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Evaluation

Over the past year I have learned quite a bit about how to become an illustrator and how I could work within the industry. The different days of work experience have taught me a lot and have helped me discover what type of illustrator I would like to be. They have also taught me what I should expect from the illustration industry from what would be expected from myself and how I would need to even get a chance of getting the job. I had started off the year by looking at multiple businesses I would like to go to and multiple artists I would like to interview about their work and the art industry, what I had learned from trying to get in contact with multiple artists is how busy the lives of illustrators are and how little free time they actually have. I unfortunately found this out the hard way by not getting any replies from artists or if I did they said they were too busy to answer my questions. When I first started the year I wanted to go into the comic book industry and I hopefully still will by the end of next year, however I have found out that if I do I need to seriously focus on the content and making it the best as I can because trying to talking to these artists have proved to me that I won’t have free time if I go into this business.

One thing I majorly learnt when it came to advertising my work was to separate my projects for work with my personal projects for family or friends. I found this out the hard way when it came to the Anime, Comic books and Gaming society competition where I made to mistake of giving the group my entire sketchbook and showed them what page it was one. This was a mistake because since it was a double page spread and the members of the society voted whereas the committee had to show of the work, the members didn't know which one was the one I entered. That showed me how naïve I was in the work and made me decide that from then on I would be careful with presenting my work so I decided that in the future I would make sure to have all the images separate when I presented it for competitions.

During my second day of work experience which was the Cheltenham comic book festival, I was shown another major thing about the illustration business which was that the illustrator needs to make sure to focus on what the target audience would like as their artwork instead of what you might like instead. I also learned this the hard way from that fact that I was unable to sell any of my work. This taught me to research more into the target audience and what they would like, as well as to make sure to plan ahead with the budget in case I make a loss. When it came to the third day of work experience we had to create cover designs for children’s poetry books. This day taught me to listen more to the feedback to the customer so then you can have a good idea of what you need to improve on, in my case since I didn't know the school I was showing work to was an all girls school I had multiple cases of feedback asking if I could change the main character on the image to a female instead of the male it already was which I agreed I could do, however considering I wasn't able to make it through to the final picks, this day taught me that I must make sure to do all forms of research to make sure I would not make the same mistake again.

On the fourth day of work experience I had to create an image for a science and nature competition where we were only given a theme of an image based around science or nature. Through this competition I was able to witness a large variety of different artists’ work and the many forms of this broad topic, I felt quite good about this competition because a spent a long time to making sure it looked exactly how I wanted It to, the only thing I would do to change my design would be to use a different technique such as etching which I have grown really fond of recently. However because I didn't notice this competition until just a few days before its deadline I did not have enough time to plan out an etching. What this day has taught me is to make sure to keep my eyes out and check every so often if there are any illustration competition that I would enjoy doing that are maybe similar to that one. On the fifth and final day of work experience I had to create an image for the Cheltenham illustration awards competition, this unfortunately was my worst out of the days because I rushed the drawing too quickly and even made a few mistakes within it. However I really enjoyed the theme and how I worked with it, it created a fun challenge that could lead to some artists having completely different illustrations because they had to take the theme into their own form. If I could change anything here I would definitely change the time I took to create the drawing so then it would make me feel better about how I think it looks now.

Besides the work experience I have also learned many things from artists that have visited and the group project we were given. With the Risograph project it taught me more about copyright issues and about different printing techniques so then if I wanted to try out anything knew there was now a new technique I could try out. Whereas with the group presentation work it had taught me some valuable information about how to work as a group and how we could set up our own businesses as well as teaching how to be independent as well by giving each other specific jobs to do for the group presentation. This whole experience has helped me become independent as an illustrator and had taught me the values of working with a group for our own businesses.

This year has shown me what I have done wrong so far with selling my work and how I can improve for the future. It had also taught me new ways to promote my work and where to look to find new experience within the industry I would like to join. Overall this whole year has taught me what I would need to know to become a better illustrator and what the illustration industry is really like.

Creative CVs

With this part of the professional practice we were asked to make our own creative CVs, for this I plan to create an artist CV so then when I show it in interviews they can see my art style straight away in the CV, to help start this CV I decided to look at examples of other people creative CVs. These are them below.

         

Example 1  

    

                                                                       Example 2

Example 3    
  
Example 4
  

    
Example 5

 
Example 6
  
Example 7

Example 8

With these examples I decided to find the best aspects of each CV to use as reference when I create my own. With the first example I really like it because has a layout that looks like a video game character's character screen. I really like this idea because it is a very creative format and I especially like how he uses little thumbnails for his artistic skills because it will catch the eye of the person who is looking through it. 

