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. 

Re-creating my Storyboards.

I decided that, because I didn't get a chance to finish off my animation, I would take it upon myself to re-create the storyboards I had created to a better quality and making them look more professional. I have recreated the set up from scene 2- my animation, and have used screen shots from my actual first scene of my animation as well. 

Evaluation.

I found from recreating these pieces, that I gained a bit more knowledge into how colour schemes can look really effective, especially in an animation like this. The fact I have taken proper time to recreate certain pieces, such as the set from scene 2, and the characters themselves, makes the whole thing look so much more clean and tidy, and I'm really pleased to have it as a piece to represent my work. I am particularly pleased with an idea I had in order to make it look as though there were a 

corridor of trees in the 3rd storyboard, by simply free-deforming the image of the second scene and painting over it.

On the whole I really am pleased with this piece, it gives a much better idea as to what I wanted from my animation and speaks to a much higher and professional looking quality! 

Live Project Week 1 Reflections.

UPDATES:

Monday 24^th of March: Have been in correspondence with client and have brought up a number of ideas, which they approved of. Had the idea to bring up a Surfing theme behind the “7^th Wave” name – will look into water patterns and surfboard designs to put into practice.

Tuesday 25th of March: Drew up 4 ideas, rather than the initial 3, in order to show specific details and changes through the ideas. I chose to go rather literal with what they asked for, rather than giving my own interpretation of it, as they were quite clear in what they asked for. 

Client was pleased with these outcomes, although I did urge them to point out ANYTHING they felt was out of place, and no offence would be taken it they didn't like or approve of anything. 

The same day they emailed me back which one they wanted and drew on necessary changes that they would like to be applied, which were few, but would make a large change to the layout of the logo. They also stated they would like the colours to be ever-so-slightly more vibrant against the grainy background.

Wednesday 26th of March: Once I had received the feedback from the client, I then went on to make the changes they had asked for, which included enhanced colour and changing position of a few of the individual pieces, and this was the final outcome. 

Thursday 27th of March: Went to meet up with the client in person with regards to another logo that they wanted me to design. From that meeting I took away the relevant information to design a logo based on a comic-book style, onomatopoeic piece. And straight away I looked into a mixture of  

Batman slapstick noises and the works of  Roy Lichtenstein. I came up with these ideas initially, but decided to go all out and look over  a range of fonts, baring in mind I had to stick with these colours. I also found that the image on the left was rather difficult to read, as the colours 

blended in together and the outline wasn't thick  enough to distinguish the letters from the background. 

I then decided to try out a different font, which could distinguish between the font and the background colour. I personally think that this font is so much better than the previously used one, however, a meet up with the client is still needed in order to see their opinion on it. 

Friday 28th of March: Met up with the client to discuss the ideas that I already had. And upon reflection, the client asked me to try out a few ideas from a totally opposite approach, something along the lines of a more clinical theme. 

Skillset and Job Roles/ Individual Learning Plan.

There are a number of jobs, in the animation industry, that I am interested in once I leave college: 

A Digital Painter:

http://www.skillset.org/animation/careers/article_4106_1.asp

Skills Needed: 

"Digital Painters need a good eye for both detail and colour. They must be methodical and conscientious about follow up, have good computer skills and be able to adapt quickly to new programmes. More senior artists need to understand the Animation process and should be able to use the relevant software, but new entrants can expect to be trained on the job. They must be able to take direction and to work as part of a team."

• As it states in the quote above, Digital Painters must have a keen eye for both colour and detail. - I feel as though this is something I am always working towards and improve on every time I create a piece of work, as the situation I am currently in is that every new piece of artwork I create is my favourite, and when I try and replicate that in my next piece, it ends up being improved upon even more. And that is something I think is vital as a Digital Painter. 
• It also states in the quote that Digital Painters need to have decent computer skills and be able to adapt quickly to new programmes. At first i felt as though this was something I most definitely needed to improve on, as I was always reluctant to try software I hadn't used before. However, now that I have been weaned into a number of different programmes such as After Effects, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and Cinema 4D, I feel as though I can quickly move between programmes and get a general feel for them quickly. 
• Finally, the quote also states that Digital Painters must be able to work as a part of a team. When I first started the year I know for a fact I was rather reluctant to engage with people I didn't know, as the childish thoughts of "What if they don't like me?" would spring about. But now I do feel much more confident as an individual and as part of a group and I feel as though I can take charge or show direction when necessary. 

