HOPES, FEARS AND OPPORTUNITIES (PART DOS)

The end is finally in sight. The last few months of university have absolutely flown by at an unreal speed and I honestly don't know where the hours have gone. The time has come to now look back at the last four months to evaluate and assess my major project.

 Having looked at what I wrote for my first Hopes, Fears and Opportunities last term, I’d say that I was pretty happy with how I’ve progressed since then and feel like I’ve ticked off most of the things I wanted to achieve. To some degree I find this worrying as though the targets I last set weren’t that challenging enough and I should be panicking that I’m not there yet. My major project has been completed and I’m pretty pleased with how it all looks. Undoubtedly there are elements I still would have liked to change, but feel like that about most of my work and its something that I need to get over.

The thought of leaving the family unit we have at the moment is something that I’m going to miss a lot. I can’t stress how much I’ve enjoyed these last three years and have made some amazing friends along the way. A small few of us are thinking about clubbing together to rent out studio space, whether it be working individually or as a collective but it’s still just at the ideas stage. I think this could play in our favour as working alongside other creative’s that have a passion for their work does nothing but drive you forward and inspire. I tend to get lost in my work at times and know that being surrounding by others would definitely make life easier and more enjoyable I’d say. I still manage to work well in a solitary environment but I’m worried that I might turn in to a complete hermit live on my own with lots of cats. Either way, I know I’ll get work done, as it’s what I love doing most.  

 Creating work outside of uni was something that I aimed to push forward with and had begun to start this last term. I am still continuing to produce more personal in my spare time, which I definitely seem to be benefitting from. In doing so, I am gradually beginning to see improvement in my work and have noticed that I am beginning to work much faster then before. Collaborating with others is something that I wanted to get involved with so have spoken with another student about perhaps teaming together to set up some sort of online clothing/print store. Its something we’ve spoken about for a while now and gets us both pretty stoked that it could all take off. It’s an opportunity to turn the work we create for fun into something that we could realistically sell that only has boundaries and limits that are set by ourselves.  Keep your eyes peeled, as pipeline ideas should start to become reality soon.

 Looking back at what I’d written last term, I wanted to try and branch out more through socialising with new people in the art industry. Since then, I have attended a few of the Draw North West meet ups (a night run by the talented Chris Madden) over the last few months. If I’m being brutally honest, I found them a little awkward at first and struggled to get stuck in and talk to people. This was purely down to nerves and I’m sure that the more I go, the more familiar faces will become. As well as this, I met a lot of exciting new designers when on my placement for Lord Whitney. This alone was an incredible opportunity to work with talented professionals for a week and I learnt some valuable lessons and gained some great advice on the first few moths after graduating. I feel that by offering to work as an intern with them, I have built up a great relationship with them both which has ultimately lead to them offering me to work with them. I couldn’t have asked for anything more really and thoroughly enjoyed the days spent with them.

The fear that strikes me most is obviously, ‘what the hell am I going to do now?’ as I’m sure is the case for most people. The contact trip down to London a few months ago really shook me up and realised I needed to pull my finger out if I wanted to push myself as an illustrator into work. I found it both difficult and daunting when trying to get in touch with agencies and art directors as I was finding a lot weren’t getting back to me. This was something that I had to overcome quickly, and follow emails up by phone calls followed by more phone calls. It made me realise that I’m not going to get anything handed on a plate to me, not that I ever expected it to be that easy, but it’s certainly made me up my game and put all I’ve got into things. I’m going to be constantly searching for illustration jobs over the next few months but I think it’s crucial that I keep pushing my own ideas and work along side this.

By including editorial work in to the last part of my project, it has helped me think about the ideas being my art more so then usual and has done nothing but push me forward. The fast deadlines are something I’m slowly getting used to and is something I’m constantly aware at the moment. As my work is nearly all hand generated, its time consuming but doesn’t always reflect the time consumed. By practicing this type of work, it has allowed me to focus on the break down of my time much more efficiently and more importantly set myself realistic, achievable outcomes.

I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that’ll I’ll no doubt have to get a part and maybe even full time job running parallel with my illustration work. This really depends on a couple of things. 1. If I can actually get any work outside of uni and 2. If I do get offered work am I going to be picky about what I choose? It depends if I’m going to compromise on jobs for the money. You might not always agree with the company you’re being commissioned by but realistically if its going to pay the bills, it might have to be one of those things you just go with. I’m talking as though I’ve got loads of work lined up to pick and choose from but have got absolutely nothing.

To some things up, I’m not really sure how the next few months are going to turn out. I feel like I’m turning into an ‘proper adult’, which is something I’ve always tried to fight against but need to deal with it. Its going to be a huge challenge that is most certainly not going to be easy, but I can’t wait to grab it by the horns and give it all that I’ve got and hopefully have the time of my life along the way. It all starts now.