With example two it looks much more like a professional CV the one beforehand which unfortunately does make it look less creative, however I do really like the use of the thumbnails to basically point to the reader what part of the CV is in the area.

With example three it seems a lot similar to the first example except it doesn't look as much like a video game layout, another difference is that instead of having thumbnails to show the artistic skills the person uses it for her likes and hobbies. This does seem like a good idea as well, however if I would have to choose what to use for the thumbnails I would choose what example one did and use the thumbnails for the skills.

With example four I really like the layout of it because it shows all of the persons artistic skills and no space is wasted however in this case it doesn't look as nice because it makes the CV look too busy so the reader does not really know where to focus on.

With example five I slightly like the design because it shows all the information about the person and it shows that he is good at typography, however this CV doesn't seem much of an artist's CV. Though I still like how he uses a large variety of fonts so I might use them for my CV

With example six I really like the design because it shows his art style really well, I especially like how he drew the robot holding onto his information while he carries on working which makes it slightly comedic. however the robot might be bit too distracting for the reader.

With example seven I really like the layout of it because even though it seems to be quite busy, because she added different shapes and colour to show a different part of the CV it works really well. I might plan to use these different shapes and colour in my CV as well so then the reader is given a lot more to read. 

Finally with example 8 I really like the idea because the layout seems like a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet, I like the monochromatic colour scheme, however if I could criticise one thing it would be that the font is really hard to read. If I used this theme I would have to change it into a more readable font so then it would be easier for the reader.

With my creative CV I would really like to apply the game character's aspect from example one and eight but I would like to use aspects of the creativity of example six and create a form of comic book strip as my CV considering I want to go into that business. Below are two of my ideas for my creative CV.

Comic Book style CV Idea

RPG game character CV Idea

3rd Year's promotional project

In this lecture we were presented with the third year's work where they had to create promotional products for themselves and we were asked to choose some of the promotional products which we believe we would use ourselves. The ones here are the ones I thought I would like to use in the future.

Items one and two - Stickers and Bookmarks

When I was looking at Jak Gerrish's work I really like the looks of his stickers, they work really well especially if you are at a convention because then you hand them out to people to advertise your work. I also really like the bookmarks because since the line of work I want to go in to revolves around sequential illustrations and graphic novels they would be really useful for that target audience considering most avid reader will use bookmarks to know which page they are on. I believe I would apply this to make similar promotional products in my work for conventions next year.

Item three - bags

I was very intrigued with this product because it was a nice simple small bag with a very nicely designed bird at the front. A very good thing about this product is that such a small bag can be used for multiple purposes such as holding small but valuable items whereas with a large bag the items might damage, it could also be used as a sweet bag which could be very handy and finally, coming from a family of birdwatchers, these small bags can be used to hold bird food for their homes or even small notebooks for when they go travelling and it would easily attract them with the design of the bird on the front. I believe I could apply this form of promotional item with my own work in the future by making small bags with images of all types of nature on the front that I could promote through members of the birdwatching committee and the RSPB. 

Item 4 - Puzzles

I was slightly surprised when I saw Ruth Musson's promotional material because I didn't expect a jigsaw to be among them. I instantly was very interested in the product because I am a giant fan of Jigsaw puzzles and I know there is a large market for them. The only criticism I would have of this post would be I am not a fan of the art style and for a Jigsaw there seems to be too little going on even if it is for children. If I would apply this to my own work I would aim for a older target audience, and add more to the puzzle so then it adds a degree of difficulty to it so then its not too easy for anyone but easy enough for children to get.

Item 5 - Sweet Wrappers

I was also surprised when I saw Hannah Evans promotional design because i was not expecting to see sweet wrappers as I went in the room. I really like the design of how she promoted herself by adding all the contact details, a title and a simple illustration with it. I think this definitely works as a promotional item because sweets are really popular and if the consumers get interested with the design they might want to check out her other work. I would like to apply this to my own work next year in my own style and hope it looks as good as it does here

Group presentation

With our group presentation we had decided to hypothetically create a business and sell the work and the next London comic convention. We decided together that our business name would be The Ink Cabinet because it resembles most of illustration and it will them allow us to use a large variety of illustration skills. We had made a powerpoint presentation explaining how we would prepare for the day and how the day would go through. this powerpoint is shown below.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CjGCrDzdoMaT7ygKJvn7wh57CyWZ1s_2zhFuMbIDCcU/edit#slide=id.p

