Environments

These are my environments. I think the printed version of the bottom one didn't come out very well. I realized that I had been working on a 9x3 format the entire time and am now wishing I had worked much larger. I spent so much time on a piece that came out very small which detracts from its "vastness."

Movie Poster Trip

For wednesday's assignment I took a trip to Charles Theater and thought I'd look at all the movie posters they have framed and hungup along their hallways. There were also some festival/music posters outside which I took some time to look at as well.

Final

On Wednesday, since we weren't required to be in class, I spent the afternoon reviewing the movies I'm creating posters for for my final. I paused the movie(s) many times to get a closer look at scene stills for inspiration for my posters. I've seen these three movies (The Crow, Powder, & Insidious) many times, but I made sure to pay real close attention to the lighting, the movements, and the characters, so as to further develop my posters. I have finished two of the posters, and am starting the third one. Wednesday was a research and open studio day for me, and I got a significant amount of work done on my final.

the sketch

 I'm a bit late posting documentation of my time spent on Wednesday for illustration, but I'll blame that on my brother's visit yesterday and today....I got a bit distracted. Here are pics of how I used my time Wed night.

hopefully it's done

Marmalade offered to help me watercolor...

the other one

Ball Jointed Doll Working day

So for the past couple of months I've been working on creating a doll out of a character I designed several months ago, her name is Antoinette. This past Wednesday I've just been refining her features and getting her joints to work. I still have waayyyss to go because it's such a time consuming process. I've also been collecting TONS of reference material including clothing options from various designers, tutorials on how to make wigs and shoes and everything else that goes with constructing a doll from scratch.

Early Wednesday morning I decided that I didn't like her lips and ears so I just sorta shaved them off and now I'm starting from scratch again.

 I kind of wish I had taken before and after shots of her head that way others would be able to know the adjustments that I'm making, but I really wasn't thinking that far ahead, and although it hurts my pride here are some shots:

the inside of Antoinette's head cap. It's got a thick wire that holds the elastic which keeps her body strung together. I also attempted to put in magnets to keep her head closed but they were not strong enough. I'll just remove them and refill in the spots. 

Day off/inspiration day

For my semester project I wanted to do something relating to medical illustration but didnt want to take a straightforward approach of just drawing "observationalesqe" organs, bones, etc. I am going to do illustrations of an organs function in relation to the symbolic representation. For example I would draw the outline of an anatomical heart and inside a scene of love. So I've done some rough sketches and thought about what color pallet I would like to use.

I also came home and walked around downtown annapolis. I walked through the Naval academy(The first picture).

It was very crowded that day so I was able to observe alot of couples, families and people at bars that I can use for reference.

Visit to the Ottobar

 For my semester project, I'd decided do design merchandise to accompany the release of a new EP by the band, Tides of Man. This would consist of album packaging, a t-shirt, and a tour poster. With the album cover fully designed, I needed ideas for the tour poster. I decided to go down to the Ottobar, a small club in Baltimore. There, the walls are covered in hundreds of different posters from various bands, including The White Stripes and Protest the Hero. After taking pictures, I was able to study them for various layout ideas, including band name positioning and where to list the dates and venues. It helped me decide, too, that I needed to leave some space on the poster for other supporting bands to be listed. Plus being in a space with live music helped re-inspire my work on the project.

wednesday trip to kinko's (fedex)

On Wednesday I took the light rail to downtown to talk to someone about recreating a calendar, and how much all that was going to cost. First of all I think this is the cutest building I've seen in Baltimore yet, and it seemed unfortunate that it had to house a Kinkos. Anyway, my project is to create a calendar and I chose a bubble tea theme since that is one of the foods I crave most. Also bubble tea seems to be getting more and more popular, and I think it would be neat to create some collateral for a make-believe up-and-coming tea shop. I have a calendar, and I love the petiteness of it, as well as its style. It has a retro/old fashioned feel, and although bubble tea is generally associated with hip/modern Asian-ness, I feel that an American retro theme might be a refreshing change of pace. Below are images of the Kinkos, calendar, and an image I found online of the style I want to strive for. During my search I also found an existing bubble tea poster which I really liked. The quote that I received seemed a bit high -- at first she said $37, but that includes some things I didn't need: double sided color copies, and paper cutting. It's annoying that they would charge me for cutting paper. I think I will go to the MICA print shop; maybe their prices will be more competitive. Also I think I can get the cost down to about $20, which isn't bad for a one-off project.