FINAL ANIMATION.

So I've literally just managed to finish off my first animated short for major project, with a healthy two days room for tweakage. I'm pretty pleased with how its turned out as I've never tried to animate any illustrations before so didn't have any high expectations as to whether they'd look good. I spent a lot time drawing out as many frames as possible to make the transition look smooth and I'd like think its paid off. The shading was a pain to get the tone constant throughout each frame but it seems to have worked out quite well in the long run.

This is the first time I've really used AfterEffects and have found it a real mind bender at times. With the help of a few good friends who happen to be amazing animators, I've picked up some good tips which made things a lot easier. They've been able to solve any problems I've had (there's been quite a few) and really patient with me so I understand each bit they've taught me.

With many aspects of literature now heading down the digital path, I thought it was appropriate to show my work through a digital viewing platform. It shows how versatile my work is, and that it can lend itself to a number of different fields. I think that dropping it into the photo and seeing it how it would online, has really made me consider doing more gifs/shorts in the future. The illustrations seem to work much better then I anticipated.

With each frame being hand generated, I thought I would struggle when lining each image up and have had to re drew a lot once scanned in and looked at as a set. I managed to avoid this and didn't have to change anything in the end, which was a huge relief. I presumed I'd be at a disadvantage not working digitally, as it gives you the option to edit bits relatively easy, but I was proved wrong. I've dead enjoyed the challenge of something new and seeing it finished has really spurred me on to explore further.

CREATIVE REVIEW PODCAST.

Throughout the past few weeks, our tutors have recommended that we listen to a number of different pod casts on the Big Illustration Party site to broaden our knowledge of whats going on in the world of commissioned artists.  Hand on heart, I've enjoyed some much more then others and especially the most recent one focusing on the importance of self promotion with Kevin Cross and Joshua Kemble. They came across as being very down to earth and I could relate to a lot of what they were speaking about.

This pod cast in particular was a relaxed conversion between two free lance illustrators, discussing the do's and don'ts when approaching potential clients. This is something that is fresh with myself at the moment as I'm at a point where I need to be doing this myself. I find it quite daunting when it comes to phoning and even emailing art directors but it is an essential aspect that leads to commissioned work. Both Kevin and Joshua are freelancers themselves so have had much experience over the years about  successful ways of communicating with clients.

A big point that they emphasised greatly was that cold calling is not a beneficial way of getting in touch with someone. It can come across intrusive and puts the person on the spot, like a door to door salesman would, sometimes leading to a peer pressured environment. This is clearly not going to play in your favour. Instead, they suggested emailing as a first port of call and creating a mailing list of the companies and clients that interest you and think would give you the opportunity to work for. It's no good contacting a client that specialises in a completely different field of work to yourself and you'll be wasting both your own time and more importantly theirs. The problem that you face with emailing is that it they're incredibly easy to ignore or forgotten about. If attachments are sent, this seems to trigger off a spam filter that classes it as junk so the person might not even receive you work. Another thing they mentioned about attaching work was that its more effort for the director or whoever to go through in order to see your work. I thought this was a bit lazy as how are they expecting to find new work if they can't be bothered to click a link to open a new window. It seemed a little ridiculous but they seemed to know what they were talking about. A safer way of ensuring that they'll see your work is by embedding files to the email itself so there's no leg work necessary.

Sending updates of your work were talked about and how doing it too frequently can come across desperate. They suggested a bi annual update of your recent pieces, that shows a good amount of new work. If people aren't responding to your updates, remove them from your contact list as you're just wasting time. Holiday cards were also suggested but only if you're 100% sure you can spare the time to make them look amazing. It's easy to for rushed work to not play in your favour, especially cliche, predictable cards that don't stand out from the rest.

Social networking sites like Flickr and Twitter were discussed as a great means of communication platforms and not just for fun. I personally use Flickr for referencing images and didn't know you could sign up for updates and follow other peoples work that could lead to an ever growing fan base.

I found the discussion both interesting and enjoyable due to the kind nature of the illustrators talking. It was much more relative to myself as they were both practicing artists rather then the opinions of a hiring art director/client. It refreshed my concept of how important social networking can be as an outlet of job prospects, as well as keeping in touch with friends which can be important for support after uni. Its given me lots to consider for after finishing my degree, with confidence about how to approach future clients without the nerves and fear of rejection.

SPIN TEST.

Hopefully this is a little better then the last gif I posted that consisted of a mash up of my many faces ha. It's been a real pain trying to get everything proportionally correct but I think I'm pretty surprised with how its looking considering the lack of sleep but I have spent many an hour on it but it looks to have paid off. Just need to drop some tone on it later today so that the rotation looks smoother then comes the huge task of getting my head around AfterEffects. Fun times.

