Proposal

My main driving force is behind my illustrative practice is books. My main interest around teen and adult graphic novels, often incorporating adult and surrealist elements into my work, I realised within Sequential illustration that I liked to display conflict on a basis that it is not always solvable or happy. Although I still see myself as a flexible artist I feel as though my artwork is largely gravitated towards more adult audiences. I wish to create a one book that is meant to entertain but also intrigue, my current Synopsis is that the central figure of the story is living her life from the ages of 12 to 24 before her body falls apart and she then returns in the same place she was with her memories of her past life. This book will contain horror and surrealist elements.

For this project I feel it would be most work efficient to work on a digital program however over the course of my research program I want to experiment with materials and style and how this can affect my work. I usually make use of a limited colour pallet within my work, though it may be that I use several colour pallets depending on tone mood or print. 

I will be looking into self-publishing as creating the book myself gives me greater control over the quality of the pages and the sizing of the book, I would like the book to be sized around, 7.5 inches by 5 inches and printed full colour on a matte paper printed at full bleed bar an inch and a half of room for on the inner side of the page where guttering may occur. I will be looking into binding techniques however as it is a book that I wish to publish my by self I foresee it being glue bound.

The module runs for around 27 to 28 weeks and in this time I plan to use the first 4 weeks to gather materials and draft out a general script and flat plan, 2 weeks to make necessary edits to the script and flat plan. I will then spend the next few weeks experimenting with materials and style and colour pallet so that I have a firm understanding of what the overall aesthetic of the book will be. Then in the remaining time I will generate the work. With 2 weeks left over to check over the files and make any changes needed so I can be prepared for promotion and marketing.

For my Research I will be looking into a range of artist’s that can inform the visual language I use in the book and how I can subvert the expectations of that visual language. In my studies I hope to re-introduce myself into the theories behind how an audience perceives sequential art with artists like Kate brown and Scott Mc Cloud. Not only this but familiarizing myself with the ideas of a strong metaphorical and subversive elements within writing with artists such as , Charles burns and Suehiro Mauro. These are the artists that are making the bulk of my research project and to inform my writing, however I will be looking at a multitude of other graphic novel artists to see how they work as well. I hope that the Research project will let me better understand the audience and how they react. In comparison to secondary artists research I will also be looking at primary resources of observational drawing and technique experimentation to strengthen my drawing abilities.

Artists and inspirations

I tend to work eclectically when it comes to a project, However i my main veins are usually fine art, fringe culture & fashion and teen to adult graphic novels.

The first inspiration that brought the project more into it's own was me taking elements from the idea of "The Anatomical Venus"

This contains the history of wax figures for use in scientific teaching, public teaching and spectacles and the cultural relationships that they had with people.
These wax works where both seen as educational and as a work of art that is now largely seen as erotic in nature. Later chapters go into the growing sexualization and fetishism of the female form in death within modern history.

Editoral and advertising artists have influenced me as well, Peter Röseler and Mal Watson in particular with their use of abstract imagery and careful composition, however i enjoy many airbrush artists from their areas from the 70's to the early 90's with their common use of bright colour pallets and and sleek design.

 

Peter Röseler 1990

Mal Watson 1990

 Over the summer i bought many of the books i wanted to study for the project, i had bought two books from Daniel Clowes, his most recent one, Patience, and his most popular one ghost world.

 

I enjoyed reading them both and found how he wrote character dialogue and relationships, i found the use of a the wondering and unclear plot line in ghost world interesting on how it only looks on what the two central figures are doing and how it does not share any inner dialogue or past to us that they do not tell or convey within what it happening in the present dialogue.

Charles Burns is another artist in the same stylistic vein of Daniel Clowes authough he takes part more in the underground comic scene, i have bought X'ed out as it recommended to me for it's surrealist elements in it's storytelling as it makes use of shifting character design becoming more minimalistic or complex and it's use of colour to set mood or motif.

Burns CB, 2010, X'ed Out, UK, Jonathan Cape

Clowes, DC, 2016. Patience, Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics 

Clowes, DC, 1997. Ghost World, Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics 

Ebenstein, J E. 2016, The Anatomical Venus. London, Thames & Hudson

Röseler, PR, 1990, unknown [Airbrush]. Unknown, Unknown.
Watson, 1990, unknown [Airbrush]. Unknown, Unknown.

