Editorial project... FMP

OK.. so this last few weeks has been absolute murder for me... basically in choosing a final major project to do.. i thought it would be wise for me to do something that would boost my portfolio ready for going into the wide world of illustration.. so.. i decided to do some editorials. I wish i didnt! ahaahah

working in the LOVE studio did some what distract me from my work, I found it more enjoyable to work on something that was LIVE and could go into print rather than on some ficitional projects. but saying that, I have enjoyed creating the images.. but Im not happy with the final outcome in terms of the colours.. but before I get to that.... let me start from the beginning.

I firstly decided some articles from New Scientist, T3 or Wired magazine would best suit me as the articles would at least be interesting enough to work on and also appeal to my interests in science and technology.. in the end I went with 6 articles from Wired magazine looking at...

'Discovering new species'

'Capturing Solar energy'
'Getting people to do as you want'
'Entomological terrorism'

'Work induced stress'
and finally...
'Chillwave: a new genre of music'

i found coming up with ideas rather easy but i just couldnt settle on which one to choose for each article. and even when I did I was never happy with the outcome I had chosen.. different ways of doing things always crossed my mind... anyway.. i started producing a series of images just to get some feedback...

Slowly these developed more and more and I decided that i would hand draw them rather than digitally vector them, but dont think I didnt spend time making them in illustrator too... eventually i had to just choose and I was in love with the idea that I could hand draw everything.. i was using tracing paper and pencil.. but this then drove me mad.. instead I switched to a light box and uni ball pens.. much better.. and if I made a mistake then I treated it exactly like how Marc McKee did and I used correction fluid.

Because I wasnt in the studio at the college, I wasnt receiving regular pointers on if I was heading in the right direction so I had to just trust my gut and go with what I thought was the right idea for the job...

sadly as time was running out.. i then had a tutorial and I had to re-jig my 5 out of 6 of my designs... the 1 design they did like was more animated, the humour was there and it very much like a cartoon.. where as the other designs suddenly looked too realistic in comparison... so I ended up re drawing a LOT of elements.. then having drawn them to how I liked.. i had to ink them.... all rather time consuming.. but having to add colour to them was the worst part yet. I nearly gave up numerous times, crying about if it was all worth it and if I should just colour them how I wanted instead of taking swatches from skateboard stickers and applying them to the artwork... I was a little dubious at first.. but then I realised that a lot of the stickers featured similar colour trends.. so I ended up limiting my palette to a choice of approx 6 colours throughout the whole set....

I'm glad I made the changes that I did as I feel the ideas have progressed.. but I'm worried that when not under the guidance and supervision of the tutors.. can I do this on my own? hence another reason why i want to work in a collective and around like minded people..

Hunter: this was the first image I actually started... the idea was about discovering new species and the ways in which you can go about this... immediately the typical ideas jump to mind.. a british safari/game hunter in khaki and a pith hat.. which I actually decided wasnt a bad idea.. but the main focus was new species.. i thought to myself.. rather than trying to imagine a new species of animal or insect.. I could distort the hunter character so much so that he actually became the new species himself... i began giving him more limbs.. and then later more eyes.. but I had to ask myself.. was some of the alterations necessary? for example.. the 3 eyes to the character.. does he need to look like a spider? or can the extra limbs signify that he is a new species alone?

my final piece in a mocked up context.

Bugs: this image started out as my favourite.. i thought the idea of depicting insects as terrorists was a funny idea... maybe so much so that people wouldnt be able to look at a common house fly in the same way anymore.. but as the sketches developed I found the bugs becoming plainer and less unique.. almost like i was drawing them too accurately again. I still love the idea of these guys but I feel like I could have distorted the characters bodies more in order to emphasize their qualities.. I also dislike the background i had originally made for them and the one currently in use with them.. where as I wanted some sort of marker in there to show scale. it just didnt work...

Zombies: Getting people to do what you want is no easy task, but I wanted to go down what I thought was a less travelled route.. instead of mindless zombies.. i wanted to represent the general public/ audience as puppets.. controlled by strings by an invisible puppeteer. it turns out I had it the other way round.. the puppet idea was over done and zombies less so.. so.. i had to swap them over... the puppet soon became a pair of shopaholic's with only SAAAAAAALLLLLLEEEEEs and BBBBBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUUYYYYYYYIng on their minds :)

Stress: Strangely, this idea is what the tutors favourite and also the easiest to accomplish.. i sketched out about 4 sheets and then just started straight off by drawing the character... it couldnt have gone any smoother.. i literally only changed the head as I thought the expression wasnt clear enough.. or exaggerated enough.. the down side to this image came about when trying to colour it along with the other 5...



Chillwave: one of 2 last minute decisions to include this idea, it basically came about when I saw the existing article image was lacking in any real creativity.. almost like the artist didnt know what to put so just threw in a cd to represent music wiht a few other symbols about. My initial idea was to have a musician frozen in ice and playing on the word chill... but my comments on this were that it looked too much like a scooby doo cartooon... personally i saw that as a compliment.. i love cartoons.. however i then started to change the piece so it focused more on the idea of musicians forming their music in their bedrooms with no famous backing band or recording studio... this idea was given the go ahead but a different execution was needed.. there had to be more of a sense of scale... this big artist trapped inside a tiny box room.. i also started with this design when it came to deciding on colours.. whether to go a little more realistic and recognisable or by taking some of the skateboard inspired palettes.. in the end this one ended up more abstract when coloured and it defined how the others would be executed..

Sun: this was the very last idea i had.. i hated it. i came up with the idea very early on.. but i didnt like how it looked... i didnt feel i could capture it properly (no pun intended) yet.. looking at the finished piece now.. i actually enjoy it.. not for the drawing but for the background i created.. it ties the whole piece together well i think. There are so many options and so many variations i couldve done with this design but somehow i dont think any would work well enough...i also never realised how difficult it would be to draw the chassis of a truck..

I'm not sure if I like these final designs or not... i mean theyre still my own artwork.. but the colours just don't quite sit right with me... I know I wanted to create these pieces as editorials but I also wanted to then use the designs as stickers and possibly skateboard graphics... but now I dont feel like I can do that with them for some reason. I know this is stupid, as I can... but i can still make them as skateboard decks.. but the colour way is what puts me off them ever so slightly. If i'm to still add them to the bottom of skateboards then I feel I'd like to alter them and exaggerate them a little more.. in a spinal tap kind of way... from 10 to 11...

ah well.. it is too late for me to worry now.. all i can hope for is that i dont fail