get around, it is teeming full of culture and passionate people, and it's definitely somewhere I want to go back!

 Character "Selfie," gallery in an abandoned building!

Oh, and we also went to an aquarium where the entry required an awfully awkward family photo:

Reflective Report on Year 2.

During my first project of the year, I was set the task of creating a character of my own imagination who would star in my animation later on in the year. This wasn’t totally new to me as I’ve had experience at creating characters before, but it was nice know I’d be drawing something that wasn’t human for a change. I started out this project with simple sketches of my initial ideas, which was that of a small rodent hero, largely based off the likes of Meeko from Pocahontas and Scrat from Ice Age. These sketches slowly developed into fully fledged digital drawings and ended up being rather impressive looking character boards, showing his initial stance, his range of emotions and dynamic poses in all stages of illustrative progression. There were a number of strengths and weaknesses in this project that I took into account upon reflection. One of my strengths was obviously the digital drawing and colouring of my character boards, as my newly developed digital drawing skills over the summer were going to be put to the test in creating something to look rather professional and well-constructed. However, one of my weaknesses from this project was definitely the layout and putting together of my final character boards: as graphic design and logos aren’t the kind of subject I’m interested in, creating something where strict measurements and specific spaces was rather challenging to me. Although, with some help from a class tutorial with Paul, I was able to get past this issue and create a rather good-looking trio of character boards which all appeared in a clear and concise set. One aspect which I think I will take away from this project is definitely what I learned about the designing side of this project, such as the styling and layout of these character boards and our sessions with Paul, mostly because I felt as though that’s what I learned the most and I can now apply that skill to my work in the future.

For my second project, I was set the task of creating a number of walk cycles and loops, using a variety of alternative techniques. I was rather excited by this project, as walk cycles are always something I had considered to be PART of a project and not one on its own which was a nice change. It gave me a real chance to see, with the time available, just how many different ways and kinds of walk cycles I could make on my own. I think it's safe to say that in this project I did get slightly carried away with just making as many walk cycles as I could but in the same way, as I ended up getting very interested in making different characters walk and showing how certain characteristics and certain parts of their body would affect how they would move. I wouldn’t say I use a wide variety of techniques to make up these walk cycles, instead I think I just made a lot of different walk cycles, as in different variations of characters in different states of life and death, which I think is still something I can take from this project and be proud of. Again there were a number of strengths and weaknesses in my work throughout this project. One of my main strengths in this project in particular were my drawing skills: I think this time last year, the thought of drawing a complete 24 walk frame in a short period of time would have terrified me, as my skills in sketching un-human bodies, and my digital skills and abilities weren’t that high at all. However, this year I definitely pulled through with being able to work faster and produced more in depth and detailed pieces than I first thought I could, which is bonus. One of my weaknesses during this project was probably my lack of using other techniques to actually produce different mediums of work, for example I could have done a traditional set of illustrations and rotoscope them together, and I think this a point I will definitely take onto other projects I do, mainly because it will create a more diverse set of scenes and add a bit more character to the animations that I produce in the future.

My third project of the year included me sketching, developing, producing and editing a short animation. I began by creating my storyboard, as this would give me most direction through the scenes of my animation instead of me having to write things down. I created a good-looking storyboard which was clear, simple and had a set colour scheme through it. This storyboard definitely helped me as I began to create all of the assets for my animation as well. I began pretty slow, taking my time in making sure all my assets were up to scratch and full of detail, as I've not made a full 2D animation before! This eventually caught up with me and I was left rushing slightly towards the end, that and I also came into contact with MAC issues, where the computers were just too slow to produce more than 3 seconds of animation. I also had great fun using Adobe AfterEffects, which I think, will be my go to program for creating animations. It resembles Photoshop in many of its aspects and I think this is what drew me to it so well. Taking all that into consideration, I think there are a fair few new strengths and weaknesses that have come to light. One of the main strengths of my work during this project was the artwork, I think I was able to create some really strong artwork which worked well during scenes and all came together visually, exactly how I thought it would. Although I think the artwork is also one of the reasons for my weaknesses as well, as taking so much time to produce the artwork I think over-rode the limit I had set up for myself. This resulted in me not being able to edit together more scenes in time which, if I’m honest, had me kicking myself when the deadline came in. I think I will definitely take on the weakness and learn from it from now on though, as I never want to have myself in such a stressful situation like that ever again! And I will definitely learn to manage my time better and work at a faster pace and workflow from now on.

