summative evaluation

This module was great for me, It's taken my practice to the next level. The work that I developed is now at a professional level. Yes, that can be said I gained that from the experience of gaining employment within a professional industry, But it was extended practice that readied me for that work, It was this module that gave me the opportunity. It has pushed the digital format within my practice, teaching me new skills within InDesign and Photoshop.  It's helped me to find the tone of voice with my comic book art, especially in my final project where i had the opportunity to really explore this and expand on it. And helped me understand my own identity as an individual illustrator. This project has given me the understanding how to respond to briefs and bettered my understanding of using research within my practice. responding to research has given me a connection, a passion a relationship with my practice.

I have identified that I want to carry on working as a concept artist and produce comics and graphic novels. I want to keep on pushing my skills and developing new techniques both digital and analogue. My intentions from now on are to push to achieve more work within concept and comics and to continue to push the level of my work. For my comic books, I am aiming for a high professional level in which I can develop skills also in type and layout to better understand this. For concept art, I want to refine my digital painting to the highest possible quality that I can achieve.

Evaluation

Learning Outcome	Evidenced where?  Blog, Sketchbook, Roughs Final Illustrations, development sheets etc.  (No more than 75 words)	Your grade  Using words: > poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent
6A3 Understand and demonstrate coherent and detailed subject knowledge and professional competences, some of which will be informed by recent research in the discipline. Knowledge and Understanding - RESEARCH	research into a specific discipline - concept art. knowledge and understanding off profession proses, software, methods and techniques.	excellent
6B3 Articulate and synthesise their knowledge and understanding attributes and skills in effective ways in the contexts of creative practice, employment, further study, research and self fulfilment. (Cognitive Skills - EVALUATION & REFLECTION	critically evaluated mu skill level and what I need to do to improve in certain areas e.g. reflection on photoshop skill level. evaluation of strengths and weakness on the blog	excellent
6C3 Develop appropriate methods of professional presentation combining visual, verbal and written techniques.. Practical & Professional Skills - VISUAL QUALITY)	I challenged the professionalism of my work due to woking in the industry. developed my visual quality, presentation skills. blog, industry work	excellent
6C4 Demonstrate their ability to synthesise analytical and intuitive approaches with a high level of process and professional skill. Practical & Professional Skills - VISUAL QUALITY)	it is evidenced in my blog. FMP shows my attention to detail in finalising and professionalising a project. Its also evident in my snake pass work.	excellent
Analyse information and experiences , formulate independent judgements  and articulate reasoned arguments  through review and evaluation. (Key Transferable Skills: EVALUATION)	consistent evaluation of strengths weaknesses and over all project experiences. less successful industry work evaluated and identified it wasn't suitable for my practice	excellent

It started slow as I was focusing my time into COP. - Quick turn around project. when Cop was over I forced on developing my concept art skill, bettering my drawing abilities by studying and learning more about the human form. I focused on my digital skills also, I progressed massively with in Photoshop and InDesign. My biggest achievement was gaining professional work with in the concept industry there I learnt more about my practice. I gained a new passion for a style of illustration that I never had before, I gained knowledge on photoshop that I didn't expect to. - layers, effects, over lays, embed and emboss. I learnt how to present my practice in a professional manner. leaving the industry and coming back to the studio for a short while before returning back I came back with a set of skills, professional skills that i had learnt from my experience. This was applied into my FMP, using all the digital skills that i had learned, having an eye for detail, and making sure everything was at a high level of craft. I learnt from the industry what is expected from me, I used the same principle in my studio practice, finding what it is that is expected of me from the brief and applied that in my practice. The only thing that I would of changed, Is maying finding a better balance between cop and studio practice that allowed me to produce more quick turn around projects…mayeb if i did I would of got a less of a grade in cop but thats pretty much it for what i would change. I have had a very successful year with my practice not professional side of things but the learnt, the addicting my style to fit the requirements of briefs, the craft level developing. I feel That my standards in my work had progressed lots from the start of this year, I will be continuing to produce work that pushes my ability from this day forward, working on fun projects that push my self in the weeks between my freelance.

• A pdf presentation of my final resolutions for my studio briefs can be found on the USB stick that I submitted. Due to the work, I have completed is not allowed online. 

statement of intent.

Leeds haunted- still here- applied

Proposal boards 

Presentation boards 

Leeds haunted- the publication.

