Final Evaluation
How successful has my project been? Have I fulfilled the brief?
I feel my project has been successful and that I've fulfilled my updated brief. I'm pretty happy with the completed character concept designs, and the final presentation.
There are things at this completion stage I wish I had made time to flesh out further (earlier on in the project) such as including more visual references to the world.
I've found that with my own creative process the more time you spend on the visual exploration, sketching and conceptualising (with different mediums of storytelling) the more your imagination rewards you - offering up ever more tangents and possibilities. I feel I could have pushed myself harder in the early stages - just doing more drawing rather than thinking with a blank page in front of me.
At the first stages of formulating the project idea, I aimed to produce original and completed cover art - including concept art for locations, creatures, the Fungi Network, as well as the main characters - but I'm glad that I pulled back from that overly ambitious idea.
I found that creating each character concept from start to finish is more time-consuming than I expected - averaging approximately ten hours per completed character - and that is excluding research.
Key elements
I'm really happy with Cynthia, definitely my favourite result. She's the character that has manifested almost exactly as I imagined her in my mind - right down to her proportions, facial structure, stance and expressions. Her clothes also fit as I wanted them to.
I like the muted tones in Cynthia's younger version where she's wearing a washed-out Baseball Jacket - she channels the Spielberg vibe I wanted for the graphic novel the most. I think if I was to redo the other characters I would seek to emulate this by using a slightly more muted colour palette for them too.
I like the style I settled on - where the characters are quite androgynous. Sam was originally going to be the more muscular one - but I found myself gravitating to a smaller frame as I worked on his long coat - and I actually prefer this final, less overtly masculine look.
I'm also happy with both cover art compositions (the six characters standing together, and the three characters with masks). I like the simplicity of the background for the concept character display purposes - but given more time I would have experimented with more intricate background options as well.
By the final concepts for each character, I did adapt to a slightly less detailed painting style than in the penultimate ones - to speed up the process. Thinking in terms of producing the whole novel, the complexity of the design would definitely have an impact on the production time frame.
What did I learn during the creation process and management of this project?
In terms of effective ways of working – I learned it is more time-efficient (for me) to work on one character at a time, focusing fully on one piece before moving on to another.
Initially, I jumped from one to another but found I was getting distracted easily, feeling a sense of non-accomplishment and therefore wasting energy worrying about the overall project.
When I adjusted my calendar to work on longer blocks of one specific item at a time, reaching completion milestones more concretely and regularly, I found it was more constructive and I felt more organised, accomplished and positive - that a bite had been taken out of the elephant.
I’ve learned during my project that the process of creating a visual story can become quite chaotic if you aren’t organised with your planning, log keeping, folder organization and timetables – especially perhaps if you’re doing the story writing and artwork yourself.
Because of the inherently symbiotic nature of concept art, world development, character development and story development, it really demands flexibility but also strong organisation.
Changes and adaptations are happening all the time, and you have to roll with it and change course as necessary - so I found it essential to keep super organised so you don’t become overwhelmed, and have too many plates spinning at one time.
I’ve learned it’s important to have regular milestones of achievement as you keep your motivation high and the sense of overall project management good.
It really helped to have the meetings with my tutors along the way - not only for good advice, and to prompt new ideas - but to confirm I was heading in the right direction, and that I was roughly on schedule.
I've learned that concept art is quite a solitary pursuit - so it's good to check in with others along the way. It actually suits me pretty well - and I like the fact that you can work from anywhere - be it a busy studio or from a quiet office at home.
The most important lesson I’ve had confirmed when working in the digital medium is that saving progress regularly is vital, and “back up, back up, back up”. Something I’ve actually learned the hard way in the past to be honest when I lost a whole disk worth of artwork and painstaking animation. Years of work vanished into the ether because the disk failed and I hadn’t backed the files up onto the cloud.
Despite this, I still managed to lose a total of eight long hours of work in the final week! Painful to say the least - and not something I’d ever want to happen during a project like this - or obviously and especially during a paid contract work for someone else.
What I have discovered is that you can repeat your work faster than you can create it the first time - thankfully!
What did I learn from the research phases?
I've learned so much about the process of working as a concept design artist and comic artist. I've really enjoyed researching other artists, especially watching interviews with them about their experience in the industry and how they work with writers, how they organise, meet deadlines and so on.
Researching artists early on in the project was a great help in terms of inspiration, informing direction, and really helped me to pin down what kind of style I like most.
