OUIL503 // project report

PROJECT REPORT OUIL503: RESPONSIVE GABRIELLA BRACHO

CONTENTS STUDIO BRIEF 1 INDIVIDUAL PRACTICE SPECTRUM 23 The Pan Macmillan Prize 2016 RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition Illustration Friday

STUDIO BRIEF 2 COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE YCN Student Awards: Feel Good Drinks SUMMATIVE EVALUATION

SPECTRUM 23 CONCEPT ART Spectrum 23 is a collective publication and publishers that focuses itself around the promotion, recognition and celebration of young contemporary practitioners in the field of fantasy, horror, sci-fi and fictional art and imagery. They pride themselves on showcasing the best rising talent within the industry in their yearly publication of various practitioners working in the industry today giving way to a diverse collection of artwork that speaks of the contemporary artists today.

Since the competition for entries and having a chance to be featured in one of their publications centre around a breadth of themes they also categorise each specialism that will be featured in their publication this includes: concept art, advertising, dimensional and graphic novel works. I have a great interest in mostly all of these different areas within illustration, more specifically I adore concept art and the process that goes into creating the ideas and visuals that go into film, video games and theatre. Concept artists can provide a wild range of different results using different mediums and tools at their disposal, just as long as they are able to stick to a narrative, tell a story and create a character that has some life to it. Over the past few years there has been an even more focus on concept artists and their work ranging from blockbuster films to more smaller lesser known animated films. People love to see how an idea can become something and that is where I think concept art comes in.

Despite how open this brief had appeared to me at first I couldn’t help but leap at a chance to do something that I love and something that interests me and could possibly become a major focus within my professional practice. I also wanted to learn more about the process of concept art and learn the very basics of how one idea can become a wide range, a breadth of work that can create worlds and actual characters. I understood that it would be a pretty big leap into a somewhat familiar territory but it was still something I didn’t really comprehend but I wanted to for my own reasons and since the brief sounded like it was going to be all around enjoyable.

The starting point was hard giving that the brief itself seems very open-ended and the holders don’t want any original artwork but artwork that is directly inspired by the brief and connects to the themes of fantasy, horror and sci-fi. It seemed easy enough since I have a big interest in all those genres but the most difficult thing was to try and pinpoint something visually, something that I could see being developed into a full substantial project and it being something I wouldn’t grow bored of too quickly.

That was perhaps one of my greatest worries going into this project but I did somehow manage to create a theme that would last throughout the last few months and grow into something that I feel confident in.

I noted down the various of themes that I both have a personal interest in and those that would give me a long lasting project and not get too stale too early.

Since one of the main themes surrounding this brief was horror I thought to include a bit of gothic horror since it is one of my personal favourite genres in both literature, as well as in film and directing. Gothic horror always has a immense tone to it, it is almost overwhelming but the moody vibe to it could give me a lot of inspiration to work with and a lot of research to do.

Aside from looking at the products produced today I also went back and looked at the actual art movements of the era such as the Pre-Raphaelite’s and other drastic movements of the century. This gave me a good insight as to how many people might’ve preserved the world around them. Famously most of the paintings at the time had a very dreamlike escapism to them, giving the fast-moving Industrial Revolution that the Victorians are famous for.

I looked into the concept art of various of products that have this kind of narrative such as FromSoftware’s Bloodborne, to the recent films in cinema such as Crimson Peak. I also went back and looked at the set designs and art direction of Sweeney Todd by Tim Burton, as well as looking into the Penny Dreadful tales of old Victorian England. There was a vast amount of resources for me to pick and it was a relatively smooth experience although I was worried I might’ve done too much research if that’s possible.

There was a lot of contextual research to be done and I managed to find a lot of useful information as well as resources for my own concept art. I didn’t want to narrow down where I would look so I touched upon both the art of the century and how this century is used as a setting in today’s popular culture.

SPECTRUM 23: CALL FOR ENTRIES

Character soon came into play when I was mainly focused on a world-building project, or something that could be the concept of a setting in a film or short story. What are gothic novels generally well known for? There strange way of writing heroines, one thing that was particularly interesting for me giving the time period and the politics of it all. I wanted to create something akin to the classical gothic heroine we see in the classics, inspired by the visual research and the actual design and atmosphere that fit the time period of Victorian England. Characteristics in the shape of the body, the expression and the clothes she wore. I created a nameless heroine who is still to this day very much nameless.

I started out with simple roughs and eventually they grew into more finer designs until I had a good batch of character drawings that I was decently satisfied with. I loved playing around and almost simplifying the extravagant details of Victorian fashion for women at the time, I somewhat focused mainly around very vague shapes but I still wanted to keep the classical moody vibe of the overall theme I was going for. Again I took a lot of liberties with the tools I used since at this stage I was mainly in my sketchbook but it would all change soon.

