Hopefully I have seen the back of this project now! Don't get me wrong, it's been great to have real world experience of creating a piece of art, passing it on to a design team who then come back with alterations and then chatting with the printers who need to receive the artwork in a specific format but thank **** it's done!
Starting with my own work, I was already happy with my main image but it was the spot illustration that didnt quite sit right on a page or look like part of a set. I think having the summer away from the piece of work definitely helped, as sometimes you can be sat so close to an image that you cant see whats wrong until you step back. Luckily, I feel I have made the spot image more dynamic and I'm actually prefer it when compared to the main one as it holds more character in my opinion. Originally I was using the halftone screen printing technique as a way of holding the two images together and using the same colours in hopes that people would just assume they belong together but now I hope the audience will see a relationship not only between the characters in the story but also between my images.
Main Image:
Spot Illustration:
Because I am looking at character as a theme within my work, I'm happy (for the time being) with how the images work. The story I was given to illustrate didn't focus on character descriptions too much - we are told certain aspects such as the female character has red hair and the male is wearing a shirt, shoes etc - and so I had to make sure I wasn't trying to create specific or generic characters. I have suggested the female character by using elements such as her hair, hand and lips to form a seductive womanly image. Similarly I have used the shoes, a shirt and tie, the chesterfield chair, and the large eye to form the male character who is sat watching her perform. There are then other little details which I feel add to each character, such as the tears showing the womans emotions with the situation, the frilly cuff/clevage to again emphasize a seductive and sexual side to the her and the shape of the hand/glove not only forms her face but I altered the length of it for a curvier shape to hint at the natural shape of a womans bosom and hips as well as using it for a long slender neck.
I think I was actually quite lucky with my choice of colours... We had initially planned for the whole book to be printed in colour, meaning everyones images would've looked exactly how they created them but disjointed. Now I know the stories featuring in the 7x7 book arent linked, nor continuations, but due to the limited budget the choice to print in Black with a single spot colour was made. As I said, I was lucky in that I had already limited my colour range and so it wasnt as big a problem altering my images to using black and blue (the colour we decided on) and I had already been looking at screenprinting my work just for my own benefit... but I now actually prefer the spot colour versions more than the coloured ones I created earlier.
7x7 cover teaser
7x7 teaser
Another part of the 7x7 project involves working with a 2nd year Moving Image student to create a short 10-15 second animation. I often admit that I like things done my own way, and I often do them myself so that I know they are done properly but i also like relinquishing control as i usually prefer what someone else makes with an idea than my own interpretation. (i sometimes try too hard to make things look 'Cool' and appealing to everyone). but basically... my initial ideas of a Mad Men/Catch me if you can or animated comic styled piece of work went out the window when I was introduced to Kirsty Newman (i'd add her blog or site.. if i knew it). She really liked the halftone pattern work in my images so I was tasked to create some images for her to use and animate with... Now I must stress... I have been rubbish. It took me ages to actually get the image to her, I was busy editing other peoples artworks ready for printing and separating the layers, but she's been an absolute star with delay after delay as well as putting up with me in general. Anyway, providing this one image was actually harder than i thought purely because of the sheer size it needed to be in order for her to zoom into it!
but as I said, she's a star and has sorted it along with compositing some live action dancing to represent the female character. I know very little of After Effects and Premiere so I have given her free reign over it, but through not giving her the image she needed early enough, Ive put her under a bit of stress to meet her deadline for this friday :( sorry Kirsty. I already told her that I wasn't exactly impressed with my own efforts, nor happy with the image I supplied to her but she actually has it on camera where I say that it's all my fault, I've been useless and that I hate babies... but theres a possibility of us working together again in the future on a couple of side projects... (one being liked to my old figure animation I had planned...
Characters and
Backgrounds)
