Assignment 4: Illustration 1- Key Steps in Illustration- Tutor Feedback and Reflection

Project: Tools & Materials 

You continue to be experimental and playful with textural layers. Perhaps allow some of the font to be more prominent keeping the imagery translucent.

You might like to try a transfer using photocopies which can give a grainy effect.

1. Rub orange oil into the photocopy or magazine page with cotton wool, place the photocopy face down onto paper and use a spoon on the back to transfer the image. This can also be done using acrylic gel medium. I will send some links at the end of your feedback but it is quite fun to play around with.

Take a note of which applications and practical exploration interest you the most and consider how you might gain more knowledge or bring some of these methods into your own practice. 

I love transfer techniques/tactile methods of image distortion. I used this method a few times following this assignment.

Project: Audiences

Take time to consider the interests of your audiences, alongside the way in which posters are designed for different age groups. Research will help influence the way in which you approach your designs. 

You have built a stronger approach to the way in which you respond to briefs, generate ideas, and categorise your process.

I agree that the teenage composition, colour and content has the most strength. As you mention for the children design, perhaps have a character that is more engaging, the combination of blues with this layout also feels too formal, perhaps some of the crayon lettering can overlap boundaries? Try adding a colour behind the skeleton or in the background leaving the skeleton cream. You make some good observations around ways to improve designs, make sure you are acting on these changes in order to push final outcomes. 

Project: Areas of Illustration 

Menu: I enjoy the way in which you are using hadn’t drawn elements here which help convey natural, fresh ingredients.

I find that the events in Final Illustration 1 fit more naturally and at a better scale within the circular boundary. Aim to have more blue space around the drawings. The second version feels stronger without the circle behind. 

Tattoo: 

Thorough research has helped influence aspects and you have gained more knowledge around use of line and colour. I might try adding tonal values and shadow as an experiment (as shown in your research) You mint also try different shaped cups

I enjoy the way in which elements overlap and wrap around.

When designing something for the figure, make sure you consider the placement of a tattoo before you start designing as this might influence how you use shape form, or line.

The elements also works well in a rectangular format, try alternate background colours. It is quite difficult designing something for two different formats so you've done well to accommodate both. 

I found these 2 tasks in particular quite challenging as they were quite obscure/specific briefs. They were a good challenge to illustrate for.

Project: A children’s book cover 

I enjoy the way in which font and animals are interacting, perhaps take this slightly further and have the snake coil around the letter ‘m’ or a head poke through somewhere. The placement of font works well to create balance also.

Perhaps aim to practice with watercolour depth, drying layers and going back in in order to achieve opacity of colours. Look up a few simple watercolour techniques to help guide experimentation (wet on wet, wet on dry)

Try having colour or off white background with a slight texture, this will help soften the contrast.

I would suggest that you have some elements which come off the boundary of the page, you might have fauna or foliage growing which disappears off the edges, this will help the design feel less like it is floating centrally.

Try practicing expressions, how might the animals appear more friendly or engaging?

Overall this has potential but needs a bit more time to develop further. 

Project: Visual Distortion 

Continual line drawings show how much information you can communicate through limited line. I really enjoy the way these bring more of a solid frame and pose. Aim to look at research to help you here, Picasso or Paul Klee might help influence your approach.

Aim to chose elements which are descriptive of different parts of his body. This might encourage you to exaggerate different aspects of his fur. The expression gets slightly lost behind font here.

In order to reinvent your image you have transcended from the original drawing through these stages of experimentation. Perhaps consider making the cat more prominent and bringing some of its personality, features back. The purpose here is to find ways of extending and redirecting projects when you feel stuck, use these tools to bring new life to character designs or alter communication. 

This task was challenging and different to many others, I was unsure of how ‘far’ to take the abstraction but enjoyed the challenge. I will look into both artists and add some research in future tasks.

Project: Character Development 

Spend more time looking at how Illustrators develop characters for books, animation or film.

Strong colour schemes alongside use of mark help project more personality.

You introduce your figures in different positions, aim to focus more on facial expressions. Add in close ups of each feature moving through different emotions (using your own face is a good starting point as you can note how eyes, brows and mouths change)

Include more actions such as running, jumping etc in order to get more of a feel around how each character might move, lean and bend.

A character takes a huge amount of time to develop and it's useful to add aspects of writing around where they live, what they enjoy doing, who their friends are, so that you build a whole world around them. 

Feedback on assignment 4 

The arrangement of elements has strength here.

What shows in this Assignment is more ability to reflect and rework ideas in order to achieve stronger outcomes.

Taking this into collage, carefully choosing textural materials makes a more dynamic image with impact. This faded and mottled paper achieves more of a direct link to older technology.

You cleverly use tonal values for depth, try adding a slight shadow underneath objects in order to ground them to a surface.

Using a limited colour palette really helps this busy final composition feel more unified and clear.

Aim to mock this up next to an article, this will enable you to rework certain aspects of format if needed. Consider how some imagery may spill into or around the article. I have included some examples of how this might work below.

Overall this is an interesting outcome which shows your skill with collage, it also feels much more individual and interesting due to the fact that you are creating elements using many small pieces of different images rather than relying on using a full found element

Action Points: Where you work through more developmental stages in your Assignment, notice how work is much more refined. Aim to add the same dedication into every project.

Keep pushing experimentation with collage and drawn elements. Creating your own imagery from smaller pieces of found elements is much more exciting. Continue to explore this further.