My fourth project of the year I was given the task of creating 3 5-second long idents to be used in the advert for the company, Digital Cinema Media. I started this project at an utter loss for what to do if I’m honest: as the subject was to create abstract pieces of digital 3D work to be composited onto live footage. I ended up choosing two rather dark feelings at the start of this project mainly because of the abstract shapes I had created during tutorials and they seemed to fit the bill rather well. I then went on to choose an emotion to counter balance the dark ones which was euphoria. For this I did most of my compositing, and I did this by creating small little particles, which could be a cross between bees and jellyfish… which zoomed and glowed across the screen. I think this project shows where I had my strengths and weaknesses quite well if I’m honest. For my strengths, I think they showed through pretty well when it came to compositing abstract shapes onto videos and photographs. I took in depth notes when we were being taught on compositing and it really paid off when it came down to doing that side of this project for sure. I also had a really big experimental phase where I made a variety of little shapes, with strange textures, colour and shapes which I think has made my confidence grow more when using cinema 4D for 3D work. I don’t think I had many weak points in the project, but one of the weakness in my work would probably be the trouble (or lack of inspiration) I had when trying to get my head round creating abstract pieces of 3D art to composite onto video. I did eventually get into many ideas and try out a few different things, but at the beginning I was just not able to think of anything that could be put together for this project. I did over-come this when the class had tutorials with David and Paul, who showed us it was a lot easier than we all thought. I think I would take the knowledge I gained about creating abstract pieces with me into future projects the most, as it was a subject completely new to me and ended up also being the most interesting as well!

For my fifth project this year, I was set the task of doing a live brief, along with any other “out of college” work, over the Easter holidays. I found this to be one of my favourite projects in the whole year, mainly because of the freedom and lack of structure to it. I began by doing some personal work for a fellow college student’s album cover for his band, which required me to use a big mixture of traditional and digital work respectively which I really enjoyed, as it wasn’t close to anything I had done this year in terms of content. I also went ahead and entered my work for the weekly competition called “Illustration Friday,” which has a specific subject every week, and this gave me a chance to be able to create a piece of artwork in the shortest deadline I’ve had to complete yet! I really liked this challenge as it greatly improved my style of work by simply sitting back and painting rather than stressing over what grade I would get. I then had a go at entering my work in the competition called “The Young Illustrators Award 2014.” This was an open competition to designers of all trades from illustrators to pattern makers to animators. I was equally as excited about this project as I was the others, simply because of my increased skills in digital art and my desperate need to show it off. I was really enthusiastic about this part of the project and I think that’s why it came out so positively, as I was more relaxed and ended up showcasing skills that I didn’t even know I had when it came to painting the figures horns and face. The rest of the aspects of this project all had a similar effect on me, and the more I did, the more confident I was as both an artist and a person, which lead to me speaking to a number of design studios online (through twitter) and making me have so much more confidence over all. Like a much needed morale booster. There were a number of strengths and weaknesses throughout this project that I think need addressing, and one of the strengths I had was my skills overall as a digital artist. Over the past year I have definitely become a much more confident artist, and it’s almost surreal seeing a lot of the things I wanted to happen this year, happen. And I know that from hard work and pushing myself to try things I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near had I not started this course, is something I know I NEED to take with me in the future if I hope to get any further than I am now. One of my weaknesses I discovered during this project was definitely finding time to spread over different pieces of work, and not trying to commit to one thing at a time. This will help me not only get jobs and tasks done quicker, but also help me when it comes to being distracted of losing motivation in pieces of work, which is one of my many noted weaknesses in my SWOT analysis.

To generalise this year in a small summary, I think it’s safe to say it’s been just immense in the types of work I’ve encountered, as well as the work I’ve produced. I can’t even begin to explain how astonished I am of what I’ve achieved in the past two years, combined with the knowledge I’ve gained and people I’ve met. My skills have developed to a level I used to fantasise about having during A Level, and my workflow was more than quadrupled in the past two years and I’ve been spouting out pieces of work I never knew I could even think of producing. Not only have both my workflow and skills improved since the start of the year, my attitude as a whole has also changed for the better; I’m much more open to the hundreds of styles of art, as well as having more of an opinion on culture, both popular and independent, which I think is a vital component when going into an industry such as Animation and Illustration.

