Final Kaa Spread

Final Image

I decided to put Mowgli on Bagheera's back in the foreground of the illustration. In my initial roughs I had the characters as silhouettes in the background, but I found this a bit too busy. Lighting was very important for me to include, and I enjoyed playing around with light and dark tones. Adding in the foliage was also something I wanted to do, but had to be careful not to over complicate the image. Obviously as it's in a jungle setting, I wanted to include the detail of jungle leaves.

Classic Stories - Book Covers/Publishing Briefs

Public Domain

Treat as short projects - more painted images

Potential Children's books

A Little Princess
Alice in Wonderland
Black Beauty--
Peter Pan--
Treasure Island--
The Railway Children
The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Potential Books
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
Frankenstein--
Dracula--
Wuthering Heights
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde--
Les Miserables--
Oliver Twist
The Jungle Book
Robin Hood

Image 1 Roughs, Tests & Development

Rough - Idea

I wanted to focus on the coils of the snake for the first image. The composition of having the snake weave in and out of the scene really interested me.

Painted & Digital

Most of this image was painted, with added details and colours afterwards. I have found that this process works well for me and it combines both sides of my practice.

Final Self Portrait

Finished Self Portrait

I feel like I have developed my visual signature a lot since the first 'self portrait' brief was set. I used to shy away from features and stick to generalised shapes - which is evident in the last self portrait. With this one I wanted to work with a similar theme of putting myself in a historic setting, as I like to work with this subject matter, but change it up a bit to fit in with my work as it has developed.

Change of Nose

After talking to some of my peers I decided to change the way I drew my nose. I think it's a bit less stylised and fits into a wider genre of illustration now.

Finished Book Proposal

Final Completed Spreads

I am happy with my final spreads. I like the atmosphere I managed to create across them all. If I were to continue with this project after hand in (which I might) I would include some more dynamic and bold pages to add a bit of variety to the book as a whole. I think it could be interesting to have some really dark pages.

These are the final finished pages from my book (with crop marks for bleed). I decided to complete the front cover as well as the inside images, just because it felt a bit strange to leave it as a rough. Eventually, I may finish the entire book as I had a lot of fun with the pages I completed - especially with character design and the interaction with environment.

Final Boards - Including Concept

These are the final boards I submitted for the brief - including my statement on inspiration for the ideas behind the final design.

Self Portrait Development

I went through a few different ways of drawing my own face when developing the image. I actually find it a lot more difficult that with a normal character. I also wanted to include historical reference, so I didn't want the face to evoke a particular expression. Portrait paintings are known to depict figures who had to sit for the artist, therefore their faces are expressionless.

Final Design

Final Design

This is the final long image of the design I came up with.

Billboard Mock-up
I imagined the main image to be quite easy to utilise in different formats, for example I also did some mock-ups of how the design could work as individual posters.

Individual Posters

Being able to split the main image into three different posters, each one for a specific performance, was what I liked most about my idea. As a promotional campaign, I think this would work well when announcing each opera separately. 

Individual Mock-ups - In context

Self Portrait Roughs

Idea

I want to develop my idea from the first self portrait but add in the things that have changed within my practice - adding more of a narrative and context to the image on its own.

Final Cover

Final Design

I decided on a simpler design for the cover. The yellow brick road has been the focus throughout the book, so I carried this idea through to the front cover. I wanted a stronger contrast than the inside pages.

If I were to actually print and bind this book, I think I would change some of the black colours to a brighter one. This is something I might explore in the future, maybe for final show.

Mock Up

Cover Ideas & Development

I developed my initial idea to make it more of a simple concept. If I were to actually make and bind the book I would probably foil the text. I like to include shape based imagery on the front of a book, I think it's more eye catching to a viewer.

Progress

I started off with the mask idea for this project. Themes of hidden identity, drama and persona all tie in well with this motif. The curtain is also a main feature of the overall design so far. I felt that this is also a big indicator to the performance theme in general and also provides an idea of the stories being behind and in front of the curtain.

As I continue with this project, and although we have already been taught about visual metaphors within the course, I am now realising the power of people's associations with particular motifs and the impact this can have when trying to indicate and suggest a narrative to an audience.

Distinguishing the main themes and tone of what I want to convey has also become apparent, without me really noticing, these are the things I look for immediately when receiving a brief. 

Cover, Back and End Pages Roughs

Front Cover

I wanted a fairly simple design for the cover. I wanted to focus on the trees and yellow brick road initially, and later added the witch's hat - I think this adds more depth and contributes to the line of sight.

Back Cover

Again, I went for a similar theme to the front cover. This time focusing on the shoes, which the story revolves around. I also think highlighting the fact that they are silver in the original story is important.

End Pages

Beginning and end is the same - Dorothy and Toto back in Kansas. I thought about the end pages for a while but I thought that because the beginning of the story and the end of the story basically depict the same scene I would use this idea to create a scene of Kansas.

Title Page

Changing Font Size - Illustrations (Including Roughs)

20pt instead of 16pt - clearer writing
I made the text slightly bigger and condensed down the amount of words I included within the imagery. Here are the roughs and completed spreads for the inside pages of the book.

Editorial 3 - Drawing Wisdom from Drawings

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/02/drawing-wisdom-from-drawings/

The idea behind this image was more of a conceptual one. I wanted something that would intrigue a viewer and make them want to look further into the image. I made this illustration pretty quickly. Ideally, I would have developed it a bit further and maybe thought about more dynamic compositions.

Using the figure of a tree to represent wisdom was the initial idea I had and I think it works well to describe this. The article I used as inspiration talked about how wisdom can be taken from drawings.

Final x4 Double Spreads

Final Images - Completed

I tried to show a variation of composition, characterisation as well as demonstrating a consistency of tone across all 4 images. It was difficult for me to decide which images to complete, as I enjoyed drawing out a lot of the roughs. Part of me wants to carry on with all the images but I will complete roughs for the end pages, title page and binding design first.

Media

Using a mixture of analog and digital media is something I want to get better at, and I tried to demonstrate this within the project. I think analog textures add a lot of depth to a digitally produced image - which for me is a lot quicker and easier to manipulate.

Cover Tests

I went through a few different ideas after drawing out the type for the front cover. I want the final overall design to be fairly simple so I stuck to having the text as the main element within the frame.