Final report

I started by looking at Jillian Tamaki’s SuperMutant Magic Academy. I started here because she has lots of developed characters but their stories can all be reduced to one or two pages of comic.

It’s a really effective and I find it easy to pick up and read (or go on the internet to get a fix).

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

Next I started Looking at Noelle Stevenson and her online webcomic and how she developed her characters and eventually progressed to creating a publication that is sold in bookstores.

I liked that her characters had a very clear attitude about them from just the first few pages.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

I started thinking about things I could create characters from. One of my first initial responses was to my sims characters that I play on (as you draw what you know best). I drew a small comic, trying to combine the quick atmosphere that Jillian Tamaki does but with the sense of the character like Noelle Stevenson has.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

I received some feedback after my first few sketches and proposals. I had thought about doing a greek mythology web series (or comic) and people seemed to like the idea of that. I was suggested some web comics which had GIFS in to look at.

I really liked Jen Lee’s Thunderpaw because of its limited colour palette.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

After talking to my crit group, everyone agreed I need a text to work on rather than creating my own characters and storyline. I decided to look at greek mythology.

Persephone is one of my favorite stories so I started there.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

First draft images for Persephone, trying to nail down the important parts of the story and how the characters would respond in different situations. Exeperimented with a brush pen and red ink.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

I then received some feedback on my first initial drawings and it was mostly positive. I got a lot of suggestions for film adaptations to look at.

One I did look at was Joan Cocteau’s Oprheus as I was looking for imagery to create the character of Hades.

I also asked my crit group whether anyone would mind if my stories were slightly changed to have more positive or stronger endings.

Everyone agreed that it was a good move.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

I started working in gouache after the crit, I found that it was much easier to use than ink (with less spillage). I also designed the borders to go around the comic, I went with a nature theme as Persephone is a hailed as a nature/ fertility goddess.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

I looked into motorbikes because I wanted to make sure that Hades still had a bad boy image despite being the hero. I looked at Anke – Eve Goldman, a popular German photographer who took lots of motocycle photographs for reference material.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

I wanted to think about how to make the comic I decided on a hotdog book that was bound into a jacket. This way it wouldn’t drop out and it would look neat.

By cutting the thread, after reading the owner would then have a poster for their wall.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

The finished posters, which would make the comic book more interesting (there would be Edition one and two).

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

My illustrations applied

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION

EVALUATION

During this module I think research has really been a key element for me, looking at other pracIIoners in the specific field of character and narraIve was interesIng and helped me to expand my work further than usual. I also aOended all of the crits for this module and I think that was a key aspect for me, during this course year I haven’t always aOended them all but for 505 I made sure that I could aOend everyone and I think they had a significant impact on my work. With 505 I really wanted people’s opinions on my work to push it further because my work was aimed at a target audience of students and 19 – 28 year old creaIves and I wanted that input to make sure that my work had the edge it needed.

My Photoshop skills have also improved during this module as I learnt how to create a hotdog book in photoshop quicker (my old method was really slow). I also learnt some more techniques to make the ediIng process quicker and neater.

This module was really great to expand on myself as an illustrator, by looking at other pracIIoners it showed me a bigger insight into what I liked and what I didn’t. UnIl now I had always had a distain for regular comics, such as Marvel or DC. Not because the storyline wasn’t there but because oZen the comics are overly bright and colorful and distract from the story (this isn’t always the case but it applies to the majority for me). I wasn’t sure whether character and narraIve was for me if it meant just doing comics, but aZer the research I found that it didn’t have to mean that kind of comic book. Noelle Stevenson and Jillian Tamaki really influenced this module for me, as well as discovering Jen Lee (as her web comic is animated and not something I’d seen very oZen before). I like the accessibility of a web comic and although I didn’t have the change to explore it for myself, it’s a concept I will be taking with me into the future as a pracIIoner. I enjoyed the freedom that this module supplied, and enjoyed creaIng characters for a very specific purpose.

In this module I have experimented more with ink and gouache than previous modules. Gouache carries across really well into Photoshop and doesn’t lose its hand made feel if you edit it properly. My final comic ended up having a really nice feel to it because you could see the effort and Ime that went into drawing and painIng each character. This is something I feel is oZen lost with today’s character industry (as I am not a fan of purely digital charcaters). I also invested in a colour wheel for this module (aZer looking at Tom Haugomat’s work) and although I didn’t use it (as my comic ended up being two colours) It was really interesIng to look into and colour paleOes is something I will develop further in future modules.

I feel like the main strength my work this module is my concept work and research. This is the first module I can hand on heart say I thoroughly researched, I watched a lot of movie adaptaIons and read a fair few books from the library including the seven basic story plots which was really helpful when idenIfying which story plot Persephone could slot into. My concept work was strong in this because once I had an idea in mind that had sat well with my target audience (19-­‐27) I could really get my teeth into it and enjoyed doing so.

I think weaknesses in my work this module is that I could have just done some more physical drawing just to develop ideas further. I think because I had researched so much it gave me a very specific idea of what I wanted to create, I could have been a liOle more exploratory with what media I used. It might have been nice to try oil painIng although Im not sure how that would have panned out Ime wise. I would have liked Ime to actually get round to creaIng a web comic, but this is something I’m planning on doing in my spare Ime just as a conInuaIon for myself.

Overall I really enjoyed this module, It challenged me to figure out what kind of illustrator I want to be and what kind of work I want to make but it also gave me the freedom to look around at the possibiliIes working in the industry has for me. It was nice to focus on something I enjoy creaIng for once, I did worry that this module might make me realize that character and narraIve is not where I’m headed but if anything it just convinced me more that this is the direcIon I should be working in for the Ime being.

OUIL505 -­‐ KATIE WADE – APPLIED ILLUSTRATION