SRS PACKAGING.

With my final hand in looming closer, I'm trying to utilise all the hours going to get the finishing touches done on my work. I completed the SingRamonaSing branding project about a month and half ago but realised I hadn't really done any work on the product placement side of things. I hadn't printed it out either so needed to do this asap really.

As the band were pretty happy with the work I'd produced, there wasn't much else left to do other then mount the print outs up to make sure everything fitted smoothly. I wanted to use a really good quality paper/card for the printing as I think it can have a huge effect on the buying. You can always tell if things have been printed cheaply and for me personally, less likely to keep good care of it. I've got a few vinyls that are a bit bashed about on the corners but I'm not overly bothered as they've been printed on a glossy material that doesn't do the artwork any justice whatsoever.

With this in mind, I decided to use 280gsm cartridge paper for the first test run of the cd sleeve. I got it printed at the local art shop, using their huge laser printer as it seemed to be the better option. The printer at uni can apparently take weights up to 280gsm but anything heavier then about 100 seems to play hell with it and causes more trouble then its worth. The print out seemed a little darker then the digital file but I expected it to differ slightly. The line quality wasn't how I expected it too look though and had a fuzzy almost glowy thing going on. I wanted it all much crisper and cleaner looking but that's what tests are for I suppose. I've put that down to that in order to get the worked printed where I did, I had to reduce the file size so that it would fit in an email. Another technical blip that occurred was that the ink didn't seem to take to the paper very well. It was almost like it had missed the heat sealing process out and rubbed off too easily from general handling. The lack of ink made it look worn and ancient, which to some extent looked quite good, but on the whole it wasn't what I required.

Ink not sealed properly.

Non the less, I still mocked up the CD to see if the layout needed tweaking. I didn't want to use a scalpel to score lines for the fold as it was going to reveal the ice white of the paper used, so I decided to try and fold it as neat as possible using a metal ruler. The ink came off even more down the spine  and the fold looks dead messy so I think next time I'll have to opt for the scalpel. I decided to print the net of the CD as once piece that just needed to be folded vertically, so that the front and back joined, then down the middle to create the book like look. This didn't go to plan either. With the paper having a grain to it, only one of the fold worked well. As the second fold was pushing against the grain, it forced the paper to curve rather then achieving a crisp fold. I managed to glue it all together but it had a slight warping to it as I hadn't taken into account the space needed for the spine fold. This consequently effected the design of the imagery and things like the logo in the corner, wasn't lined up with the border of the card anymore. The alignment had shifted due to the front cover being bent round to create the spine.

Horrible fold.

Having seen the flaws with my first mockup, I just needed to adjust little bits with the printing and layout method to get it to look okay.  For the second test, I printed it out on 300gsm water colour paper on my inkjet printer at home. I thought the colour balance would be worse then the more expensive printer before but I was pleasantly surprised. The cheaper printing method seemed to be more accurate then the other and matched almost perfectly to the screen version. I decided to print the front and rear separately this time and fix them together using tabs. This meant that the grain of the paper would play in my favor for the fold and would make it look much neater. I lightly scored the folding joints, and because this card was much thicker, it didn't break the inked surface as much. I'm really pleased with how this version turned out and would happily use it as a finished piece. The texture of the card has an expensive feel to it and looks professional compared to the first nightmare.

Better print.

The whole appearance seemed a lot better, mainly down to the fact that I could use the full quality file rather then the low resolution one. The matte card seemed to work completely fine with the printer ink so I'm not entirely sure what happened before. I thought that I was going to have to resort to using a glossy finish paper but am really glad I've managed to avoid it.

When the project was first set, I spoke to the band about perhaps producing a limited run of vinyl versions, budget dependent. The verdict is still unsure, but to try and persuade them, I've made a couple of different formats so they can see how it looks and have something tactile, appose to just a file on an email. I created an insert to feature in the CD pocket but then the design of the packaging changed so that this was no longer needed. Printing a vinyl version gave the chance to re-visit this and play around with some typography a bit more and make a feature piece of one of the illustrations. The 7 inch vinyl sleeve has a different format to the CD, consisting of a just a pocket. This meant that only the front and rear imagery is needed so I've incorporated this into the insert piece. Having looked at other 7 inch ep designs, I've always preferred the ones that had an extra piece inside to keep, sometimes folding out to make a poster. I tried to do this with the piece that I made.

Much happier with the bigger printing.