SPECTRUM 23: CALL FOR ENTRIES

SPECTRUM 23: CALL FOR ENTRIES

Colour and tone become one in the same and they are one in the same. At the beginning it was a bit tricky to try and pin down a certain palette that would go with the almost rustic hues of the Victorian London inspired city I build this theme around. I wanted both a blend of monochromatic hues and a splash of a single colour but I also loved the vibrant warm palette from the paintings of the era.

I felt that both would be significant to the project and perhaps I could find a way to blend both of them together. It’s difficult to consider colour since it is so very important to the imagery itself so in the end I mocked up a few palette s of my own and decided to run with them and see how they would look in regards to the mood of the concept images themselves.

One was primarily a warm palette that was made of almost organic yet dusty yellow to brown hues and the next was pure black and white with a splash of a hued red that would symbolise the moon.

SPECTRUM 23: CALL FOR ENTRIES

The basic atmosphere for these four images of my final concept work is a classical gothic setting that isn’t too gruesome like the period it’s based off but more strange in a sense. I didn’t want it to go too far in the horror genre but I wanted it to be still inspired from the horror written in that era.

During the course of this project I’ve been able to discover the brilliance of creating quick and easy colour palettes that are honestly a god-send and I will definitely be using them much more in the future both for personal work and for academic briefs. Since I’m feeling much more confident in my digital skills in Photoshop I plan on using it much more this year and blending both my traditional drawings and a splash of texture and colour on Photoshop. That is just one process however, since now I’ve been able to properly experiment with both mediums I definitely feel as though I’ve learned a lot from just kicking myself out of my comfortable box called a sketchbook.

SPECTRUM 23: CALL FOR ENTRIES

I wanted to keep the fluidity and expression of my sketchbook and translate it in the later stages of this project and thankfully I was somehow able to do that. I didn’t want to take away the emotion and the expression of my line-work since I felt that it would take too much away but it would also give some kind of character to the final few images I would submit. I definitely took some liberties regarding colour and now that I’ve fully been able to experiment with different palettes and somehow bring them together I want to focus on certain palettes in later work.

Overall I was very pleased with how the final few images came out and if I can develop these skills further and let my confidence grow even more I believe I’ll be able to create something that I’m inherently proud of and will be able to actually place my work on products and see them as a design.

SPECTRUM 23: CALL FOR ENTRIES

SPECTRUM 23: CALL FOR ENTRIES

THE PAN MACMILLAN PRIZE 2016 CHILDREN’S BOOKS Pan Macmillan is a known organisation that has held quite a few artistic and illustrative competitions that revolve around literature and in particular children’s literature and picture books. Children’s book illustration is another area that I’m interested in and through this brief I touched upon it a bit, although I’m not entirely happy with most of the end results and I feel as though I perhaps tried to take on too many big briefs at the same time.

Giving that this brief alone could be considered as a substantial brief I wanted to try and see what it was like since the brief itself sounded really enjoyable and exciting.

One of the requirements and one of the reasons why I wanted to try this brief out was that you were able to illustrate a story of your choosing or write your own. Time wise I didn’t have enough hours to try and write up my own children’s story but I did have an idea on what kind of story it would be. I was interested in illustrating a personal favourite Japanese fairy-tale of mine- ‘The Crane Wife’ so I had a go and saw some of the results for myself.

One of the biggest difficulties I had was deciding on a colour scheme since this brief was tackled after my main substantial one, I knew the importance and how effective it was to narrow down a decent colour scheme. Since it was a children’s book I first thought that it ought to be eye-catching but when I went in and looked at illustrators who specialised in children’s books I saw a wide range and huge market that had all kinds of results. Since I was inspired by traditional Japanese woodblock paintings as well as the watered down paintings of the late 18th century I decided to go for a somewhat pale and wintery colour scheme that fit with the storyline but also gave my illustrations a very soft and gentle tone to them.

THE PAN MACMILLAN PRIZE 2016

The end results of this small brief were varied since I know that I should’ve saved this brief for another time or earlier on in the months. Managing both this brief and the other briefs going on in this module and other modules proved to be difficult and it definitely showed in my end results. If I do have the time I do want to go back and redo most of the pages, but I also want to move on and learn from my mistakes. Either way this brief has been an interesting experience and one that I will definitely learn from in the near future.

RWS CONTEMPORARY WATERCOLOUR COMPETITION MEDIA RESTRICTION

One of my weakest briefs out of the module I believe. Since I had a bit of block when the time came around to tackling this brief I felt a bit lost in regards to what I should do, since the brief was so open I decided to simply play around with the idea of a single form or a single thing. My main theme was primarily Stags/cervine/deer since they are something I’m used to drawing but I’ve never really delved too deeply and pushed the limits of said shape.

