APP Home (AOI): Further Experimentation - A New Perspective

Following the crit I had with my classmates and lecturers I have decided to try out a new perspective where the Big Ben would be at the bottom and the bus at the side, so I'm shifting everything once over (if that makes sense). 

The first thing I did then was open up my original painting file and then duplicate it, placing it under the name 'New Composition'. I then deleted all of the unnecessary layers and created two groups: one for the line art (which was done previously) and one for the colour. I made the background layer grey and hid all of the coloured layers. 

Using the lasso tool I went around each building and duplicated the selection onto a new layer, making sure that everything was separate so that it'll be easier for me to move, and then I moved and 'transformed' them so that they fit in their new space.

APP Home (AOI): Double Royal Size Screenshots

I was curious to see how the poster would look at a larger size, so I picked one of the dimensions provided in the brief and created a new document in InDesign. Then I went along and placed all of my text and illustration (leaving the logo until the very end) and I noticed just how large the pt size of the text had to be. Out of curiosity I went to see how big it actually was: it was bigger than A1!

Here’s me copying and pasting my Double Crown version onto the A3 document, just look at the difference in sizes!
Another problem I found as well as the differences in sizes was that the illustration had to be reduced so that it was very thin in order for everything to fit on the page, meaning that it would actually be smaller than A3 in width. So it might be better to just print out the Double Crown version as a mock up to show what it would look like when printed larger, and then have my A3 version.

Conclusion:
This made me come to the conclusion that I’ll have two designs: one for the ‘real’ poster (the Double Crown) and another for my portfolio (the A3 version). Unfortunately my type and illustration arrangement that I did in my Double Crown couldn’t be carried across on A3, and I will explain this in my evaluation.

APP Home (AOI): Developing the Illustration into a Poster

Even though the competition asks for just the illustration I have decided to take it that step further and incorporate it into a poster design, much like the ones that will were shown around London. I looked at past designs done for the same competition (as this is their third year doing it) as well as a few more, and all of these are shown on my Pinterest board ‘posters’: http://www.pinterest.com/lizjowen/posters/ 

Sketches 

With these ideas in mind I jotted down some notes on what I wanted to include in the poster and roughly sketched out some initial ideas. I found myself to be quite limited because of the nature of my illustration: the border and dimensions of my poster made it difficult to work with. It would work fine if it was printed at a standard poster size but I stuck with A3 in order to be able to present it in my portfolio.

Working on InDesign

After laying out all of my ideas on the page I decided to carry them across to InDesign, creating an A3 sized file and then placing my illustration onto it. I had a bit of play with layout, as I just wanted to see what the illustration would actually look like with each idea. 

APP Home (AOI): 'Unveiling Wonderland Screenshots' Contin.

After doing a test print on A3 I was able to pick up on some of the things I could develop, so I went back into Photoshop to develop it further.

Refining the Glow

One of the things I picked up on was that the glow surrounding the Big Ben weren’t refined enough, as the line art was too visible. I created a layer named ‘light fixes’ and with the soft brush in a very light blue (slightly lighter than the glow that was already there), I went around the Big Ben and Westminster Palace again. I made sure that the brush was very small so that it was more obvious. I also went around the bus and the bridge. 

Deepening the Shadows

Due to the fact that the glow was much brighter meant that I had to deepen the shadows, and so I started to add in darker shadows on the areas where it was closest to the glow. I also noticed that I hadn’t shaded the windows, so I also added shadows there as well. I made a new layer for all of these dark shadows called ‘Shadow Adjustments’, and for the light on the windows I had to create a new layer. I used a low opacity soft brush to do the reflection, as I didn’t want it to be too distracting.

Cleaning the Lineart

There were some areas where the pen had blotted on the page, so I tidied this up as best I could by using both the lasso tool and deleting it, and the eraser tool.

Blurred Watercolour Background

One aspect that was quite worrying was the slight blurriness of the watercolour layer, so I tried to resolve this by sharpening the layer. 