Inspiration Day

Saturday (rather than Wednesday) I took a trip to Atomic Books for my inspiration day. I checked out the gross comics, even bought one by R. Crumb (and a magazine about Ed Roth) for some inspiring disgusting imagery. (Evidence of my adventure below.) Basically, I spent my Saturday just viewing some stuff that came from artists before who did some of the original "grotesque close up art."

However, on Wednesday, on the actual inspiration day, I did some thumb nailing of scenes from the movie Amelie which I wanted to make grotesque. (See below) I scanned them and from the images scanned, I began doing some rendering, fleshing, and color testing. I reviewed some of the art from Saturday and some scenes in cartoons (Ren and Stimpy, Spongebob) that are known for their use of unsettling close-ups, which are the main point of my project. Also attached at the bottom is one of the pieces that I am furthest along on, still have to finish the body, the puddle he'll be laying in, the tears, and a bit of an implied environment.

Inspiration Day

Hello--since I've already done my research at the library, I decided to use this day to begin the hardest piece in my series.  For this piece, I wanted to base the colors and composition off of Disney fairytale movie stills, and went through movie stills of sleeping beauty to find inspiration.
First, I started with a pencil sketch.  This took me longer than I expected, and I was having a lot of problems with the paper.  I decided to sketch digitally, and chose to stick to the digital sketch which I've uploaded.

Then, I colored it--and hated it.  I redid the colors, began rendering, and this is where I am as of today.
I think it's still in the "ugly phase," but I like what I've laid out.  The stairs are obviously a wreck but it's salvageable (i think.)  I think its manageable and will have a good result.

Also, I organized the pages of my book and decided to set my goal at two more pieces--a tiny spot illustration, and an acrylic painting.  I also have two ink characiatures that I hope to finish.

Inspiration Day at the Walters

For my inspiration day I went to the Walter's museum. For my semester long project I'm putting together 3 paper-cut out scenes that involve animals, people, and an environment for them to live in, so I focused everything I saw for inspiration. I took several pictures of scenes with animals and humans in them to see how they put together foreground - middle ground - and background. I also was paying particular attention to the shapes of the figures; I want to be able to convey simple shapes in my scenes.

My girl character is also wearing masks in each of the scenes so I took a lot of pictures in the room of wonders, the skeleton structures made for good inspiration:

Since many of the scenes are carving into the paper, and taking away from it, I looked at a lot of the ceramics to see how they created depth from a flat plane:

And finally I took tons of pictures of paintings with several panels, since I'm trying to tell a story through my three panels without actually having text. 

The trip to the Walters was a lot more helpful than I thought it would be! Originally I went to look at how the renaissance paintings used depth and animals in their compositions, since I'm trying to put together a composition in a tiny area - but as I went through the entire museum I noticed the different styles and techniques of different artists. It helped because I'm creating different moods in my panels, and by seeing the different styles I was able to observe how one particular style created a different mood. Also, I was really happy to see so many paintings that were illustrative stories through several panels. I think I have about 40 pictures and I'm going through to see what stays the same in which panels and why and how the artist visually tells the story through just pictures. The art of Asia was also helpful because many of the sculptures included animals made purely out of simple shapes - which is what I need to do to make my panels. Overall the trip was enlightening and successful, I was kind of stuck as to how I was going to create visual depth from paper, but now I'm feeling more confident. Also, seeing the stories from panel to panel is helpful to analyze what I need to do to make my story evident. 

Below I've attached a picture of a grumpy security guard who was being harassed by several high school students that I felt were super obnoxious. Proof of me going to the Walters~