Summer 10 Brief - Additional 10 Day 2

From Day 2, we started looking at the media we could use to potentially create our final ideas, and ways we could portray them. I played around with various stuff - from biro, watercolours, ink and brush, various coloured pens and charcoal as well

 The study on the left was a mix of watercolour and water soluble black pen. Working on my idea of "how to survive in a storm without an umbrella", I tried to show a contrast between the two sets of people in how I worked with the chosen media, and also the colour I used - choosing warm bright shades for the couple with umbrellas, and bleeding out the marker as much as I could for the figure in the rain. I tried to stick to water soluble material as much as I could as I felt the wish-wash qualities of both sets of media was a nice representation of rainy weather.

Though they're both techniques I enjoyed using I found them both messy and time consuming to refine. The fineliner I used to sketch the couple was not water soluble and bled into the paint which I was quite annoyed by, as it dulled the colours and made them look murky which was the opposite look of what I was going for. I'd probably use it on other projects, but maybe ones with more time for me to sit and re-refine it for a more professional looking finish.

The sketches on the left were done in ink and brush - which I was actually very pleasantly surprised by! I like working with big, thick black lines usually with felt tip markers and i've found line work with brushes quite a task in the past. It definitely is something i'd re-use again. Also, in terms of visual communication of the idea I think the ink studies are a better representation than the watercolour ones are as they're much simpler and much more straight to the point.

These were a few assorted sketches testing out different kind of pens, and also looking at how I could use colour to represent different roles and emotions. I loved the fluidity of the biro, but I thought it was too messy and too weak in line weight to use for my final. The markers were also lovely but since I tend to do a lot of work using them, I wanted to see if I could find a different technique instead. 

The study on the left was work about the "anxiety survival kit" i'd got planned in my ideas sheet. Up to this point, I felt like this was my strongest idea but upon trying to execute it I kind of felt like it was falling a bit flat. I used fineliners to do the studies, and though I was very pleased with the visual quality of them I just felt the whole thing was trying to say too much and getting a bit overcomplicated, so I eventually scrapped it. 

The charcoal study on the right was an off the cuff one I did at a whim but I liked it that much I decided to revisit it and use it in my further development - I really love the looseness it gives my line work and i can plot down really exaggerated shapes and lines without them looking silly or out of proportion. The only downside to charcoal that i've discovered is that because i'm left handed I find it difficult to work with on a larger scale, but its definitely fun to work with nonetheless. 

After the study above, I started looking at things I could do with the charcoal to make it look more interesting, and at ways I could mess with it to communicate my ideas better. I discovered that smudging the lines was a double edged sword - it was easy to mess up but it could equally create a really nice effect when used directly on the lines. To make this smudge even harder I then took a putty rubber to it to create the jaggedy lines. My concept at this point was around the idea of a "breakdown", or a breakdown in calm that I experience if I ever have a panic attack. By physically breaking down the media I think this is a really good way to represent this. 

 This was a first draft of what will eventually be my final. The start lines on this were first done in black pen, before progressing to charcoal and smudging it out but after speaking with matt we agreed that the black marker wasn't really necessary and it worked just as well just in charcoal. the layout and the size of the individual images needed to be amended and it was also recommended to maybe try a few more energetic poses for the character to be in

Brief experiements with layouts - the biggest task with this is because im freehanding everything on the page, I can't put down layout guides as removing them over the charcoal will be tricky. I'm also having to cover what i'd previously drawn to prevent smudging the charcoal too severely. The above example was too poorly proportioned so everything on the right was too squashed together

 This was my revised (almost) final piece. I think that i'm slowly getting used to balancing the elements on the page - it was suggested that if I go on to create another version the layout needs to switched around slightly to make it easier to read - I also need to pace it well enough that I dont end up having to squash the last two panels in right at the end because they're technically the most important in the piece and need a bit more precedence in the page hierarchy