What will the main character look like?

Well because this cat is a very well looked after and loved house cat that doesn't usually go outside, I have the image of it being quite chubby and happy. I've decided to use water colours, because a lot of children's books that I like have a very hand drawn/painted feel without much digital so that's how I want mine to feel. 

The inspiration for the character is my own cat as she is very much a house cat (out of her own choice, we've tried getting her outside), which has resulted in her being rather round and happy. 

Whilst painting these cats I have been watching a few films with cats in to get me inspired. I have watched: 
- The Aristocats Cats, Walt Disney 
- KiKi's Delivery Service, Studio Ghibli 
- The Cat Returns, Studio Ghibli 

Craft Fair Information

http://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk/how-to-best-prepare-for-a-craft-show-or-design-trade-fair/

From looking at the website above, I need to make a list of everything that I am going to sell so that I am clear.

Toys Digitally Drawn Testing

I have been looking at a plush toy maker called Noodoll and have contacted them recently. After having a look at their stuff I like that they have turned some of their toys into digital drawings so I had a little play round doing it my self. I prefer the second one, but think needs a lot more work. 

I wondered about creating scenarios for them so played around with a birthday themed scene. I am really not sure what I feel about mixing the digital and the 3D toy. I think that it needs a lot more work. 

Waterstones

I went into Waterstones to have a look at their children's books that they have in stock there  for some inspiration and ideas on how I want the ascetics of this book to be. 

This book really stood out to me. The story was so sweet and funny. The illustrations I felt like they had been digitally drawn but still had that hand drawn feel to it. This is something I want to take on board. Most the children's books that I was drawn too looked like they'd been hand drawn or painted, and some mixed with different textures. 

Which, when thinking about it, a lot from my childhood that were my favourites had done that. Like, the hungry caterpillar, The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Not Now Bernard! 

Tote Bags Bought!

Me and Mia both agreed that we would like to be selling tote bags with screen printed designs on. We thought that to cut the costs we would go halves on buying the bags. When looking at all the different colour bags, we decided that it was best that we kept it simple and just bought black and white. 

Rough Sketches and Ideas

Really want to get started on this brief as this is one I am really excited about. I've read through the story and what goes on each spread and done a few sketches to give me some ideas of composition and what would be on these pages. 

Worksheets

Before sending Cathy our proposal we wanted to make sure that we had everything evaluated and ready. First we decided that all of us should have a go at making some worksheets and then come back together to see which ones we thought worked best so that we would have the best worksheet possible! 

These are some scans of some worksheet ideas that I had. Everyone seemed to like the last sheet that I had made as it left a good amount of space for the children to draw their underwater creature, also the prompt questions are pretty clear. 

I went down to digital print to book us a print slot so that we could print our stickers that we want to make for the eyes. This is on the 21st March, which leaves us plenty of time to get everything prepared. 

Final Logo Design

After discussing and seeing each others logo designs we've come up with we have decided that we all like this one: 

Logo Ideas

We decided that for our group we needed a logo to represent us that we could put on our proposal boards and potentially put onto t-shirts that we will wear on the day. Here are my logo designs that I came up with. I haven't really done much work with logos before so this is quite new to me. I don't feel like I'm very confident with working with text. Because I don't know much about fonts and what looks best I thought that it was best for me to hand write the text. 

Anorak - Workshop Proposal/ Group

After the briefing last week, Jessie, Orlaith, Sophie and me have decided to form a group together and create a workshop that we will pitch to Anorak. Originally we wanted to pitch to ELCAF as well but we found out that it clashes a bit with our final end of year show - which that must take priority. 

Imaginarium Aquarium 


The theme of our workshop is around sea creatures.We plan that our work shop will be split into two different stations. "The imagination Station" and the "creation station". So the first station is about drawing and the second station is about bringing your drawing to life. 


We want our workshop space to encourage children to want to engage in drawing and to think visually. For some guidance we are going to create some exciting worksheets, potentially with different fishtanks on; also, we will have some fun prompts to get their ideas generating.  

For the second station - turning the drawing into a reality. We propose to use recycled materials, which we have been told we can contact a place called Scrap to get hold of lots. As a fun idea we want to create stickers of eyes so that the children can stick them on to their creates. (Once you put eyes on things it really brings them to life.) As a nice idea on our presentation I thought that it would be fun to put fish bowls in the middle of the tables with the sticker eyes in them, so that its a bit of a mix and match or just have a look through for the pair they life? I had a look at fish bowls online and you can get them from the pound shop! 

As a group we have decided that our name will be BLOOP. We did a lot of brain storming and trying to come up with different names, but this is the one we've agreed on as we liked the sound of it. When we googled it, its definition also related back to our workshop. 

"Bloop was an ultra-low-frequency and extremely powerful underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1997."

We have had quite a few group get together and meetings to talk about our ideas and do research. But to help keep in contact with one another we have made Facebook group. 

Sorry Cards Developed

Using half tones isn't really something I have experimented much with before but I think it works well with the illustration and adds a bit more tone. 

Sorry Cards

I've been researching greetings cards and whats on the market already. I've found that most places are lacking in 'Sorry' cards.  Clintons don't even have a 'sorry' section. 

I think out of all the ones I've sketched, my favourite ones are the 'Sorry for being shit' and the mistake one. I like how simple the mistake one is. 