It was definitely a difficult brief but then again it was one of the smaller ones that didn’t take up too much time and it didn’t really sit on my consciousness for a bit but still I know that I could’ve done much better than what I have done and if I get the chance I’m going to come back and redo this brief again and stretch out my rather rusty watercolour knowledge again and try to get back into the swing of things. Overall this was a small one but something that I know I could’ve done much, much better on.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY AN IMAGE A DAY Illustration Friday is a brilliant tradition that I wanted to fit in with the rest of my experience within this module and I was able to stick to an odd month or so. It still felt constant thus I feel as though it’s effected my practice. Illustration Friday was a small but still very impactful part of this module because it ran throughout all of the other ongoing briefs as a continuous process that effected my process and fulfilled my draw-a-day promise. I didn’t want to put in too much time in each of these drawings since this is a very small part of my overall module experience, but still it is important all the same. I’ve actually been doing Illustration Friday for quite some time now and it is a good chance to include my submissions and inclusion in it through this whole module.

Responding to a single word and trying to find a image or a set of images to a theme is something that I’ve wanted to brush up on. At the beginning I thought that carrying on this activity into this module might hinder my time and effect the more important briefs but I was wrong and therefore when I had the time I made sure to put some time towards creating small images that kept my trail of thought going. As a creative person it’s always interesting to see how others respond to a word, or how I go about trying to identify certain images, symbols or motifs with just a word. This part of the overall project was fun and it didn’t take up too much time to do and overall the effects were well worth it. This of course doesn't mean I’ll be stopping doing this little activity from time-to-time since I plan on moving forward with this small process throughout my practice and into the near future.

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY

YCN STUDENT AWARDS: FEEL GOOD DRINKS PRODUCT DESIGN & BRANDING The YCN Student Awards are a well known set of briefs that go live every year and thousands of young students and artists take a chance to enter giving the wide range of possible briefs there are to be had. YCN definitely was an interesting part of this entire module, the collaborative brief was the largest next to my substantial brief in the way it was structured and the amount of time that was put into both organising it and then the actual work itself that needed to be doing. I was intimidated at first since it was the first time I ever really collaborated with someone on this level. It was a really interesting and exciting experience and it is one that I won’t soon forget in the future years and I would hopefully have another chance to collab with another person or group of people sometime soon.

My role within the group was the early concept designer for the bottle designs, I also did some of the earlier research into the market and any possible competition. I did some basic visual research into the kind of aesthetic the group would want and how it would fit with what the brief is asking of us. We soon found out that the majority of fruit juice companies that focus on an organic lifestyle have the same kind of aesthetic going for them, we wanted to branch away from that and cater to a primarily female audience as the brief describes, but also make some mature and a brand name that would still speak to the general market.

That part of the research was interesting because of just how similar a lot of these health brands were with their marketing scheme.

After a long time actually considering what brief I’d like to pick up and do, eventually I chose the Feel Good Drinks brief since it appealed to me in a way given that I’ve never worked on re-branding an established company and giving it a new identity.

For this part of the module I worked with a fellow illustrator and a graphic designer that proved to be an interesting mix since I had wanted to really work with a fellow student on the course as well as a student from an entirely different course. However giving the different timetables for both illustration and graphic design is was a bit tricky to try and meet up most of the time.

In this brief I got a chance to really get into the importance of advertising campaigns and their effect on the general public. Asides from considering how this would effect the designs and overall art direction of this brief I learned a lot from the first few weeks of this project by the research alone and it really made me appreciated advertising in someway.

I made sure to always have a conversation going in regards to the art direction of the bottles and then the whole aesthetic of the marketing campaign. I mocked up a lot of basic designs and let my teammates pick and debate which ones would be the most effective, and which ones we should develop. It was a really compelling way of getting feedback since the conversation is almost constant over the smallest little detail. Colour came into play and we all decided that the majority of the colour should come from the flavour of the drink itself. The inclusion of elaborate fruit on an ornate floral design would appeal to a mature audience and with a slogan that would promote healthy living in an almost luxurious yet simple way.

The slogan was the best part.

YCN STUDENT AWARDS: FEEL GOOD DRINKS

Despite their being bumps along the way and some setbacks involving clashing timetables and some communication errors, this brief was definitely one of the major highlights of this entire module and I walk away from it learning something. It was amazing to see how a simple concept and early idea brain-storming soon evolved into a pretty enormous project that had tones of results and extensive experimentation. I also learned the ways of bottle label making and to take into consideration the packaging and the shape of the product even in the earliest stages of designing a basic concept for the project at large.

Working with my teammates was enjoyable and they were all really supportive throughout this project.