 I prefer the larger format as I think that my work looks better. Some of the elements of the illustrations are quite detailed and seemed to get slightly lost on the smaller version of the CD. With the vinyl being quite a substantial amount bigger, I think it looks tons better and you can pick out more of the hand drawn elements that are seen through the digital files. Using the vinyl gave me slightly more work to make as I had to consider what was going to feature on the discs. The ones made previously for the CD discs didn't fit the format and would have looked a bit weird. Traditionally, vinyl discs contain the tacks that feature on each side of the disc, sometimes having a logo or image to accompany.

I didn't want to over crowd the relatively small space so decided to just include title of each track name alongside the bands logo. The white on black seems to work well and compliment the colour illustration as I didn't want to draw too much attention away from the pack illustrations. The simple design seems to do the job required so I'm happy with how it all looks.

The final step was to think about packaging and how it would be displayed when sold. To do this I visited a couple of record shops and came to a conclusion that majority were wrapped in a clear plastic cellophane. I managed to get hold of a roll and cut it down to size scoring the edges to get a neat fold. Once the product was wrapped neatly, I made a sticker using the bands logo to seal it all together. Ideally, it could do with being a little tighter but works well. When design the imagery I purposely left a blank space at the bottom of the rear side. This was to make room for a bar code so I added one to make sure it looked decent enough.

Attempt at packaging.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it all looks once printed out and in its correct format. Things can look much different on screen compared to printed pieces but I'm happy with the results. Even though I'm a little sick of seeing it, having worked on it for the last few weeks, its great to see it all tied up and finished, hopefully being put in to production soon. I've enjoyed working on my first live brief as its kept me on my toes but think its definitely played in my favor and led me to produce some of my favorite pieces of work to date. Apologies for the massive ramble and cheers if you managed to finish it without falling off your chair.

EXHIBITION PROGRESSION.

Last week got me really excited about my degree show and the possibilities of how I can display my work in a weird way. Having made a start by making the rubber silicon hand, I wanted to delve a little deeper into modifying the cast to fit its purpose for the show.

I'm hopefully aiming to make four rubber models of my arms, cast from the elbow, down to the hands. I am then going to somehow attach them to the wall panel so that hey look like they're breaking out. If I can position them as I wanting to, they are going to holding either pieces of my work or business cards and promo pieces. By creating something a little out of the ordinary that people can touch and interact with, I'm hoping I'll draw the viewers in. I've ordered some temporary tattoo paper to test if its possible to transfer some of my illustrations onto them.  The problem I've faced so far is that the rubber silicon has an almost sweaty feel to it. With this in mind, I think it could prevent the images applying correctly unless I can somehow change the feel/texture. So far I've tried washing them in warm water and soap but that seemed to have a completely reverse effect. I've literally no idea how or why but it left the hand feeling even clammier and gross. The only thing that seems to work okay for the moment is to coat it all in a very thin coat of plain flour. It seems to soak up any moisture but does look a bit crap and literally like I've just put flour on a rubber hand. Weird.

Back to the proposal bit. As I'm wanting the hands and arms to be used to grip and hold various bits and bobs, I need to find a way of securing the two elements together. I considered using different strengths of glue, but ideally I would like to have the option of being able to reposition the arms and use them again. In a previous post I spoke about coming up with a solution to fixing them to the wall. Having looked about online, I think the best thing to do is to insert a metal rod into the cask before it sets. I'll then just need to drill a hole in the exhibition board and screw something on the back to keep it steady. Rather then using glue, I wanted to create a skeletal like frame inside the joints so I could move them about but not fixing them permanently to anything. As I'd already made a hand test its a little late to do this now, but I wanted to find a way around to see if it worked okay.

Having got hold of some strong wire and a pair of decent pliers I had a play with inserting cut pieces into the cut off wrist. The wire seemed to hold its shape when being forced in to the silicon, and wasn't too difficult to push through. It was a little tricky to make sure the ends didn't break through the side of the fingers but even when it did, the hole seemed to close up and disappear. I think that inserting the wire like this is a much easier approach compared to laying it into the setting plastic. There's too much of a risk of the wire not being central and poking out of the sides.

The wire seemed to work dead good and was easily moved about. It was pretty disturbing turning the wire ends with the pliers as they moved 360 degrees like something out of the Exorcist. I had too much fun creeping the majority of the studio out playing about with it but all in all, it worked great. The wire was also strong enough to hold items as well so there was no need to glue anything.  

I was impressed with the strength of the grip that the fingers have got now and don't think I'll need to do much more with them. However, the sweaty texture of the silicon seemed to prevent the book from sliding out so that might be an issue I have to deal with later if I have to coat it in some sort of chalk/powder. I'm dead pleased it worked as I thought it might end up being a nice idea for the show but nothing coming of it. Next step is to try dying the melted solution to get a realistic skin tone and applying the transfer tattoos.