Finding out more about their methods, mediums and processes was especially interesting. Mixing media for instance - inking with watercolour washes on top is something I'd love to try - and wish I had experimented with during this project. Stephanie Pui Mun Law is an expert at this method, and her work is sublime.
It was amazing to discover Arthur Rackham - who used this method also to create his signature ethereal pieces - and how his influence continues to be strong in fantasy art over a century on. I had seen his work before, but hadn't studied it in detail, and had no idea how prolific an artist he was. Looking at Arthur Rackham's work is truly like looking through a window into a magical realm.
I learned from Clint Langley that Arthur Rackham's feel can be emulated (not exactly of course, but you can create something similar) in digital art by using a translucent sepia "wash", and overlaying other translucent colours. I'd also love to experiment with Clint Langley's technique of mixing photography and digital painting.
I've also come across artists I didn't know about before and seen some incredible and inspirational work. It's made me feel both really excited of not a little daunted about the prospect of working as a freelance concept artist. The common theme seems to be stressing over constant deadlines, but they all feel very grateful to be doing something they absolutely love for a living.
I've learned also that research for illustration and the creative process is ongoing, and comes from observing everything around us. Noticing things like people's personal quirks, movements, expressions - noticing how clothes fall on people - and how body language tells us so much.
One piece of advice that's stuck with me in terms of telling a story in a visual way is from Glenn Fabry. In one of his interviews, he says that drawing for a comic is reminiscent of what actors had to do in the earliest black and white films - where there was no sound, and only the occasional written exert. Keeping in mind that the illustration should do all the heavy lifting in a graphic novel is great advice.
I've enjoyed researching clothing also - Pinterest is a great resource for this - and my skills in drawing and painting clothes have improved during this intense phase of research and experimentation.
I've learned how to do storyboards and how to illustrate ideas more quickly.
I had quite a good grounding in Photoshop before I began, but I've completed some additional lessons on brushes and painting techniques, and have begun to use the new skills I've learned.
What would I do differently next time?
The main thing I'd do differently from the beginning is complete one piece of work at a time. I think that sense of accomplishment is really important to keep your motivation going and to keep you productive. Having too many things in the pending stage can lead to an overly busy mind, at least for me.
I think this would have lead to producing more work, and ultimately achieve more. I think my cover art could have had a more intricate backdrop given a little more time towards the end of the project.
I would push my boundaries a little further - rather than sticking too rigidly with what I know. Clint Langleys technique of using sepia watercolour over ink in a digital medium, for instance, to create an Arthur Rackham feel, would have been a good thing to try - and I certainly will be giving it a go before long.
I would annotate much more as I go along - and make a point to writing *something* down to keep track of my efforts at the end of every session - be it a detailed update or just some notes so I don't forget to mention something I've learned or is relevant to the project. Or, most importantly, might improve the next piece of work.
As time went on with the project I learned the value of keeping To-Do Lists and notes in general. Writing thoughts down frees up head-space, and that's infinitely important when working on something creatively. I've also read that articulating thoughts on paper can help with creativity and memory in general - keeping a dream diary for instance - so perhaps I will adopt this as part of my daily life going forward.
I think I spent a little too much time and energy thinking and planning the storyline, considering my brief was to create character concepts. In all honestly, I think I enjoy writing story concepts as much as producing visual art. This project has shown me that it's the creative directing or the writing part of visual storytelling that seems to inspire me most of all.
I would worry less about whether I was going to complete on time, and trust in my planning, process - and focus on the task at hand.
In terms of character creation, I think I would use a more diverse base for characters - different races and body types for instance.
This is something my tutor (Martin) suggested through the creation process. I did some sketches of different body types, races and gender identities in my sketchbook, but settled on these three. Next time I would try a more diverse mix of people - to better represent the demographic hopefully reading my graphic novel.
There are anatomical improvements that could be made in my final character concept art - especially with hands, and some limbs aren't quite as they should be - so I hope to improve these things as I continue to train and practice my illustration skills.
In terms of uploading everything to the Wix website- this was far more time consuming than I expected. I'm still learning how to use it, but essentially it just takes time to organise layout, upload, and then annotate.
Next time I would set my website up early on, and begin to form the skeleton of the site as I went along. Not only would it save time in the end, but it would also contribute to a sense of well being that the project was shaping up, and help keep track of all the new artwork by tying it down to one place.
I've learned so much in the process of this FMP, and I look forward to doing it again when I can put all this new experience I have under my belt to good use.