Zine Pages

Just realised that this needs to be done by next week so thought I'd put all my pages into InDesign and see how I was getting on. Realised that I've actually done too many and need to get rid of a few ideas, which is a bit annoying. Still need to think of a name for my zine as well. 

By the end of the day tomorrow I want this to be finished and complete. 

Tuesday's Toy

              

Seeing as its Halloween this weekend I decided to go with that theme and made a little bat. Learnt quite a lot from making this. In future before going straight into making it I need to think about how I am going to go about it. I sewed the body together too soon. I should of sewed all the different components  and then all together at the end sewed them all together with the sewing machine. But because I didn't think ahead I had to sew the wings and ears on by hand to the body after. Thought it would be quite fun to use this spacey material for the wings and ears to add to the dark halloween look. 

Tuesday's Toy

Made this monkey as requested for a commission for someone. I am happy with how he turned out and have done it slightly different from the monkey that I made before. The tail didn't curl round as much as I wanted but was hard to push the fabric through with the tail not being very big. 

Statement of Intent

More pages for zine

Zine

Been on working on my zine today. Over summer I decided on what the zine would be about which is: about a giant cat that goes travelling. My inspiration for this cat came from my Simon's Cat books that I found when moving house over summer, and Pusheen the Cat. 

 


These are the pages that I have made so far. They all still need a bit more work but thought if I go the main parts down I can work on them after. 

Nest Magazine

Last night I received this email so spent last night thinking and doing some drawings. And today I've been working into my chosen drawing on Photoshop. I am quite happy with it but feel like the walls are a bit plain so will try working into them more.

Also, I was thinking of submitting the plush toy star that I made a while ago but I wasn't too happy with the eyes so would want to re make it. 

Final Travelling Man Poster

After Joe called a meeting earlier today he said that because quite a lot of people weren't too happy about the colour scheme that we could change it slightly by playing with the different tones and opacities of the colours. So I changed the levels of the reddy/pinky colour and made it into a lighter pink. And then slightly made the dark blue lighter to make it a bit softer so that it toned in with the other colours. Overall I am actually really pleased with this piece. I don't really tend to do fan art pieces ever but feel like I really enjoyed this. Think because I have been watching the film recently and loved it so it gave me that buzz to get excited about it. 

Plan for the week

Today: 

Play around with colours for travelling man poster

Wednesday: 

Have all drawings and ideas done for zine in rough and print out poster down in digital print to see what it looks like 

Thursday: 

Finish zine 

Friday: 

Cop 

Fill in forms for briefs in 603 

Saturday: 

Make the next plush toy 

Sunday: 

Dad and lize visiting 

Monday: 

Finish plush toy

Cop 

Tuesday: 

603 session 

Tuesday's Toy

So this is the first plush toy of many. As I said the other day I have set myself the brief of posting a new plush toy every Tuesday. Decided that I want to develop on this character some more. I've bought some bigger plastic eyes of ebay which should hopefully come in the next few weeks. I want to make this again but bigger and put card in the feet so that it can stand up. The heads gone a big wonky on this so need to be more careful when cutting the fabric. I think if I made a few with different colour ice creams and different mouths this could make a nice collection.

Travelling Man Poster Ideas/Colour Testing

 

 

These are the drawings that I have done so far for Travelling Man. Not very keen on the Orange Is The New Black poster I did. Something about it looks so flat. I am struggling with this colour scheme a bit and have done some different variations of the My Neighbour Totoro poster. The bottom left I swapped the red for a pastel pink, which I feel looks so much better it tones in well with the pastel blue; but unfortunately that isn't part of the colour scheme. I have been thinking about possibly screen printing my posters so really stripped back the colours with the bottom right poster. I do like that poster and is a high possibility I might go with that one. I am just worried that it might look a bit too plain. I think that it would be useful to get some opinions from other people. 

Travelling Man

Really excited about the opportunity to put an A2 piece of work up in Travelling man. Especially with it being around the same time as Thought Bubble which will be great exposure. I have been thinking about what my poster shall be of and I have decided to do something a bit different to what I usually do and try drawing something/someone from popular films or TV shows. Over summer I really got into Studio Ghibli films and drew Catbus from My Neighbour Totoro. So I was thinking of maybe having a character from one of them films, which I think would also sit well within the shop and appeal to their audience. Some TV series that I like and would be fun for me to have a go at drawing would be American Horror Story and Orange Is the New Black, both of which are really popular at the moment and be a bit different to have in the shop. 

Here is the colour scheme that we have been given to work with. I am a bit nervous as I don't tend to work with many colours or have much of a colour scheme. But excited to give it a go. 

Brief 1

I have decided that one of my briefs that I want to set myself is to make one plush toy a week. This will be in order for me to gain better skills within sewing. Force myself to generate more characters. Then at the end as a result have a large amount of toys that I could then potentially pick my favourites and put them across other products. I am going to name this brief 'Tuesdays Toys' and have a toy completed by every Tuesday. I'm not sure if this will end up being really time consuming and effect my other briefs; that's the only thing I am worried about. But for now I am going to try and keep up with it. 

Aims: 

- One plush toy completed every Tuesday. 
- Post onto social media so people are seeing my work regularly. 

Rationale

Overarching 

I want too..