This, however, didn’t seem to make much of a difference so instead I just scanned the painting again.

I realised that the painting was just a little bit bigger on A4 so where it went over the scanner it blurred slightly; I put two and two together and realised that this was the cause of my problem. I scanned in two versions: one where the top went over the edge, and the other the bottom.

I brought up these two versions in Photoshop and decided that the one where the bottom went over the edge was better, so I placed the one with the top over the edge on the upper layer. Then I erased the areas around the top so I could keep its “bottom”, as it were. This solved my problem! I had the perfect top, and perfect bottom, which was a combination of these two scans.  

The result

Conclusion:

By printing out my painting I was able to look at all of the adjustments that I needed to make a lot more clearly. This is because I could see how it would look when up on the wall, and it was at a larger scale so I could have a closer look at it.

Luckily I didn’t print out on ‘proper paper’, or I would’ve realised my mistakes all too late! This has shown me the importance of test printing. 

APP Home (AOI): 'Unveiling Wonderland' Screenshots

With my final sketch now complete I could move onto drawing it accurately so that I could ink it (with biro pen) and then work on it digitally.

Transferring the Sketch to the Final Drawing

My first step was to transfer the sketch to the final drawing, and I did this by tracing it with Layout paper. Layout paper is very much like tracing paper, yet it is ‘whiter’ and has that appearance of ‘normal’ paper when laid flat. 

I noticed that the witch and girl were running away from the scene, and I wanted them to run towards the centre so copying it onto a piece of paper I then lay it beneath the layout pad (erasing the original) and then re-traced it.

I then went over the pencil with biro pen. This took an incredibly long time as I wanted to get it as detailed as possible (especially the buildings!)

With that done, I move onto the watercolour background. 

APP Home (AOI): Final Sketch

After doing all of my compositions I settled on the idea of the road going around the border of the image, with the Big Ben, Westminster Bridge and the London Eye in the corners and running alongside it.
I start by drawing lots of little lines leading off the dot in the centre, just so that I could lie out my perspective. Then I drew my buildings according to these lines and drew an outline of my characters.

Conclusion:
Now that this is done and all of the character's are in place I can take it to the final drawing, which I hope to do in more detail so that I could scan it in and work on painting it digitally. This is because I want to create an amalgamation of both digital and traditional media.

APP Home (AOI): Drawing the Characters

Now that I’m working on sketching the characters I shall look up on Google for some reference images and to also find out some little details about them so that I could jot it down in my sketchpad and use as inspiration.
Most of the inspiration for my characters was taken from the bullet-points I had constructed when reading on London folklore. It was easier for me to jot down these notes at that time because I find that I often produce images in my head when reading.

Mood Board

Image sources: http://downloadwallpaperhd.net/cat-wallpaper-hd/; http://www.warrenphotographic.co.uk/05858-ginger-cat-sitting-looking-round; http://www.alertstillness.com/2013/05/11/boy-sits-overlooking-the-sea/; http://dgsmith.org/tag/matthew-shepard/; http://www.flickr.com/photos/50305674@N08/galleries/72157623942802815; http://www.northamptonshirewildlife.co.uk/npton/sys2.htm; https://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/g/goldeneagle/index.aspx; http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Golden_Eagle/id; http://birdart.lanius.ro/flying-raptors-paintings/368; http://eagleman6788.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-mystery-of-collective-intelligence-stunning-2/; http://sorrowolf777.skyrock.com/1378867860-Jack-Talon-a-Ressort.html; http://lindowyn-stock.deviantart.com/art/Dance-with-Me-3-43670262; http://www.layoutsparks.com/pictures/disney-0; http://www.visualphotos.com/image/2x4543542/a_young_woman_holding_a_bowl_of_soup; http://liam-stock.deviantart.com/art/Black-Magic-22-129082887;  http://rpartridge.deviantart.com/art/Spring-Heeled-Jack-2-179489163; http://www.portlandmaine.com/event/sherlock-holmes-camp/; http://www.mhpbooks.com/lawyer-set-to-challenge-the-sherlock-holmes-estate/        

I made sure to collect as many references as I could because I didn’t just want to copy them, but adapt them into how I wanted the characters to be posed. I focused more on the birds because I wasn’t very familiar with the species – especially goshawks and starlings – and it was important that I could see the differences between each one for when it comes to the sketching stage.