We had also created our own website to show our work on in case any of the public wanted to see our company's work. For this convention we decided to create a fantasy book about monsters where each member would create different drawings using their own styles until we created an 18 page book.This was to help show customers the different art styles each of us do so then they can enjoy a large variety of work. We decided that the book would also be A5 in size so then it would be easier to carry for the Mel and Jess when they go to the convention. We had multiple potential names for the book which were:

• Monsterpedia
• Monster Tails/Tales
• Little Book of Monsters

Overall we decided the name Monsterpedia sounded the best for our book.

http://japorter3.wix.com/theinkcabinet

Ink Cabinet Website

My contribution to the book 

Ideas page for the book

Also as a group we were individually asked to create posters based around a similar theme and colour. With our group we decided to base our theme around quotes of imagination and we chose our colour scheme to be rainbow colours since it fits with the theme of imagination.

My poster for the group

Artist feedback

I contacted the artists I intended to and asked them about what inspired them and what techniques they used. I didn't want to annoy them with too many questions so I only asked a few and told them how they have inspired me. The first person I emailed, Peter Morhbacher has been the only person that has replied to me but was unable to give me an interview because he was too busy so I was unable to get any feedback.

Email to Chris Riddell

Facebook message to Juanjo Guarnido

Email to Peter Morhbacher

Reply from Morhbacher

Cheltenham Illustration Awards

As I was trying to find more competitions I wanted to be a part of, when I was in the studio we were told that the illustration awards had started and that the theme was "Tales of the City". We we allowed free reign of how we wanted to create our own illustrations since they simply allowed us to interpret it as much as we want. For my submission I am focusing on a darker side of the city where crime is a major part considering crimes are more frequent within cities than out in small towns and villages. I have created a detailed pencil drawing of a scene of a road within a city. In this road it shows a police officer riding on a horse through the street with people walking by and in the building next to them. However what the policeman did not know was that every person in the image was committing a crime, such as doing drugs, stealing, armed robbery, and holding dangerous illegal items. However I rushed this drawing because it was close to the deadline which has made it look worse than I hoped it would.

Submission for Illustration Awards

Illustracienca Competition

When I was researching competitions I would like to submit work for, I came across a competition by the Catalan Association of Science Communication for a book they make named Illustraciencia and the competition the made was called the International Award for Scientific Illustration. For this competition the company wanted a single image to be submitted that is related to Science or Nature and needed to 150 - 200 word description of the work submitted. They also would like the image to not have watermarks and be a high-resolution PDF image and will be able to print in A3 but they said that the technique was free which gave me free reign of how I would like the drawing They also mentioned that they would pick the top 40 drawings based on the scientific accuracy, clarity, originality and information capacity which made me think more of a unique image to draw for the competition. For this competition I created this detailed pencil illustration of a new species of spider that had been introduced recently named Skeletorus. However after submitting my work I noticed another artist had made a very similar drawing based around a different spider from the same family. This may now challenge my work to stand out though hopefully since the spider I drew was based on a new type that is unique to the family mine would stand out more.

Illustration for competition

proof of my submission to the competition

Paul Farrell

In one lecture we had Paul Farrell visit to talk to us about his work and how we could get our work out there and what we could do to help us in the business. He made some really good point about the illustration business and how we can survive in it. One of the points I really liked was when we was talking about starting a project and to get a good inspiration and idea for the project you mainly have to focus on what was on the brief and was our own style could help us for this idea. I really liked this part because it was very nice to hear that you should not break out of your on style for a particular project but instead use your style and try your best with the brief to make a piece that resembles your art instead of someone else's.

Another point I really liked of his was when he talked about money and how to spend it wisely in the business by saying you have to make sure you can spend only what you can afford because you do not know what the public will like that if you spend a large amount of money on a project that doesn't become popular it could cause a major problem for money situations. I know this feeling as bit too well from the Comic book festival since I spent a large amount of money and was unfortunately unable to get any back. What he has described here by saying to get minimum orders and have trial runs could help me much more in future so if that same thing would happen again I would have not made as much of a loss as I did in the last convention.

Finally another point I really agree with was when he gave us some tips for this business by saying to keep creating because if we do it would make sure we are busy and it would interest businesses and customers because it will show we will have a variety of work. I really needed that advice because at the time I was more focusing on the same form of story-telling and art, however thank to that it has given me a much larger idea of what to do by making me think of what I can do differently than I normally do in my art. 

