Week 1 - Initial Ideas

Lynn Meeting: July

For my honours project, I had a few ideas to begin with. During the summer, I took the opportunity to speak to a couple of the fourth year lecturers such as Brian Robinson and Lynn Parker. At the time, I was gearing towards doing a project focused on character design because it was a field I enjoyed learning about in Creative Research last year. Lynn gave me me some sound advice, where she suggested that I aimed at at a project where I focus on a range of fields that could help benefit me when it comes to looking for work. While I am free to follow this character design only project, I do not believe that it would benefit me in regards to employment because I was wanting to leave my final year at university with the ability to find work in a field that I am very passionate about.
I plan to avoid the idea of a concept art project because I am well aware that it is a very popular job role that is difficult to get work in. I have considered looking at a 2D Artist role but I will need to look at what companies are looking for in terms of a 2D Artist.
During high school, I used to work on simple comics as a hobby, I took a break from this to investigate other areas such as character design and concept art. The main reason why I liked to read comics was that it was a format that helped visualize and present ideas in a way that can be communicated easily to the user. I picked up a few books from the library. I  was keen to look at a few art books from films such as Frozen to see what techniques were used for producing concept art.  I was quite keen on working on a project that is focused in visual communication and this would also be an opportunity for me to develop a unique art style.

Mind maps I made prior to the meeting

Idea One

I worked using 3D low poly models last year as a way to show people my skills in producing  3D assets. Between 2nd and 3rd year, my understanding of 3D  modelling  improved but it was in 3rd year where I learned more of the 3D pipeline using software such as Mudbox.  This was a more efficient way of applying textures onto a model instead of taking it into Photoshop. The original idea for my honours project was to revisit my final creative project where I produced a roster of characters that belonged to factions within a story context. I developed their personalities, suggested through the use of colour, shapes and posture. It was also an opportunity for me to explore the idea of contrasting personality traits. I considered  revisiting a few selected characters to develop them further and improve  their design because I knew that there were a few flaws.
I also did the Spatial Constructs module where I grew confident using UDK to produce a 3D environment and import 3D assets into a an iterative environment. With this, I was wanting to model the characters I designed in Creative Research, into static low poly models.  I would then place them in a museum environment and have the player move around the environment and interact with them. Another addition to this that I considered was a map in which the characters would inhabit and provide information of the world. However I do not know very much about coding and so I have decided that this may be too difficult for me to develop for my honours project. Nevertheless I believe it was something to consider. For my final year at university, I wanted to do something that I was very passionate about and something that includes character design.

Idea Two

The second idea was to create a series of sequential pieces used to explore to what extent the concept of comics can be used as a form of visual language and narrative. I started looking at storyboards and animatics. While I have some experience of animation I prefer the idea of expressing the sense of time through panels. However, I enjoyed learning some of the principles of animation because as an artist, some of the principles can apply in single framed illustrations. Some of the principles I considered that I could apply to illustrations were balance, staging, arcs, overlapping, secondary actions and solid drawing. This idea could also allow me to work on my weak areas in drawing such as facial expressions,environments,perspective drawings and posture. It could also allow me to try and experiment with different art styles.
Based on what I've discussed with my lecturers. I see my project heading towards exploring visual language through comics as it also covers the fields I feel passionate about.

The other initial idea I considered for honours was a trans media project where I would the characters I made for Creative Research and develop a comic, an animation animatic, and or light novel. However based on my lack of knowledge on Transmedia Narrative, I decided that this idea may not be suitable.

 Meeting with Supervisor : Week 1

Brian gave me some feedback on some ideas I was considering.

• Compare with other characters from different settings.
• A retelling of a historical event,
• A retelling of an existing pieces but done in a different format. I saw this more of a case study or from of practice.
• Visual Aesthetic or universal language.

He believes that I can cope with a project that has a big scope, a unique visual style and be able to carry out many drawings to experiment and develop an art style.

We reflected on the following:

•  graphic novel, what other frames can I find? 
• How they are laid out? 
• look at what already exists. For examples, primary children if I am going  to produce something for kids. 
• If there is a technical learning difficulty and how I can approach producing a book for that practical research learning theory and be aware of some of the choices I make. 
• If I am going to make a comic or story for kids who have difficulty reading then I would need to explore various forms of learning theory for that particular audience.
• I even considered with him what techniques I could use. 
• I suggested that I would try to use 3D objects as a way to produce a perspective environment. 
• Since in honours it was encouraged to try and cut corners. I think that this would work as a test. 
• He recommended that I look at Fleischer from the 40s. In addition, he told me about a student who worked on using gutters in comic to assist it's narrative.
• He suggested that I look at comic artists/authors  and ask myself why they were drawn in a certain style, how they tell their story, how they think of their story and how they got their inspiration, 
• What do they use as visual language and why they chose comics as a medium?

In connection to this, I am quite keen to produce a graphic novel that can fit within the scope of my honours project. I see that it could be an anthology of short stories that provides storytelling in different ways and or retelling of something that people are familiar with.

I do like the idea of interpretation using an existing story but by applying my visual style as a way to present it into a different format. One idea that came to mind was a H.P. Lovecraft short story called Pickman's Model (1926). He concluded by saying that I can explore the form of visual language through a canon of comics.

Here is a list of how I want to spend my days in fourth year.

• Draw, develop and understand the pipeline. 
•  Passion about creating story worlds. 
• Creating characters, 
• Producing sequential art
• Props. 
• Improving areas. 
• Improve colour theory.
• Improve my approaches to design. 
• World building
• Develop my visual voice and expression

I have also thought about some ideas about how I can do some form of practice. During my summer holidays, I made some art prints for upcoming conventions. The reason I was doing thiese was not only as a way to show people my work and build up my portfolio but to also understand the latest trends in entertainment. I found this to be a efficient way to keep my self up to date with current trends.