Anxiety Awareness Week 2014

Brief:

Since Anxiety is something that effects almost every aspect of my life, I decided that since Anxiety awareness week was coming up soon, I would do something to recognise this, as well as try to possibly educate, through a visual means, what life is like when suffering from this. I knew this would be an iffy subject to go over, as I never like fully discussing what happens when I experience anxiety, but obviously drawing an illustration is heaps better than sitting down and trying to explain to someone what it’s like.

Evaluation:

 I knew straight away that I wanted this to be a pure black and white, pure and simple, without anything to distract the viewer from the main parts of this image. I also chose to complete this illustration in pencil, as I think keeping things simple and pure it the best way to get a message across. I started off with a really basic sketch, and wasn’t sure if I was going to actually out any features on the face of my character, simply because there isn’t a defining face for who anxiety and depression can happen to. But I did end up choosing to put a face, which I suppose looks a little bit like my own (but not intentionally) just to make it a little more personal. I wasn’t quite sure on how to depict anxiety as an actual subject for about three days, as trying to describe it to someone is difficult enough, but the defining word that stood out whenever I’ve tried to describe it is “gripping” and “something that can just cling to you for hours,” and this gave me the idea for a talon, as its scary, sharp and strong enough to project the power that anxiety can have over someone.

There are plenty strengths and weaknesses in this piece for me to pick out. A strength that is most obvious to me is my line work, and I really enjoy using line density to add character and an overall theme to my work. I have a pretty steady hand and am able to create the long flowing streaks in her hair and eyelashes, but am also able to make the bold and angled lines on the talons gripping her hair. Although one of my weaknesses is my trademark “female face” that I use in literally all of my work, and I WOULD like to sometime soon just concentrate on drawing males more, and depict different looking people rather than my “default face.”

I think the skills I have shown in this piece are skills I would really like to take on with me through to later work, and I think I could achieve this by going back to doing more traditional sketch work before putting my work on digitally, as now I tend to just do my work straight away in a digital format. I think this was inspired slightly through researching Dave Correia's work online, as I found that his way of showing so much detail an using a traditional workflow at that. 

The Young Illustrator's Award 2014/ Evaluation.

This year, I have chosen to take part in the Young Illustrator’s Award 2014. I feel as though this is an apt competition for me or anyone to take part in because of its limitless choices in what someone who is participating can do.
My entry for the competition is something I thought about a lot, and failed to come to any conclusion. So I went and dug down to the literal meaning of the word “Inspiration,” and decided to look at a number of artists who first sparked my interest in Art, and this is where I rekindled my love for Alphonse Mucha.This year, I have chosen to take part in the Young Illustrator’s Award 2014. I feel as though this is an apt competition for me or anyone to take part in because of its limitless choices in what someone who is participating can do. It is a self-directed competition, where the Artist chooses their own theme and subject, which they can then present in the hopes of winning. 

My entry for the competition is something I thought about a lot, and failed to come to any conclusion. So I went and dug down to the literal meaning of the word “Inspiration,” and decided to look at a number of artists who first sparked my interest in Art, and this is where I rekindled my love for Alphonse Mucha.

Evaluation.

Over all, I thoroughly enjoyed this project. I knew from the word “Go,” that it was something fresh and void of all other projects we had been asked to do so far, and was something completely of my own choice which was just an added bonus. I also knew that, because it was such a wide spread subject, and that I could do pretty much anything I wanted, I would almost definitely have trouble trying to think of what to do. This is why I went back to one of the first things that inspired me to start going into ILLUSTRATION and not just painting. On the other hand, choosing to do something based on the style of Alphonse Mucha was also a dangerous one, because he has been such an inspiration to so many people, I knew I would have to make my work stand out against the hundreds of other pieces of work based on his style. I began clearly unsure, for about a week, on what I wanted my piece to be on, but I ended up going with what I knew best, and stuck to my strengths when it came to illustrating. I was a lot more confident with what I actually wanted to produce, and because of my recent development in skills over the year, I could see much clearly, what I wanted my final outcome to be, rather than had I tried this out before christmas.