Concept Artist (2D in Games Design.)

http://www.skillset.org/games/careers/profiles/article_4733_1.asp

Skills Needed: 

"Usually using traditional materials (eg pen and paper) rather than computer software, the Concept Artist sketches ideas for the game worlds, characters, objects, vehicles, furniture, clothing and other content. They also suggest level designs, colour schemes, and the mood and feel of the game. They are usually very good at perspective drawing and architecture. Although not involved in creating the actual game art, their concept will determine the look of many aspects of the game."

• One of the key aspects of Concept Art is that artists would be using pen and paper rather than a computer. I feel as though this is something I can definitely work towards, mainly because as my digital skills have developed, my traditional drawing skills have also improved, especially when it comes to facial expressions and features of the face and anatomy. However, I do lack some confidence when drawing in a traditional format, mainly because of the lack of accessibility when it comes to mistakes (in other words, I'm lazy about cleaning stuff up.)
• Another point that the quote makes is that Artists would need to be able to draw objects, either everyday or something unique, and that is something I need to work on a lot I think, starting with scenes such as cityscapes and alleyways!
• It is also stated that Concept Artists must also suggest level designs colour schemes, and the mood and feel of the game. This is something I really want to work on not only with my personal work, but to have under my belt when applying for jobs too. And recently I have been taking a lot of care into my colour schemes, not only constraining them to a certain degree, but using colours that I wouldn't normally that also work together. 

My Individual Learning Plan.

Here, I am addressing some of my weaknesses and  how I plan on over-coming them using simple and effective methods:

• Time Management - As I may have made clear throughout this blog, I get distracted by absolutely ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. I consider this a very serious problem when it comes to my work and it's something I've been trying to knuckle down on since the start of the year, and within the past few months I've found a solution. What I've been doing is cutting myself from any from of television, DVDS, videos, and online distractions (Facebook/Tunmblr/Twitter.) And I have done this by finding a website that completely blocks me from accessing specific websites for a certain period of time, no matter how hard I try or what proxys I use. It's been literally fantastic! I've found that I quickly get over the urge to pop up Facebook and forget the internet even exists for a while, and even when the amount of time I'm blocked runs out, I'm still in the mind frame of doing work and just continue on! I also listen to the radio a lot, so as to keep my mind occupied with someone talking, but not enough for me to reply or try and look something up. 
• Confidence in my own work - It's no secret that I get anxious to the point of no return when I'm urged to talk about/present/contact people about my work, and it got to the point where I was convincing myself I wasn't going to be able to get a job once I leave college. So to conquer this fear I decided to take at least a little step forward and begin to talk online  about my work. The reason for this is that being on the internet is a whole world away from real life, and if I do something to embarrass myself or I don't get a reply or I receive some sort of message I don't want to is all helped by one word - "DELETE." I've started a "F- this" kind of attitude where I might as well try something and if it doesn't work I haven't technically lost anything, I just haven't gained either, and that's good enough for me. 
• Loss of interest in work - There have been a number of times where I have completely lost any motivation towards my work and it's left me feeling awful, run down, and wanting to discontinue my education. Although I know I'll never be able to bring myself to quit, it's left me feeling awful and down. So. in a way to battle this, I will be making myself try something completely new every time I create a piece of work from now on. I have started to do this with new pieces of work and because all of these pieces are things I want to get right, learn from, and display and show people, I have ended up being so much more interested in my projects and love the final outcomes of my work. And when it comes to personal pieces, I'm hoping this process will help me improve my workflow and over all style every time I'm painting and drawing! 

Opportunities I am going to pursue.

• The Northumberland National Park - Even though I was in the middle of a project, I went ahead and designed a small character for the competition which took place back in December. I feel as though that small live project was the starting point in my new work flow, as I'd been looking at a number of Artists in the Juxtapose magazine articles online before hand. I also found that looking through other artists work does not make me jealous at all, it literally spurs me on to create something as good as what I've seen and is a great motivation. 

• The Young Illustrator's Award 2014 - I plan on taking part in this competition as an Illustrator and will document all of my workflow, which hopefully depicts my new style well and gives and insight to my thoughts throughout the project. 

• Illustration Friday - This weekly competition will definitely enhance my timing issues, as the projects are only a week long, and finding inspiration, obtaining materials, drawing and painting in just a week will actually get me setting my priorities right and have me planning around a few different things, which can only help me at this point. 