I am really happy with the outcome of this publication. I'm excited to finish it off. I have hit the number of pages that I said I would in my proposal which I'm really pleased about because it was very ambitious considering the time I propose it. The publication isn't done there are a number of pages to be added to this until it's complete.

2 short comics- 
the Temple Newsam running monk.
Thackeray museum grey lady.  

4 locations with stories- 
Armley prison
the Town hall
Music hall
Armley mills factory.
each with spot illustrations

also when all the pages are complete I will be finding better fonts. editing placements with measured margins throughout. equal spacing etc

Leeds Haunted- publication development.

So I have got all the research I needed I raked through them and decided which ones I wanted to be in my publication. I decided to look at the areas that got the most reports. basically, I sorted out the reports and research that I found and piled them up accordingly to location, the ones with the most went in the publication. from that, I drew an illustration for each location 

I have my stories and my illustrations...let's get to it! 

So originally the plan was to have an illustration on the left-hand side and the text (stories) on the right-hand page. like below

But it seemed too stiff, too symmetrical, that and when I applied the stories, they wouldn't fit. font size 12 was taking up too much room and I couldn't go smaller to fit all the stories on. so if I let the stories run on to another page that would let the stiff layout freer, it looked more pleasing. the issue with that was that in made it look like all the stories had random illustrations near them. so easily solved, every time we moved on to another location I put a title on the page, that and the location that suggests we've moved on is full page. like below 

 

with that, I hit one more snag, the layout of the text was hard to arrange, the stories was different lengths and I didn't want to force weaker stories from my piles in there just to fill space. So I arranged the texts so there was space for a spot illustration. I am in love with a particular part of  Mike Mignola craft. within his comics, he uses panels that focus on setting the scene it tells the reader what is in the seen of the characters he does this to help the reader see what it really like! I suppose it helps that situation more believable. So this was a good chance for me to use that also. a nice nod of the head to one of the legends...

So there are now spot illustrations that help with the atmosphere by an image of a moody sky with silhouettes of tree branches in the foreground. there are illustrations that show the reader items that would be on the scene, things like that...but all of them fit the rest of the moody and night shaded colours. to keep the flow! it's important to me that the book is never disconnected. examples below

it looks odd there as a screen shot but when it's read from the beginning it makes sense. 

I had decided to have the publication split. One-half all the illustrations and text and the other half all the short comics.  but when I laid that out the book seemed so heavy at the front and very intimidating with a great deal of text and the back seemed weak.

I decided to have a mix, illustrations followed by a comic, followed by more illustration and then another comic and so on! but introducing the comics from the locations was difficult. it seemed to just jump into comics, losing that flow and disconnecting from that dark and horror thing I was going for. It was suggested to me that I should give them their own page that introduces them as a separate story like the rest...

before the pages of the comic, Is always a location, the page after that turns to a blank spread, on the right-hand side is the title of the comic, and to keep it connected I took an image from the comic and layered it behind the text at a low opacity, low lighting feeling.  

It doesn't sound so clever but attention to the things like low hue colours can make all the difference with drama and continuity in a publication. with the wrong decision, all it takes is one-page turn and the book will lose consistency...I'm no phycology expert but I used blank black pages In the attempt the reader will see it as darkness, hopefully, this far into the book they lost in this and see everything on the page as something scary in this case the dark.  

close up

There are 50 pages of my publication, and it not finished yet. but I always knew that I was only submitting 5o and creating the rest for EOYS. The 50 I have so far the submission is almost done. I have to work on the text font, Some of the layouts and some of the tiles. but none of that can be done until the other 30 pages are complete. All that will be in a proposal at the end of this blog post. 

I wanted to document the struggles, not in a negative way but just to document that this wasn't plain sailing making this publication-

Making the pages didn't go as smooth as it's portrayed above.
I hit a number of complications whilst making this book and had to either redo work or find a solution to get around the problem.

