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. 

Commission Work - HOLLOWBEAK Album Artwork/ Evaluation.

Shortly before we broke up for Easter, through David, a fellow student was referred to me with an opportunity to design and produce an album cover for his band "Hollowbeak." I was rather nervous at first when being asked to do this, again my fear of letting someone down or not producing what they wanted was all to great. But once I spoke to him a good few times it was clear he was rather easy going and had lots of straight forward ideas, and the more of those he had, the better for me. 

Evaluation.

I think when doing this piece I was very nervous to produce something the best I could considering it was a more “graphic” project than what I would normally focus on. Despite this, I went on and created, step by step, different elements of the album cover until the final project was complete. I began with using a pencil and ink as initial sketches and then uploaded them to my computer in order to digitally line it and colour it up. Another aspect I was rather nervous about was the colours that the client had described, as we all know I’m stuck in my simple and pastel colours. However, using visual research from comics and cartoons which use the same style and colours as what I was going for, I felt much more confident in what I was doing. I also ended up creating a gradient like effect on the wings of the bird through blending and painting in a purple/grey and bright green together, much like you see on pigeons and parakeets. And although I was just creating the separate images to go on the album cover, I mocked up this idea to symbolise what I myself was going for in the final outcome.

I think there are a few obvious strengths and weaknesses in my work for this project: one of my weaknesses for this piece is that I don’t pretend to know a lot about graphic design, with all of its confusing measurements and such, which is rather apparent in this piece. However, I do feel as though I did make a good attempt as setting out the elements I had, given the tool I had. One of my strengths for this piece was definitely the creation of the image itself, the bird-like monster which I was given the task of creating looked really effective against the dark and creepy background, giving and eerie and grungy looking effect on the whole image, I used a water colour effect on this bird to give it a vibrant, but washed out (?) effect at the same time.

Something I can take away from this project is definitely working in a darker canvas, and being able to make colours stand out against those backgrounds in a tasteful way without making it look too distracting or off putting. 

Hollowbeak and it's Artwork can be found on Facebook.