I used all of the knowledge I have gained over the past two years, not only with regards to illustrating, where I have been shown in detail some top tricks, shortcuts, workflows and skills in programs such as photoshop, where those tricks can be applied to other programs I use as well, but with basic skills. An example of this woul be on colour schemes and learning to literally paint in a digital format. I feel as though these aspects are clearly shown in my competition entry, and are able to give off a defining mood and theme to my image, without me having to explain anything about it.

One problem I had during the production of this piece was a general flop in my motivation towards it. I sat for a good 3 hours re-doing the same pieces over and over again simply because I was unhappy with how they looked, and it almost got to the point where wanted to change the idea completely. However, with some inspiration (watching speed painting tutorials on Youtube…) I was able to gain back that motivation and change the colour scheme of the figure’s face slightly, where it was easier for me to begin colouring her skin. There was also an ongoing war for about 3 days with regards to shading on the figure’s face, as I had never really painted a face from that angle before. And I over came this by taking photos of my own face, with specific lighting set up to immitate the scene I wanted going on.

To conclude, I have thoroughly enjoyed this project, as it has tested me on more than a physical scale and left me knowing even more about digital painting and illustration, as well as me appreciating the work and effort behind Alphonse Mucha’s wonderful pieces of art. 

My Creative CV.

I was completely stumped as to what to do for my Creative CV, as I wasn't sure how to describe myself in such a positive light, without sounding rather pretentious. I decided to knuckle down and just try and relate the imagery of my CV to my personality and art style.
I chose a pretty detailed mandala style to begin with, and this would be the main focus of the piece, showing any possible employers straight away what my talents include on the specific style in which I work.

When I first began making my CV I knew I wanted to make something which reflected me and my talent, but to try and also make it not too much "IN YOUR FACE" either, as that can be off-putting if it was too vibrant or pushy.
I went with texture more than actual content for this piece and I think it has paid off. I began by making an intricate mandala design and then lining it digitally. after this i played around with the colours until I decided to stick with the white and change the background. I went for the "Your efforts are limitless," or "The skies' the limit," kind of deal and created a custom brush to create the clouds in a swirling pattern, and then brushed out and blended the clouds into the night sky with contrasts with the design perfectly. As I am planning for my CV to be like a contacts card, I chose to put my qualifications on the back of this card, so that anyone who's interested would be able to see my workflow well, rather than trying to distinguish it from the text. I think the layout of the text is OK, although I think if I had time to change it I would have made the CV into a little booklet, simply by scoring and bending card, and having each different section on each page, making the text bigger and birghter, and also being able to add more illustrations on each page.

Making a Society6 Page.

In the last three months I've had more and more requests about people buying my artwork, and although this is insanely flattering, it's something I also worry about quite a lot, purely because I can't/don't leave my house very much and wouldn't want to set commitments I'm afraid I couldn't keep. 

However, my classmates, Kym and Danielle showed me THIS beauty, where the company take off a percentage of what I would earn, in order for them to distribute, mail out and create the prints/accessories I upload! As I'm not too bothered about making a lot of money from this, it's just nice to know it's something that's taken care of and I don't have to panic over.

My Society6.

Illustration Friday submission.

I decided to do a piece for Illustration Friday, as part of my Live Project module. The theme for the week was "Survival," and that got me thinking quite deep about people struggling to survive as a result of other people, instead of that against something like climate or predators. 

I found that whilst painting this piece, I did a better job of it than I thought I would. I was able to use a much more thick style of paint and, especially on her face and eyes, I was able to fill in a lot more detail using just colours and not have to include lines to define her features. 
Once I finished this piece I then went and uploaded to the Illustration Friday page at Illustration Friday. And was really pleased with how it looked on an actual web page. 

I also decided to be a bit more daring and put it on Twitter, not really expecting anything to come from it, but just for people who follow me to see. And within about an hour I got a notification saying that the Illustration Friday's Twitter had retweeted it!I wasn't sure whether this was a big deal or not but I checked the their Twitter page and they only retweet maybe 3 - 4 submissions per week, so I was insanely pleased with that!