responsive: end of module evaluation

responsive: project report

illustration 2: a sea of faces

As practice for character design I decided to have a go drawing my characters with lots of different facial expressions. It was really fun, especially to see how each face works so differently. It's quite rewarding to know that all the faces are different and work so differently as someone who was so used to drawing the same face all the time. I've had a lot of fun working out how to make them look in response to their personalities. So their shocked, happy, angry etc faces all look different. For example, the aries 2nd face shows a more childish anger, almost as if he is being naughty, whereas the pisces 2nd face shows a more mature anger. 

responsive: collaborative practice design board

YCN BEAR

responsive: individual practice design boards

Penguin Design Awards:

Illustration Friday:

Delicious Mess:

illustration 2: the jungle

I used this piece as reference and inspiration for the background for Leo. I wanted the background to be quite simple and a lot of green, because that's really what jungles are. Plus Leo and the other animals are going to be quite bright I think if the background is more simple they will stand out more. It's helpful for me to use references because i wouldn't have known where to start otherwise. 

illustration 2: deciding on colours

This was one of the really fun parts of character designing. Choosing the colours. I wanted the colours not just to represent the sign, but also to match with the environments. What I mean is, for Taurus, I am thinking of doing a scene with her in the garden so to have her in a green jumper might be a bit of overkill on the green. I want to make sure that I choose the right colours for this reason. It was also a new experience for me, as I have never really gone into this much depth with character designing but it's a lot of fun. I can't wait to do more in the future on different projects.

illustration 2: environment research

Scott Watanabe



Scott Watanabe is an illustrator who works for Disney. His environments and interiors are immense and so inspiring. He is really good at getting the right perspective and colours, shadows etc. I am kind of jealous that someone is that good (haha). Looking at his work has really inspired me to try hard with my environment backgrounds even though i'm not looking forward to it that much.

Using my trusty friend Pinterest (the best thing to exist in the whole world ever) I collected some research about environments and interiors. I know that for some of my illustrations I do want them to be outside, so I looked at things like the Jungle (for leo) as I want to do a kind of 'King of the Jungle' spin off. And i also looked at inspiration for the woods because I think I might also do a drawing in the woods. It's helpful to look at these to gain some inspiration and some knowledge before diving right into it, however it does make it quite daunting as I think 'i can never do this'. But i'll give it a good go!

illustration 2: figuring out colouring

I wasn't really sure which direction I wanted to go with in terms of colouring. There were many different styles, softwares and brushes that I can use. The one on the left is a Kyle Webster gouache brush, and I do like the effect of this one however I feel like the character doesn't stand out enough. The middle was done using a software called Paint Tool Sai, where it is easy to change the colour of the linework to match the image. Although I like this style too, I just think it wasnt working for the aesthetic that I wanted to achieve. Therefore the one I think i'm going to go with is the one on the right, which is bold black lines and simple colour. I don't want to overcomplicate them too much because I want the characters to speak for themselves. They are also going to be in situations where there is a lot going on around them with lots of colour and objects, so I don't want to overcomplicate this process either. 

I think it was good for me to test out these different ways of colouring, because it has helped me to see my characters in different ways. I think for the cartoon style I am trying to achieve, the one on the right is the best fit.

illustration 2: playing with posing

As someone who is not normally very good at posing my characters. With this project gave me a really good reason to try it out and have a go at something new. I really struggle to keep my work rough, so even when i'm doing sketches there's always the voice in the back of my head telling me to be more neat. I do want to try and break out of this, however I still was quite neat within these sketches. I think by doing these posing sketches I am really learning more about anatomy and how the human body works. This is a very useful skill to have and I hope that one day I can draw poses without needing a reference for them.

illustration 2: changing it up

illustration 2: magazines that have horoscopes

I decided to do some research on some of the bigger magazine companies and if they provide a Horoscope within them. To my surprise there were a lot of them, especially all of the bigger brands. It's surprising to me that it is still so popular after all these years, even though horoscopes have probably had a lot of bad press and wrong answers.

illustration 2: outfits