• Anxiety Awareness Week - Although this isn't really a competition, anxiety is something that controls every single aspect of my life down to the very last minute of every day. And I think it will be rather therapeutic to do something art related for that week. I do have plenty time ahead of me as it isn't until May, but noting it now for the future will help me plan. 

SWOT Analysis for 2014.

Strengths:

Knowledge of Digital and Traditional methods – Can use both traditional and digital means to create pieces of work, with a basic to well-practiced understanding of software such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Paint Tool Sai.

Self-Taught – Didn’t conform to traditional, and inconsistent methods of teaching when at school and took to the Internet and nontraditional artists as a basis, giving me a broader and extensive amount of inspiration.

UPDATE – 21^st March 2014

Open to Ideas and Alternatives – usually listen well to alternative ideas both when I’m struggling or not. Usually the best advice is given during group work and tutorials, and comes fro a lot of different practices.

Took Risks during Animation Process – I was advised during our Digital Skills Application project to try out a number of different ways to create animations, using a number of programs such as Cinema4D and AfterEffects – which I hadn’t really used before.

Improved Upon my Digital Painting Skills – During my Essay on how digital painting has affected the Art industry, I learned a vast amount on other processes of Artists workflows that have influenced me, in more depth.

Went out of my Comfort Zone when Making characters – In my most recent animation project, I decided to use animals as my cast, and not humans, to get out of my usual comfort zone and “go to” characters.  This gave me many more challenges when it came to animating these characters.

Improved Time Management – Since using personal timetables, I have become much more aware of work I have left to do and am able to complete work much more on time.

Weaknesses:

Time Management – I tend to give myself less time than I actually need, sometimes resulting in my work being to a lesser standard.

Working using Scale and Measurements – Have a tendency to unintentionally lose or alter the scale of my drawings when creating walk cycles, not a concise tracer.

Confidence in my own work – Lack of confidence or satisfaction with a number of my drawings, leaves me rather fed up of them, and they tend to be something that needs to be carried on through a project. And can sometimes lose interest in the project.

Lack of varying characters – I tend to stick to the same kind of characters, the majority of them being human and don’t feel as though creating more inhuman characters is a strength of mine.

UPDATE – 21^st March 2014

STRESS – I take too much upon myself and don’t allow breaks between the amount of work I do, which tends to leave me in a work induced coma, unable to figure out which load of work to do first.

Can get too attached to my work – Working on digital illustrations and animations for clients other than friends and familiars, has shown that I must not get too attached to my work, and can’t take criticisms of that work too personally either.

 Opportunities:

http://illustrationfriday.com/category/contestsprojects/ - Competition done every Friday, I fell that this competition would benefit me, as it gives me a major time limit to help improve my time management problems.

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/index.php - A more challenging competition where I would have to “conform” to the rules, as it is designing the cover of a book for someone’s book cover.

http://www.loopdeloop.org/ - This would help me get body proportions right and discover ways to make stranger characters move and function.

UPDATE – 21^st March 2014

http://www.loopdeloop.org/ - This would help me get body proportions right and discover ways to make stranger characters move and function. – Have completed this project and gained the ability to produce an animation which is timed perfectly to music, something I hadn’t been able to do before.

http://www.illustrative.de/award/award/ - The Young Illustrator Award 2014 is something I want to try out, purely because of the amount of subjects (which relate to illustration) such as Visual Art, Pattern Design, Graphic Design, Animation and Comics.

http://www.panmacmillan.com/macmillanprize - The Macmillan Prize 2014, is a competition set up to stimulate new work from young illustrators when it comes to designing book covers. I think that this project would be perfect for me because of the fact that the company are looking for a very specific kind of design, and it would test my illustrative strengths to their full potential.

Threats:

Other Commitments – Making time for both work and commitments outside of work could be challenging due to the extent and amount of work I sometimes get given.

UPDATE – 21^st March 2014

Panic and Anxiety – Worrying and panicking about certain aspects of my work can make me forget about other parts of work. I have also missed important days of college due to panic attacks

Which have cost me dearly.

Project 3: Week 1 Plan - 04/11/13

Project 3: Digital Skills Application.

For this project I have been given the task of showcasing my digital skills by making an animated short, along with any other digital work that I feel shows my skills to their full potential. 