Improve on my drawing skills and spend more time on the quality of them. Also, spend a longer amount of time on the idea and development process before jumping to a final idea. And to manage my time well between the 3 modules. 

Because…

The better quality and more time spent on the drawing and ideas the better the outcome will be. Plus if I manage my time better things won't be rushed. 

This will…

Improve my practise and skills and development. 

And as a result…

Produce good quality images. 


Brief

I want too…

Create a range of plush toys that the characters can then be out across a range of other products. Such as, stickers, notebook and pencil cases. 

Because…

I want to improve on character development. On my sewing skills. And to grow more of an understanding for the existing market. 

This will… 

Help me produce better quality sewn characters that will be unique to what is already existing. 

And as a result…

Hopefully I would have a good quality product range that people would want to buy. 

Brief Briefing

5 Things to get out of this year
- A professional high standard portfolio of work
- To make use of the range of facilities
- To have a promo pack that reflects me well and I am proud of. 
- To have contacts
- To have more knowledge and experience within animation/illustration. 
- Have more confidence both with my work and then verbally be able to speak about it. 

5 Words that describe my practise 
- Character
- Hand Sewn 
- Line
- Minimal colour 
- Cute 
- Tactile

5 Things I want my work/portfolio to demonstrate
- Professionalism 
- Quality 
- Clear 
- Skill 
- Stand out/Different 

5 Practical skills I want to develop 
- Animation 
- Screen/Lino print 
- Presentation 
- Book Binding 
- Digital 

5 Non practical 
- Speaking/Communication 
- Networking 
- Organising/Time management/ Planning 
- Problem solving 
- Reading

5 Things I want to produce
- Plush Toys 
- Animation/Gifs
- Book 
- Lino/Screen prints - Also on products
- Promo Pack 
- Painting - life drawing

What do I want to do? 
- Create a range of plush toys. Then use them characters to put onto a range of products and create a synthesis between the toys and other products. 

Why do I want to do it? 
- Because that's what I enjoy doing and I feel if done well this has the potential to be successful. 

What do I want to get out of it? 
- Something that I am proud of. 
- A branded product range. 
- Set up my own business 

How/why will this benefit me? 
- I could take these further and sell them outside of Uni. 
- I will develop on my skills and have more knowledge. 
- I will have a better understanding of the market
- To diversify my portfolio

Mural Fest

http://muralfest.com.au

Got really excited for this idea to create a mural design based on a poem called Reflections of Time; but then as I read into it further I found out they meant a place called Sheffield in Australia not South Yorkshire. Disappointing. Though this has made me want to see if there are any mural briefs in the UK. 

Things I would like to do this year

I have made this list of everything that I would like to have a go at doing within this last year. I feel like it is important for me to have a go at as much as I can while I am still here at uni and have all the opportunities and facilities around me. 

- Make a plastic vinyl toy 

- More lino and screen printing

- Have another go at making an animation/gif 

- Make a zine

- Make a children's book 

What I am interested in: 

- Animals 

- Food

- Going to the gym 

- Watching documentaries about different peoples cultures and different ways of life. 

Briefs

Briefs that I would like to do over the year: 

1. Threadless - Monthly

2. Secret 7"  - Doesn't get released until 2016

3. Tigerprint - Currently there are no competitions running but need to keep looking out for the next one. 

4: Ohh Deer - Cushion designs. I can submit 4 designs. Closes November 6th 2015. 

5. Travelling Man - A2 poster design to go in the shop. Also, one design that could potentially to go in the window. 

6. Thought Bubble - 16 Page zine. 

7. http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/students-only/8th-international-student-poster-competition-skopje

Brief that I would like to create:  

1. To create a short children's book. 

2. To create a plush toy brand and place across a range of products. 

3. To make a short 1 minute animation. 
4. To find a local animal shelter/cat rescue and create new branding 

Leeds Cat Rescue current website:http://leedscatrescue.btck.co.uk

Yorkshire Cat Rescue: http://yorkshirecatrescue.org

Regular Drawing

I think that it is really important that I try and keep drawing as I know with having this dissertation to do   it will be easy to get distracted. I've been looking at different websites that will motivate me with monthly/weekly tasks. 

http://illustrationfriday.com - Clues in the name. This site puts up a new topic each Friday and then I respond with and illustration. The topics are typically one word. I am very interested in doing this one as it's regular and should be fun to do. Plus because there is no prize there's no pressure to make anything that's going to cause much stress it's just going to be something to get me thinking out the box and having fun without being too serious. 

http://www.posterposter.org/submissions/ - This website does something called 'Poster Monday'. With me wanting to do illustration Friday I don't think I will do this every Monday but definitely think that this would be worth doing one or two Mondays a month. Maybe something relating to things I learn in CoP or throughout other briefs?!

http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober - Only just found out about this today. This is a challenge called Inktober; here anyone can take part what they are asking is that you do a drawing everyday throughout October and submit your drawing through any kind of social media site you're part of. I think that this is a really fun challenge. However, I have missed the first five days so need to get caught up!  

http://tinyteepee.tumblr.com - Came across this site, again seems quite simple. Each month they give you one word and then respond to it and then you can submit to their site. What I quite liked about this site was that quite a lot of people have submitted gifs. This is something that I would really like to give another go at doing.