1. adobe InDesign latest update as come with some problems and it's apparently that it's complicating everyone's work who use it! the forums and feedback for adobe support team say they are aware and its being to be sorted very soon... It would crash every 40 to 50 mins of using InDesign. forever saving it having to redo what had not saved in between the saving it and it crashing. every time it crashed my computer had to be restarted.

things pop up with no text and no options...


it decided to delete my tool bar :)...oh how fun days before your deadline


whilst dealing with the program crashing and messing up my mac at 20 mins a time.
I was battling with the images and text in my publications when I saved it to a pdf file the colours would come out layered over each other. I googled why and I got support on the matter but we couldn't solve why it was doing in. the colours that I created in InDesign using the shape tool was saving a much higher richer of hue to the images that I created on photoshop and uploaded to InDesign -



the preview of this was solid black, I matched the CYMK and it still didn't work, and no one could understand it, so to solve this i had to delete all the black shapes I made in InDesign. and create a black page using photoshop to upload to my pages and use them as its background to make all the photoshop colours match.



then I had to orange all my layers so this new black background would fit, a tricky and long fiddly process, even more so when I knew I only had 40 mins a time to complete this task before InDesign said it had enough.

 

Leeds Haunted- cover

I stated before in an earlier post that I had to change the name of this publication because of some tat on the TV. I'm starting to run short on time and need to get a move on. I spent hours thinking of names but none was fitting...Georgie took some time from her busy schedule to help me out with it. she came up with some good names and together we thought this was the best, if you like it then great, it was me who liked the idea more than Georgie if you don't like it, then blame her! cos I agree, it's naff.

pressed for time I tried to cut a corner with the cover, lost of my books have a page from the interior of the book on the cover. So I tried it and was hoping that it would fit. it would save me a lot of time... 

but it wasn't happening. it looked tacky, It looks like the cheap books that they sell in York in the gift shops...not very entertaining at all. before you open them you know for a fact there are orange stained photos of castles, some drama student dressed in a very unconvincing Tudor outfit and poor illustrations of someone being stretched...I didn't want my publication to say that I wanted it to look different and intriguing. 

so despite the time, I started a fresh. To avoid that gift shop look, I decided it was best to keep away from any illustration of Leeds on the front. I like to think this book takes you on a journey deeper and deeper into Leeds, the first pages are the city streets, then homes, the lifestyle and so on...so what image should come before the city. I love the old maps of Leeds, hand drawn with ink and quill...those kinds. Leeds was surrounded by woods back then...and from my studio flat window we have a great view, and still, now the city is surrounded by trees. After Staring for a while it almost looks like its building built in the middle of trees. so with that, I thought the cover should be woodland as a great start of the book, stood at the start of Leeds, the woods surrounding it and you get further and further into Leeds as you read on. 

Final outcome for the cover

Leeds Haunted- sketchbook.

My sketches didn't require much development work, if not any (I.e pencil sketches) As I researched and found the perfect composition on site with spending the time drawing at locations and using photography to get the best angles and composition. this gave me more time to really focus on the sketch making them as clear as possible to be able to use them in my publication with little editing as possible. the time spent on these allowed me to upload and add colour and shading. I did add trees and other elements to some, that needed that little extra to help it create depth and mood. 

Below is an issue file of all the illustrations that are in the publication submitted 

Leeds Haunted - The titel

The deadline gets near and the nights get longer. It got to around midnight when I finished the last of my 4 scheduled illustrations for the day. I usually wrap things up between 1.00 and 1.30 am latest 2.00, so it wasn't time to finish working but wasn't enough time to start on tomorrow's to-do list. I decided to use the last hours to play around with the title font that would be on the cover and appear in the intro of my publication. 

I found a font online that I liked and started to play around with it, I changed the size of the first letters and made the Leeds text fit snug inside of the haunted. (rather proud of myself, as text and logos ain't my strongest element to my practice)  now that I was happy with what I made I pushed the idea of having Leeds Haunted in a creepy way. 

After playing around and not feeling any of the ideas I tried to spark something by introducing colours to my ideas...maybe it was because it was late but nothings seemed to pop out to me...so I decided to use google as a tool for inspiration. I googled horror logos, scary book covers...

  

AND THEN!!! this happened -

Look at this, the title that I've had in mind for my publication for months is almost identical to the title of a paranormal investigation team, (some crap T.V show)...coincidentally I had arranged my text the same way that this T.V show had. I'm all for the entertainment world and a big fan of rubbish T.V on a Sunday but I don't want my publication to be affiliated with this garbage...I don't want it to be seen as a rip-off of or some kind of spin- off to the show...that would just be embarrassing. 

...that was the best typography that I have ever done

TO THE DRAWING BOARD!  