Tuesday's Toy

This design is very similar to the grey bear I made in the beginning. Its a simple design but I think that it works really well. I think that it would be a cute set if I made a girl bear to go with him. But if I have her looking like an angry grizzly bear girlfriend. It could add some humour to the set as it will contrast the sweet, gentle looking boy bear. 

Drawings

 I have been thinking about our craft stall abit thats coming up in a couple of months. I started to do some drawings in my sketchbook of these cats that could potentially but put across a number of products. 

What I would like the be selling there: 

- Gift Cards

- Tote Bags

- Toys 

- Digital Prints 

- Stickers 

- Lino Prints 

- Badges 

GOOD VS BAD

The group tutorial with Fred today has been really really helpful and encouraging that I am on the right track. I brought in with me a few of my toys that I had made. Everyone seemed to particularly like the little lightening bolt toy that I had made and liked the loose idea I had of doing a good/bad weather range. I have been told to maybe explore this idea further and to expand across other characters. Potential ranges could include, Good vs Bad foods? 

I'm really excited about all the possibilities. I was told to stop stressing about what the labels will look like and how they will be. As they were slowing me down a bit and I don't think that they are a massive deal. 

Sketching Ideas

I want to create some fun drawings/designs that reflect me and people will want to buy. I have been doing some sketching of some ideas. I plan on putting the designs onto a range of products like stickers, tote bags and t-shirts. 

Tuesday's Toy

With this character I experimented with putting on one of the labels that I made. I like the look of having the label but I need to find a way to stop it from fraying. 

Photographing Toys

I took out a DSLR and took photos of some of my toys that I have created so far. A few of them were quite hard to photography, particularly the pink hairy monster because of the material being such a bright colour. Also, the mushroom was a bit tricky because of the white blending with the background too much but then the pink contrasted it a lot. 

Envelopes

I've been thinking about how my greetings cards will be presented and packaged. Through Etsy I have sold some of my Valentines cards. I bought 100 cello bags so that I can keep them in pristine condition, and to go with the cards I bought fuchsia pink envelopes. The envelopes complement the cards well as they all have tones of pink in them. However, I am thinking about my collection as a whole. I'm not sure whether to buy a range of different coloured envelopes, and match the colours with the cards. OR have the same coloured envelopes for all of them. I was thinking brown in particular.  Though, whilst I have been looking around online at buying brown envelopes, it seems that they are more expensive to buy than getting different colours.  

But, if money wasn't part of the equation I need to think whether I would prefer the range to all have the same coloured envelopes or not. 

Labels

After doing some research and getting some quotes from various places that make designer labels for products, I decided to create my own. I got my files ready and sent them down to the print room for them to digitally print onto fabric. I just got them back today and it only cost £3.84, which is great compared to the £150 the other places were going to charge. I am pretty pleased with how they have turned out. But until I sew one into a toy I don't really know how its going to look. So tonight I am going to work on the next toy and place one in it. 

Final Project

I have decided to start transitioning my Tuesdays Toy brief (Brief 1) into my final project that will be displayed at the final exhibition show. What I plan to do is build on my toy range using the skills and process knowledge that I have picked up and learnt during the Tuesdays Toy brief. 

I feel like at the moment the toy range is quite broad and theres no focus on what the range will be based on yet, so I need to think about what it will be. 

From the Tuesdays Toy brief, I have most enjoyed making animals and food. 

Crit Review - Changing Statement of Intent

After the crit the other day and speaking to others about my briefs I want to change my statement of intent again. 

I am going to get rid of the Shuttershock brief as I'm really not feeling excited about it at all and not getting and ideas from it. And I am going to replace it with creating merchandise and preparing for the Craft and Gift fair at the Corn Exchange that I have booked for May 14th. The reason I didn't have that as one of my briefs before was because I wasn't sure if it would be classed as a brief but they all confirmed it for me and said that it definitely is. 

Another brief I have decided to get rid of is Brief 5, which I put as the Ohh Deer pillow fight competition. I completed this around October last year and was quite a quick turn around brief, so I feel that it wasn't substantial enough to put down as one of my main five briefs. Instead I am replacing this with Macmillan Prize competition. I have been thinking and building ideas about creating my own children's book for a while now, but thought that I wouldn't really have time for it and would leave it for when I finish Uni, but during the briefing I was told about the Macmillan Prize competition where you only need to submit 3 pages and cover pages for my book and just tell them about the book which is a lot more manageable than doing the whole book.  Because before I was stressing that it would be too much to do the Carmelite Prize book brief and my own book. But this is do able, so this will now be brief 5. 

Noodoll

https://noodoll.com/shop/

I just came across this website and blog and this is exactly what I want my toys and product range and everything to be like!! I love it! I can't believe I've never seen them before! 

I think when creating my toys for my final project I should have them into categories like they have. For instance they have 'The Dinos' for their range of dinosaurs. 

So I was thinking of having, food characters as one as I have done a few foods. Then I could have a selection called the spooks as I have already made a bat so I could create some ghosts and other scarier characters. I will also have seasonal sections of characters, like christmas and valentines. I think by doing this it makes the collections so much more clear to the audience and for myself rather than having a large range of mixed characters. 

I think I am going to try and contact them and ask them lots of questions as their work really makes me excited and happy! 

Where's My Cake?!

From all the Birthday ideas, this is my favourite! I think its got humour and is charming.