Overall I really enjoyed this lecture because it gave me multiple ideas of what I can do in the future to sell myself more to the industry of illustration and gave me much needed advice of what I had been doing wrong for this time and how I could fix my mistakes. 

School poems cover designs

One Monday in our lecture for our Final Major Project we were given three different topics and were shown examples that could help us for each theme, these were: Childhood Memories, Identity and Inside our heads. We were then given till the Thursday of the same we to make plans and a final cover design to present in front of three different schools who were making poems based on these themes at the time. These schools are Gloucester Academy, All Saint's Academy and Barnwood. Unfortunately I did not manage to create a final cover design for the theme childhood memories yet I was able to create drafts and ideas for it as you can see below.

Ideas page for Childhood memories

For Identity I thought of multiple ideas mostly conveying around emotions, some of these were focused on splitting different parts of the heads and to show different emotions in each part of the head, other ideas were based around superheroes and using stereotypes of them to show the image, an example of this was having the figure have loads of stress and argument attacking him while he uses a shield, similar to the comic book character Captain America to defend himself and keep himself sane. However for my final cover design of this theme I kept with the Superhero theme but changed it to show a superhero standing on top of a building ready to go into action and save the world, however cowering behind him was another form of the hero that was scared of going into the action, through this image I was planning to show that everyone has fear within them but they will try and hide it and act brave to not show how scared they are. When I showed this to the school, the students seem to really like the my design and the idea behind it and some even related themselves to the idea, they also gave me some good feedback and how I could change the design for the school would like it such as since it was an all girls school they asked if I could change my design to have a female hero instead of a male if they chose mine for the final picks which I agreed that I could. Unfortunately I was not chosen for the final designs which was disappointing but after the feedback and seeing the other illustrators' work I understood and agreed with.

Ideas page for Identity

Final design for Identity

For Inside Our Heads, I though of a few ideas which I could use as my cover design. As a reference for this design I looked at an old children's comic from within the Beano comics that I used to read called The Numbskulls which was about little creatures that lived within the persons body and had different jobs around the body to control it safely. For this I made some drafts of drawing showing the head of the person and all the people inside that were doing their jobs, however this was too similar to Numbskulls so I didn't use it. A design I made that wasn't reference to the comic was showing a computer that held a large amount of data of the person's mind that someone could access through different folders depending which part of the head they wanted to look at. However for my final design I went back to my reference of The Numbskulls and created a design that showed a large office hallway with multiple doors that had a sign on each one showing the different area the people inside the head will work in and I showed it extend out so then it seemed like it would lead to other doors that would lead to other parts of the body. When I showed this to the school a few of the students liked the idea, however I wasn't given much feedback which was disappointing since I wanted to know how I could've improved. Unfortunately this design also was not chosen for the final picks for the poem's cover.

Ideas (left) and final design (right) for Inside our Heads.

Risograph

One week the group was split into different groups are were given individuals topics around the same theme which was what it takes to become an illustrator. We were then asked to create an illustration ready to be made into a Risograph print. The topic my group was given was the law side of illustration. Unfortunately I had missed the session but asked around and talked to some members of the group and decided to do my illustration around copyright.

For this I instantly thought of an idea where it would show a person thinking of an idea and checking to see if its copyrighted only to find out it is. I then made a few thumbnails of how this could work and the design that worked best for me was one where the idea was symbolised by a lightbulb and after he checked for copyright the light bulb was covered by a copyright symbol to show that the idea has already been done.

For the final idea I decided to sketch it out in pencil first and then go over it with a fine liner pen. This work out really well because it allowed me to get the dark and thick tones that I needed for my design. We then had to hand in our design to be printed as risograph prints and then once they were all sorted and dry we had to use spot colouring in our design. For me I decided to use yellow as my colour and added the colour on the light bulb.

However due to altercations where I was ill for a period of time during the deadline for this project I was not able to complete my design to hand in for the risograph unfortunately.

Design before the spot colouring

Design after spot colouring

Facebook Page

I started my Facebook page in 2014 after talking about it with other people on the course and seeing artists I like sharing their work through this page. From then till now I have been posting artwork I have done onto the page whether it is work for the university, work experience or just personal work.

I have now invested in an etching tool, some acrylic plastic for etching and a Intuous Pro tablet to help me improve my skills and focus on my own personal style.