Kickstarter Evaluations and pitching excerises

PITCH PERFECT

We where instructed to look and evaluate several kickstarter videos as a group and take notes on how the pitch was presented to us, this is what we have found:

Purrista Pawfee 2, Cute Coffee Shop Cat Plush, by Holly Guenther  


This video goes over the history of their work, referencing a previous successful kickstarters and fan wants for more in that line of products.
The Main item of this kickstarter is explained, given the dimensions clearly on screen and spoken word, and we can see that it already has a prototype, although we do not see it in a context that we can relate size to, seeing it in a real life context would ground the object more making it seem more relatable to any previous or new consumer.
The Kickstarter then goes onto explain what you will get as a backer, these backer rewards are both good, and reasonable, having reduced prices, being to get the product first, a selection of merchandise like t-shirts, pins and key-chains.
Then a small amount of stretch goals are describe, having two prototyped plushes displayed, unlocking at different goal amounts, and another mystery stretch goal.
Genther outlines how long she expects the production time when the items will be shipping out to backers.
Thanking people for their support for her small business she shows her logo and her social media accounts, giving people plenty of options on how to keep up with her.

The visuals are consistently light, cute and makes use of some pastel colours that contrasts well with the darker colouration of the product, everything is well lit, although the use of cat memes is a little questionable in a professional context it may be understandable given the younger audience of the product. The audio used well matched the visuals, although it shows the smaller business side to the project as the music used was very generic sounding, and the microphone quality was slightly degraded.

Overall, this is a well created pitch, i can see that the user is experienced with their work and has created other successful kickstarters previously, they have given any viewer a full explanation on what is happening, what their money will go to, what they will receive in turn for it and when it will get to them.

I would suggest that they may invest in some music of their own and not use stock music, and more importantly, having your prototypes against some object that someone new may automatically recognise and be able to put it in a real life context, while the dimensions of it where explained it currently feels cut off from reality due to Genthers use of white backgrounds.

 What exactly is it

Describing our own pitches:

Key 10 words:
Cult Sci-Fi meets 80's gore horror though a Female lens.

Explaining it to your family member:
[an actual transcript of me skyping them]

"I'm doing like a graphic novel for my fmp."
"It's a Sci-fi horror sort of thing."

Explaining it to a professional:

Hello,

My name is George Fisher, I am an illustrator in my third year of university.
For my Third year of university I am planning on creating a graphic novel, This project overall targets people in their 20's and above, with a Sci-fi horror theme and cult pop culture in mind with my influences being Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns. This book is a compendium of stories, all following the same cast of characters, I aim that the stories will be around 34-20 pages long, this is around the length of some of my other small publishing projects. I would like to have finished at least three of these stories. My neat roughs of the unfinished stories may also be in the book so you may see the scope of it.

Communication objectives: 

Artists statement:

Taken from: 500letters.org

George Fisher

George Fisher (°1994, Wem, United Kingdom) makes drawings and paintings. By putting the viewer on the wrong track, Fisher tries to create works in which the actual event still has to take place or just has ended: moments evocative of atmosphere and suspense that are not part of a narrative thread. The drama unfolds elsewhere while the build-up of tension is frozen to become the memory of an event that will never take place.
His drawings are given improper functions: significations are inversed and form and content merge. Shapes are dissociated from their original meaning, by which the system in which they normally function is exposed. Initially unambiguous meanings are shattered and disseminate endlessly. By using popular themes such as sexuality, family structure and violence, he creates intense personal moments masterfully created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.
His works doesn’t reference recognisable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. By applying abstraction, he touches various overlapping themes and strategies. Several reoccurring subject matter can be recognised, such as the relation with popular culture and media, working with repetition, provocation and the investigation of the process of expectations.
His works often refers to pop and mass culture. Using written and drawn symbols, a world where light-heartedness rules and where rules are undermined is created. George Fisher currently lives and works in Cheltenham.

The best thing since sliced bread

Katie Kear:

Katie plans for her final product to be:
A series of 3 animations that is around 3 to 5 minutes, based of a 50's aesthetic, particularly public service announcements such as nuclear warnings and what to do in wartime emergency. The project will largely have some safety themes in mind. As this is in the vein of the 50's Katie may not take a serious approach to this and use it to in turn playfully critique 50's sexism and ideals.

Katie takes great inspiration from the video game Fallout and it's use of 50's aesthetics as well as older cartoons like the Flintstones, Betty Boop and Yogi bear.

The Subject of the animation is "A good and bad University student" Showing examples of how to succeed in university, tackling drinking, procrastinating, and sleeping too much.

I know That Katie's goals are realistic and that she has experience in animation already. What she is looking to influence her work is has a lot of limited animation techniques that she can learn from and build on her already stylistic approach to animation.
I hope that she takes this animation in more comedic terms as the subject matter could come off as dry when saturated in 50's moral culture, however I'm sure with the influence of fallouts comedy writing she can understand and create something that is entertaining and informative.

Website

As a way to workshop my ideas better and give myself more experience in writing a pitch for public consumption.

I have dedicated a small portion of my personal website towards the project, describing the a general overview of the series, then going into the main cast, a synopses of the stories and some artwork.