Monday, 4th of November:

This week I will be concentrating on making my storyboards up for my animation, giving timings, camera angles and any small notes that the animation needs. 

Days:	Monday 4th	Tuesday  5th	Wednesday 6th	Thursday 7th	Friday  8th	Saturday 9th	Sunday 10th
Work to Complete	Begin sketches in book of scenery and small panels for storyboard.	Look  for real life images: trees woods Disney? - Bambi	Begin higer quality sketches of trees and woodland area in sketchbook	Begin higer quality sketches of trees and woodland area in sketchbook	CAD session  - keep blog up to date.	Documentation.	Reflection

Project 2: Week 2 Reflections.

Week 2 Reflections.

Days:	Monday 21st	Tuesday  22nd	Wednesday 23rd	Thursday 24th	Friday  25th	Saturday 26th	Sunday 27th
Work to Complete	Begin sketches out character's defining features related to walk.	Finish deer and raccoon walk cycle sketches	Digitally line all four walk cycles.	Digitally line all four walk cycles.	CAD Session & more research for blog alone.	Documentation. Colour up walk cycles at home.	Reflection. Colour up walk cycles at home.

This week, I assigned myself to the task of completing my walk cycles for two of my main characters. I planned on using a mix between Paint Tool Sai and Photoshop for this, but found out I could complete the task purely on Paint Tool Sai, which made it much easier to complete at home. 

Monday 21st October: Began drawing out specific parts in my character's body in different parts of the walk cycle. Aspects such as the feet, tail and belly, which would be the main parts in the characters walk cycle that would be effected.

Tuesday 22nd October: I finished up the main sketches and then put them only my computer to draw up digitally. 

Wednesday 23rd October: I spent the day finishing the line work for my 3 walk cycles. 

Thursday 17th October: I spent the day finishing the line work for my 3 walk cycles. 

Friday 18th October: Had CAD session where I showed David my 3 walk cycles, and was asked to do one more, possibly depicting the walk cycle of the fawn in my animation, once it had been infected and turned into a zombie. Also took part in class animation, where we started off one character each, and passed it around the class to let others change and morph them, was a really fun exercise!

Project 1: Week 2 Reflections

Week 2 Reflections.

Days:	Monday 7th	Tuesday  8th	Wednesday 9th	Thursday 10th	Friday 11th	Saturday 12th	Sunday 13th
Work to Complete	Begin initial sketches of my character.	draw up different positions of character. Eg. Emotions and standing/ sitting positions.	Create coloured versions of my character/ try out different colours.	Create background images (SIMPLE) to go on character boards.	Put character boards together!	Documentation.	Reflection.

 

This week, I assigned myself to the actual creation of my character boards, now that I had researched and developed all that I needed to. 

Monday 7th October: I began to draw up the final idea for my character, giving him the final touches I had developed through researching other characters. 

Tuesday 8th October: I started to put together images in my initial planning, and enhanced them by drawing them up digitally in order to create about six or seven different positions, that would work well on the dynamic poses page. 

Wednesday 9th October: I digitally coloured all of the images I had done for all three character boards, this includes facial expressions, dynamic poses and normal poses for the main board. I used a range of colours until I came to a conclusive colour scheme.

Thursday 10th October: I went onto create a background for my character board. I chose simple and almost boring colours to amplify the characters on the page, and I also made my own brush to look a bit like mud or dirt, to blend in with the woodland theme I went for.

Friday 11th October: I put my 3 character boards together. I researched different fonts, and eventually went for a scratchy looking font, which went well with the woodland theme I had going on. 

Project 1: Week 2 Plan - 07/10/13

Project 1: Character Design.

For this project I am going to be creating my main character, which will star in my animated short that I am set to create later on this year. There aren't any limits when it comes to character creation, but for my on peace of mind, I want to keep my character simple and cute. 

Monday, 7th of October:

This week I will be concentrating on creating and finishing my character designs, as well as making the final character boards which will display and showcase my character, providing imagery and written pieces of information on my character. 

Days:	Monday 7th	Tuesday  8th	Wednesday 9th	Thursday 10th	Friday 11th	Saturday 12th	Sunday 13th
Work to Complete	Begin initial sketches of my character.	draw up different positions of character. Eg. Emotions and standing/ sitting positions.	Create coloured versions of my character/ try out different colours.	Create background images (SIMPLE) to go on character boards.	Put character boards together!	Documentation.	Reflection.