:)

Leeds Haunted - leeds illustrations

The introduction to this publication will be a page that heavily texts with a small spot illustration. the text will discuss the Leeds, its history and its haunting. An introduction that sets the tone of voice of the book, what's to be expected of the pages forward from this.  

page plan 

the introduction, the publication will explore places of Leeds and their hauntings (single pages for each location. 4 - 5 pages of. after this a short page comic of a location like a railway ghost. after this will be spot illustrations and stories of a bigger location such as the abbey. the publication will follow this pattern. single page location, comic, the bigger location. The plan is to add interior illustration (pin-ups) of a story told within one image. 

From my research, I have found a selection of places that I will use for the solo location pages for the start of the publication. The Ship Inn Pub, The graves by the train tracks, The city centre, Woodhouse square 

The graves By the train tracks 

This location has numerous reports of sightings from the public. people have claimed to believe that they have seen figures standing over the graves on the banking. this has been sighted from people walking past and near the location. there are reports that passengers on trains have witnessed this also. all reports say that each of them believed they were living people until they noticed the clothing was aged and from another period and some encounters have said they have no legs from the knees down but stand as if they have legs. 

All the locations that I document I have visited and done researched and sketch at. This one was a fun one to draw, whereIi was stood made the perfect composition. you can slightly see the bridge for the train tracks. there is a vision of depth for the with the way the graves lay and translate in this drawing. 

In render of this,  I added the another tree into the picture... a tree that sat out of my vision, I basically moved the tree in the shot to create better depth and that allowed me to add more shadow so that would help that atmosphere and that creepy feeling comes through. 

The ship in pub 

Reports have been made that a ghost from the medieval pages has been seen running down the alley and through walls.  it's been said that they have seen the ghost of a young boy crouched down as if he his scrambling with something on the floor but only one-half of his ghost was visible as the other half was in the wall. 

Final render 

Dock street

there weren't any reports of haunting on the street dock but I used this image for the reports of the hauntings of Leeds streets. there was far too many to do an illustration for each location. I found the most interesting composition and what I consider to have the most historical look to it to represent the street reports.



final




Woodhouse square

Woodhouse square has a lot of history when it comes to reports of paranormal activity. Reports of a woman staring at a portrait in front of patients at the dentist, A woman's laughter been heard by staff, A monk has been seen walking the roads of the square, people have been chased by low formed manifestations across the park, loads! so it was important as an entertaining point of view to have this active location in the publication.


final

Temple Newsam House 

Temple Newsam countless reports of hauntings, blue lady, a running monk, a young woman, a highwayman,  a swinging glow of a lamp. I chose this angle because it reminds me of the shot of batmen's hotel in psycho...I thought that this would work in my publication. maybe it will remind the readers the same, and relate more to a scary situation.  

Final

Leeds Beckett uni  (boooooooo)

I was intrigued by the story of the butler what is said to haunt this place...stories of the butler been seen dropping from a spiral staircase, him manifesting in dorms, been seen sat by students beds and seen crying by the hall doors.  a less of a creepy story from the others I have got but I wanted to use it because out of all the material I have it's the one that makes my imagination work with the story the most.  I can see in my mind the halls, the clothes of the butler, the way he stands...maybe that's my concept head taking over but if I get this reaction then maybe the readers will too.  

final 

LGI.

final

leeds street

I dragged this street from the net so not to sure where it is, I did this becuase I didn't intend using another haunted home as a topic in the publication, felt it was a little much, but the last min I decided to do it as peers said it must be in.

final

Intro image

I created this image to be used as a backdrop for the introduction text.
like other books I want the publication to open to a blank page then into the introduction but I don't want the pages just to be heavy text I want there to be images that help tell the story. I used the square outside the train station as that's the first thing you see when you visit Leeds...so it seemed rather fitting to have that as the first think you see in my publication.

This drawing isn't accurate at all. I moved the position of the statue more to the foreground so I could get the building in the background and some sky to better show the location...I think it works well, its better than having the statue behind a solid black mass that doesn't give anything away from its wear about.



final


I decided to make a quick drawing for the opening page just to keep it interesting. I decided to do leads symbol the owl. it's the owl that originates from Leeds coats of arms. I don't want this image to be as striking as the rest. I want it to be toned down and interesting enough to want people to turn the page.