YCN STUDENT AWARDS: FEEL GOOD DRINKS

YCN Student Awards: FEEL GOOD DRINKS

YCN Student Awards: FEEL GOOD DRINKS

YCN Student Awards: FEEL GOOD DRINKS

YCN Student Awards: FEEL GOOD DRINKS

END OF MODULE EVALUATION What a module!

Out of all of the modules that have been assigned over my time on this course, this module was certainly one of the most interesting and different projects that I’ve worked on. It has been really challenging and there have been moments of doubt but now that I have chance to sit down and reflect on everything that has happened I see the importance of such a module. I have enjoyed this module since it has really kicked me out of my comfort zone and made me face the industry itself.

Being able to pick and choose which live briefs you wished to do was both exciting and really difficult for me given just how many live briefs and competitions were on at the time. At the beginning I had no real idea what brief I’d wish to commit to and trying to keep tags on all of them proved to be tricky, especially in regards to blogging. But this also gave me a chance to see just exactly what I like to produce creatively, It made me identify what are my strengths in certain areas as well as my weaknesses.

I feel as though I’ve definitely grown from this experience as it allowed me to see how I work within a tight schedule whilst keeping to quite a few deadline dates. This has also been the module where I have really been able to see my work being applied to something, or to be commissioned by a client. This module has definitely prepared me to face real clients in a real world out there, I do feel a lot of confident coming out than I did coming in that is for certain. My practice itself has certainly grown to be really continuous throughout the last few months because of how much work I am producing to a week-to-week basis and how I will still challenge myself to draw something each day. Over the course of one brief alone I touched upon different kinds of mediums including both traditional and digital processes. This module has also allowed my time management skills to grow a bit more as well, giving just how many projects I had on at once I would’ve been lost without lots of lists, timetables and general organisation.

One of the major highlights of this module was definitely the chance to work collaboratively with one of my peers and fellow students. It was a bit stressful at first when I had no real idea on what brief I should pick but eventually I found myself in a group with a fellow illustrator and a graphic designer. I was excited to be able to have a chance to really work with other people, be it on the course or no, it was fun to see how others work creatively and how it eventually effected my own practice. I definitely learned a lot whilst working in a team and now I understand the importance of key roles within a group of collaborators and how it is essential to meet-up and exchange ideas. There were some moments were communication became pretty difficult since our timetables clashes so much, it effected the pace of the work and we all made sure to keep the deadline date in mind.

The collaborative brief also gave me a chance to truly think as a designer, in fact this entire module really gave shine to the designer in me and it was a really refreshing chance to consider branding, advertisement as well as layout and position. My role within my group was primarily early design works but at that stage I had to consider how a design would wrap around a bottle, or perhaps frame the label itself. Overall the collaborative experience was exciting albeit stressful but it is definitely something I’ll look back on and grow from in regards to working as a group and collaborating with different people.

When it came down to picking up certain briefs and entering competitions my confidence grew over the course of the module and I found myself taking up a decent amount of projects over the course of a few months. My chosen substantial brief was a really inviting experience since I chose it around a profession and a publication that I personally enjoy as well as interested in and a specialisation that would further link into my PPP module. The Spectrum 23 brief was by far one of my favourite briefs of the whole module. The brief challenged me in regards to how I present my work and how I can create concept art revolving around a theme or world. It gave me a chance to grow from my weaknesses from my prior projects and I really invested myself in this brief despite the other modules that were also going on around it. Later on in this module I found myself linking each of the current main modules we have together as a concise process that went on. My substantial brief definitely got me out of my comfort zone since I was determined to blend both digital and traditional mediums together and get over my hesitation towards Photoshop, and I did!

There were briefs that felt weak in regards to my response and how I went about to answer them, the RWS brief was one of them since I’m not entirely happy with the outcome despite it not being a major brief it still felt important as all of the other smaller briefs did. I didn’t want to take on too many small briefs since the other major modules were still running at the time, I also didn’t want to spent too much time on the minor briefs because the amount of work gone into my substantial brief is more effective and I feel more happier about it than the minor projects. But it doesn’t mean that I found the experience with these briefs unpleasant, it was the opposite actually, I found them to be challenging since with one brief I would be restricted to one medium whilst on another I would have full reign as to what tools I get to use.

Looking back on this module I feel as though I’ve definitely grow a lot from the beginning and initial briefing of this entire project. I’ve definitely learned a lot and feel as though I’ve really been able to enjoy this module from start to finish despite there being little bumps here and there but that is a part of the journey.

It has helped immensely in regards to PPP and grasping an idea of what specialist area I want to look into and take up, it is a perfect way to end a module and I feel a bit more professional coming out of it since my knowledge of my own practice has grown. This knowledge and experience is going to help immensely in the near future and the end of this module won’t stop me from entering next year’s batch of life briefs and competitions as well as keeping up to date with Illustration Friday. Overall this was an enjoyable brief and just because it’s finished doesn’t mean my learning and experience stops.