Evaluation and Reflection

This unit gave me an opportunity to show my creative skills that have developed over the past year. I have showed a range of skills in not only this unit but the other two projects as well not only that but I have expanded said skills and improved my work a lot.

My goal was to show off my skills and to show that I am not limited to just character design or designing a character once and once only. This is why not only have I drawn different versions of the characters but I have also drawn the final versions of the characters multiple times to prove I can draw the characters over and over again and them still look similar. Going back to my point of I am not just limited to character design I also wanted to show more tradition art skills such as paints and pens. This is why I also did a landscape concept for the same client.

Although I don’t think my work evokes an emotional response in others it does in me as I’m very proud of how far my work has come in just a small amount of time. After talking to my classmates about what draws their attention to my work, I got very similar responses. Mostly the liked the texture/shading and depth. Some of them also liked the contrast of the background as it made the colours on the characters stand out.

My skills on procreate have developed due to me now having my own iPad and apple pencil so I am able to use procreate at home and experiment with different tools and try out all the settings in my own time and not just at college.

My original idea was just to create the characters designs with an aspirational target of two background designs. Although I was able to complete my main goal, I was only able to complete half of my aspirational and created a possible concept for one of the locations in the book. I still believe I was successful in my task as I managed to do some of my aspirational target even if it wasn’t up to my ideal standard.

To improve my specialist skills, I would’ve probably would’ve gotten into painting prior to my FMP so I had more time to regain my skills. Although I'm glad to have added some traditional art into my FMP it isn’t up to a standard I would’ve liked.

I feel as though my workflow wasn’t as good as it could be. Although this year I have been more on top of my work I still feel as though I could improve a lot still. This is one of the reasons I took Darkgon out of my final project because I feel as though I was behind of myself regarding my work. I think this is a process that takes time and over the past year I’ve gotten more confident with deadlines and assignments.

Evaluating the pieces individually

This piece is a digital drawing of two characters in my client’s book Lynne and Yaz. Lynne is a vampire and is also Yaz' bodyguard and wife. Yaz is a warlock who illegally uses her skills to create enchanted tattoos which are illegal in their kingdom.

I began my research for Lynne by looking into African clothing both traditional and modern. However, I soon decided that as she is a bodyguard, I wanted her to have a traditional African warrior look to honour her skills and heritage. I started off drawing her very different but I soon changed it as she looked too modern and less of a fighter.

With Yaz I started looking into how warlocks are depicted in mythology and fantasy as well as witches and demons as warlocks are the offspring of these fantasy creatures. As Yaz runs a business, albeit it illegal, the client told me to try business casual looks.

My art style has always been slightly inspired by manga comics and anime. Although I haven’t really looked into artists, I do try to not copy manga fully as I prefer a slightly more realistic look to my characters. Which is why my characters have softer lines and the shading is blended rather than sharp blocks, like in manga.

As always, I started sketching ideas for these characters in my sketchbook and moved onto my iPad from there. I did however go back to my sketchpad a couple times as I wasn’t sure on the looks for Lynne.

Something I found difficult about this piece is that, I hadn’t draw multiple characters at once before so it was a challenge to go back and forth rather than working on one at a time. The reason I went back and forth with the characters is because I believe that it would keep things consistent and they would look similar. Also, because if I had done one at a time and wanted to go and correct something on a different version on the character that wasn’t on a separate layer I didn’t have to start over.

This is an alternative concept for Lynne. This was the original idea I had for her but I ended up scraping as it didn’t feel right to the character after I had read more of my client’s book and actually met Lynne.

I used the same research that I used for my final idea for Lynne minus the African warrior style as I hadn’t considered that idea at the time of this drawing was being created. This was the original idea i had for Lynne that i didn’t like due to her looking too modern and less of a fighter.

I had a few ideas sketched out before I started digitalising this one. I made sure to include her earrings and visible tattoos. I originally was going to have an afro on this design but decided that wasn’t what I wanted this character to look like so chose long braids instead.

This is an alternative concept for Yaz. This was actually the second idea for Yaz. The fist idea showed her as a kind plump lady with long braids. However, I wanted to have a more serious look so designed this. Another reason why I didn’t stay with this look, although it still fits her personality, is because I still wanted Yaz to be chubby and this version of Yaz is very slim with sharper features.

I still kept with the same research used in the final idea of yaz and her overall look didn’t change much other than giving her softer features.

One thing I do like about this piece is the background is the colour pallet used on Yaz mixed together, then finding the opposing colour on the colour wheel to contrast. Also, the shadow behind her makes it look like her magic is radiating off of her which I think makes her look more dangerous.

This final piece is a concept for one of the cities in the kingdom called Faekargon. Faekargon is home to all fae folk, including seelie and unseelie.

I started my research into Faekargon by looking into beautifully creepy forests as that was my original idea. However, after reading my clients book, I realised I had the wrong idea and needed to also look into abandoned war grounds that now had life (such as Flanders fields) and this was very helpful. However, due to me not having much time till the deadline but still plenty of time in production i decided to create a basic concept for Faekargon rather than a detailed final piece.

There is no exact style for this piece I just wanted to incorporate some details mentioned in my client’s book so I used what was available to me so I could quickly get a piece complete with mixed media. In this piece I used water colour paints to create the background, field pond and trees. I then used coloured pens to create the houses and some small detailing. Although I had used water colours countless times before it had been a long time so I forgot most tricks i learnt so felt as though I was learning something new. The pens I hadn’t used before but figured it was similar to pens used as a child, so was relatively easy. However, I hadn’t used a blender pen before and it was really fun to try out.