Sketching

Taking all of these references into account I then started doing some sketches, using the ‘line’ technique shown in my storyboard research.
At the corner of the page I jotted down some notes I took when looking at these reference images, and also when I briefly researched into the three different birds to understand the hierarchy between them.

Conclusion:
With all of my characters sketched I can now place them ‘within the scene’. I have decided to not do the Blind Beggar’s Daughter because it resembled Disney too much, and I wanted to choose something that isn’t similar to other stories. This is why I had decided to do Sherlock in the end because it would be nice to include a better-known narrative to show that they all take place in London.

APP Home (AOI): Developing Ideas - Experimenting with Compositions

I decided to explore into the idea of portraying the London city line and tried to think of ways of how the character's were to be displayed with it. The problems I had were that (if I did go with the idea of the woman as My Fair Lady) that either London would be too small or the characters would be. So I tried to think of different compositions and ways to place the characters.

After sketching the city line with the two giants – Gog and Magog – floating in the sky I went along to conduct an experiment, focusing on how I was going to lay out London and see what colours I could possibly use for the sky. I settled for purple and blues to create that 'magical' atmosphere – taking inspiration from Jan Pienkowski – and used black ink for the silhouettes.

I wasn't so sure on this idea because although I loved the colours used, I wasn't very keen on the city line. I couldn't decide whether or not to draw all of the landmarks of London or just to focus on one area.

APP Home (AOI): Compositions and Drawing Characters

Storyboard Tutorials

Having been inspired by the storyboards I analysed, I wanted to research further into their composition methods to figure out how they made their scenes trigger emotions as well as create depth.

How to Create Depth in Four Ways

According to the Storyboard Tips from Dreamworks (http://nofilmschool.com/2013/09/storyboarding-tips-dreamworks/), they have listed four ways to create composition:

• Avoid flat staging
  This basically means to have a point of perspective, and it's generally better to use more than one (they have advised to use three vanishing points). 

• Use grids
  This will allow me to figure out where to place people instead of having them dotted randomly that it almost looks as if they're floating in mid-air. The grid will provide a sort of ground, and this will help me work with my perspective point as well.

• Use foreground, mid-ground and background 
  This means placing objects at different 'levels' in order to create depth. For example if we were on the Westminster bridge looking at the Big Ben, the Big Ben will be in the far background, the cars on the bridge on the other side in the background, the cars on the our side in the mid-ground, and we're at the foreground. 

• Group multiple characters
  This wouldn't necessarily apply to my illustration as I'm not doing a storyboard, but if I was I could make it easier by grouping multiple characters together and labelling them so I know where each one is as I move onto the next board.

Composition

I went onto Google and soon collected a small list of various compositions, drawing sketches beside them to help me to understand them a bit more.

However what I couldn't really understand was the golden ratio; it was quite difficult to see how it actually works, but I think it follows a smooth curve...

APP Home (AOI): Sketching London Landmarks

Looking at my research that I had done previously, I picked out and printed some of the key landmarks that I wanted to include in my illustration and drew right next to them. 

I also made small annotations next to my sketches and photos that I needed to take into consideration when drawing my final image.

Conclusion:

I realised that not all of the chosen buildings would fit on the page so I decided to leave out the Sea life centre. This is so that I would have more space for the characters and I also wanted to include some form of transport into the piece. 

The most difficult building to draw (even though they would all be quite challenging) would be the big Ben and Westminster Palace, because they are incredibly detailed. I haven’t drawn buildings before so I would need to make sure I draw them as accurately as possible… Although hopefully people wouldn’t mind if I missed out a thing or two!