Apart from the above 2. introduction illustration and the opening page (owl) the Illustrations won't have text on them, it was my original idea to have the text of the stories positioned around the illustration, Now the solo locations will be a 2 page spread, one side the image and the other the text. this allows me to be able to add more of the stories into my publication and allow my illustrations to have more focus. The intentions of this publication were to be more visual than text. Doing this achieves my intentions  

Leeds Haunted - Dark Arches

THE DARK ARCHES 

the dark archers are under the train station. Dark tunnels maze-like paths. It's said that A mother had lost her child in the arches whilst walking through, She could hear him shouting for his mum and could be heard running up and down the tunnels in frantic. It's said that she could no longer hear the boy shouting and running. After teams spent hours searching for hours for the boy they gave up and reported the boy ran into the darkens and slipped into the tunnel that carries the river air and died. 

The arches still need construction and maintenance from time to time. It's been reported by workmen and contractors that whilst they have been working, sounds of running steps have been heard around them. steps coming from far away tunnels...that blatant that workers have been confused and gone looking for what they thought was someone lost down there. other reports have been made that echoes of a child shouting mum have been heard. there as also been reports of sightings of this boy peering around corners at workmen.  

The best from my research is the story of two workmen carrying out their duties was stopped by the echoes of a child shouting mum... they could hear footsteps all around them. when they decided to look further the sounds got louder. whilst looking they claimed to see the ghost of a boy, who looked panicked and scared stood less than 10ft away from them. they ran away...whilst running one man fell and as he was being helped up the boy appeared in one of the archways in front of him peering around the corner...stairing at him. 

This is one location that I can't go do first-hand research at. so I'm using google to help me find reference photos for this short comic strip. In my research photos are, the dark anchors, workmen attire, and victorian boy clothes.

  

Charactor concept. 

I used the photos that I collected to create these 3 outfits. one of these outfits will be chosen for the attire of my construction workers who will be the main characters of this short page comic. 

Ghost of a Boy 

I tried out two ideas for the ghost, one natural (if you will) and the other scarier like. removing the eyes and giving his facial expression more stress and weathered. I did this to the ghost character in the Middleton train ghost comic and it worked I was a little scared that this would push the character too far but it works well. If I did the character like you see below on the left, he looks more innocent, after all this ghost is tormenting the workers. I want the reader to see this character and say "oh my god that's creepy" or even better, I want this image of the character to hetch into people's heads.

On the Middleton train ghost, I used to model reference for my characters and it helped the look of the comic, Comparing that comic to the comic I did for cop, the comic that I used life models for it a more of a professional outcome.  I'll be using life models from now on within my comic book career. For this comic in the dark arches, I wanted to use two contractor characters that looked like they had been in the industry for some time, so I wanted these guys to be middle aged or knocking on 50s door...I wanted the to look a little rough and worked but I don't have the time to be waiting around for contacts to get back in touch with me and to let me photograph them. I know I could contact an acting agent and ask through them but I don't want to spend a fortune on this project at this point...so I used photo references from a book called face expressions. I took two faces that I felt I could morph into the characters that I was looking. I took the faces I could morph and put them through the development stages.

  

This one is pretty similar because the guy already had the look I was going for. This boo has helped me reference the same way as I did in the Middleton train ghost comic and brought the same level of quality to this comic, I was scared that because I didn't have a life model it would alter the look of the comics throughout the publication.


contractor 1


  

This is a pretty cool morph. This guy was too old but i saw elements of this face that i could use as a blue print to capture and create that rough hard looking guy that I was after. I made the smaller and softened the creases in his face but exaggerated the creases in his cheeks to give him a more stern look.

                                           


contractor 2

In the issue file is a quick step by step process of how i create the pages of this comic.

Page 2 -

I'm really happy with the composition of the panels on this page. panel one is set back and gives more information of the location allowing the atmosphere to be more evident in the story. panel 2.- I original had in mind having the guys visible through the legs of the ghost as it ran behind them but when it came to applying that, I felt it had been done so many times and wasn't experimental enough. It works because I had a few of my peers read these pages as a test and all of them said that the panal was creepy.



Page 3 -

panal 3 - I've had the composition of the guys repeat its self throughout the pages, as if the camera is in front of them and following them, revisiting the same composition through out shows how expression and mood of the characters change as the time passes. a technique that Hitchcock used with in his films.



Page 4 -

The last panel is my favourite, it has captured a lot of atmosphere and character in it.  I subtracted some detail from this page as I wanted this page to feel at a more fast past. but a little unsure if it looks more fast past and now looks the weaker page of the 4. I'm 10 days away from submission and have another 30 pages to complete, so, for now, I'll be leaving this as is...but will be planning a day out of the 10 to go back and visit pages. this one ill draw in the detail I left out and compare the two and see witch looks as fast.