Georgina's and Fumio's background

In our lecture Georgina told us about her life and how she became the illustrator she is today. She told us about her business Pirrip press that she made with her friend Alexandra Higlett and that within the business they create a large range of work. She also told us about how she worked for charities by selling her work and the money she got she gave to the charity, not only was this a really good deed but it was also a great way to promote herself at the same time.

Georgina also showed us her notebook which she used for a project she was doing called "The Cold Press" which she was making for Norfolk gallery. The notebook was mostly visual drawings with notes on the side which I found a really good way to layout a visual notebook and it has made me think of how I could layout my own notebook.

Fumio was born in Tokyo and he has mentioned on a few occasions that he grew up with mangas and animes mostly through the 70s and 80s and that those forms of art helped create his love for drawing. Fumio moved to England in 1991 where he went to study a BA illustration at the Glasgow school and art and then went to get a masters at the Royal College of Art for Communications Design. He then mentioned how he was passionate for character design and how his tutors helped him pursue his career in sequential design. He also said he had a slight idea of what he wanted to do at the time he was at uni which is also true for me since I want to go into a career of sequential illustration as well. 

In 2008 Fumio decided to go work at La Cite Internationale de la Bande Dessinee et de l'image which was an artist residency set in Angouleme, France and through that he was able to have a good relationship with the French comic book scene. Fumio told us about his love for this industry and how they cared deeply about the genre. I really enjoyed his lecture because a lot of the stuff he has gotten into I would like to go into myself in the future and would love to go work in different countries because this lectures had really opened me up to all the potential illustrators can do.

Papio Press and Pirrip Press

We had Harry and Zanna from the third year come in to talk to us about their business on Etsy called Papio Press. They told us about the importance of organisation, since they had to make sure how to handle their business and how to sort out the pricing of their products. They also told us that to get a profit in the business you will have to invest a good sum of money. Their initial promotion fee was £200 but it has turned out really well with this investment considering they made a profit. They sell a variety of different items from phone cases to clocks, this intrigues me and has slightly inspired me to try and do the same type of stuff with my single prints, however considering I prefer sequential work I wasn't overly inspired by it.

In a lecture with Georgina she told us about a business she works in called Pirrip Press which she runs with her friend Alexandra Higlett where they create screenprinting products with high quality paper. What really interested me with this was when she talked about how they were both still independent artists yet have their own business which, after also hearing about papio press got me to think if I wanted to do anything similar to that in the future with a small business or with other independant artists that I am close to. 

Cheltenham Comic Book Festival

Back in early 2014 I was told about a Kickstarter project to help create a comic book festival to be hosted at the Cheltenham Race course and if I helped with the Kickstarter by giving enough money I would have a table on the day so me and another student paid half of the table price each so then we could share a table on the day. Fortunately for us the Kickstarter was a success and we were given our table.

The event itself was held on the 7th February so that gave us plenty of time to create some artwork ready for the event. For this I created five different pieces of artwork to sell on the day, two of which was fan art which I wrote on them that I did not own the rights to the character and the name of the companies who do own them. I planned for each print to make an A4 print and an A5 print so people could place them on their walls without having to consume too much space on the wall and paid the company AJ Green Printing to print 10 copies of each size print because I was told by Andrew that I should focus on between 10 - 15 prints each so then I wouldn't spend as much money and still have a nice variety to sell on the day. The printing company sold me the prints at a good price of only £25 which was very reasonable since I needed to prints done quite quickly so I could get them ready for the event.

Below is the list of what I spent for the convention:

Table: £20
Prints: £25 from AJ Green Printing
Money box: £15
Plastic sleeves: £10
CardBoard for back of prints: £3
£50 change for the day

Total Cost: £113

When it came to selling my work I asked for Andrew's advice of what I would sell each print for and he told me that for the A4 prints that I should sell them for £15 each and for the A5 to be sold for £10 each. I had also decided by then to sell the originals to try and make back my money for the costs which Andrew told me to sell for £30 for each original.

I also decided to advertise work for a fellow illustrator that I know from back home in return for her advertising my work on her page.

On the day I had to get there for 8:30 to start setting up. With my layout, which you an see below, I believe that it was a mistake not buying a stand or something similar because it made the table look too busy and messy. Unfortunately at the end of the day I was unable to sell any work which was very disappointing but I was not phased and decided to take this as experience and focus at what I did wrong so then I can improve ready for next years convention.

Table Layout

Mine and Dan's work on the table

Setting Up

Print One

Print Two

Print Three

Print Four

Print Five