Live website link

 

It was interesting doing this as a side project as i do not have a lot of experience with website design, I could not code the website to the level of polish as I would like it to be. However I feel for the low-res aesthetic and minimalist nature I have brought into it suits the website overall and gives it a sense of mystery as a more public pitch.

I found it easier to talk about my project more though writing and being able to work with how I can personally present the project to a person.

Live Scribing

I did not personally benefit from the live scribing event, due to time constraint's I was not asked any questions to do with my project and I was not able to fully explain my ideas or my own influences.

 Page done by Beth Darch.

 I scribed for Katie Kear, I unfortunately was not able to put much detail or fill it completely due to time however I was able to ask a few clarifying questions and understand how she was going to approach the project and understand some of her influences.

Production and planning

Research:
Artist research
Printing reserch
Materials research

Design development:
Print experimentation
Character turnabouts
Layout references

Production:
Story boarding
Scripting
Line art
Colouring
wording

Final production, printing:
Compilation and editing
Packaging and checks
Printing single splash pages
Printing full copies of the book.

Planning

16 weeks until two days before deadline

Materials and printing research = 1 week
Artist research and experimentation = 2 weeks
Character turnabouts and layout references= 1 week
Print experimentation = 1 week

Story boarding and scripting = 2 weeks
Line art and colouring = 5 weeks
Wording = week 1
Compilation and editing = 2 weeks
Packaging and checks =  1 week
Printing = 1 week

Design board

The Design board group project was about pitching a beer created by the company brewdog to pubs for the fall season.

We ultimately did not split off into jobs, we looked things up, studied with website and the culture around it while saying ideas about what we could do before settling into some more solid ideas.

I took part in choosing our colour pallets and fonts within the project and help put together the digital aspects of the board.


We went with the halloween esque route with inspiration from their small batch beers having a very punk and spooky feeling towards them. Although we wanted to go with a Illustrative approach towards it we also wanted to create other designs that would be more in line with their regular lines of beer.

Brew dog having a strong focus on it's punk angle i looked up several punk bands as they also have  several beers named after bands, We chose to name if after the band Witch hunt 
as it is both suitably direct and Halloween themed.

 


I chose a colour range first based off the blues and oranges of Self assembly pope as it has very contemporary muted colour scheme that is both classy and the potential to go in a Halloween look without being too complex.
We added a brighter accent green to give more life and to bring the pallet more into it's own and used a sample of ombre colours with a red-purple and dark green in line with the seasonal line of beers that will go along with the more graphical designs





 Katie and I also created a wrap around label based around their more common beers with our own twist. using The multi colours of their Amplified line we created the witch hunt can, with the background text both horizontal and vertical to make it overall cohesive with the rest of the line we created.

Lydia, Beth and Jordan created the circle labels to bring it into the small batch, taking inspiration from the beer pumpkin king.

We had picked up a few fonts and ultimately went with Ariel black and Foul Feind for it's similarity in shape of the companies usual font. Foul Feind was used to give the text a little more interest into the text while shares a lot of it's silhouette shapes with the original fonts.

Lydia designed the main layout of the design board, working with Katie we switched some of the elements about with the short description of the company and what the beer tastes like moving along with the eye grabbing diagonal text.

Overall it was an interesting project to work on and I have a good idea on how to set out a design board for a product, however i am still unsure how to reflect it in my own final major project.

Venus anatomica design board

For the end of pitch and planning we had to pitch our project to some of the tutors, this meant creating a design board to convey our ideas about the project.

In the design board I have contained s small synopsis of the book, concept art for the book that I feel displays the overall tone, the most recent full body shots of the core cast, Colour and texture pallet, Fonts that may be used and artistic influences on the project.

Creating the design board was difficult for me with my eclectic style of working, I started with the concept art, choosing a mixture of older and newer artwork. Alongside it I had brought in Two moleskins that had some of my writings about the characters, stories, and how the Venus world works and looks. With it I had brought a book with the same parameters that I would like to use to give a visual representation of what I would like to aim for.

I placed the current full body shots of the main cast, Shortly explained who they are and their positions in the story.

 Although the colour pallet may be subject to change as I would like to emulate a risographed style, and colours may alter when I am doing splash pages on the risograph and I am limited to only what is available, these are the general colours I would like to be using on the digital aspects of printing the book. I am confident that I will be using the textures and fonts throughout the project.

Lastly my artistic reference's that give more understanding of what i would like to achieve with the project. The artists I listed are: Suehiro Maruo, Takato Yamamoto, Junji Ito, Daniel Clows, Charles Burns And Hirohiko Araki.
These are the Main artists that are informing my project in terms of both writing and drawing.

Overall I feel confident in my design board however I should of included more background, settings and props examples in hindsight, and in future work I will keep this in mind, and learn from this for future projects.